1 mudieSi^libr; bib i li : i).U Kt Or .Aifc\'V:feA^::l-::Jm> je^jtf^R "Ij^ve thefe Books farjVieftm;nitiag<>f a CoHegi iTuthts ColoAy" 1911 THE LIFE OF HENRY PELHAM, FIFTH DUKE OF NEWCASTLE ¦t^,/;" ^/a. THE LIFE OF HENRY PELHAM FIFTH DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 1811-1864 BY JOHN MARTINEAU OF TRINITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE AUTHOR OF ' THE LIFE OF SIR BARTLE FRERE ' WITH PORTRAITS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1908 PREFACE The original intention in undertaking this sketch of the Duke of Newcastle's life was to confine it to the consideration of his official action at the War Office during the Crimean War, in respect of which bitter attacks had been made upon him at the time in the Press. These attacks, it may be said, were dealt with in Kinglake's History, and afterwards incidentally in Sidney Herbert's ' Life,' and sufficiently refuted ; but in the Duke's lifetime they were often repeated and not retracted, and the misleading echoes of them may still from time to time be heard. And Kinglake's History, accurate, vigorous, and comprehensive though it is, has not fully succeeded in clearing away prevailing errors, and in exercising the influence on public opinion to which its merits justly entitle it. A careful study of its eight volumes, replete with interesting matter as they are, is too heavy a task for an ordinary reader to undertake, and to those who do read them the over whelming mass of detail somewhat obscures the main outlines of the story. Moreover, since his history was published, new light has been thrown on the pro blems and conduct of the wan by military and other vi PREFACE writers, and contemporary letters of interest have come to hand which have not till now been published. Finally, there is the element of the personality and antecedents of the Duke himself, which are essential to the right understanding of the situation. These considerations, and the Duke's reputation as a statesman of high principle and untiring industry, and his having held a prominent position in the Cabinet during four Administrations, fully j'ustify, it is thought, the publication of this biographical sketch, though, owing to the lack of material and to other causes, it is less complete than the author could wish. Letters, where the contrary is not stated by note or otherwise, are in almost every case copied direct from the originals. Most noteworthy among them are Lord Raglan's letters, written to the Duke from the Crimea. It would be hard in English literature to find letters possessing more interest, written, as they usually were, far into the night at the end of a day of unceasing toil and perhaps of absorbing anxiety, telling their tale of dearly-purchased victory, of peril or privation, or, alas ! it may be, compelled to interrupt the thread in order to dispose of a misstatement or a calumny, but always, whatever the subject, in calm, concise language, and with penmanship without a correction or an erasure. There are too many of them to admit of more than a small proportion being inserted here, but too few to be published separately. Nor is there any hope of their finding a place in a published life of Lord Raglan. For he is believed to have. PREFACE vii with characteristic self-depreciation, as though they were of no account, destroyed before leaving for the East all the personal memoranda he possessed of his experiences in the Peninsular War and elsewhere. And thus we are left to deplore the virtual loss of a unique record of distinguished service rendered in early manhood by the devoted staff-officer, and in declining years by the worthiest successor of the Great Duke, in the two greatest European wars ofthe century in which this country took a part. Park Corner, Heckfield, Hampshire, Afril, 1908. CONTENTS CHAPTER I BIRTH AND EDUCATION PAGE Birth and parentage — Death of his mother — The fourth Duke : his journal and his character — Eton — Oxford — Marriage — Enters Parliament i CHAPTER II THE END OF THE OLD TORIES The Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchelsea — Distress of the working classes — Close boroughs — The Reform Bill — Nottingham Castle burnt by the rioters — Lincoln elected for South Nottinghamshire — Gladstone returned for Newark on the Duke's interest - 22 CHAPTER III APPRENTICESHIP TO PEEL Lincoln in office at the Treasury — Tour ip Belgium and Switzerland — Second tour in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Italy — Commissioner of Woods and Forests — The Duke of Wellington and Chelsea Hospital — Intimacy with Peel — Enters the Cabinet — The Corn Laws — South Notts election — Misfortunes and death of the fourth Duke of Newcastle - 44 CHAPTER IV THE PEELITES IN THEIR TENTS Lincoln Chief Secretary for Ireland — Measures to relieve the famine — Elected for Falkirk Boroughs — Resignation of Peel — Confusion of parties — Lincoln declines to stand for Manchester — The Gorham judgment — Tour in the East — Death of Peel - - - 71 X CONTENTS CHAPTER V THE COALITION MINISTRY PAGE Isolation of the Peehtes — Negotiations with the Whigs — Lord Derby Prime Minister — The Oxford Chancellorship — The Derby Government defeated — Lord Aberdeen Prime Minister — The Duke Colonial Secretary 104 CHAPTER VI THE WAR WITH RUSSIA The Eastern Question — Opinion in England — Lord Stratford — Lord Palmerston — Lord Aberdeen — Turkish disaster at Sinope — Ministerial crisis — Colonial and War Departments separated — The Duke takes the War Office— -Expedition to the East — Lord Raglan — Proposal to attack Sebastopol — Absence of information about the Crimea — Dispatch to Lord Raglan urging the attempt 124 CHAPTER VII THE INVASION OF THE CRIMEA The expedition sails for the Crimea — Alma — North or south sides of Sebastopol to be attacked ? — Sanguine expectations not shared by Lord Raglan — Ships- against forts— Admiral Dundas — Failure of bombardment — The army requires rest— Inkerman — Perilous position of the Alhes — Winter troubles — Duke and Ministry attacked — The Duke's strenuous efforts at the War Office — With whom did the fault he?— The Sebastopol Select Committee 153 CHAPTER VIII THE WINTER TROUBLES IN THE CRIMEA The British Army— Its excellent quality but defective organiza tion — Deficiency of force in the Crimea the main cause of the trouble — Newspaper correspondents — The Duke re monstrates with Delane— Mutterings from the camp— Lord Raglan and Staff attacked by the Tmes— Ministers fail to defend them— Creduhty of Palmerston— A strong delusion — Correspondence between the Duke and Lord Raglan — Commissary-General Filder — Institution of the Victoria Cross— Lord John Russell's resignation— Defeat of Govern ment — The Duke justified by Sir Charles Wood — Palmerston Prime Minister - loy CONTENTS xi CHAPTER IX THE TAKING OF THE MALAKHOFF PAGE The Duke starts for the Crimea — At Vienna hears of Lord Raglan's death — Visits Scutari Hospital — Describes the storming of the Malakhoff and the failure at the Redan — Sebastopol evacuated — Visits the town — Sails to the coast of Circassia — Returns home - 262 CHAPTER X THE COLONIAL OFFICE FORTY YEARS AGO The Duke Colonial Secretary — General indifference to the Colonies not shared by him — Accompanies the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States — Difficulties with the Orangemen — American Civil War — The Trent incident — Death of the Prince Consort — Estimate of colonial states men — New Zealand — Colonel Gore Browne — Sir George Grey — Pensions — Ecclesiastical appointments — Kinglake's ' Crimean War ' — Resignation and death - 281 Index 335 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HENRY PELHAM, FIFTH DUKE OF NEWCASTLE - Frontispiece From an engraving by Messrs. Colnaghi, Scott and Co., after the painting by Sir J. Watson Gordon, P.R.S.A. Photogravure. TO FACE PAGE NOTTINGHAM CASTLE 32 From a water-colour drawing by Mrs. William Enfield, taken about 1S48. LORD RAGLAN, PELISSIER, AND OMAR PASHA 1 34 Photogravure. THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE CHAPTER I BIRTH AND EDUCATION Birth and parentage — Death of his mother — The fourth Duke : his journal and his character — Eton — Oxford — Marriage — Enters Parliament. Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, twelfth Earl of Lincoln and fifth Duke of Newcastle, was born in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, on May 22, 181 1. The Clintons were first heard of in Henry L's reign. In Edward II L's time one of them was created Lord Clinton for distinguished service in France. The ninth Lord Clinton was Lord High Admiral under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and by the latter Sovereign was created Earl of Lincoln for his services in the navy. One of his descendants was a staunch sup porter of the royal cause during the Civil Wars of the next century. The surname of Pelham, which was prefixed to that of Clinton by the ninth Earl of Lincoln in 1768, was derived from a lordship in Herefordshire, whence came Walter de Pelham, who rose to distinction as a soldier in the reign of Edward I., since which time members of the family have been in prominent posi tions in several reigns. Sir Thomas Pelham was a distinguished member of all the Parliaments of 2 BIRTH AND PARENTAGE ten. i Charles II. and James II. He was a promoter of the cause of Wilham and Mary, held office in that and the next reign, and was made a Peer as Lord Pelham in 1706. His two sons, Thomas and Henry, especially the latter, were influential members of the Cabinet during the greater part of the reign of George II. Henry died in 1754. His elder brother, Thomas, was for several years Prime Minister, and was created Duke of Newcastle. As he had no children, and his brother Henry had left daughters only, the dukedom was entailed upon Henry Clinton, ninth Earl of Lincoln, who was married to one of Henry Pelham's daughters, and who thus became second Duke of Newcastle. This man's son, the third Duke, married a daughter of the Earl of Harrington, and died in 1795, in his forty-third year, leaving his eldest son, Henry Pelham, born in 1785, the father of the subject of this memoir, a boy of ten years old. The boy was sent to Eton very young, and re mained there till he was eighteen, ' learning,' he says afterwards, ' everything that I ought not to have known.' The Peace of Amiens having just been concluded, he went abroad, and at its sudden rupture was detained a prisoner in France for about four years. This was a most unfortunate occurrence for a young man of untrained mind, and with no one to whom he could look for counsel. He says of himself: ' In my youth and earlier manhood I laboured under many weighty and serious disadvantages. The worst, as I apprehended, though possibly it may have been for the best, was the want of ripe counsellors during many of my ripening years. The ripening years were passed in a foreign land, far away from the scenes of my interests and affections. Many 'years thus passed I807-24] DEATH OF HIS MOTHER 3 in languishing banishment, cut off from all connexion with my own country. I at last returned to it ; but, to avow the truth, though my heart was still British, I found myself absolutely a stranger in my native land. Every one and every thing were strange to me ; forgotten myself, I too from long absence had for gotten them. All was to be learnt : there would have been little difficulty if friends and good instructors had been at hand, but such was not my fortune. I floundered on, doubtful what course to take, fearful of doing wrong, uncertain of what was right. With a tender conscience, great inexperience, and inade quate means, I entered life. I was at once and immediately thrown upon my own resources — those resources, as I was too well aware, being perceptibly weak and feeble. Nevertheless, as they arose I con tended with the various difficulties, and marked out for myself a course of my own. The efforts were painful, for subjects of the highest importance fre quently bewildered my novitiate with their unex plained, and to me unintelligible, matter. But a stern sense of duty impelled me. I persevered, and I could discover no other way of easing an anxious and a busy conscience. My object was to fulfil the duty required of me, and to accomplish this by no other means than such as my searching conscience could most sacredly and scrupulously approve.' Soon after his return to England, in July, 1807, the Duke married Georgiana Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Munday, of Shipley, Derbyshire, he being twenty- two and his wife eighteen. She died in 1824, after seventeen years of married life, having given birth to no less than fourteen children, ten of whom survived her. Of this married life — which from his allusions to it seems to have been very happy — there is no record except in the first few pages of a diary which shortly before her death he began to write, and went on with almost till his own death, twenty-eight years afterwards, and in which — having now no friend to 1—2 4 AN OLD-FASHIONED JOURNAL [ch. i confide in — he unburdened himself of his daily tale of anxieties and troubles. It seems to have been the custom of men and women of that generation to use their journals as confessionals in which to record not only daily events, but their likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, good deeds and secret sins, and which were much more serious, elaborate, and voluminous records than the jottings of a modern diary. The Duke's journal consists of eight square substantial volumes of handwoven paper handsomely bound in green leather, closely written on every page from beginning to end, and, till near the end, with seldom a day without an entry. Both public and private events are recorded, and the thoughts and emotions to which they gave rise in his mind are set down without restraint, often apparently as a relief under a crushing sense of loneliness, isola tion, and discouragement which is infinitely pathetic. It concerns the subject of this memoir as the only extant record and picture of the surroundings and influences amid which he was brought up, and of the incidents of his boyhood and youth. Lying loose amongst the first pages is a litho graphed facsimile of a pencil sketch by the Duke of his wife — so far as a mere sketch can indicate it, a very beautiful face, with marked but regular and delicate features, and steadfast, pleading eyes. It is not hard to understand how the extinction of the light of such a countenance may have left the widower's life in darkness, deepening with every fresh trouble and perplexity to the end. A more pathetic story than that of this lonely, stricken widower with his ten young children, as revealed in the pages of his journal, it would be hard 1824-35] THE FOURTH DUKE 5 to find. He stands depicted as a man of upright life and of strong affections, candid and truthful, but of limited intelligence and dull perception, self-centred, incapable of learning the lessons of experience, and full of the narrowest prejudices and superstitions, alternately overestimating his own ability and merit, and despondent at the discovery of his ignorance and incapacity, and withal, from first to last, without a spark of humour in his composition to cheer him on his weary way, or to throw a gleam of sunshine across his dim, perverted, melancholy view of men and things. Yet there runs through the narrative from first to last a golden thread of conscientiousness, a sincere desire to do his duty, and an ever-present sense of his responsibility to God and man for the performance of the obligations of his high rank and position, which not only redeems it from dullness, but at times renders it almost heroic. ' How seldom an hour passes,' he writes, ' without (my) being tenderly and painfully reminded of this irreparable loss. in the midst of everything and everywhere I stand within myself, isolated, my life joyless, my prospects comfortless and forlorn. My dear children are my props ; for them I desire to live, and may my gracious God grant me in them a pure and unceasing blessing.' Long afterwards, when in his fiftieth year, he writes : ' As a politician I am shunned and discouraged ; as an individual the best thing I can say is that, accord ing to my vision, nobody seems to care or think about me. I cannot deny that I am hurt and deeply cut up by the consciousness and humiliation of feeling myself valueless, but I must bear it ; I cannot cure it. . . . My life from childhood until now, with the exception of the few years of my marriage, has been almost a 6 HIS CONSCIENTIOUSNESS [ch. i continuous series of vexations and disappointments. Doubtless all this is for the best, and 1 bow to the gracious dispensations and almighty will of my Father and my God.' As a young man of twenty-two he had found himself, after four years' detention in an enemy's country, in possession of large landed estates, ample wealth, and all the unquestioned authority and influence which at the beginning of the last century a dukedom and the ownership of large landed estates conferred. It was a position calculated to strain the powers and embarrass the judgment of a man of far clearer perceptions and greater intelligence than he possessed. Aware though he was of his own defective knowledge and under standing of men and of politics, it was not possible for him to stand aloof from public life. Amongst other sources of power, he possessed a predominating in fluence, if not the undisputed right of nomination to from six to twelve Parliamentary constituencies, and was therefore constrained, whether he wished it or not, to take a side in political questions of which he had no real knowledge or comprehension, and to make choice of nominees for his boroughs who were often complete strangers to him. A less conscientious man would have thrown in his lot with one party or the other, and have followed the instructions and accepted without question the conditions imposed and favours conferred by its leaders. But this his strong sense of personal responsibility would not allow him to do. He was a typical representative of the paralysis which a just abhorrence of the crimes and calamities of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror had produced upon the minds of many of the most I824-SI] HIS LIMITED CAPACITY 7 honest, if not the most sagacious, of Englishmen. To the present generation those horrors have become pale and dim by distance. The generation that wit nessed them, or read of their occurrence from week to week, realized, as we cannot realize, their fiendish and almost incredible brutality. How to keep the moral plague, which had dealt so fatally with France, from spreading to our own shores seemed to be the prime object, the paramount duty and necessity, of British statesmanship. Men of the Duke of New castle's type failed to perceive that safety was to be found, not in the dry bones and the outward forms of political institutions, but in the spirit which had given them birth, and which could retain no vitality without developing 'new ideas and taking new shapes. The two bulwarks of England seemed to them to be— first, the establishment of the Church of England as settled at the Reformation ; and, secondly, the constitution of King, Lords, and Commons precisely as it issued from the Revolution of 1688. To touch either of these, to question their perfection and their suitability to changed times and circumstances, was dangerous, if not sacrilegious ; and at a time when, owing to the long period of war which had preceded it, the machinery of home government had more than ordinary arrears of renovations to make up, the very name of reform was regarded by them as the synonym of lawlessness and spoliation. Thus the diary is full of invectives against all reformers, especially the promoters of Catholic Eman cipation, of the Municipal Corporations Act, of the Repeal of the Test Acts, of the Reform Bill, and of Free Trade. Few, if any, contemporary statesmen were of a pattern which he approved, Lord Eldon 8 HIS IDEAL [CH. i almost alone, whose statesmanship consisted in stub born and unreasoning opposition to anything new, was honoured as ' the great and good Lord Eldon.' ' Such men as he,' he writes, ' are not to be found in every age. There is nothing like him in existence. Nothing could shake his principle. Few, if any, could exceed him in ability.' He is especially incensed with Canning, Peel, and the Duke of WeUington, whom, in respect of their part in Catholic Emancipation, he regarded as traitors in the Tory camp, and whose defection from what he considered to be true Protestant and Conservative principles he ascribed in the heat of his indignation to the basest and most contemptible personal motives, denouncing Peel as a 'Judas,' and as 'the greatest political scoundrel that ever lived.' Personal inter course, however, and his natural modesty and kindli ness generally, led him subsequently to modify his severe judgments. Peel was welcomed by him to Clumber in November, 1838, and he entertained forty or fifty persons at dinner to hear him speak ; the following year he visited him at Drayton, and listened with interest to his conversation. After receiving a call from Disraeli in February, 1849, he wrote of him: 'He is perfectly teachable, possesses high and aspiring feelings, very quickly sensitive, but, I think, generous.' One can fancy the scene and the interview, and what Disraeli's account of it would have been ! He constantly bemoans the absence of any trust worthy leader, and laments his own inability to fill that position. ' I had the will, but not the smallest portion of the ability,' he says. Sometimes he goes to the House of Lords prepared to speak, but his memory 1827-30] HIS FAILURES AND MISTAKES 9 and his courage fail him, for which he bitterly re proaches himself afterwards. Sometimes he does speak, but often his presence of mind forsakes him, and he breaks down.* Still, he perseveres in his dogged, hopeless, courageous, conscientious way, and endeavours with patient humility to improve himself by study. At the age of forty he notes : ' I have made much progress in my theological, historical, and poli tical reading, but I have yet an immense field to cover and a memory very defective in retention.' At the age of forty-five he writes : 'Attended the Quarter Sessions at Retford. I am now endeavouring to acquire what I ought to have known long since — namely, an insight into the public business of the country, particularly that part relating to the duty of a Justice of the Peace. I wish to make myself a better country gentleman, although it may be late. Hitherto my early entrance into high situations has been a hindrance to my acquirement of those things which, if I had not been so placed, I Should have been more familiar with.' Though nothing could make him into a leader, his rank and position in the country placed him on familiar terms with Sidmouth, Liverpool, Peel, the Duke of Wellington, and all the leading statesmen of his time on the Tory side, and he records many private conversations at interviews which he had with them. He also twice (in 1827 and 1829) availed him self of his privilege as a Peer to obtain a private interview with the King, George IV., to impress upon him the imperative duty of choosing none but strictly Protestant Ministers for his Cabinet, with a view to defeating Catholic Emancipation. * Diary, June lo, 1827. ID HIS TEN CHILDREN [ch. i From his failures and forebodings of evil in public life he turned with relief to his domestic duties and the society of his family. The lonely widower was wrapped up in his children. No doubt as to his competency to educate thepi, or as to the perfection of the methods he employed, ever troubled him. Governesses and tutors worked under his absolute rule. He took the whole responsibility, asked no advice, and was always entirely satisfied with the result. He taught his children, nursed and sat up with them in sickness, played games with them, took them to the sights of London, and later — though not very often, and under strict supervision— to balls and parties. ' Nobody but one who has ten children to his sole charge can know the perpetual anxiety which attends such a blessing,' he writes ; ' but when they are sick, it is indeed a grievous solicitude. Caroline is better to-day; the pjalse from 96 to 112. The dear little child behaves herself delightfully. How one loves the dear little creatures when one sees them suffering with patience ; and how God must love them for such obedience and resignation.' He passes a 'miserable day endeavouring to con quer an obstinate and undutiful child ' — the poor child is only four years old ! — and expresses his heart felt thankfulness when, by the help of the rod, the obstinacy is at last conquered. But it is rarely that anything but praise is recorded of them. Of his eldest daughter he writes on her fifteenth birthday : ' It is utterly impossible that a more perfect creature can exist. She is beautiful in person, face, and feature, supereminent in all that can exalt and adorn the mind, and I know not a single fault that she possesses. She is a blessing to human nature.' 1824-29] A VISIT TO THE DENTIST'S 11 In 1838, when most of them were grown up, he writes : 'Ten such children — and I thank God for it — I verily believe are not to be found together in one family in the whole world.' Their uniform good conduct on all occasions is constantly and thankfully recorded. He takes, for instance, six of them at once to the dentist's. ' Mr. Cartwright drew eighteen teeth from five of them — from Lincoln two large double teeth with great fangs, a severe operation, which he bore, as they all did, with a most courageous submission.' After this operation they were taken by him to see Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Lords and Commons, and Westminster Hall — rather a severe dose of sight-seeing to follow close upon the dentistry of those days, when anaesthetics were not as yet. Evidently the discipline, though tender and anxious, was always Spartan and rigid, and not always judicious. The Duke was a mari of fine figure and stately presence, but with reserved manners, which did not tend to intimate intercourse with those«of his own age, much less with young people. The home, whether at Clumber, at Portman Square, or elsewhere, was very secluded. Few visitors came, and the children rarely saw anyone, old or young, from outside, and for companionship had only each other to depend upon. Fortunately, till Lincoln went to Eton, there were ten of them always at home, and they seem to have been a most united family, though very much — the girls especially — in awe of their father. As one boy after another left home for school, and afterwards 12 SOME FAMILY MUSIC [ch. i for Oxford, the army, or the navy, the Duke records with gratitude how each year at Christmas and Easter, as they met again at home, all those who were old enough invariably and without exception took the Sacrament with him. On twelfth night, year after year, they acted characters. Most of them had a talent for and a love of music. The diary records (April 22, 1829) : ' This evening I was invited to a concert by some cards in due form. I suspected that I should meet with a surprise. When I attended, the concert opened with a duet on the pianoforte by C. and H., very nicely played. Then a trio, a song, by G. and C. and Lincoln. I had not the slightest idea that he could sing a song ; on the contrary, I thought his voice tuneless and his ear faulty, but to my infinite surprise he sang not only justly and tunefully, but with very good taste, and really very well. Then came a duet, pianoforte and harp, C. playing the harp. I had no notion that she had ever touched the harp, and, to my surprise, she touched it with a force and spirit and an execution which quite surprised me. This she has done ... in about three months. . . . The second act commenced with another trio song, very well sung. After that an instrumental trio — harp G., piano C, and violin Lincoln. Again I was surprised, for, although I had had him once taught by Mori, he only took a very few lessons, and these merely to please me chiefly, and evidently he did not like the thing. I have never been able to persuade him to touch the instrument since then, but he has taken it up within the last month or six weeks, and really got through his part much better than I could have expected on so difficult an instrument, having, as it were, taught himself, and in so very short a time. The last and concluding piece was another vocal trio, " The Red Cross Knight," which was, I think, the best per formance. Altogether I was perfectly surprised, and very greatly pleased, both by the manner in which the whole was done, and by the very fair execution which was exhibited by the novices. Lincoln is 1824] A RIDE THROUGH LONDON STREETS 13 certainly very clever and adroit ; he catches things so easily, and, what is more, retains them.' A game at cricket is thus recorded : ' Played a match at cricket to-day with the boys according to promise, Mr. Trimmer, who is acting temporarily as their tutor, and who plays well at cricket, with three of the boys on one side, and I and Lincoln against them. The first game we were beat in one innings ; towards the next game I have gotten thirty-one and not out. . . . Finished our game to day. We got fifty-one ; they only eight or nine.' They were living at this time — the spring of 1824 — at a house taken for a few months at Chiswick, for the sake, probably, of a change of scene from the family house at Clumber in Nottinghamshire, and from the London house in Portman Square. The Duke used to ride on horseback, as was the custom in those days, to his duties at the House of Lords and elsewhere, and sometimes took Lincoln with him. If the streets were not so crowded as they now are, the pavement was worse. One day in Piccadilly, Lincoln's pony put its foot into a hole in the pavement, and fell on its nose. ' Lincoln was unseated and thrown forward, and finally fell over his pony's head and rolled into the dirty street. His presence of mind did not forsake him ; he held his reins, and got up again.' A fortnight afterwards Lincoln's pony came down again in Hyde Park, throwing him over its head. He was not at all hurt, only 'the pony's knee a little pricked with a pebble.' And a third time, a month or two later, at Clumber, his mare falls with him. Another day father and son ride together along the City Road, by Fins- bury Square, the Bank, and the India House, past the Monument, over London Bridge, through Southwark, over Westminster Bridge, and by the Vauxhall Road 14 LINCOLN AT ETON [ch. i and the Park home to Portman Square. ' Lincoln was much pleased and amused, and, I must say, so was I.' Not a very pleasant ride one would have thought even in those days, though, indeed, it is little more than forty years since Lord Palmerston used to ride over the hard roads to Harrow and back for the Speech Day — his invariable custom for years. In June, 1824, when he was thirteen, Lincoln began his Eton life. The entry in the diary is as follows : ' Brought my very dear bo}^ to Eton. I have stayed ¦With him all day and given him a view of everything, so that he will fall into what he will meet with with out much difficulty. 1 have been surprised to see the effect of my mode of education upon him here. Although brought up purely at home, and having never been accustomed to see even, never to associate with any other boys than his own brothers, yet from never being made much of at home, being used to think nothing a difficulty, and to put up with all he might meet with without thinking anything a hard ship, he is never distressed or disturbed by any situa tion or circumstance in which he may be placed. He appears nothing disconcerted in the midst of all these boys, and in such a very new scene he takes every thing as it comes, but without the slightest approach to apathy or indifference, and as Aristippus of old, "Omnis Aristippum decuit, color, et status, et res." I pray to God that school may do him no harm, but only prepare him the better to play a part in after-life which may constitute him a blessing and an ornament to his country and mankind. ' The dear boys at Chiswick and his sisters did not leave him with dry eyes. . . . They are indeed dear and delightful children, unexceptionable in their quali fications, and most justly my delight and my pride. I live alone (only) for them, and God has indeed most richly blessed me in such a possession.' The entry for the following day begins : ' Breakfasted this morning at half-past eight at Lincoln's lodgings. He was not in such good spirits 1824-26] PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 15 this morning, poor fellow, and naturally enough, for this is the first time that he has ever left my roof. I left him busily employed in his trials for Dr. Keate's inspection; after that he will be placed. I parted from him with infinite reluctance a little after eleven, and stopped at Chiswick, where I dined with the boys and heard C. and H. their lessons, and arrived in London at five.' Towards the end of July, Lincoln returns from Eton to Clumber for the summer holidays. ' Lincoln began to row under my instruction.' On September i ' all the boys accompanied me (as spectators, not yet as performers), and we dined together on the groimd, to the great amusement of my little companions.' The bag, by the way, was only eleven brace of partridges and two hares, which, as the Duke seems to have been a good shot — for on one occasion he records killing twenty-one head with twenty shots, not missing once — does not point to inordinate game-preserving, such as was charged to Tory landowners in those days. Two years later comes Lincoln's first attempt with a gun, resulting in his shooting a partridge on August 24 (for which enormity there is no mention of remorse !). On September i he kills four partridges and two hares, and soon becomes a good shot. In October, Lincoln is sent up for good for a copy of twenty-six verses — it happened again two or three times afterwards — to the extreme delight of his father. With still greater pride and delight he makes, a month later, the following entry : ' My dear boy Lincoln has fought a determined battle at Eton ; he fought for three-quarters of an hour. The other boy was near giving in two or three times, but was kept up by his backers and a number of friends. Lincoln had few friends, and went into the field under every disadvantage, but undismayed i6 A BATTLE AT ETON [ch. i and wholly courageous. They fought as long as they could stand on their legs, and were then parted by their friends. Lincoln has shown himself a boy of real and determined courage, and Mr. Thompson (his tutor) writes me that he has displayed the noblest feelings and most becoming modesty throughout this business so new to him. In a few months the admir able boy has distinguished himself for ability, remark able good conduct, and now for unshaken courage, thus showing that he possesses no good quality in an inferior degree. Dr. Keate has a very high opinion of him.' More than three weeks afterwards Lincoln goes to Clumber for the Christmas holidays. His father remarks upon his being ' surprisingly grown, but not improved in looks or appearance. This frequently happens to boys of his age.' Next morning, however, he recalls his disparaging remark. ' I find by daylight,' he says, ' that the alteration in Lincoln's looks is occasioned by the effects of his battle ; his face is still swelled about the eyes, and the eyeballs are red with blood. He must have been very much injured for the effects to have lasted so long.' His health was not very good. There are bleedings and doses of calomel after the fashion of the time, and more than once his father comes to Eton and takes him away for a while. When in London he has his first sight of the opera, and goes to a riding-school. ' He rides rather well, but I thought a little working at the school would supple him.' There is an out break of scarlet fever at Eton, and ' Dr. Keate informs me that every precaution is and will be taken to pre vent the spread of the complaint. I spoke to him seriously on the subject, as a culpable inattention to the health of the boys has been shown on a former occasion.' The great head master was amenable, for 1825-26] THE 'NEWCASTLE SCHOLARSHIP' 17 the diary three days later proceeds : ' Received a letter from Dr. Keate : very thankful for what I had done and suggested respecting his school, and informing me that he had adopted my suggestions.' The Duke went frequently to Eton during the spring when he was in London, sometimes taking some of his daughters and staying at Salt Hill. ' We took a boat, and Lincoln and I pulled, whilst Georgiana steered us to Surly Hall and back.' In May, 1826, when Canning was being abused as a traitor and a renegade by the old Tories, the Duke records that he went 'to Eton for the Montem. Mr. Canning has been here for some days. On such occasions he does all in his power to ingratiate himself with the boys, and even gets himself taken up sitter in a boat, for which he rewards them with champagne. All this is pitifully mischievous. Dr. Keate seems very angry with him for it.' Another entry (July, 1825) says: ' Went to see a cricket match on Lord's ground between Eton and Harrow schools. I never saw Eton boys play worse — without energy, without system, and without care. ... It is lamentable to behold the affected listlessness of Eton.' Nevertheless, Eton won the match by six wickets. The Duke was disturbed, as well he might be, at the absence of religious teaching at Eton. The remedy he proposed was a scholarship as a reward for the knowledge of the Christian religion, and, after due consultation with the authorities, what has since been known as the ' Newcastle Scholarship ' was founded by him, and has since been given annually to the most successful candidate in an examination in divinity and 2 i8 LINCOLN LEAVES ETON [ch. i classics. Five years later he instituted the giving of a gold medal to the second-best candidate. His antici pations of the result of this foundation are character istically high-pitched and extravagant. * The Provost and Dr. Keate think, in common with every one else, that it will raise the character of the school, and be infinitely beneficial in forming and fixing the morality of the rising generation,' etc. When he was little more than seventeen Lincoln left Eton. .Hitherto the ties with home and the strength of home influence had been but little weakened. His tutor came from home, and had doubtless helped to keep up the connexion, and his father was familiar with the school and the authorities, and paid frequent visits there. Two years later, when, in May, 1830, hewent into residence at Christ Church, Oxford, all this was changed. The Duke did not know Oxford, was not disposed to like it, and looked upon his son's going there as ' a necessary evil.' At Eton, Lincoln had done well, and had shown quiet determination, courage, industry, and aptitude for learning; but, owing partly perhaps to his having left a year younger than was usual, he had not been specially distinguished. But Oxford is a part of the great world — not like Eton, a little world of itself — and here his rank as a Duke's eldest son at once put him in a prominent position, in which such merits and abilities as he possessed could not fail to meet with prompt and ample recognition. Gladstone, his senior by about a year and a half, had been at Eton with him, but it was not till they met at Oxford that he formed a close intimacy with him — an intimacy which lasted to the end of his life. He was a member of the W. E. G. Club, as it was called, after its founder, I830] .GOES TO OXFORD 19 and of the Union Debating Society, then just rising into notice, at which the future Cardinal Manning had lately made a reputation, but where he was soon followed and eclipsed as a speaker by Gladstone. Contemporary, or nearly so, with him were Sidney Herbert, Bruce (afterwards Lord Elgin and Governor- General of India), Canning (also Governor-General of India), Liddell (afterwards Dean of Christ Church), Cardwell, Doyle, Mozley, Roundell-Palmer, and others soon to become well known, and with whom Lincoln was probably already more or less intimate. At the Union, Lincoln was a frequent speaker. He had, however, apparently little natural fluency, eloquence, or sense of humour, so that it did not at that time seem likely that he would ever become dis tinguished in Parliament. But he had plenty of con fidence in himself, great perseverance and capacity for taking pains, and he had the constant encouragement of his friend Gladstone ; so that, though he never then or afterwards became an eloquent or attractive speaker, his speeches were businesslike and to the point, and did not fail to command attention. There is nothing written in the diary, and no record is extant concerning his life at Oxford. It was there that he came under influences that inclined him to be a High Churchman, though a very moderate one, of the type just coming into notice under the teaching of Newman, Pusey, and Keble. But their principles either did not at first greatly influence his conduct and conversation, or he must have been reserved in alluding to them at home ; otherwise grievous offence would have been given to his father's ultra-Protestant opinions, of which the diary would have given an indication. None such is to be found there. On the 2 — 2 20 LONG VACATION AT CUDDESDON [ch. i contrary, the Duke finds his son, as usual, entirely delightful, and always notes his arrival for the vacation with pleasure, and his departure with keen regret. ' He met me,' he writes as to one of these occasions, 'with that warm affection and open manner which shows that all is right, and that he has done nothing that he is ashamed of In March, 1831, the diary notes that Lincoln goes to his first ball, a King's ball at St. James's Palace. ' He is but an imperfect dancer, and scarcely knew the figures, but he made it out very well on the whole. I was greatly pleased with his whole demeanour.' ¦ At that time a peer's eldest son was admitted to a degree at Oxford and at Cambridge after keeping terms for two years or a little more, instead of the ordinary period of over three years, the object pro bably being that opportunity might be given for a year's residence on the Continent, which was considered to be necessary to complete the education of a man likely to enter public life, a year which could be spared from the time at the University better than later. Lincoln was thus enabled, and was preparing to go in for honours towards the end of 1832, and he spent part of the long vacation reading at Cuddesdon with Saunders, afterwards Head Master of Charter house and Dean of Peterborough, and in company with Canning, Bruce, Chetwynd, Talbot, and Liddell, afterwards Dean of Christ Church. But in the course of that year two events occurred which were more than sufficient to absorb his atten tion, and compelled him reluctantly— for there was every reason to suppose he would have come out fairly well in the Class List— to content himself with 1832] MARRIAGE AND ELECTION 21 an ordinary degree, which he took, accordingly, in November, 1832. The first was his -marriage with Lady Susan Hamilton, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton ; and the second, his candidature for Parliament at the General Election in December of the same year. The marriage took place at the Duke of Hamilton's house in Scotland with great festivities, two thousand guests being entertained at dinner. The following January the bride and bridegroom came to Clumber, where great preparations had been made for their reception. Twelve hundred tenants and friends sat down to dinner. There was a servants' ball to four hundred people, the Duke taking part in a reel just before supper. Next day all comers from the neighbouring borough of Worksop, to the number of about three thousand, were feasted, till at last the provisions ran out. In the interval between his marriage and the Clumber festivities Lincoln had been elected Member of Parliament for South Nottinghamshire. Thus, when but half of his twenty-second year had been completed, he was embarked in all the responsibilities of domestic and also of political life. Before proceeding, it will be convenient to take a retrospect of the surroundings, public and private, into which he was plunged thus early in his career. CHAPTER II the end of the old TORIES The Duke of WeUington and Lord Winchelsea — Distress of the working classes — Close boroughs — The Reform Bill — Nottingham Castle burnt by the rioters — Lincoln elected for South Notting hamshire — Gladstone returned for Newark on the Duke's interest. It was in the midst of a critical period that Lincoln entered the House of Commons. Whether the ship of the State would weather the storm, or whether the country would be distracted by insurrections and bloodshed, such as were occurring in almost every country of Europe, depended mainly upon the prudent action and moderation of Parliament. The power and influence of the Crown had for some generations been discredited, and counted for less, perhaps, than at any time before or since. The old crust of party coherence amongst leading politicians was cracking under the pressure of a sense of the danger involved in a single false step, and ofthe individual responsibility involved ; and public men, moved by antagonisms not arising from party or personal animosity or desire of office, but founded on strong and sincere conviction, were often brought into violent hostility. The occurrence of the following incident is an illus tration of the extreme tension of feeling which existed on the question of the Catholic claims.* It happened * The incident is referred to in Greville's ' Journal of the Reign of George IV.,' vol. i., p. 198. 22 1829] LORD WINCHELSEA 23 early in February, 1829, just after the Duke of Wellington and Peel had brought in the Bill for the removal of Catholic disabilities, and was, strangely enough, the unsubstantial shadow of a coming event. The entry in the diary is as follows : ' Whilst I was writing my letters Lord Winchelsea came in, and, after asking me how I did in his way, threw down on the table a large letter-cover with something in it, saying : " Ah, Duke, I little thought when we were talking of this matter the other day that it would so soon come to this." I said : " What do you mean ?" " Oh, here it is — a challenge from the Duke of Wellington." I was surprised, and asked him why and wherefore. " Oh, my public letter, I suppose." I said : " Impossible ! But let us look at it, and see what there is in it more offensive to the Duke than to every one else." I saw nothing, and asked more questions. I said : " But what are the particulars of this matter ?" He said : " Look here : a letter from Lord Holland, who is, of course, the Duke's second, and I have now to entreat from you that favour and mark of friendship which I will give to you under the same circumstances, if you require it' I again looked at the letter, and found nothing but a large cover with " Earl of Winchelsea, with Lord Holland's compliments," sealed with Lord Holland's seal, and in the inside a pocket-handkerchief, with W. and a coronet, which Lord Winchelsea said was the Duke of Wellington's, and was the short way of sending a challenge to avoid all correspondence. I thovight it a very queer way of sending a challenge, but somehow or other I was quite confounded, and presumed that he knew more than I did, and that it really was so. He then said no time was to be lost ; that, if I would be his friend, I should go to Lord Holland immediately, which, with deep regret, I con sented to do, and advised him to make his will, which he said he would do. I went to Lord Holland's in Berkeley Square. It was nearly five o'clock, and they told me he was gone to the House of Lords. I then proceeded to Lord Winchelsea to tell him this, pro cured a hackney coach, and drove down to the House 24 THE SUPPOSED CHALLENGE [ch. ii of Lords. I found Lord Holland in the House, and, with all becoming gravity, sent up to him and re quested to speak to him. We went out ofthe House into a private room, and I then said : " I come to speak to you on the part of Lord Winchelsea." He seemed surprised, and said: "What about?" I replied: " About a letter which you have written to him. He denied having written any letter. I said : " Surely you must be wrong." He said : " No, indeed, I have never written any letter to him." I said : " Then what does this mean?" and was proceeding to draw from my pocket the cover and handkerchief, when he cried out : " Oh, I think I remember something of having sent to Lord Winchelsea." I then showed him my credentials, and he exclaimed : " I see what it is now : I do recollect to have sent this to Lord Winchelsea, but it is Lady Holland's writing. This handkerchief was on the floor of the House of Lords close by me. Thinking it was mine, I put it in my pocket. When at home I wanted to blow my nose, and put the handkerchief to my nose ; but, perceiving it to be scented, I said to Lady Holland : ' Hallo ! this cannot be mine ; it is all over perfume. What is it ?' I looked, and found it marked ' W.,' and presumed that it belonged to Lord Winchelsea, to whom I sent it." We then had a hearty laugh, and I explained how it all was. I never felt more rejoiced ; but as I thought that the story would not lose by Lord Holland's telling, I begged of him to say nothing about it, as it was too ridiculous, and might expose my friend to much ridicule. He promised me that he would not, but that he would speak to Lord Winchelsea and shake him heartily by the hand. I then returned in all haste to Lord Win chelsea, and, when I could stop my laughter, told him how it all was, and most truly congratulated him upon the result. ' He had in the meantime made his will and every preparation, and was quite ready to meet whatever fate might await him. But he said before that nothing on earth should induce him to retract a syllable of what he had said or written. He behaved as became him as a Christian and a man. He is an honest and excellent man, but certainly he possesses the teie montee and all the chivalry of Don Quixote de la Mancha.' 1829-40] THE GREAT DUKE 25 Six weeks later Lord Winchelsea again called on the Duke of Newcastle on precisely the same errand. The latter, however, was away at Clumber, and was not available, which was a great relief to him, for he would have felt bound not to refuse, and Lord Fal mouth acted as second instead of him. There was no mistake this time. The duel took place on Wimbledon Common. Lord Winchelsea, after receiving the Duke of Wellington's fire, fired his own pistol in the air, and then tendered an apology. The Duke of New castle writes in his journal : ' Lord Falmouth gave me an account of the duel. He says the Duke of Wellington behaved in a very churlish, overbearing manner, and when the affair was over did not shake hands, and departed sulkily. One is almost tempted to wish that a life so dangerous had been taken away, but one must not indulge in such unchristian feelings. . . . The Duke of Wellington's time may not yet be come, but it may, and that shortly, for assuredly he is a villain and a [word illegible].' This is painful to read and discreditable to the writer, and the sentence omitted is even worse. But wiser men than the Duke of Newcastle were at that time passing harsh and hasty judgments on the great Duke, and, like him, have lived to recall and repent of them. Eleven years afterwards (April 13, 1840) he writes about him in the diary in a very different strain : ' In the House of Lords to-night we had a motion by Lord Westmeath for a Select Committee to inquire into certain circumstances affecting the administration of the Irish Poor Laws. The Duke of Wellington spoke, and excited my wonder. He appears as you see him seated to be barely alive, his eye inanimate, his features inexpressive, and his powers suspended or lost. He rose, and it was most painful to see him labouring slowly on and endeavouring to convey to 26 NEWCASTLE'S BOROUGHS [ch. ii the House his view of the case. One could plainly perceive that his mind was aware of the circumstances, but that infirmity rendered his faculties slow and approaching to forgetfulness. Yet his energy of char acter and strength of mind carried him through ; he made good his position, and showed that he was able to weigh and decide upon the whole question. I was really astonished at the result. It was a wonderful effort of mind and animal determination.' Close upon the heels of Catholic Emancipation came the question of the Reform of Parliament, and the tension and agitation which followed the introduction of the Reform Bill. The Duke of Newcastle was as strongly and bitterly opposed to the one as to the other. Though he resented the impending loss of some of his boroughs by the passing of the Reform Bill as a confiscation of his property, he had been far too high- minded and conscientious a man to use them for his own pecuniary benefit, or for his own selfish interests of any kind. He looked upon them as a trust reposed in him, much in the same way as a conscientious patron looks on the presentation to a vacant living; and had he possessed a larger acquaintance and been a better judge of men's merits and abilities, he might have exercised useful and valuable political influence. But to him it was a very troublesome and often a very expensive trust. If a voter has knowledge and intelligence enough to comprehend the political questions at issue at an election, he is bound, for his country's sake, to exer cise his intelligence in giving his vote ; but when, as was generally the case in the days before penny postage and cheap newspapers, the main issues in volved were altogether outside of his experience and beyond his comprehension, no such public obligation i83i] NEWARK 27 could in reality exist. There remained no reason except attachment to a colour, blue or orange — that is, to a party — or to a patron, for voting one way or the other. To vote for a candidate was, in that case, to render him a private service ; and for rendering a service to a social superior it is, in certain cases, usual to receive a fee. A fee may, and often did, degenerate into a bribe, and make the recipient false and venal ; but it was not primarily or necessarily a bribe, any more than it is bribery for a postman to accept a Christmas-box, or a gamekeeper or a butler to accept a fee from his master's guest for services which he is bound to render, and probably would render, without any expectation of a fee. That the voter was placed in a false position was the fault of the constitution and the custom ; he cannot justly be blamed for accepting the situation as he found it, and making the most of it. Even the closest boroughs required careful hand ling on the part of their patrons. Until Lincoln came of age in 1832, the Duke had no relations of his own to bring forward who as such would have been received with favour. He had to take his candidates on other people's recommendations, or to put forward men of whom he knew little or nothing, the expenses of whose election, often very heavy, he had to pay. The results had of late been disastrous to him. At the General Election of April, 1831, he has to lament that all the eight seats in his county (Notting hamshire) have been lost. The loss of Newark for the second time makes him especially indignant. ' Notices have been given to those of my tenants at Newark who voted against Mr. Sadler at the late election,' he writes in 1829. ' What I have done I shall 28 A ' ROTTEN BOROUGH ' [ch. n do again. It is right, and no clamour shall turn me from the straight path.' And when Newark went wrong again in 1831 he writes : ' I shall not try Newark again upon speculation or to spend money. If they solicit me I will send some body, but I will be guaranteed against expense. In the meantime I shall raise my rents to the double, and see how they like that.' In estimating the provocation which called forth this threat of the Duke's, it is a material point to know whether the rents to be doubled were already at market value, so that it amounted almost to a threat of eviction ; or whether they had been set below the market value on the well-understood consideration of political support, which had not been given according to bargain. However that may have been, it was pro bably in reference to this matter that the Duke on one occasion quoted the verse, ' May I not do what I will with mine own ?' which was taken up by Denman (afterwards Chief Justice), then Whig candidate for Nottingham, and used by him as a text for advocating the urgent need of a Reform Bill, and for indignantly denouncing ' rotten boroughs ' and their patrons. The saying was repeated and echoed through the country by the Whigs and Reformers as the challenge and war-cry of their arch-enemy, and was pointed to as an unblushing assertion of a claim to override the free dom of action of the electors, and it is still remembered in Nottinghamshire as a typical utterance of the mori bund Toryism of two or three generations ago. The ten or fifteen years preceding and including that of the passing of the Reform Bill were a time of sore distress and bitter discontent among the i83i] REFORM BILL RIOTS 29 artisans and factory workers throughout the country. Labourers' wages were low. The price of corn and of bread fluctuated greatly, and was often very high. The gradual introduction of machinery for stocking- making, which was the principal industry of the town and district of which Nottingham was the centre, had been throwing many hand-loom weavers out of work, who had now no means, and apparently no prospect of earning a living. Bands of men, often to the number of fifty or a hundred, used to gather silently at night and destroy the stocking-frames, sometimes maltreating or killing their owners. The evils pro duced by the old Poor Law and by the rapid increase of population, for which there was no sufficient em ployment or outlet, were growing yearly more intoler able, and there was widespread misery and destitu tion. Latterly there had been great political excite ment. Absurdly exaggerated results were anticipated by the working classes — as yet wholly inexperienced in political matters — from the passing of the Reform Bill, the effect of which many of them supposed would be to lift the poor at once out of the reach of want, if not to raise them to the condition of the rich. Hence great bitterness was felt against the opponents of the Bill, all of whom were well known, and prominent amongst whom in uncompromising opposition was the Duke. In London, in the previous April, the windows of his house in Portman Square had been broken by the mob, because they were not illuminated in celebration of the dissolution of the Parliament which had thrown out the Bill; and they were again broken and he himself assaulted in Parliament Street on October 10, on account of his having voted against it when it was rejected by the House of Lords. 30 NOTTINGHAM [cH. ii At Nottingham the excitement about the Bill reached a climax when, at half-past eight on Saturday evening, October 8, 1831, Pickford's van arrived from London and brought the first news of its rejection. It was an unfortunate time for it to arrive. The Michaelmas or Goose Fair, as it was called, and the races had attracted to the town a large number of strangers, among whom were many evil-disposed persons. A crowd assembled on Sunday morning to await the arrival of the mail with the confirmation of the news. Stones were thrown, and attacks were made during the day on the persons and property of the Anti-Reformers, and at night several houses were wrecked. Nevertheless, the Mayor permitted a public meeting, which had been convened for Monday moming, to be held in the market-place. The dis turbances were at once renewed. The garrison had been weakened by the dispatch of some of the troops to Derby for its protection, and the town and country round were at the mercy of a marauding and destroy ing mob. Colwick Hall, the house of Mr. Musters, was attacked, plundered, and set on fire. Fortunately the house, though injured, was not burnt ; the newly- kindled fire was smothered by a feather-bed thrown on it with the intention of feeding the flames. The lady of the house, who was ill in bed, had to be carried out in the heavy rain and concealed in some laurel-bushes till the danger was over.* Immediately outside the town, reached by a short steep ascent on its north-western side, is the Castle. It stands on a rock which on the south and east sides rises perpendicularly to a considerable height from * Mrs. Musters was the beautiful Mary Chaworth, of Bjron's ' Dream.' 1831] THE CASTLE 31 the rich meadows and wide level valley of the Trent, and is a conspicuous feature in the landscape for many miles. Through the Middle Ages, and so late as the Civil Wars, it was an important military stronghold. In the time of Charles II. an imposing modern residence was built on its site, and little more than a gateway and a small part of the walls of the old twelfth-century castle were left standing. It was now the property of the Duke of Newcastle, but had never been inhabited by him. It was much out of repair, and tenanted only by a few lodgers, who rented some of the least dilapidated rooms. Late in the afternoon, after being repulsed by the soldiers in an attempt to break open the jail, the rioters raised the cry ' To the Castle !' It was a tempting place to attack. The Duke's name, as an arch-opponent of the Reform Bill, was a sufficient pretext. There were no retainers or servants within the building to defend it. County police as yet did not exist, and the few Nottingham constables could not, if they would, have acted, for the Castle was outside the boundaries and jurisdiction of the town. The stout old oak gate for some time withstood the assaults of the mob, but at length a breach was made in it, and another having been effected in the old wall, some of the rioters, without meeting with the smallest resistance, and with the utmost deliberation, crept into the Castle-yard, and six men entering the Castle by breaking a window, proceeded to tear down the old tapestry, which they took out and actually sold to the bystanders for three shillings a yard, which was paid to them on the spot. Meantime about forty more had made their way in, and after tearing down chandeliers and breaking up furniture for weapons. 32 BURNING OF THE CASTLE [ch. n set to work to prepare the building for burning by piling up heaps of broken banisters and tables, and cutting holes from floor to floor to assist the flames. Light was then set to it in many places, and soon after seven o'clock the triumphant shouts of the mob, about a hundred and fifty of whom had by this time got in, proclaimed that the place was burning; and when, soon after, the hussars rode into the Castle-yard, it was evident that nothing could now be done to stay the conflagration. Volumes of smoke arose and carried, as was noticed at the time and remembered afterwards, the sweet scent of burning cedar-wood, of which much of the panelling or furniture of the Castle was made, over the town ; and sheets of flame broke forth which, through that terrible and long- remembered night, in spite of the heavy rain which was falling, lit up the country round to almost the brightness of day, so that a woman living more than two miles distant could see by it, she remarked, to pick up a pin from the ground. Not satisfied with their night's work at the Castle, the rioters assembled next morning in the market place and poured by thousands along the road to Beeston, a village four miles from Nottingham, to destroy the silk-mill there. On reaching it they gave the mill-bell a triumphant peal. There was a great crashing of glass, and a few minutes later the mill was wrapped in smoke and flame. Thence they turned back to Nottingham, visiting some ofthe larger houses on the way, and extorting food, and sometimes money, by threats. They surrounded the house of Mr. Needham at Lenton, consumed all that the kitchen, larder, and store-room contained that could be eaten or drunk, carried off some plate, and might have NOTTINGHAM CASTLE. Fi-om a water-colour drawing by Mrs. William Enfield, taken about 1S48. To face pn'^c 32. i83i] NOTTINGHAM RIOTS 33 worked more serious destruction but for a body of yeomanry who now appeared on the scene, and charged and chased them over the garden and meadow, taking some prisoners. Further conflicts occurred at the gate of Wollaton Hall, and again as the mob re-entered Nottingham, when more prisoners were taken. It was noticed that the road along which they had passed was green with the leaves of the turnips which in their hunger they had pulled up in the fields and eaten as they went, a pathetic indication of their condition, and of the stress of destitution to which they were reduced. The Duke of Newcastle was in London when, on the evening of October 12, the news of the riots reached him. He started for Clumber at four the next morning. He writes in his diary : ' I reached Clumber about eleven o'clock, having met videttes of yeomanry patrolling within two miles of the house. On my arrival at the house the garrison expressed their rejoicing and welcome by loud and long-continued cheers. In the house I found my dear Lincoln, Charles, and Thomas, with the officers of the troop stationed here. ... I could not believe that I was at Clumber; the whole was changed, every thing removed that was valuable, such as pictures, ornaments, furniture, statues, etc., etc., and nothing but bare walls, and the house filled with men in all the rooms, with cannons (of which I have ten three- pounders and fourteen little ship guns), fire-arms, muskets and pistols and sabres, planted in their proper positions and in all the windows. . . . Before I went to bed I visited all the arrangements made in the different rooms. Lincoln, who had made them, showed them, and it was pleasant to observe the attention of the people to him ; and I learn that he is adored by them all, that his ability to perform, his forethought, his kindness of manner, and the pleasant way in which he has given his orders and seen to 34 PREPARATIONS AT CLUMBER [ch. ii. ever5^thing has commanded universal admiration, and has received the affectionate attachment of every mortal here. The preparations are indeed formid able. ... In the house there are two hundred men, and out of it a great many more, including a troop of yeomanry of seventy men and horses.' The following morning he writes : ' I would not give any orders last night, not wishing without full deliberation to alter anything that Lincoln had done ; but this morning I determined to make a change in our mode of defence. I therefore settled that the yeomanry should be dismissed, all but a sergeant and twelve men, whom I kept until the next morning. I reduced the number of men to twenty picked men, who have been nearly all old soldiers. I admit none of them into the house. I have made a barrack for them in the offices adjoining, where they sleep and mess, and I mount a chain of sentries in a ring round the house. ... At night I went to see that all my arrangements were carried properly into execution, and found them well done. On my return home, from not knowing the counter-sign, I was taken prisoner by one of my own sentries. We shall soon be all together and comfortable again. I have heard of no fresh aggressions.' Whatever danger there had been to be apprehended was by this time quite over. The Nottingham rioters, without definite purpose, without leaders, and without food, had dispersed, worn out, hungry, and miserable, to their homes. The prisoners who had been taken were afterwards tried by special commission at Nottingham for setting the Castle and Beeston Mill on fire. Some of them were sentenced to death, others to transportation. The Reform Bill passed in June, 1832. For the burning of Nottingham Castle the Duke demanded compensation from the Hundred in which 1832] CANDIDATE FOR SOUTH NOTTS 35 it was situated. The case was tried at Leicester in August, and the jury gave a verdict for ;£'2 1,000, doubt less an excessive sum under the circumstances, for the building had been of little use to him either for pleasure or profit. It remained a blackened ruin for a generation afterwards. He never rebuilt it, and more than ten years afterwards he records a visit to the place for the first time since the fire. But he was not satisfied, and in a letter to Lincoln complained that ;£'2i,ooo would 'no more restore the Castle than it would restore the Constitution.' In the same letter he writes in view of the coming General Election under the new Act : ^S ' As to the County, I think we shall have to give it Sir R. Bromley has been working hard and done in his power, but it is doubtful whether the thing can be done without a contest, or without the dis- agreeableness of a considerable preliminary expense. If you would really desire the thing, I will enter into more expense for you than I at present would. I shall therefore keep the thing open until I hear from you. . . .' Lincoln would have preferred to carry out his inten tion of taking honours at Oxford before turning his attention to entering Parliament. But he had too much ambition, too much energy, and too much confi dence in himself to neglect the opportunity afforded by his father's offer. Whatever new ideas and con victions he may have become imbued with at Oxford, sympathy with the principles and practice of the Whigs was not one of them, and he came forward as a candidate for South Nottinghamshire in the Tory interest. It was an additional inducement to him to seek a seat for South Nottinghamshire at that time, that it would serve to continue the close relations and 3—2 36 GLADSTONE INVITED TO NEWARK [ch. h. intimacy with his friend Gladstone, which had existed at Oxford, and were thenceforth to be maintained to the end of his life; for his friend had lately become a candidate for a constituency in the same county, and they would commence their career together. Gladstone's vigorous and brilliant speech in the previous year in the Oxford Union attacking the Reform Bill had brought him into notice, not only at Oxford, but in the world outside the University. That speech was probably the principal cause of the offer being made which is contained in the following letter from Lincoln to Gladstone, who was then travel ling on the Continent : ' Oxford, 'jfune 19, 1832. ' I have written by this same post to Innsbruck, and hope that that letter will have reached you long before you see this. But if not, to make more sure, I will repeat shortly what I have written more at length in my other letter. It is, that I am commissioned by my Father to ask if you are willing to be nominated as a Candidate for Newark at the coming election. If you do not at once decide against it, which I hope you will not, you will doubtless send for or in some way obtain my letter from Innsbruck. So I shall not now say any more than that. I remain, my dear Gladstone, ' Yours very truly, ' Lincoln.' To this Gladstone's characteristic reply, dated Milan, Friday, July 6, 1832, is as follows : 'My dear Lincoln, ' Within the last hour we have arrived in Milan, and within the last half-hour your letter has been put into my hands. The hour for the departure of the English post is close at hand, and much abridges my time for writing on an occasion when it can ill be dispensed with. 1832] HIS COY REPLY 37 ' It is not necessary, nor is it to the purpose, to enter into any detail of the lively feelings with which I opened and perused the letter you addressed to this place ; but in the midst of a degree of surprise, which almost disqualifies me from writing at all, I feel it is at least my duty to express the really overpowering sense I entertain of your own personal kindness on this occasion, and of the honour and favour which the Duke of Newcastle has conferred on one so unworthy either of his notice or your own. It is painful to feel that nothing more than so barren an acknowledgment as this lies in my power. . . . ' In the meanwhile I should add that, while my own mind, independently of the consideration of any matter contained in your letter to Innsbruck, is divided between the sense of excessive and most flattering kindness on the one hand, and on the other of re sponsibility attaching to such a charge, more particu larly in the case of a person so little advanced in years or experience, or those acquirements of knowledge which are so necessary in such a situation, whose judgment is so little matured, and therefore whose principles may be supposed so liable to change, I have at once referred, as matter of course, to my father, as the person both best entitled and most competent to determine whether in my present circumstances I should be justified in entering, however contingent the prospect, on the consideration of a question in volving as one of its alternatives my accepting the proffer of the Duke of Newcastle's interest at Newark ; and I trust I am fully sensible that, in proportion as your representations have been partial, and his Grace's conduct condescending, do I feel the obligation incum bent upon myself not to suffer vanity and personal ambition to make me take a step without advice and consideration, which step, so taken, would certainly produce eventual exposure to myself, and would defeat the purpose of that remarkable kindness, of which I trust I shall, in any case, retain an indelible recollec tion. ' My father's answer will, I hope, meet us at Basle, and I trust no further delay will then prevent either my grateful acceptance of your offer, or my setting you at liberty to seek a worthier object. Had my 38 WITH RESERVATIONS [ch. ii. father been nearer at hand, I need not have incurred the risk of putting you to the inconvenience of delay. ' By the next post I shall repeat, as well as I am able, the substance of this letter, in order to avoid risk of miscarriage. ' Believe me always, ' Most truly yours, ' W. E. Gladstone. 'I direct to London, as I believe the letter would not be delayed in going on, should you be absent.' This letter of Gladstone's to Lincoln was followed by another, written also from Milan, three days later : ' The plot which your letter opened has thickened more rapidly than it was possible for me to expect at the time when my answer was despatched. To-day came letters from home, urging me to close with the Duke of Newcastle's proposition, under the extra ordinary circumstances of the times. I have in con sequence, without any further hesitation, written to his Grace, expressing directly those thanks which I had before transmitted to you, and accepting the flattering proffer, subject only to its becoming null hereafter on the ground of any exceptions which his Grace might, notwithstanding his extreme liberality on this subject, find it his duty to make to principles and predilections entertained by me ; the class of ex ceptions I allude to being very different from the exaction of pledges on particular measures which appear to me, as to his Grace, generally objection able. I am not aware that I do entertain any opinion on any measure which would appear to the Duke to con stitute an objection of this formidable character ; but presuming upon your often experienced kindness, I venture to remind you of, or acquaint you with (in a manner and on grounds, if reprehensible at all, repre hensible on the score of freedom) one strong personal predilection I have from childhood entertained, and which I think it my duty to mention to you because it 1832] HE ACCEPTS 39 is personal — a most warm and most general admira tion of the principles and policy of ]9r. Canning. I will add that they are, according to my view, iden tical in their formation and character with those of Mr. Pitt. In these feelings it was natural for me to grow up, as my Father had a good deal of connexion with Mr. Canning at Liverpool, and I, in common honesty, must say that I have inherited them to the full, and hold them upon conviction also. I know I am making a request which is bold and perhaps un warrantable when I beg you faithfully and unreservedly to tell me whether at all, or how far, in your con scientious opinion, my entertaining these feelings might render me, in the eyes of the Duke of New castle, an unfit object for his aid and favour ? My brother has made me acquainted with his Grace's extreme liberality ; but in proportion to the degree in which his Grace thereby runs the risk, through individual insincerity and baseness, of his power and his influence being abused, is the obligation rigorously incumbent upon me to see that I be not the person to involve myself in the guilt and treachery of such abuse, by concealing for one moment any opinion which I think, even in the barest possibility, might tend to impair his Grace's idea of my trustworthiness. ' Under the present circumstances, it is desirable for me, half dizzy as I am with prospects so different from any which my mind had contemplated, to repair immediately to England. In consequence my brother and I have determined at once to make for Genoa, whence we look forward to either a land journey through France, or else going on to the Rhine and taking steam direct for England. I can now only give as my directions : " Care of T. Gladstone, Esq., 6a, Albany, Piccadilly, London." With a strong and lively sense of your kindness, I remain, etc' It was not the Duke's way to inquire minutely into the views and opinions of his candidates, and he was quite satisfied to accept Gladstone on Lincoln's recommendation. The entry in the diary for August 8, 1832, merely says : 40 GLADSTONE'S FIRST FRANK [ch. ii. ' Mr. Gladstone, who is to come in on my interest at Newark, has just published his address. He is a friend of Lincoln's, and a very talented and highly- principled young man, as he tells me, for I do not know nim.' Lincoln writes to Gladstone : ' Cuddesdon, ' August 9. ' You must and with good reason have been surprised at not receiving from me any answer to your letters upon your arrival in England, but the fact IS that I did not expect you so soon, and thought that a letter written at the end of this week would have reached the Albany before you. I cannot say how glad I am that your highly honourable objections have been overruled, and that you are now the declared candidate for Newark. I trust that you will be successful, and I must say that I have little doubt of it, though which Member you will turn out seems to be doubtful. ' I have a request to make to you, which will no doubt make you laugh — it is that you will send me your first frank, if it is not already bespoken by some of your own family ; it is for the collection of a friend who will prize it much if (as I have no doubt) your Parliamentary career is as satisfactory to your friends and creditable to yourself as your Academic has been. ' I shall feel obliged to you if you will let me know how your affairs go on and what prospect of success your friends at Newark hold out. I am, as you must from experience imagine, very busy, and must there fore close this letter by repeating my anxious wishes for your success.' In the days before the Reform Bill it was not unusual for a candidate for a close borough to abstain from showing himself to the electors before the election took place. Whether he did so or not was usually left to the patron to determine. Gladstone writes to Lincoln, directing to Cuddesdon, where the latter was reading for his degree : 1832] CANVASSING 41 ' Torquay, Devon, ' September 10, 1832. ' I write with a twofold object — first, to express my hearty pleasure at finding by the papers that you have been induced to come forward for the County of Nottingham, and my no less hearty hope that the issue of your contest — for contest I suppose you must expect — may be triumphant. I conclude your interest, though not identified with that of Denison, will not be opposed to it, particularly as Mr. Godfrey writes to me that he has been canvassing on his behalf; so I hope Mr. Norton (is not that the name of your third man ?) may go to the wall in the first instance, and anywhere else he likes in the second. I saw to-day a Scotch gentleman. Sir Archibald Edmonstone, who knows a good deal of Nottinghamshire, and is con nected with some people there, who told me he had never heard Mr. Norton's name, and did not think he could be at all a well-known person among you. ' Secondly, I am sorry to say that the good people of Newark have sent me an urgent message desiring my gresence, and I fear there will be a canvass, though Ir. Godfrey is very averse to it, and though I have adopted the only possible means for deferring it by writing to the Duke of Newcastle to ask whether he thinks it can be delayed. I should not have done this had he not lately written to me repeating his strong dislike to it, and desire to save me from it. . . .* As, however, IVIr. Handley and his friends are actively . . . canvassing and [that] Sen. Wilde is to be at Newark on the i6th, I fear the Duke may be unable to interpose, and in that case I must be in Newark to commence canvassing by this day week. The pros pect is rather alarming to my nerves at present, but this disagreement will, I trust, vanish when I get into the midst of it. I have been thinking whether it is possible that you can be going into Nottinghamshire on your own business, or whether you can accom plish supporting the character of candidate in Oxford and your County at once. With me I fear the excite ment of the one would soon neutralize all exertion for * Some words torn out and lost. 42 CANVASSING [ch. il the other, but if you are able to combine them it is all the better. ' If the Duke can contrive to retard Newark, I may remain here beyond the end of the week ; if not, my plan is to be in London for next Sunday, and go down by the Mail of that evening [for] Monday morning's work. Further I cannot tell you, but I am now enjoy ing the quiet of this place, where the visitors are few, and the simplicity of the whole country inviolate; I shall be sorry to leave it. I daresay Bruce will re echo the praises of the climate and people. Please tell him that Mr. Strong, a clergyman here, has been making particular inquiry [about] him, and retains him in affectionate remembrance. 'The canvass for this County is going on actively, and Mr. Yarde Buller's success is very confidently spoken of Bulteel, son-in-law to Lord Grey, and brother of the Rev. Mr. B. in Oxford, is co-Reform candidate. ... ' Saunders is, I suppose, busily preparing for his transition to Charterhouse. Pray give him my kindest remembrances, as also to Canning and Bruce, and believe me always most sincerely yours, ' W. E. Gladstone.' Lincoln replied : ' Cuddesdon, 'September 13. ' Your letter arrived here a few hours after me this morning, for I have been away for a fortnight in Nottinghamshire on my election affairs, where I have met with unexpected success. I fought shy of starting for a long time, for it so happens that a Parliamentary life is far from what is suitable to my inclinations at the present time; but I was so importuned and entreated by a great many, both of the gentry and the yeomanry, that I was obliged to make the personal sacrifice and come forward. I went to the markets at Newark, Bingham, and Southwell last week, and addressed the electors at each place. They received me with marked demonstrations of kindness every where ; indeed, my friends consider my success as certain. . . . My friends at Newark told me that my reception at that place would do much to smooth your 1832] RETURNED FOR SOUTH NOTTS 43 way. If you are obliged to go down there I hope you may find it so, and that you will meet with that success which I anticipate for you. ' You are right in supposing that it would be impos sible to be at once a Candidate for the honours of the Schools and of the Senate. I was going on tolerably prosperously till I undertook the latter, but I now find that it will be necessary to abandon the former, and content myself with a humble Pass. Saunders goes to Charterhouse in ten days ; he, as well as Bruce and Canning, desire to be kindly remembered to you, and all wish you success.' Either on his own merits or in compliment to his rank and position in the county, he was so well received that one of his Whig opponents withdrew, and although the constituency had returned two Whigs at the previous election, he now came in as a Tory, together with Evelyn Denison, the other Whig candidate, without a contest. On the day of the election there is an entry in his father's diary : ' I wished much to have heard him speak, and I thought of disguising myself, so as to hear him amongst the crowd. It took a long while to make this disguise, procure the wig, etc. ; the consequence was that on arriving at Newark 1 was too late ; all was over. I waited at Newark Bridge and Lincoln came out to me. He said that he should have known me, so that altogether it was fortunate that I was too late.' Recalcitrant Newark, also, in spite of the Duke's disgust and resolve to abstain for the future from electioneering there, and nothwithstanding, also, the now lowered franchise, returned to its allegiance. Gladstone came in at the head of the poll, and with him Handley, the other Tory candidate. Thus the two friends entered Parliament together. CHAPTER III apprenticeship to peel Lincoln in office at the Treasury — Tour in Belgium and Switzer land — Second tour in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Italy— Commissioner of Woods and Forests — The Duke of WeUington and Chelsea Hospital — Intimacy with Peel — Enters the Cabinet — The Corn Laws — South Notts election — Misfortunes and death of the fourth Duke of Newcastle. Only two and a half years after the General Election which, in June, 1832, had given the Whigs an over whelming majority in the House of Commons, the King, on a slender pretext, took the unusual course of dismissing the Ministry, and sending for Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the Opposition, who was then travelling in Italy, to form a Government. It was Peel's practice to seek out young men at the Universities, distinguished by rank and social position or by marked academical success, to encourage them to enter Parliament, and sometimes to give them office very early in their career. Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, and Gladstone came naturally under his notice, and, in forming his Government, he gave each of them, young as they were, a place in it, Lincoln having a seat at the Treasury Board. Lincoln writes to Gladstone : 'Clumber, 'December 20, 1834. ' I was aware of your having been sent for pre viously to the receipt of your last, and hope that 44 1834] ON THE TREASURY BOARD 45 before this you have had a satisfactory interview. IVIy object in writing to you now is to obtain informa tion, being in the same situation, I presume, as your self In the first place, does the acceptance of the appointment of a Lord of the Treasury vacate one's seat ? and if so, do one's Parliamentary functions (franking, etc.) immediately cease, or not until Parliament meets and the new writs are moved ? Is it considered proper to publish an address to con stituents as soon as the Gazette appears ? I shall be thankful to you for answers to these questions and information upon any other points which may occur to you. Do you imagine that it will be necessary for me to go up to Town ? ' What do you hear of intended policy ? I hope that concession is not to be the order of the day. The papers, etc., rather alarm me. ' I have written you a very tiresome list of questions — as many as you will receive from the Newark Radicals when next you appear amongst them. ' I have written this evening to your Father, asking him if he knows anybody who would be willing to try Nottingham. The Conservatives there are going about begging for a candidate — it would cost about ;^2,000.' At the General Election which followed the forma tion of the new Administration, Lincoln was re-elected without a contest. At this election the Conservative party, though they gained some seats, were still left in a minority, and in the following April, at the end of about four months. Peel resigned, and the Whigs returned to office, which they retained till the General Election in July, 1841. During these six years Lincoln attended assiduously to his Parliamentary duties as one of a group of young politicians, of whom the chief were Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, Lord Dalhousie, and Cardwell, who were all becoming, both personally and politically, more and more attached to Peel. Though, perhaps, 46 DEPRESSION [ch. hi. one of the least brilliant and original of the band, and with little rhetorical power, he was inferior to none of them in rectitude, diligence, and assiduous devotion to the public service. Like his father, he had a strong sense of duty and of the responsibilities attaching to his high rank and position, and, like him also, a constitutional tendency to introspection and self-consciousness, and a disposition to attach undue importance to trifling matters, which disturbed his sense of proportion, and inclined him to gravity and melancholy. Already, young as he was, domestic troubles were arising which were to beat upon him, wave upon wave, throughout his life in an ever-flowing tide. Lady Lincoln fell into bad health soon after her marriage. The spring of 1837 found her at Paris under the care of doctors who would not allow her even to see her husband. Depressed by her absence, and wearied with his Parliamentary work, he resolved to take a short tour on the Continent. In the follow ing extract from the beginning of his journal he gives expression to a sadness and a tone of thought which in later years he would probably have shrunk from putting into words, but which, nevertheless, seems thenceforward to have continued to exist and to underlie his outward life to the end : ' Great and long-continued anxiety of mind and depression of spirits having produced a considerable effect upon my general health, and feeling that a further attendance upon my Parliamentary duties (for the proper performance of which neither my physical strength nor mental energies were adequate) would only increase my state of nervousness and melancholy until I gradually sank down into a state of morbid despondency, I determined soon after my recovery from a sharp attack of nervous fever, which confined i837] TOUR ON THE CONTINENT 47 me to my room for some days at the end of May, to leave home for a short time and try the effect of a tour in some picturesque parts of tne Continent. I had never left England before, with the exception of a journey to Paris in the spring of the present year to see my dear wife, who had gone over there to con sult some Parisian physicians, and I now made up my mind to undertake my first tour with no small degree of pain. Ever since my marriage I had contemplated paying my first visit to the Continent on some con venient opportunity in company with her, without whom I could never feel any enjoyment to be com- {)lete, and apart from whom I shun pleasure as worth- ess, and am conscious that pain can tolerate no comforter. To these sensations I have been painfully alive of late, but as I am about to write a journal of my tour, and not a metaphysical treatise, I shall at once proceed on my journey, merely observing that I undertake it more from a sense of duty than from any prospect of pleasure ; for, with my wife confined by illness in Paris, and myself forbidden, by the doctors to visit her, I have hitherto found the only relief from my sorrows, and the only palliation of my disconsolate condition, in the smiles and happy countenances of the two lovely and beautiful children with which God has blessed me. But my life and my health may be of importance to them, though it may be of little to myself, and, as a matter of duty to them, I must endeavour to preserve both, and must therefore make up my mind to a further sacrifice of domestic happiness, and leave them for a time, with the fond, though not sanguine, hope of again one day resuming what I have lost, and again becoming what alone 1 care to be. ' Having made all my preparations for my journey, I took leave with a heavy heart of my two darling boys and their good, excellent nurse, whose conduct of late has even raised my opinion of her, and con siderably lightened my anxiety in thus leaving them for a time orphans in London. I started at seven o'clock on the evening of Friday, June 16, in company with my old tutor and most attached and well-tried friend, Mr. Thompson, his wife and two eldest boys. We arrived at Dover at seven o'clock on the following 48 ANOTHER TOUR [ch. in. morning, and, having dressed and breakfasted, em barked on board the mail packet at nine. We had a tolerably short, but a rough passage, and nobody seemed to regret the termination of this preparatory part of our expedition. Upon our landing several Enghshmen came up to us on the pier and inquired the last accounts of the King's health. I was happy to be able to give rather an improved report, but could not hold out much hope that his life would be spared beyond a very few days. It is frightful to contemplate the probable consequences at this moment of his death ; but God's ways are inscrutable, and " from seeming evil still producing good," He may, perhaps, on this occasion at once disappoint the expectations of the enemies and the forebodings of the friends of our country. ' At the Custom-house, operations being completed, we left Calais about an hour and a half after landing, and took the road to Brussels. Being five in the carriage, but the two little boys only reckoned as one, we started with four horses and one postillion.' From Brussels they went, passing over the field of Waterloo, to Namur, Luxembourg, and Treves — where the journal ends abruptly — and thence by way of Basle to Switzerland. In August of the following year he went to the Continent again, this time under happier auspices, for he was accompanied by Lady Lincoln, and on arriving at Coblentz they were joined by their children. His journal is no longer the medium for the expression of his inmost feelings. It records simply the occurrences of the journey, and his impressions of what he sees. He and his wife travelled in a britzka, which they bought at Frankfort. A second carriage followed with their children, aged four and a half and two, to whom the long days', and sometimes nights', journeys, and the uncertain fare and accommodation of Continental posting-inns, must have been sufficiently trying. No 1844] LINCOLN IN PEEL'S GOVERNMENT 49 greater mishap is recorded than the sudden breaking off, about a mile out of Baden, of the dickey of the new britzka, 'A crash and a scream, and the two servants were heels uppermost on the road.' They travelled by Frankfort, Heidelberg, Baden, Freiburg, Basle, Schaffhausen, and Constance to Munich. He is full of admiration of the treasures of the Pinacothek and Glyptothek, and of all the works of art that the King of Bavaria had collected and displayed. From Munich they proceeded to the Bavarian Alps, the Tegernsee, Innsbruck, the Finstermiinz and Stelvio Passes, then comparatively little known, to the Lake of Como, and to Milan — where the journal, as before, abruptly ceases — and whence they went on afterwards to Rome for the winter, and returned to England in March. When at length the General Election of 1841 put Sir Robert Peel again in office, Lincoln, who had re tained his seat for South Nottinghamshire at every election without a contest, was given a place in the Government as Commissioner of Woods and Forests. In this capacity he had the superintendence of royal and public lands, parks, and buildings. This entailed business of varied character, sometimes very im portant, and sometimes very trivial. As to the latter, the following letter may serve as a specimen of what even a Minister has sometimes to attend to : ' Windsor, 'May 25, 1844. ' Complaints have been made to me of Lady A. C, who has apartments in Hampton Court Palace looking into the gardens, having gathered roses from the best standards in those gardens, but also having renewed her old practice of throwing a quantity of rubbish from her windows on the terrace walk. This practice so PUBLIC WORKS [ch. in. was stopped a few years ago on my representing the circumstances to Lord Bessborough. I beg leave also to mention to your Lordship that Lady N. H. and her daughters, who occupy apartments in the Palace, are in the constant habit, although repeatedly cautioned not to do so, of gathering the flowers. Both of these parties appear to think that they have a vested right in the gardens as occupiers of apartments in the Palace. ' Perhaps your Lordship, therefore, would be kind enough to have an official communication made to them on the subject, or else to the Lord Chamberlain.' On the other hand, many important public works and improvements in London and elsewhere were undertaken during his tenure of office, and he was fre quently in communication with Sir Robert Peel about them. There are letters about the making of Victoria Park, Battersea Park, the Chelsea Embankment, the Conservatory at Kew, the placing of the lions in Trafalgar Square, the disposal of the apartments at Hampton Court, the purchase of the Osborne estate for the Queen and Prince Albert, etc. In almost all these matters the Queen and Prince took a keen interest, and plans and estimates had to be transmitted to them. As the royal family increased, the accom modation at Buckingham Palace became insufficient. The estimate for the additions and improvements, including the removal of the Marble Arch, which then stood in front of the Palace, amounted to no less than ;^99,5oo; and it was proposed to provide part of this by selling the Pavilion at Brighton, which was valued at .£^60,000. A proposal of the Metropolitan Improvement Com missioners as to the Thames Embankment between Vauxhall and Battersea Bridge, which involved the throwing open to the public of the grounds of Chelsea Hospital, was objected to by Sir Edward Paget, the 1845] CHELSEA HOSPITAL 51 Governor. Lincoln wrote (March i, 1845)10 the Duke of Wellington about it, and a correspondence ensued, in the course of which the Duke wrote as follows : ' I have received your letter, which I have again referred to the authorities of Chelsea Hospital. . . . ' I must protest against any arrangement which will have the effect of debarring the inhabitants of the Hospital of the privacy, comforts, and tranquillity provided for them by the grace and favour of former monarchs, the predecessors of Her Majesty, and by the benevolence of former Parliaments. ' I am aware that I am pleading in favour of a service not a favourite one in the opinion of the Public, however willing and desirous all may be of availing themselves at any cost of its assistance and exertions in all parts of the world, at both Poles, in the Antipodes, and wherever the spirit of speculation, enterprise, and gain may induce men to send property of the value of a shilling ; and this when it is known that the establishments are barely sufficient for the performance of the existing duties, leaving not a single man in Reserve. ' The Army has within the last fifteen years been deprived of all the great Rewards for services which had been allotted,to its officers for years ; and it is now proposed to deprive the junior officers, non-com missioned officers, and soldiers of the privacy and comfort they enjoy in the existing establishment for their Retreat at Chelsea. 'We are very fond in Modern Times of imitating the Legislation of France. ' I should like to see the Result of a proposition in the French Chambers to throw open to the publick, and to make a publick Road or Walk through the Hotel des Invalides. . . . ' I entertain no doubt that, if this plan should be adopted, we should have the visitors of these Gardens looking in at the windows of the occupiers of the Building, as they do upon the Terrace at Windsor, at my house in the country, and wherever they are ad mitted, to the inconvenience and detriment of the occupiers for whose comfort and convenience this 4—2 52 LINCOLN'S INTIMACY WITH PEEL [ch. m. building and its appurtenances were provided by former sovereigns. ' I should not have considered myself called upon to give my opinion upon a measure over which I had no controul, if your Lordship had not requested it ; but as your Lordship has desired it, I protest against the arrangement proposed. . . .' The Duke of Wellington carried his point. To this letter of his the Chelsea pensioners owed and still owe the preservation of the privacy of their garden. Nor was it without cause that he spoke feelingly, not to say bitterly, of the estimation in which the army was held at that time — in the twenties, thirties, and forties. Among the working-class a mill-girl who walked on Sunday with a soldier would be sent to Coventry by her fellows ; and amongst the politicians who claimed to be most enlightened a standing army had come to be looked upon as an anachronism, as the obsolete tool of despotisms that were fallen or falling. Within ten years came the awakening and the Nemesis. The Russian war caused a higher value to be put upon British soldiers. But the long neglect could not be remedied in a few months. There was disaster, and then came a sudden demand for scapegoats. But of this hereafter. Lincoln soon proved himself so capable an ad ministrator in his post of Commissioner of Woods and Forests as to attract the notice and win the confidence of the Cabinet, and especially of Sir Robert Peel. The tone of friendliness and intimacy in the latter's letters to him is that of a man writing to an old friend of his own standing, rather than of a Prime Minister to a colleague half his age. Peel was a very sensitive and a very reserved man, who had few intimates. In Lincoln he seems to have found an admiring disciple, 1845] LINCOLN IN THE CABINET 53 modest and teachable, able and industrious, reticent and safe, to whom it was a pleasure and a relief to him to give his confidence. In January, 1845, a seat in the Cabinet became vacant by Mr. Gladstone's resignation. Peel showed his appreciation of Lincoln's merits by giving it to him, and from that time seems to have consulted him more than almost anyone else, so that he came to be looked upon as not unlikely in the remote future to take Peel's place as leader of the Con servative party. At this time, and for some years afterwards, he occupied a more prominent position amongst the leaders of his party than either Sidney Herbert or Gladstone, though the latter was his senior by a year, and had been in the Cabinet before him. His seat in the Cabinet soon brought him heavier anxieties and responsibilities than those belonging to his own department. The ultra-Protestants among the Conservatives, comprising at that time a numerous body of the laity, and the great majority of the clergy, though they gave their party allegiance to Peel as in duty bound, had never forgotten or forgiven his change of front on the Catholic Emancipation question ; and when early in 1845 he brought in his Bill for increasing the endowment of the Roman Catholic College at May nooth, their indignation broke out. Lincoln, as usual, gave hearty support to Peel, which, as was to be expected, greatly annoyed his father. The latter writes in his diary : ' To my shame and my unspeakable regret, Lincoln has made a speech upon the Maynooth measure, throwing himself headlong into it, identifying himself with all its evils and great evil-doer, and kicking over every principle in which he has been educated, and to 54 THE CORN-LAW CRISIS [ch. in. which I believed him to be firmly attached. ... I am grievously and deeply hurt at this.' A graver crisis was at hand. Throughout Peel's administration the controversy between the partisans of Protection of Agriculture and of Free Trade had been carried on with continually increasing vehemence. To maintain the ' landed and agricultural interest ' was recognized as one of the first duties of a Conservative Government, and the general opinion had long been that this could not be done without a protective duty on corn sufficient to maintain its price at an amount remunerative to the various classes concerned in its production. Hitherto the Whigs, who formed the bulk of the Opposition, had not challenged the expediency of retaining a corn duty of some kind, and most of them differed from the Conservatives only as to details, such as whether the duty should be fixed, or dependent on a sliding scale according to its price in the market. The only uncompromising opponents of a duty of any kind had hitherto been the members of the Anti-Corn-Law League. Peel had in successive Budgets repealed the duties on a nuniber of articles in common use, imposing an income-tax to supply the deficiency of revenue thus surrendered. This policy had been attended with great success. The revenue had increased beyond all expectation or precedent. Instead of the deficiencies which had of late been the rule, each year showed a substantial surplus, while prices were lowered and many necessaries, as well as luxuries, became cheaper. Men began to ask why a policy which had met with such success in respect to other imports should not be applied to corn. The strength and persistency of i845] THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE 55 the Anti-Corn-Law League grew from session to session, and Ministers began to have a difficult task to defend — as they, however, as yet continued to do without flinching — the duty on corn The crisis came in November, 1845. The ungenial spring of that year had been followed by a rainy summer and a still more rainy autumn. The harvest throughout the country was seriously deficient both in quantity and quality. In Ireland the potato-disease had taken such hold of the crop as to cause the gravest apprehensions as to the supply of food for the coming year. On November i Peel called the Cabinet together, and placed before it the Reports of the Irish Com missioners on the potato-crop, which was that half the potatoes were ruined, and no one could guarantee the remainder. This in a country where the staple food was potatoes meant nothing less than impending famine. Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark, which were similarly situated in regard to the potato- crop, were taking energetic measures, opening the ports, suspending the duty, and buying corn. Peel proposed the same thing for England, and by opening the ports to make a preparation for the abolition of the Corn Laws.* In this proposal only three of his colleagues in the Cabinet were prepared to support him, and the question had to be postponed. On November 5 Lincoln wrote to Peel, expressing his opinion that the Corn Laws could not long be maintained, and suggesting that in the session preceding the next Dissolution — that was to say, in the next session but one — Peel should announce his intention to propose * Memorandum by Prince Albert, ' Queen Victoria's Letters,' vol, ii., P-57. 56 PEEL TENDERS HIS RESIGNATION [ch. in. to the new Parliament, when it should meet, a modi fication or abolition of the Corn Laws, coupled with some measure of relief to those who would be injuri ously affected thereby. Peel, however, pointed out that this course would involve during the ensuing session either a silence which it would be impossible for Ministers to maintain, or a sham defence of a Corn Law which they had secretly condemned and were intending to repeal. Such a position would be intolerable. On November 25 Peel again proposed to the Cabinet the opening of the ports, to be followed by the abolition of the Corn Laws. This time it met with more support ; but the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanley withheld their assent, and other Ministers, including the Duke of Wellington, gave their support apparently unwillingly. Moreover, the delay of nearly a month since the proposal was first made had been unfortunate. Public opinion had in the meantime declared itself strongly against the Corn Laws, and Lord John Russell had just published his Letter from Edinburgh announcing his conversion to Free Trade. Under these circumstances Peel resolved to tender his resignation, and on December 6 went to see the Queen at Osborne, and advised that Lord John Russell should be sent for, leaving a memorandum with the Queen to the effect that he would promise his support to him, or to any Minister the Queen might select, in settling a measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Lord John Russell was commissioned by the Queen to form a Government. Armed with Peel's memor andum, he endeavoured to do so, but the difficulties proved insurmountable, and he had to give up the 1845] PEEL'S ASCENDANCY 57 attempt. Peel, therefore, summoned his Cabinet, and informed them* ' that he had not summoned them for the purpose of deliberating on what was to be done, but for the purpose of announcing to them that he was the Queen's Minister, and, whether supported or not, was firmly resolved to meet Parliament, and to propose such measures as the public exigencies required.' Such was Peel's ascendancy over his colleagues, and so complete their faith in his wisdom and patriotism, that with the single exception of Lord Stanley's, not a voice was raised in opposition, and with that one exception all consented to stand by him, and to take the bold course of meeting Parliament and proposing a policy to which till within a few weeks they had all been in more or less pronounced antagonism. Doubtless in the natural course this change of front would have come about before very long. Peel's intention, before the present crisis arose, had been to announce at the end of the following session that he could not again meet Parliament without proposing some relaxation of the Corn Law. Such a course would have been on many accounts open to serious objection, but at least it would have afforded time for the rank and file of the party to be consulted, if not convinced, and for a frank explanation with the constituencies. As it was, the fear of famine and the suddenness of the crisis had prematurely forced Peel's hand. He had become all at once the powerful advocate of a great change which he was pledged to the country to oppose. What could he answer when he was charged with having betrayed his friends ? * ' Letters of Queen Victoria,' vol. ii., p. 73. 58 LINCOLN AT DUBLIN [ch. hi. On the whole, the verdict of history has been that he was right ; that what he did had to be done, and could not have been well done by anyone else, or in any other way, as things were. But the shock to public feeling was a very painful one, and entailed grievous conse quences. It at once shattered the Tory party, which formed the majority of the House of Commons. It shook faith in the consistency and reliability of states men — for if Peel and his Ministers could not be relied upon, what statesmen could be ? — and weakened the bonds of political allegiance. It set father against son, son against father, and friend against friend. It left a great party without leaders, and statesmen of the first rank without a party. For four years, to the day of his death, it kept Peel himself out of office, and left the Government of the country in far inferior hands. In conclusion, it ultimately led to a coalition in which there was little mutual confidence or unity of purpose, and thus contributed materially to the outbreak of a long and sanguinary war. Lord Stanley's resignation had left the Colonial Office at Peel's disposal. He appointed Gladstone, who by accepting it vacated his seat for Newark. Under the circumstances, as the Duke of Newcastle's nominee he was naturally doubtful about his recep tion by his constituents. He therefore wrote to the Duke to ask if he had another candidate in view, and when the latter replied in the affirmative, he, after some further correspondence, withdrew, and remained for some time without a seat. It was Lincoln's turn next. In February, 1846, he was offered and accepted the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. This vacated his seat. Six times he had been returned for South Netting- 1846] LINCOLN'S ADDRESS 59 hamshire, and on every occasion without opposition. This time, as he well knew, his re-election would be strenuously opposed, and the contest would be for personal as well as for other reasons a painful one for him. His address was carefully considered be tween him and Peel, and under the peculiar circum stances of the time came to be regarded as a Ministerial manifesto. The essential parts of it ran as follows : ' February 7, 1846. 'When a few days ago I received the formal announcement of a resolution passed unanimously at a meeting of the Nottinghamshire Agricultural Pro tection Association, calling upon me to resign my seat — a resolution in which my " honour " was openly assailed — my first impulse was to comply with the demand, and instantly appeal from that meeting to the whole constituency by a new election. Reflection, how ever, and a deep sense of constitutional obligations forbade that course. 'The Constitution does not recognize the right of a member of Parliament to divest himself of the trust confided to him. It has not even given him the power to do so. The resignation of his seat can only be accomplished by a fiction, by a request for a nominal office at the hands of the Crown. The principle of delegation is at variance with the spirit of our institutions, and those who demur to the expe diency of annual parliaments are bound to resist such a call as that which has been made upon me, come from whom it may. ' I know that others situated like myself have lately yielded to a keen sensibility of what was due to their honour called in question as mine has been. I honour and respect their motives, whilst I deprecate the step they have taken, and fear that they hardly foresee the consequences of their example. ' Neither they nor I were sent to Parliament as Agents or Advocates of one interest in preference to others, but as members of a deliberative assembly bound to legislate for the good of all, for the interest of a nation as a whole. Of that whole you form an im- 6o LINCOLN'S ADDRESS [ch. in. portant part, and in my conscience I believe that neither have I heretofore done, nor am I now doing, that of which in calmer times you will have reason to complain. ' I am told that I shall be opposed by a candidate put forward by the Agricultural Protection Society. Let me warn you of the danger of submitting to the dictation of any political association or club, hovvever respectable may be its members. That danger is in creased when, as in the case of the Protection Society, such a Club is, if not affiliated to, at least in direct communication with and acting under the direction of a central body sitting in London. Believe me, such a system is fraught with mischief to all interests, but especially that which this society professes to protect. ' Whilst, however, I repudiate the principle of being your delegate, and claim the high position of your representative, I freely recognize your right to the fullest and most explicit expression of my opinions upon all political subjects. ... 'In 1 84 1, honestly, and not from any party motives, I advocated measures for what is now called " Pro tection of Native Industry." Mature reflection, con stant and anxious consideration of the subject, atten tion year after year to the arguments brought forward in the House on the one side and on the other — above all, the experience ofthe last few years — have convinced me, not that the Corn Laws alone should be abolished, but that our whole commercial system should be sub jected to a great and bold and comprehensive revision. ' This change of opinion has not come suddenly upon me. Three years ago my confidence in the principles of Protection was greatly shaken. Last year I felt that they had become indefensible. Still, looking to the mischief of any violent shock to party attachment (not for the sake of the leaders of party, but for the sake of public confidence), and conscious of the peculiar circumstances under which the present Parliament was elected, I felt anxious that, if possible, this great and inevitable change should be postponed till after the next dissolution of Parliament. This, however, I had firmly resolved — that I would never again appear before you on the hustings without an express stipulation that I should be free to vote for the repeal of the Corn Laws. 1846] LINCOLN'S ADDRESS 6i ' But in the autumn of last year it pleased Providence to visit our Country, and more especially the sister Island, with an infliction which some have ventured to doubt — nay, even to deride, but the alarming extent oi which I greatly fear has yet to be unfolded. Thus the desires of politicians have been frustrated, the calculations of statesmen have been thwarted. What would have been praiseworthy caution and deference to existing circumstances in times of abun dance and prosperity, would now be culpable neglect, or a slavisn submission to the fear of reproach and personal odium. ' The Government has been compelled by an im perative sense of duty to bring forward at once a final settlement of these questions, for none but a final settlement — no half-measures, no temporizing expe dients — could ever again be entertained ; and I am prepared to adopt my full share of the responsibility which must attach to the members of a Government which has endeavoured to reconcile in a great and comprehensive scheme the various, but not conflicting, interests of the Country. . . .' This address is not very forcible or very conclusive. Doubtless it is a principle of the first importance to insist that a member of Parliament is a representative entitled to the exercise of his discretion, not a delegate to be stuffed with the opinions of his constituents ; but it is one thing to claim freedom of action even to the extent, within reasonable limits, of changing opinions ; it was quite another thing for a Member to assert a right without offering himself for re-election, to oppose principles which he had not only consented to support, but which he knew to be such as his con stituents, rightly or wrongly, deemed of such para mount importance that they would not have elected him had he not accepted them. Nor is it any indica tion of the resignation of a seat in Parliament being unconstitutional that it can be effected only by a legal 62 FATHER AND SON [ch. ni. fiction. Legal fictions have been often indispensable for ordinary everyday transactions. For instance, at that time no land could he bought or sold without the legal fiction of John Doe and Richard Roe. In coming forward again for South Nottingham shire, Lincoln had to take into account other considera tions besides public ones. The Duke of Newcastle's indignation with him for his support of the Maynooth Bill had been intensified when he proceeded to support Peel in his abandonment of the Corn Laws. If the son had been following, not without pain, the dictates of his conscience, the father was far too conscientious and public-spirited to allow private ties to interfere with what he deemed to be a public duty, and he set himself vigorously to work to oppose Lincoln's election. After issuing his address, the latter at once began his canvass. He wrote to Peel almost every day to report progress. ' Nottingham, ' February 9, 1846. ' I have made a good start. At daybreak I retained all the Solicitors in the County, so that my opponent will have no legal agents who know the country well. Before nine o'clock an admirable staff of canvassers was organized, and set off two and two to scour one half of the division before nightfall. ' The Whigs and Radicals have behaved most hand somely and generously, and not less discreetly. Be fore ten o'clock they had a meeting at the house of their leader, and organized a separate and independent committee of their own body, to act for me zealously and actively, but so as not to prejudice my cause with my own friends. The correspondent of the League in London must not write or appear to interfere. ' I have already called upon two large landowners some way out of Nottingham. One of them has promised me his support ; the other, Sir Jukes Clifton, 1846] THE CANVASS 63 refused, but I doubt whether he will oppose me. He is married to a connexion of yours, whom (for her sake) I hope he loves better than he does you. ' I am now (two o'clock) going to call on several influential people between here and Newark, and can vass that neighbourhood to-morrow. I am in good heart, and do not admit the possibility of being beaten. . . .' To this Peel replied with almost boyish glee at the excitement of the contest : , ' I am delighted with your report received this morning. Lord Essex and Lord Camden send in their adhesion. Lord Aylesford is beginning- to waver, and will end in supporting, I believe. I sup pose my brother, John Peel, can do nothing with Sir Somebody Clifton. I will, however, write to him. 'Young's calculation is 310 or perhaps 320 against 200. Private: I have thoughts of vacating West minster and fighting a battle at the door of Parliament. ' Did you see the defeat of Sir Gorgeous Provender* by Lord John Hay ? ' St. G 's dignity as Cabinet Minister has been dreadfully wounded. He undertook at Lady Palmer ston's on Saturday to give the most positive contra diction to your acceptance of office ; was horror-struck on receiving my box on Sunday, and foolish enough to write to Graham and complain of the secrecy. ' Rous accepts and vacates Westminster. Let us carry Notts and Westminster.' Lincoln writes again to Peel the next day : 'February lo, 1846. ' Mr. Norton has been withdrawn as unpopular, and Mr. Hildyard (a young Squire of some property and a good family) started yesterday. A most active canvass IS carried on for him; the farmers volunteer in all quarters, and - all my oldest and staunchest friends amongst the Yeomanry are the most violent against me. * Nickname for Sir George Warrender, who was said to be addicted to good living. 64 CANVASSING [ch. in. ' Of course, I can say nothing as to prospects yet. The election is fixed for Saturday week, and the polling Monday and Tuesday;. ' The Duke of Rutland declines to support . . . Lord Brownlow also stands neuter — Lord Manvers the same. In all these cases the tenants will go against me. Lord Howe is the only Peer who gives me a hearty support, and I fear his Tenants will not attend to his wishes, ' My present impression is that it will (in spite of the fearful odds against me) be a fine race.' And again the next day : ' Newark, 'February ii, 1846. ' To-day was market-day here. I went into the Corn Market and made them a speech— rather as a preliminary to the nomination than as any attempt to explain the measure, which time and the business of the market rendered undesirable. I courted ques tions, however, and found one catechizer. ' What I said was well received by many and kindly and civilly by all, and I have since been told (con trary to the House of Commons practice) my speech gained me several votes. I find my exertions gradu ally telling, and my long popularity is to some extent returning and shaking the determination of those who had resolved to oppose me. . . . Nothing can be said at present, but 1 tnink my prospects improve. I go into the hornets' nest to-morrow. And from Newark a week later : ' February 18, 1846. ' My prospects mend day by day. At the same time it is only fair to say the chances are against me. My personal exertions have done more than I could have ventured to hope, but time is wanting, and it has been the most desperate and uphill contest that you can conceive. ' Do you think the Duke of Wellington would mind writing to Sir Arthur Clifton for me? He is a General in the Army, and I am told a line from the Duke would ¦ secure me his ten votes. Even one vote may be of 1846] FATHER AND SON 65 consequence, for the indisposition to vote against me increases daily. I spoke again in the market-place here to-day. My opponent has shown himself nowhere in public' Ten votes, one way or the other, were destined to be of no consequence. Lincoln polled only 1,049 votes to Hildyard's 1,736. Whatever the result was likely to be, it would have been no more than a becoming and dutiful course for Lincoln to take, if, following Gladstone's example at Newark, he had retired from the constituency, and waited till an opportunity offered for securing a seat elsewhere. He relied mainly on the personal support given to him by his constituents indepen dently of his political opinions, whom he may have conceived he had no right to disappoint by with drawing. But in reference to personal confidence, it is to be remembered that he had been returned in the first instance, when only twenty-one and wholly un known — displacing without a contest a member of the opposite party — simply and solely by his father's interest and because he was his father's son. The result showed that he had overestimated his own personal share in the causes which for fourteen years had made his seat a secure one. His father-in-law's, the Duke of Hamilton's, view of the matter is expressed in the following letter : ' Hamilton Palace, 'February ii, 1846. ' Report says that you are gone down to secure your re-election for your division of Notts in opposi tion to your Father — a step a Father can never approve. Instead of opposing the Duke, go to him, fall upon your knees, and ask his blessing and his support. A son cannot humiliate himself before his God or his parent. 5 66 FATHER AND SON [ch. nt ' You know how much I admire your ambition and exult in your success. If you are committed, can my name assist you ? I have no money to offer at present, but if you can secure a thousand pounds for your election by my putting my name to yours, and thus making a double security, do it directly.' The warm but qualified sympathy with which this letter is written gives a just estimate of the situa tion. Father and Son were each firmly, the former almost fanatically, convinced that his political prin ciples were demonstrably true and right. Immeasur ably superior as Lincoln was to his Father in ability, industry, judgment, self-restraint, and in everything that makes a man distinguished, he was, like him, deficient in sense of proportion, in imagination, and in the power of seeing a matter from 'any other than his own standpoint ; otherwise he might have reflected that no such stress of public obligation lay upon him to be returned for that particular con stituency as to counterbalance the harm he was doing by exhibiting to the world the unseemly spectacle of a man of high and prominent position carrying on a strenuous political contest in opposition to his own Father — a contest which as a public example was fraught with evil, and in its private effects would widen a breach henceforth never in all likelihood to be closed again. To the credit of both, one cannot but note that had either been a man of less strict principle, and possessed a less inflexible sense of public duty, the antagonism would have been less marked ; so true is the prophecy: 'Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth. I tell you nay, but rather division. . . . The Father shall be divided against the Son, and the Son against the Father.' After reading the ardent and constantly recurring 1846] DEEPENING SHADOWS 6j expressions of affection and admiration for his Son which occur in the pages of his journal during the latter's boyhood and early youth, it is painful to mark the transition, first to coolness and disapproval, then to deep resentment, and finally to total estrangement, which lasted almost — happily not quite — to the end of his life. For years they did not even meet. Nor did the old man — and it was a great privation to him — see his grandchildren. The journal records how he met two of them, a boy and a girl, in June, 1849, quite accidentally, at the Zoological Gardens : ' I looked at the boy,' he says in the journal, ' with wonder, for I could not recognize a feature of his countenance, or see any likeness to his family. The girl, I afterwards found, I had even touched as I passed her on the walk, and heard her voice, but did not know her, though she is less altered than the boy. I subsequently came up to them . . . and renewed my acquaintance with them. It must be five or six years since I have seen them. They were very civil and well behaved as to a stranger, and stared at me very much, but showed no emotion.' This is the very last entry in the long and painful record of that mournful life, over which the shadows were deepening yet more as it drew to its close. His estrangement was not from Lincoln only among his children. His melancholy temperament, narrow judgment, and stiff formal rule of conduct, had cast a gloom over the home, and if respect for him was preserved, affection was chilled or frozen. As far back as Christmas, 1843, he writes that, though, to his great satisfaction, four daughters and three sons — all, that is, of his family who were at home — had, as usual, taken the Sacrament with him at church, yet 5—2 68 TROUBLES [ch. hi 'this period now only forms a contrast to what has been. Happiness is no longer among us. . . . All get together away from me, as if my presence were something noxious. . . . Vice is not the cause, for they are virtuously minded and good ; but something possesses them which I cannot account for.' In public matters experience and rebuffs had failed to teach him reticence and discretion. In April, 1839, he wrote as Lord Lieutenant to the Lord Chancellor, objecting to an appointment which the latter had made to the Nottinghamshire magistracy of a Liberal and a Dissenter, and in such disrespectful terms that the Chancellor courteously invited him to withdraw his letter. On his refusal to do so, he received his dis missal from the lieutenancy. He took the corre spondence to the Duke of Wellington, who told him, civilly but very plainly, that he had had no worse treatment than he deserved, and that the Queen's Government could not be carried on if officials were permitted to show as little respect to their superiors as he had done. He then went to Peel, who sug gested a semi-apologetic letter, and even corrected the draft of it when it was written ; but it was too late to be of any avail. To his credit — judging from the journal, which contains no complaint — in the end he took his rebuff well, as though convinced at last that it was deserved ; but it must have wounded him deeply. Other troubles also were pressing upon him. In spite of his ample estate, his incapacity in matters of business, his extravagance, and his inordinate desire to increase his landed property, brought him into ever-increasing difficulties. In 1833 he had purchased an estate at Hafod, near Aberystwyth, to which he afterwards added some adjoining properties. In 1838 j,' j,' J, 1846] AND EMBARRASSMENTS 69 he had bought for £370,000 a large estate of the Duke of Norfolk near Worksop. So little did he realize the imprudence of what he was doing that he records with evident satisfaction : ' My purchases have amounted altogether in Not tinghamshire within the last two years to not less than £450,000, little short of half a million of money, which is pretty well for one who has no capital at command. There can be but one end to unlimited purchases of land with borrowed money. He became by degrees largely in debt, independently of his mortgages. The Hafod estate was sold in 1845, and some more of his property afterwards ; but it was too late, and he was at last constrained to give up the control of his affairs and make over everything, even the management of his own household, to trustees. Gradually his health and strength failed. The entries in his journal become intermittent, and in May, 1850, cease altogether. Sidney Herbert, writing to Lincoln when he was travelling in the East, says : ' January 17, 1850. ' Before I say a word about your children, I must tell you, lest others should not, that I hear that in his late illness your father spoke with great kindness and affection about yourself I hope this is a sign that when you return you may be like father and son again.' The hope was fulfilled. Lincoln, in a letter to his friend Bonham, dated from Clumber, September 25, 1850, writes : ' Your old and warm friendship prompts this line. I arrived here on Monday in consequence of my 70 DEATH OF THE FOURTH DUKE [ch. ni father's serious illness. He received me kindly, but he is in too sadly enfeebled a condition to say more than a few words. He is happily quite free from pain, and is suffering from no actual disease, but appears gradually quitting life from decay of the power to sustain it. . . .' He lingered on till January, nearly completing his sixty-sixth year, and then the troubled, weary, lonely spirit sank to its rest. Lincoln writes to Gladstone : ' Clumber, 'January 20, 1851. ' ... It is to me a great consolation that all estrange ments were at an end some time before the last scene, and that my poor father died at peace with all his family, and, I hope and believe, with all the world. . . . The funeral will take place to-morrow. None will attend it but relatives and tenants, as I have wished it to be as the last tribute of respect paid by one large family f . . .' CHAPTER IV the peelites in their TENTS Lincoln Chief Secretary for Ireland-^Measures to relieve the famine — Elected for Falkirk Boroughs — Resignation of Peel — Confusion of parties — Lincoln declines to stand for Manchester — The Gorham judgment — Tour in the East — -Death of Peel. In March, 1846, immediately after his unsuccessful contest in South Nottinghamshire, Lincoln went to Dublin to take up the work of his new office. It was at the time when the effects of the potato disease, which had been at its worst since the previous autumn, were beginning to be severely felt, and there was an impending dariger of actual famine, which required to be met by vigorous and exceptional measures. A Scarcity Commission had been appointed, but appa rently little had yet been done. Lincoln writes to Sir Robert Peel : ' Dublin Castle, ' March 24, 1846. ' Throughout the whole of this day the waiting- room has been filled with a succession of persons pressing to see me, and my room has not been empty for an instant. I am unable, therefore, to fulfil' my promise of writing in detail to-day, which I extremely regret, but could not avoid. . . . 'We must, if possible, have at least four Steamers sent here for the depots. I will show you by figures to-morrow that next to nothinghas yet been done in this respect. I have seen Sir Lucius O'Brien and others, who give an alarming account of Clare and Limerick,' 71 72 THE IRISH FAMINE [ch. iv He writes again to Peel : ^ 'Dublin Castle, 'March 26, 1846. ' I see by the newspapers from England this morn ing that Shaw has endeavoured to show by figures that the reports of the scarcity and dearness of potatoes are mere inventions, and that prices are not unusually high, and no real apprehension of famine exists. ' I have endeavoured in the short interval since I read the speech to collect you some facts and figures in case you should intend to speak to - morrow night. ' You will see that in Cork the price of potatoes is nearly double that of last year; that in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin potatoes are selling at eight pence per stone ; that in other places they can hardly be obtained at any price. In the great majority of electoral divisions there has been a considerable rise (instead oi fall, as Shaw stated) in the price since the Parliamentary Return. I also enclose two letters received this morning and an extract from the report of the Dublin Mendicity Society, dated February 16, and a statement from that Society made this after noon of the price of provisions and the unprecedented numbers of Poor admitted this day.' Lincoln set to work with his lisual vigour and industry to master the situation and to direct the ex penditure of the grants authorized to be made by the Treasury for road -making and other works which were to be set in operation to give employment to the half-starved people. In reply to a complaint of official obstruction which he had made to Sir Robert Peel, the latter writes (April 7) : ' I will support you to the utmost in resisting the presumptuous interference of Colonel C. with your arrangements.' One of the conditions of a grant of money for road- making was that the landowner who would be in- 1846] RELIEF WORKS 73 directly benefited should contribute a certain portion of the cost — a salutary rule, no doubt, in ordinary times, but quite inadmissible at a crisis when most landowners were penniless. Lincoln writes to Peel : ' Dublin Castle, 'Aprils, 1846. ' I am sorry to have again to trouble you upon the matter of the works to be executed for the relief of distress and the position in which we once more stand with the Treasury in regard to them. ' I enclose copies of three letters, all received this morning, by which the sanction of the Treasury is given to a few small works, not amounting in all to £2,000, and approval is suspended in all the other cases recommended by the Board of Works, amounting to several thousand pounds. ' I have no hesitation in saying that, if these cases are to be met in this way, the Irish Government must be relieved of all responsibility if the most serious conseqtiences ensue. ' I do not dispute the wisdom of the Treasury rules in ordinary times . . . but it appears to be forgotten that the works are undertaken now as a means of feeding the people, as a preferable alternative to giving them eleemosynary aid. Mr. T. appears to go upon the principle that because somebody will be benefited by these works, therefore they ought not to be undertaken at the joint expense of the State and the District. . . . ' Now, how stands the matter as regards all neces sary checks upon such applications as Mr. T.'s letters appear intended to guard against? Every application for these works comes in the first instance to this office. The Act requires that they should so come. Here they are carefully examined to see that they are in proper and legal form. . . . They are then sent to the Relief Commission. Here they are examined in reference to the state of the locality, which state is accurately known by the monthly returns sent up from every district by the Magistracy and the Constabulary under the directions issued by 74 RELIEF MEASURES [ch. iv the Commission. No application, therefore, passes this ordeal unless distress exists in a locality to such an extent as to render relief b;^ such work necessary. The only remaining matter of inquiry, then, is whether the work in itself is of such a nature as ought to be undertaken, and whether, when undertaken, it will give the required emplojrment. To obtain this infor mation the application is referred to the Board of Works, and it is investigated on the spot by the machinery which has been organized since I came here. . . . ' Really the task undertaken is no light one, and if you wish your intentions to be really carried out, and the promises made in the House of Commons to be fulfilled, some confidence must be placed in those upon whom you have devolved these arduous and respon sible duties. I do not ask for implicit confidence, still less for freedom from all proper restraint; but the Battle of the ' Sutlej ' would never have been won if T. had been within twenty - four hours' post of Hardinge's camp, armed with power to regulate all his movements. . . ' I had an interview yesterday with two clergymen from a wild district in Cork — the Protestant Vicar and the Roman Catholic Priest. I never was more touched by any statement. The very fact of these two having travelled up together on this errand of charity was in itself interesting. Their population is 14,000. Scarcely any potatoes are left ; only 300 have employment ; the great proprietor is a beggar ; only one gentleman of small means resident ; and these two clergymen have raised from those who are just above starvation, and may be themselves reduced to it in two or three months, upwards of £400 to buy Indian meal for those who have now neither food nor work. I promised to recommend Lord Heytesbury to give them £300 to add to their little fund. This he has done, and they have gone home to cheer the hearts of their flocks, and I have no doubt will impress upon them the paternal feelings of the Government towards them. ' Do let us endeavour to elicit some good out of this great calamity. To do this we must be able to act promptly, and to give— not grudgingly, and when all 1846] 'BIS DAT QUI CITO DAT' 75 grace has departed from the gift, but generously, and the moment when it is wanted, though, of course, not wantonly or without full inquiry. I hope and think SLich a mode of proceeding will meet with some gratitude in Ireland, and but little disapproval in England.' In another letter to Peel of April 1 1, he says : ' I have a letter to-day from Stafford O'Brien, who went to his place in Clare close to Limerick last week. I do not know whether, like other Protectionists, he went down to scojf, but I do know that he has re mained there to pray — to pray for aid, instantaneous Government assistance. He writes that they " must have help " ; that it is " a question of days or even of hours " ; that unless I am willing to discard the usual "routine" of the Irish Government, and act in the " execution of the purpose for which all Govern ments are constituted, ' responsibility for the issue must rest with the Government after the warning he has given. He says that the letters of his neighbours applying for the commencement of works have been " formally acknowledged," but that they have waited till it seems like mockery. I need not ask you what must be — what ought to be done ; the feelings of any man who receives such a letter as this, and by the same post one from Mr. T. coolly refusing sanction to several works in this very county of Clare, in which scarcely a potato remains — the people are on the verge of starvation, and provision riots have begun ! ' In justice to O'Brien, I ought to add that he has made provision for all his own people, and says he shall continue to do so without any Government aid. 'O'Brien, however, at least, in spite of T., shall not make a case against the Government as long as I am here. By this night's Mail I shall send down a trusty person with a credit which I have obtained from Lord Heytesbury. He will see Mr. O'Brien to-morrow, and on Monday morning there shall be work found for those who are in want of food. ' But mark the consequence. I shall get the credit f^ MAYNOOTH [ch. iv for this individually. This is far from my wish. The Government, of which I am a member, ought to share in it — I wish them to do so — but if they throw upon_ one of their body the responsibility of acting in opposition to their directions, the credit of doing what is right and necessary will, in spite of his wish to the con trary, attach to the individual, and not to the Government. ' Again I find that I have written a long letter, which I never intended when I began. I wish the necessity may not again occur, and that Mr. T. may be prevented from causing you as well as me so much trouble and annoyance. ' Since I began this letter I have seen Mr. Griffith, and have arranged with him to go down to Limerick. Captain Larcom can do the work here in his absence, and he will remain in those parts a few days, and make me a report from personal observation of the state of Clare and Limerick.' The following letter and Gladstone's reply to it have reference to the latter's change of views as to the status of the Established Church in Ireland since he wrote his book on ' Church and State.' In consonance with that change he had voted for the Maynooth Grant, and to avoid the imputation of being actuated in so doing by interested motives, had resigned his seat in the Cabinet, which, however, he had since re entered. Lincoln writes to him : 'Dublin Castle, 'March 26, 1846. ' The time approaches for you to go to Wigan, and I am more than ever anxious that you should not break ground there on Irish matters. It is not neces sary now, and in addition to any objections which I felt when we were going to the Duke of Wellington's just before I left London, there are others which have struck me forcibly since I came here, but which would require a far longer letter than I can now possibly find time for. I hope, however, you will gravely con- 1846] GLADSTONE tj sider whether in a place which you can only represent for one year — probably, much less — and at a time like the present, you are at all called upon to say anything on this subject. ' I hope and believe my coming over here has been attended with good. ' Forgive this letter of hortation or expostulation.' Gladstone replied : ' 13, Carlton House Terrace, ' March 28, 1846. ' Your letters, whether hortatory or not, can never be otherwise than acceptable; not least so indeed when they contain advice, for I have often found its value. ' You may rely upon it that my disposition is to say the minimum that honour will admit, and I shall be glad if that minimum be at zero. But it is impossible for me to take your course when I am challenged on Irish matters : first, because you had, as Irish Secre tary, a reason for reserve, which (in part at least) I have not; secondly, because all I have spoken and written on these subjects supplies a reason against silence which you had not. ' The truth is that when I took office in December I had not the smallest idea that the Irish question would press so closely on the heels of the Corn Law, and I imagine that others besides me are taken a little by surprise. I did not know that a " Coercion " Bill was likely to be introduced ; my pursuits lay last year, except when special necessity came upon me, in any thing rather than in politics — my tendency is the literal sense of the old Latin phrase for the negative vote, ire in alia omnia. ' I doubt whether I can do less than indicate the Maynooth Act as a commencement, and as involving a change of future policy. So much I have already done in the H. of Commons. In speaking on that Bill I gave no pledge to maintain the Ecclesiastical pro- gerty of Ireland in its present form of appropriation. ut what I say must depend very much on the anti- Maynooth men, who may choose to poke me more or less. I understand they have been the tools of the 78 THE IRISH CHURCH [ch. iv Protectionist agents in getting up the sham defence of the petition against Lindsay. ' I have, in truth, every motive to make me discreet : the strongest desire not to embarrass the Govern ment; a conviction that they have no strength to spare; a sense not only of the overwhelming im portance, but of the immense extent and complication of the subject (as / view it, with the consequences which I tnink it entails); and lastly, an impression that if my judgment matures itself in its present sense the declaration of it will very possibly break me down and extinguish my public life. I do not mean that this penalty would of itself have much deterring force ; but every man's position, be it what it may, is a trust committed to him, and he must husband it for the purposes for which it was given. ' The change of opinion, or of course, on the ques tion of the Irish Church will be trying to anyone ; but to me it will be rendered, I think, more so, or at least its consequences will be more grave : first, because of the way in which I have declared my own preference for the system which we are abandoning ; secondly, because there will not be wanting those who will assail it, and conscientiously ascribe it to a predilec tion on my own part for the Romish religion. And though I do not think that minds really dispassionate would join in this charge, yet neither do I believe that I could confute it to the satisfaction of persons already possessed by suspicions of me. You have recently had some evidence of the nature of this sentiment, yet there could not be a person in whom it could have less to lay hold of; whereas, in my case, I must own there are circumstances, one in particular (my sister's change of religious profession), which to those who do not know the facts (and few can know them) go far towards making good a prima facie case at least, of secret leaning if not of wilful treachery, against me. ' I have come to no conclusions, nor will I until a practical question is before me ; but nothing can, I think, induce me with the present tendencies of my mind to say one word implying ever so remotely an intention to persevere in maintaining permanently the present application of Church property in Ireland. 1846] LINCOLN M.P. FOR FALKIRK 79 The only principles on which it could have been held we have, as matter of fact, whether rightly or wrongly, abandoned ; the right remaining to us is the right of the strongest, and I am not willing for any considera tion to be a party to the exercise and defence of that right. ' I advise you to read the Archbishop of Armagh's Charge. It is an excellent statement of the case, and he is a true nobleman as well as Christian. ' I wish we had another " enumeration " before our eyes, though how to get it I know not. They talk of progress of the Irish Church, and I should be very flad that she should have the benefit of it when the nal carving comes. ' I hope you find your work endurable, and remain always most sincerely yours.' Lincoln having failed to retain his seat for South Nottinghamshire, had, as soon as practicable, to find another. In May an arrangement was made by which the sitting Member for the Falkirk Boroughs vacated his seat, and by the help of the influence of his father- in-law, the Duke of Hamilton, he was elected in his place, though only by the narrow majority of eleven. It was probably in view of this election that the following letter, which shows how cordial were the relations between the two friends, was written to him by Lord Dalhousie : 'April 7, 1846. ' Be grateful that I have not bothered you. I have had it on the tip of my pen to do so more than once (on Windsor railways especially), but have refrained. ' My present object is to say that if you decide in favour of the seat which is in question for you, and if (which I apprehend is not impossible) it should be troublesome to you to look for the sinews of election elsewhere, I have £1,500 in my banker's hands, which is doing nothing, and which I have no thought of investing, and nothing would give me half the pleasure of knowing that its use was of convenience to you, 8o PEEL'S GOVERNMENT DEFEATED [ch. iv and had saved you trouble and cost with lawyers, etc. 'As to repayment, I assure you with the most perfect sincerity that time and mode are alike in different to me. ' Do not take the trouble to answer this ; on the contrary, burn it.- But do not forget to act upon it, I entreat you.' His term of office in Ireland was not a long one. In June, on the very day when the Corn Laws Repeal Bill passed the House of Lords, Peel's Government was beaten on his Irish Coercion Bill by a nondescript majority composed of Whigs, Radicals, and Pro tectionists. The Whigs testified to the necessity of the measure they voted against by afterwards them selves bringing in a more stringent Coercion Bill than the one they had helped to throw out, and the Pro tectionists justified their vote solely on the expediency of ejecting Peel from office, no matter how, at the first possible opportunity. The debate was very acrimonious. Lord George Bentinck attacked Peel on the subject of his political relations with Canning, twenty years before, with such bitterness that Peel, deeply wounded, and with out deigning to make any reply, left the House with the intention of sending him a challenge. It is indi cative of the close personal relations which existed between him and Lincoln that it was Lincoln to whom he applied to be the bearer of the challenge. The latter, however, positively refused, and when Peel expressed his intention of seeking a second else where, remonstrated long and vehemently with him, and finally, after threatening that if he persisted he would at once give information to the police, with difficulty induced him to abandon his intention. 1846] JOHN RUSSELL, PREMIER 8i On another occasion when Peel, stung by the taunts of Disraeli, had brought with him to the House a letter in which Disraeli had written to him an application for office for himself, it was Lincoln who dissuaded him from reading it to the House. Peel resigned upon being left in a minority on the Coercion Bill. Lord John Russell was sent for by the Queen, and succeeded in forming an Adminis tration, which carried on the Government for a year before dissolving Parliament. So little change of policy was involved in the change of Government that Lord John offered office to Dalhousie, Sidney Herbert, and Lincoln. They all declined. Lincoln's reply was as follows : 'July 2, 1846. ' I received at half-past eleven o'clock last night your letter proposing to me to join the Administration which Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to confide to you the task of forming. My sense of public duty compels me to decline this proposal. I feel strongly that neither the Queen's service nor the good of the country would be promoted by [my] taking office in a Cabinet which displaced by a vote of the House of Commons that to which I lately belonged. ' I cannot also but feel that your Cabinet must be mainly composed of men with whom I have never hitherto acted in public life. My private feelings, how ever, would have been sacrificed if, in my judgment, public duty had led to an opposite conclusion.' The chief sufferers from the confusion and the estrangement of political adherents caused by the course Peel had taken were the Peelites themselves. The Whigs were popular with the middle classes and the Dissenters, owing to the credit they had gained by the Reform Act and by other measures of 6 82 POSITION OF THE PEELITES [ch. iv emancipation which had preceded and followed it; the Protectionists had the support of the farmers and of the majority of the country gentlemen. To the Anti-Corn-Law League and Manchester School was justly given the chief credit for the introduction of the cheap loaf, a sufficiently substantial title to the gratitude of the poorer classes. The Peelites, though their chief stood higher in reputation than any living British statesman, though they had shown by their successful conduct of affairs during the preceding five years that they numbered more men of high adminis trative capacity than any other party in the country, yet commanded but an inconsiderable number of rank and file in the House, represented few important constituencies, and had little following in the country. It was in vain that Lincoln and Sidney Herbert bought the Morning Chronicle to serve as their organ in the Press. Peel announced his intention never to take office again, and his followers remained for rnore than six years of little account, a knot of political critics with no intelligible or clearly defined principles in Church or State, alternately attracted and repelled by one or the other ofthe two great parties in the State, and, in spite of warm, mutual friendships and personal attachments, unable to agree amongst themselves on any definite course of political action. On the question of Free Trade, however, there was no uncertainty as to Peelite principles. In the autumn of 1846 it was known that one of the two Members for Manchester would retire at the next election, and when Bright was brought forward as the League or ultra-Liberal candidate, an attempt was made to induce Lincoln to stand against him. Mr. John Peel wrote to Sir Robert Peel : 1846] MANCHESTER AND BRIGHT 83 ' Manchester, 'October 20, 1846. 'You are doubtless aware it is the intention of a party holding extreme views upon many subjects to bring forward Mr. Bright as a candidate for the representation of this borough at the next General Election. ' I know that the whole of the Conservative party, as well as a large portion of the Whigs and Liberals, are very much averse to the idea of having Mr. Bright as their representative, and they are now looking out for a man of talent and influence. Free Trade opinions, and moderate political principles. ' Several [persons ?] have been named, but the one most [generally?] approved by a majority of the electors appears to be Lord Lincoln, and I have been requested to write to you and ask if you think that, if he could receive a well-founded assurance of being returned free of expense, he would consent to offer himself as a candidate for the representation of Man chester. ' I take the liberty of asking this question of you in strict confidence, having received no public authority for what I am doing, as the persons who are anxious to bring forward Lord Lincoln do not wish his name to be brought before the public without good ground for believing that he would sit for the borough if elected.' On this matter Peel writes to Lincoln : ' Drayton Manor (No date). ' . . . I saw yesterday a gentleman who knows Manchester well. His general report was that the Whigs who professed to be friendly to you were really so ; that the Conservative party, smarting under the recollection of former defeats, were disheartened, and therefore lukewarm ; that Bright was unpopular ; that a great many of the voters wanted to see you, and thought they were entitled to withhold any promise until they had seen you. I do not think he was very sanguine.' 6—2 84 MANCHESTER ELECTION [ch. iv In another letter, speaking of Edward Peel, he writes : ' I think his own impression, from what he knows of Manchester, is that, considering the facilities for organization which the League or the spirit of it still affords. Bright is a formidable competitor.' A large and influentially signed requisition was ob tained asking Lincoln to stand, and his supporters believed that there was a probability of his succeed ing. But the dissolution being yet distant, the contest was sure to be a protracted and arduous one ; and as the issue could not be predicted with anything like certainty, Lincoln in a letter to the Chairman of his Committee (February 23, 1847) finally declined to be a candidate. To Gladstone, then without a seat in Parliament, he writes : 'Whitehall Place, 'February 25, 1847. ' Your curious views are in the main right, I have no doubt. If a dissolution were to take place now I should beat Gibson, but I greatly doubt whether I should do so in six months hence. I have therefore declined the Requisition which was presented to me on Tuesday last. ' I am inclined to think you would be better placed as Representative of almost any other place than the University of Oxford. In office the duties of such a Representative would often clash with duties attach ing to a Minister in these times. It is impossible not to see that they have often been a clog upon Goul burn's own better judgment. ' I am sorry to hear what you say of your Father's political views. To know that he is a strong Pro tectionist almost makes one hesitate as to one's own convictions. ..." The following letter from Peel to Lincoln must have been written in reference to a suggestion of their re joining the Protectionists : 1847] NO TRUCE WITH PROTECTION 85 'Drayton Manor, 'April II, 1847. ' As I have no reserve whatever from you, I send you the accompanying letters. The first is one from Goulburn to me ; the second my reply to Goulburn's letter; the third a letter from Graham, to whom I sent the two first. No other person has seen them, and I have not heard further from Goulburn. ' Whether he has had any communication with Lord Stanley I know not. ' If the latter sentence of Goulburn's letter refers not to the mere opening of a communication with some organ of the Protectionists, but to the effecting a really cordial understanding with them on the basis of agreement in principle on financial and commercial matters, he has a confidence which I have not in the force of mutual attraction.' Lincoln quite agreed with Peel as to the impossi bility of a reconciliation with the Protectionists. Lord EUenborough, it appears, had written to Lincoln sug gesting or favouring a suggestion that it might be possible for him to obtain and undertake the leader ship of the House of Commons in a Conservative Government. Lincoln replied : ' January 5, 1847. ' It is kind of you to express a hope that the news paper reports concerning me are true, but I can only attribute such a feeling on your part to the fact that it has been my misfortune not to be sufficiently well known to you, especially in the last five years, for you to perceive how utterly unfit I am to assume the position which newspapers (with no friendly feeling towards me) have assigned to me. I assure you there is no more truth in this last rumour respecting me than in that which it superseded — that I was about to join the present Government. I have never been pre sumptuous enough to dream of taking the lead of men in the House of Commons, many of whom are not only old enough to be my father, but are both in experience and ability greatly my superiors. 86 DECLINES LEADERSHIP [ch. iv ' I quite agree with you that, under particular circum stances and in certain states of parties in the House of Commons, the post of a Leader may be held without high and briUiant powers of oratory ; but, then, he must possess other qualifications which redeem this deficiency. I flatter |myself that the kindness which I have received from friends in the House of Commons, and occasionally from opponents also, has not so easily blinded my self-knowledge as to persiiade me that these qualifications are mine. The accident of birth and high lineage to which you justly refer as a great advantage is, after all, only a most valuable accessory, and, unless supported by more substantial merits, will only make the efforts of a man to raise himself above his just level end in a more glaring failure, and reflect upon his Order a certain portion of the disgrace which attaches to himself ' If there were not personal deficiencies to unfit me for the task you propose to me, and if a sense of what is due to others did not, moreover, forbid my contem plating it for a moment as admissible, other reasons exist to prevent its possibility. You greatly mistake the feelings of the Protectionist section of the Con servative party towards me. So far from my being "personally acceptable to them," I believe no member of^the late Government, except Sir Robert Peel, shares so large a portion of their hatred. If you had been in the House of Commons, or even if you had lately read the leading articles in their Organs of the Press, you would have been satisfied of this. I am one of the four who have all along been placed by them out of the pale of forgiveness. ' I quite concur in your opinion that " those who supported the late Government to the last ought not to be thrown adrift and left to find their way indi vidually into the ranks of the Protectionists, to be received there as Penitents," and my humble services in conjunction with others are not only due to the party, but snail be cheerfully rendered if they can be of any use for that purpose. ' It is hardly necessary for me to say how entirely I sympathize in your remarks about Lord G. Bentinck. I should indeed blush for the Commons of England if I could think they would follow such a leader,'and not 1847] WHIG COERCION BILL 87 less should I blush for the Press of England if I could imagine that they would co-operate with such a man as last Session proved him to oe.' The disposition of the Peelites towards the Whig Government, of which Lord John Russell was the head, was, if not unfriendly, at least unsympathetic ; but they were not prepared to resume office them selves, and therefore they gave it a general, though not a cordial or a very reliable, support, lest by its defeat the way to office should be opened to their former supporters, the Protectionists, to whom they were now in marked hostility. The following letters from Lincoln to Sidney Herbert, who was at this time travelling on the Continent, illustrate the feeling : 'Whitehall Place, 'December 4, 1847. ' . . . You will have read Sir G. Grey's speech on introducing the new Coercion Bill, but probably you will not have seen a Copy of the Bill. It is the most wretched piece of imbecility that can be conceived, utterly ineffectual for its object, and really appears as if it had been designed to show that they were quite prepared to abandon the principle upon which they came into office — governing Ireland without extra Constitutional powers — but that they were not pre pared to take any powers which could enable them to govern it at all. How men could think it worth while to lose their character for the sake of a measure which must fail surpasses comprehension, but nobody who knows Ireland dreams of the Bill stopping a single murder. Of course, we must support the Bill against the mock opposition of the Repealers;; but I am in clined to enter a caveat against being supposed to con sider it effectual for the only purpose which can justify such a measure, and to put my support upon the resolve not to be liable to the grave charge of abetting 88 THE JEW BILL [ch. iv murder and depriving any Executive of powers which on their responsibility they propose, and avow that they hope will be successful. . . .' 'Whitehall Place, 'December ig, 1847. ' I received your very interesting budget of Italian Politics of the 8th inst. yesterday, and am greatly obliged to you for not forgetting my Papal tendencies and desire to know all that is really going on in Rome. ' We adjourn to-morrow till the 3rd February, and the second reading of the Jew Bill is fixed for the 7th. It is a most unwise step to have introduced this Bill before the holidays, and thus given six weeks' time to get up an agitation. They might have taken warning by what befell us with Maynooth, but it is one of the daily proofs how unable Lord J. Russell is to take any line of his own. In this instance Rothschild dis trusted his sincerity and insisted M^on no longer delay, and with the City Election hanging about his neck he dared not resist. The majority was not so large as many expected, and in it were only eighteen Peelites and six Protectionists. D'Israeli's speech was ob viously addressed to Rothschild's money-bags, and was a bad selection from his novels. It formed, how ever, a good practical commentary upon the value of the existing test, for if it meant anything it meant that he was a Jew. His speech and Lord George Bentinck's have closed their career of leadership, and it was publicly proclaimed in the Carlton yesterday that they were both deposed. Herries, however, can suit them but little better, for having committed him self to the Rothschilds, and being forbidden by Lord Exeter to vote for the motion, he most shabbily absented himself altogether. It is now understood that Lord Grey will support the measure. 'The Hampden controversy is assuming a very serious aspect, and I am greatly mistaken if it does not do one of two things — either break up the Ministry, or cause a schism in the Church as great as that which has taken place in the Scotch Church, though, of course, not similar in its results. I believe 1849] DECADENCE OF THE PEELITES 89 the remonstrant party is determined to push their opposition to the full extent which the law will allow. ' The condition of the Government in the House of Commons has grown daily weaker and more pitiable. I am converted by what I have seen of the new House to the opinion that it is a manageable House and one which wants to be led, but Lord John seems less capable of complying with that want than he did last Session. I am satisfied Peel could carry on the Government with this House for some time. ' Ireland does not mend, and nobody expects much from the new Coercion Act. All the best landlords are marked out for assassination. . . .' In the course of a letter to Lincoln written more than three years after Peel quitted office, Cardwell says : ' October 15, 1849. ' In the feelings of disappointment you truly ex press it is impossible not to join. The wishes we cherished and the hopes we formed are rudely scat tered to the winds, and the party we thought so worthy of power and pre-eminence has fallen into forgetfulness of itself, and is naturally forgotten by the world. These things are, of course, most painful, and I have shared in this feeling as keenly as others. . . . That Sir Robert Peel's party saved England from confusion and has been rewarded by its own annihila tion is the simple fact. . . . The general breaking-up of all parties becomes daily more decided, and chaos continually advances. . . .' Some months later Gladstone writes to him : '6, Carlton Gardens, ' March 25, 1850. ' On every important question since the Address I have found myself voting and speaking in opposition to Peel and Graham except last Tuesday on the African squadron, when Graham's very strong feeling 90 THE GORHAM JUDGMENT [ch. iv in favour of the side which I took led him — it seems ridiculous, but it is true — to go away.' The Church principles which were common to most of Peel's principal followers were, to some slight extent, a bond of union, and served to accentuate their antago nism to the Whigs, of whose ecclesiastical appoint ments they frequently complained. They called them selves ' High -Churchmen,' but the term was used rather as a protest against the tenets of the extreme Evangelical party of that time, than as implying acceptance of what would in later times have been called High-Church principles. The Gorham judgment, which was pending early in 1850, caused them grave — though, as it turned out, unfounded — apprehensions as to its consequences to the very existence of the Church of England. In a letter to Lincoln, Gladstone writes : ' February 25, 1850, ' There are darker clouds on the horizon than any connected with mere politics. From week to week the judgment on the Gorham case is expected. All reports are agreed in this — that Mr. Gorham is to be declared capable of institution, and that the sentence of the Court of Arches is to be reversed. This is not a mere question of conformity to the doctrine of the Church of England, though that would be grave enough. Mr, Gorham strikes right at the Nicene Creed, and such a judgment as is expected appears to involve as a consequence nothing less than this— that the teaching of the Christian faith is to be an open question in the Church of England. . . .' And on the same subject he writes again : 'March 25, 1850. ' The Gorham case has gone even worse than was supposed possible. . . . The effect of the sentence is simply this— that any Clergyman of the Church of Eng- 1850] ECCLESIASTICAL TROUBLES 91 land may, according to them, either contradict or affirm as he pleases, and that by law, one of the Articles of the Creed. It is, in short, neither more nor less than a question of life and death to the Church of Eng land. ... If Gorham is instituted, a state of things will arise the most critical that was ever known in the Church of England, because the judgment is doubly vital : first, as nullifying an article of faith ; secondly, as placing the entire faith at the mercy of the Privy Council. But the two persons most deeply responsible are the two Archbishops ; no two of their predecessors would have been found to do what they have done any moment since the Reformation, cer tainly since the Restoration. . . .' Lincoln answers sympathetically, but with more moderation : ' Mount Carmel, 'May 19, 1850. ' As regards the lamentable Gorham case, my opinion is not worth much, because I have at times been so long without seeing an English newspaper that I have failed to follow the thread of the pro ceedings, and have had to gather the nature of the judgment not from a perusal of it, but of the comments upon it. As in the Hampden case, however, so in this, I feel that the Church has a right to some other controlling power in points of doctrine and the fitness of her clergy for her ministry than the ordinary civil tribunals or the civil power itself as at present constituted. I doubt whether in the present dis tracted state of the Church such a power could be safely vested in the Lower House of Convocation, seeing the danger that has more than once of late arisen from the hot zeal of earnest and well-meaning, but not over-wise or reflecting, men attached to the Church. I fear that to raise up such a power at this moment would lead to the disruption, not of Church and State, but of the Church itself As regards the separation of the Church from the State, I do hope that those who from their character and their ability are not unnaturally looked upon as the mouthpiece of the Church party in this controversy will weigh 92 LINCOLN SAILS FOR THE EAST [ch. iv well the consequences of such a measure before they give it countenance even by holding it out as a menace. I am far from denying that a state of things may arise which would render this severance inevit able as the least of many evils ; but those who have witnessed the state of the Churches in those countries where there is indeed no alliance, but alienation (and alienation will quickly follow separation), will pause before they incur the fearful risk and embrace the fatality of bringing down our Church to the level of such as these. Separation on our own terms we never can obtain. We shall find many allies ready to aid us in effecting the separation, but they are amongst the deadly enemies of our Church, and when once the divorce is determined upon, they will turn round upon her and clip her fair proportions by every means in their power.' This last letter was written from Mount Carmel. In October, 1849, being in sore domestic trouble, and in bad health, suffering from an affection of his lungs and heart, he had left England in his yacht, the Gitana, for a nine months' tour in the East, in the course of which he visited Athens, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine. In a letter to Gladstone he writes : ' Constantinople, ' December 29, 1849. ' I took the yacht up the Bosphorus to Therapia, and spent two days with Sir Stratford and Lady Canning, and afterwards went a short distance into the Black Sea, and I have no hesitation in pro nouncing the beauty of the Bosphorus quite un rivalled. It is like a magnificent river of about twenty miles long, and is lined for more than two- thirds of the distance with a succession of Palaces and Mosques and Minarets, intermixed with humbler but very picturesque buildings, backed by terraced gardens and superb cypresses, with (not lofty) moun tains behind, on which there are interspersed old Castles or more modern kiosks. To row up this 1849] CONSTANTINOPLE 93 channel in one of the beautiful and luxurious caiques of the country on a summer's evening must be a pleasure too delicious for long indulgence. I found the Cannings as hospitable and kind as my knowledge of them made me sure they would be. They are both of them very tired of their beautiful banishment, though it is impossible for him not to feel satisfaction and pride at the position which our country at present occupies here under his auspices. The Turks are, I really believe, sincerely grateful for the aid England has given them. They have not forgotten Unkiar Skelessi, and their sense of obligation on the present occasion is proportional to their full knowledge of the danger which their recollection of that unfortunate treaty makes them feel they have only escaped by the ready aid which has now been given, but was then withheld. They all speak of England as their true friend, and seem anxious, by their civility and kind ness to individuals, to evince their feelings towards the nation. ' Two days ago I made a round of visits to the five principal Iwinisters. Two of them, the Grand Vizier and Reshid Pasha, have been Ambassadors to England, and both speak French ; the others (though one of them has also been in England) speak nothing but Turkish, and our conversation passed through an interpreter. These five Ministers are all men of considerable ability, and, with one exception, are possessed of rather remarkable address and pleasing, gentlemanlike manners, not at all what we are apt to associate with our notions of a Turk ; and though I should rather think deficient in "go" for the spirit of the times, they are all reformers, and in their separate departments have done, and are doing, much to remove old abuses and conform their country to the age. They constitute what Lord EUenborough used to complain of as the "inner Cabinet," and have a strong bias towards England. They (and, indeed, all the Turks) have entirely abandoned their old costume, a frock-coat and trousers, with the red fez cap being the almost universal dress, and they sat on chairs instead of cross-legged on sofas, and the chief peculiarity of the visits was the succession of long pipes and coffee and sherbet. 94 THE SULTAN [ch. iv ' To-day I have been presented to the Sultan. This is not usual for mere travellers, but Sir Stratford Canning having proposed it and asked permission, I gladly availed myself of the opportunity offered by his having to present a letter from our Queen of con gratulation upon the birth of two boys within twenty- four hours to see the successor of men at whose nod whole nations had trembled. I am sorry to say I was as much disappointed with the Sultan as I had been pleased with his Ministers. He is a man of singularly deficient exterior, and looks as little removed from absolute idiocy as was the lately abdicated Emperor of Austria, though I believe his looks do a. little belie his real character. He is, however, far from what in such times the Ruler of this country should be, and his great redeeming quality is that he is possessed of that not very usual accompaniment of weakness, great amiability, and is willing to be influenced by good advisers. He looks at least forty-five, though in fact only twenty-seven, and appears worn out with over indulgence. . . . ' I have been enabled by a firman to see the Mosques, Saint Sophia included, and the Seraglio, from all which Christians are generally excluded. The Seraglio is more interesting from its associations than its appearance or any other beauty than that of situa tion ; but St. Sophia stands both from association as the oldest Christian Church and from its own grandeur (though sadly defaced by Mahomedan barbarities), an object of intense interest, and worth in itself a long journey to have visited. It is as sound in architecture as the day it was built, and I felt impressed with the conviction as I stood under its vast dome that the Christian altar will again be reared within its waUs, and that the matchless columns of porphyry and marble which have witnessed the rites of heathen worship, of Christianity, and of the religion of Mahomet, wiU again re-echo the precepts of the Gospel, and per haps crumble into dust only when the Church no longer needs an earthly tabernacle. . . . 'I sail the day after to-morrow for Alexandria, stopping at Ephesus, Patmos, and Rhodes. I continue greatly irnproved in general health, though certainly no better in fact at the seat of mischief; and from the 1850] THE DON PACIFICO INCIDENT 95 great distress I suffer from any ascent of steps or unusual exertion of chest, I am more than ever of opinion that kings as well as heart are seriously affected. Probably two or three months more, and in a milder climate than this, will prove whether I am right.' In a letter to Gladstone he refers to the Don Pacifico incident, in which Palmerston startled Europe by a sudden menace to Greece : 'Tent in the Desert, ' Near Suez, 'April 2, 1850. '. . . I threatened to write to you fully about the Greek business, but I find I have not left myself time, if I give you an outline of my proposed tour. I can only now say, therefore, that when I was at Athens the French and Russian influence was losing ground with the people — I do not speak of the miserable King — and I have little doubt that this ill-timed and ill- conditioned piece of petty bullying will have again turned the tide against us, and raised the popularity of our allies. I look upon this as unfortunate, first as regards Greece itself, and secondly in reference to our whole Eastern policy. You must look forward to some other power than Turkey, before many years are over, to maintain the balance of power in that part of Europe, and I believe that such a power Greece might in time become under a better King than Otho ; but to effect this you must keep her free from the trammels of France and Russia. What, however, I most deplore in this stupid business is the identification of those two powers in opposition to England in any measure of Eastern policy. Every thing I have seen in Egypt convinces me that France not only contemplates seizing that country before long, but is making great preparations for so doing when ever opportunity occurs ; and if she can only induce Russia to sanction her designs, the attainment of her object would be easy, and the retaining it in spite of us very far from impossible. I fear you and others will only think me an alarmist for these opinions, but 96 PALESTINE [ch. iv neither you nor Lord Aberdeen, nor those whose attention has been more specially directed to Foreign Politics, should treat this matter lightly without very mature consideration. ' Now for my tour. From Suez I hope to go tc Mount Sinai, thence to Akaba, Petra, and Hebron and reach Jerusalem the last day of this month. Re maining there seven or eight days, I shall then pro ceed to Nablous, Nazareth, Tiberias, Mount Carmel, Acre, Mount Lebanon, and Damascus; thence to Baalbek, and join the Yacht at Beirout on the last day of May. I should then run hurriedly along the coast of Africa, visiting Tunis, Carthage, Algiers, Tetuan, and Tangiers, and hope to be in England by the seventh or tenth of July. ' I think my two months of the fine climate of Egypt have done me much good. I have never been unwell since I left England, and it is only in the last few weeks that I have had any reason to hope that there was any change in me of a really substantial character.' In another letter to Gladstone he writes : 'Mount Carmel, 'May 19, 1850. ' I must ever reflect with satisfaction upon having had the opportunity of visiting this most interesting country in the world to all Christians. Having now seen it myself, I feel as the Pilgrims of old did, that it is almost a duty which everybody ought to perform. I was eight or ten days in Jerusalem, and saw the shocking scenes of fanaticism and blasphemy which characterize the celebration of the Easter of the Greek and Armenian Churches. The State of Christi anity in this country is such that my wonder is, not that more Jews are not converted, but that any are. I was pleased with what I saw of the Bishop. He is, of course, a Low-Churchman, but quite untainted by Lutheranism. As for the Bishopric, if I was rightly informed, it is really much less Bunsenised than is supposed in England. Still, there is an anomaly in the position of an Anglican Bishop, which I hope some day will be corrected. i8so] DEATH OF PEEL 97 ' I go from hence to Acre, Tyre, and Sidon, and then through the Lebanon to Damascus, and back by Baalbek to Beirout. A fortnight will, 1 hope, see me on board my once more repaired Yacht, and setting sail for England. . . .' In a letter to Mr. Bonham from Damascus he writes : 'May 27, 1850. ' I wish a million or so of our starving and idle surplus population could be transported by an en chanter's wand to some of the rich plains of Palestine. The fertility of Esdraelon and some other plains exceeds belief, but both capital and labour are want ing, and corn and a rank vegetation of weeds seem to grow equally spontaneously together. This must continue so long as the blighting influence of Mussul man rule lasts, but this, I believe, is fast drawing to a close. In Palestine the signs of its decay are not so apparent, but in Egypt it must speedily break down. . . .' Sad news met him on his arrival at Gibraltar, the details of which were written in the following letter from Sidney Herbert : '5, Carlton Gardens, ' July 6, 1850. ' I write this on the chance of its meeting you at Gibraltar, that the terrible news which will have met you there may not come unaccompanied by some details from one who feels with the same grief the fearful loss we have sustained. On Saturday last, the 29th, poor Peel was thrown from his horse on Consti tution Hill. It turns out now that this brute had done the same thing by his previous master, including young P. The horse swerved and kicked, and then threw Sir Robert over his head on the road. He was picked up senseless, but groaning, as if suffering great pain, and taken home and laid on the sofa in the dining-room, where, after three days' excessive agon}', he died. The collar-bone was smashed, the ribs driven in on the lungs. From the first he said to the surgeons : " There is more in this than you can fathom ; I shall not get over it." His mind remained 98 UNIVERSAL GRIEF [ch. iv perfectly clear. Harding passed Monday night with him, and Graham was there on Tuesday night before he died, but he was then rapidly failing. He parted with all his family separately and blessed them. He died with Christian firmness and patience, in a way worthy of his life, and gives to us who have lost him the best consolation. The Bishop of Gibraltar (Tom- linson) was with him, and prayed with him several times. Lady Peel, poor soul, was at first quite un governable, but when once all hope was gone she calmed, and remained kneeling by his bedside, with her hand clasped in his, till the end was close ap proaching, when she was led away. ' I never recollect so profound an impression on the public mind produced by any event. The stream of anxious faces constantly passing down to the house, and the eagerness with which the crowd pressed for ward to have any tidings from whoever came out of the house, was very striking. The whole town had a solemn, anxious look over it. They felt that a great statesman was passing away, and that each man had an interest in a life which had been so lavishly devoted to the nation. The Queen has felt it deeply. Our House instantly adjourned at its meeting next day, and every mark of grief and sympathy has been shown by all, without distinction of party. ' The loss is one of which we cannot measure the extent. This was the sagacious and -trusted coun sellor to whom the country looked with confidence, should any difficulty or peril ever arise ; and he repre sented to the nation tnat system of parliamentary government which he had himself established more than anyone alive. ' The last time I was in his room we were talking of you and your affairs, and he gave the attention and the anxious advice which a Father would have given for a son. God knows, we two owe him much.' Lincoln replied : 'R.Y.S. Schooner Gitajva, ' Gibraltar, 'July 16, iSso. ' The worst voyage I have yet had — from Malta in nineteen days — has only brought me here at the time when I had hoped to have been in England. i85o] THE LOSS TO LINCOLN 99 ' I would gladly here leave my Yacht, and go home in the Steamer which will, I hope, take this letter this afternoon ; but, being in quarantine, I cannot, for the steamer calls at Cadiz and other places. God grant I may not be so long delayed between here and England, for, as time wears on, I grow so impatient to see my children again that I can apply my mind to nothing. ' I cannot yet realize the sad, the awful event which has been announced to me here. The death of Sir Robert Peel seems yet to me like a horrid dream, a thing that cannot be. I cannot help, though I feel keenly the national calamity, looking at it also in a selfish light, and I really can hardly picture to myself any event, except the loss of one of my children, which could bring such poignant sorrow to my blighted heart. Thank God he was spared for the speech and vote of the day before his fatal accident ! It has saved his reputation, which must be dear to all of us, from aspersions which his political position of the last two or three years might otherwise have exposed him to. His honour is untarnished, his patriotism above cavil, his high renown as a beacon-light in his country's history, and he has left a world which will now begin to be grateful to him and to mourn him, for another, where I feel it is not presumption to say he will receive the reward of a life such as few statesmen, if any, have spent on earth. To our dying hours, those who have been associated with him in public life must retain our sorrow for his loss as a Leader and Teacher and as a Public Adviser, but still more as a Private Friend. ' / should indeed be most ungrateful if his memory were not ever dear to me, for the sorrows of my domestic life have been so associated with his ready and friendly counsels, and I have ever found in him so delicate a sympathy and so sagacious advice, that the termination of^my married life and the simultaneous death of Friend and Counsellor seem to leave me in a void which yet appears bewildering. ' None in public life have more reason to regret him than Lord John Russell, but the effects — the disastrous effects, I fear, to the country — have yet to be de veloped. ' Poor, poor Lady Peel ! God tempers the wind to 7—2 100 RETURN TO ENGLAND [ch. iv the shorn lamb, or I am confident she would not retain her mind and live. ' God bless you, my dear Friend. I shall return to you and my friends with a new sorrow deeply graven on my heart. . . .' Long-suffering and forgiving though he had been throughout his home troubles, and deep and abiding as his affection for his wife still was, Lincoln had been at length compelled to institute proceedings for a divorce. The Bill which was then the means by which a divorce was obtained had been brought in during his absence in the East, and became law shortly before he reached England. It was to a desolate home and to a life shorn bare of all sources of happiness that he returned, a disciple who had lost his Master, and a more than widower. Another trouble followed, which, though insig nificant as compared with the others, yet came as a heavy grief to one already so overburdened and stricken. From his old Oxford friend. Archdeacon Manning, he received the following letter : '44, Cadogan Place, ' January 3, 1851. ' My dear and kind Friend, 'Among many letters which this time has brought me, none has moved me more than yours. All our past thoughts of sorrow gave to its affectionate forbearance a force beyond words. ' But in this, too, I find a consolation. You have not shrunk from opening your grief to me, and that gives me the comfort and strength of opening my grief to you. ' In truth, my heart is almost broken. ' All human love, all that makes life precious to me, except one thing, is passing or past away. ' To add sharpness to this sorrow, I seem to others to be base, false, and a coward in the day of trial. 1851] ARCHDEACON MANNING loi ' I cannot seem otherwise. And what have I to answer ? ' I cannot resist the conviction which forces itself upon me like light on every side that the Church of England is in a position at variance with the will of God : and that to uphold it in that position is to fight against God. ' When the thought, even the sight, of my home [parish ?] and Church [torn out] come over me, my heart breaks, and no human solace so much as touches me. ' The one only thing left is a conscience clear and at peace. I could no longer continue under oath and subscription binding me to the Royal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes ; being convinced — ' I. That it is a violation of the Divine office of the Church. ' 2. That it has involved the Church of England in a separation from the Universal Church, which separa tion I cannot clear ofthe character of Schism. ' 3. That it has thereby suspended and perverted the functions of the Church of England so as to efface from the faith and mind of its people the Divine laws of unity and authority in faith and discipline. ' But I will not attempt in a letter to detail any reasons on so large a subject. I did so in a printed letter to the Bishop of Chichester last July, which I will desire Murray to send you. ' I have only said thus much to show why I could no longer, without violence to conscience and truth, continue to hold under an oath the matter of which I believe to be at variance with the Divine order of the Church. ' Beyond resigning, I have taken no step ; neither am I, either by nature or habit, inclined to precipita tion. But the tendency of my belief is manifest ; and ^et nothing but a necessity laid upon me as by the 7iU of God will move me. ' I can find no words to thank you, my dear Friend, for your affection, of which I am most unworthy. And yet if human love, or sorrow, or any lower motive had held me, when truth and cor^science bade me decide, I should have been more unworthy still. This makes yet Wi 102 ARCHDEACON MANNING [ch. iv me trust that I shall not forfeit your affection, and that you will remember me in your prayers. ' What a life is this, and how full of griefs that go through the soul ! Thank God it is not our rest, and that we shall soon be beyond the reach of sin. ' My purpose is to stay in London (except a few visits to my family) till Gladstone's return. If you are in London, in the week after next, I would call and see you. ' Once more my thanks, and may all consolation be with you and your children. ' Believe me, ever yours most affectionately, ' H. E. Manning.' In answer to another letter of Manning's, in which he informed him of his reception into the Romish Church, the Duke wrote : ' Clumber, 'April II, 1851. ' My dear Friend, ' Preparation for the last blow of sorrow does not, as I have long since learnt, diminish the severity of it when it really comes ; and though your last most amiable letter to me left me no hope, your announcement that you no longer belong to the Anglican Church has filled me with grief such as no similar event has ever occasioned to me before. ' You say that your chief trial now is the loss of friends dear to you and the sorrow you give them. Of the latter I cannot, and (from my heart and con science I say it) I would not if I could, relieve you ; but in me at least you will find no loss of friendship. I mourn over what I must think the great error of a pure and noble mind seeking the true light, but I cannot cease to love and admire the man who makes the sacrifices which I know you have in obedience to what he believes to be right. I shall ever cherish the recollections ofthe past. I shall think of what is now the present with sorrow too deep to be mixed with bitterness or sectarian heat ; and for the future I pray God that you may not be changed as others have, and that you may carry into the Church which has received you that spirit of pure, Christian, universal love and i85i] ARCHDEACON MANNING 103 charity which have made you one of the brightest ornaments of that which has lost you. Certain I am there are many attached friends who will still cling to their love and respect for you. I dare not contem plate the day when a difference of faith may dissipate those feelings which you now bear towards them. ' Alas ! I fear you little know what thorns your secession from amongst us will strew in the paths of those who have hitherto laboured with you, or the impulse you will give to that spirit of Puritan hatred which is fast reviving in the land ; but all this I must not expect you to care for now. I have always feared your aspirations for " Christian unity " were Utopian, but, at any rate, I cannot doubt that the conversion of two such men as yourself and James Hope must make more hopeless than ever so blessed an event. ' May God ever bless you, my dear Friend, and may we, although now pursuing different paths, meet in that day when the truth shall be revealed to us all. * Believe me, ever affectionately and truly yours, * Newcastle. ' Forgive me if I address my letter as heretofore. Believe me, I do not do it inconsiderately, much less unkindly.' CHAPTER V THE COALITION MINISTRY Isolation of the Peelites— Negotiations with the Whigs— Lord Derby Prime Minister— The Oxford Chancellorship— The Derby Government defeated— Lord Aberdeen Prime Minister — The Duke Colonial Secretary. On his father's death in January, 185 1, Lincoln suc ceeded to the Dukedom, and to the possession of a. large but greatly embarrassed property, which was in a condition to require all his attention and energy. Regarding the prospects of the Peelite party, now deprived of its head, and thus of the chief reason for its existence, he writes to Gladstone : ' Clumber, ' December 8, 1851. ' . . . Even now 1 can hardly concentrate my thoughts on political affairs, for, as often happens, I have delayed this matter till a moment when I am really more overwhelmed with my own affairs than ever. ' I shall be delighted to see you and Mrs. Gladstone here on January 15. The Herberts and Cannings are coming on the same day. I have asked Young, but no answer yet. I have also asked Lord Aberdeen to a little " friendly reunion," because, as our Party would be sure to be called a Political gathering, I did not wish that he should think we had thrown him off, and wished to act for and by ourselves. I have also asked Goulburn, because, as Finance must be a heavy item in the Programme of next Session, his advice would 104 1851] PEELITES WITHOUT A LEADER 105 be valuable ; and he is quite aware how little we can take council with him on any matters involving re ligious liberty or " progress " in general. ' It will be hardly worth while now to enter into detail upon those questions to which your last letter refers, though they ought to be well considered when we meet. . . . ' Now as to the great point — the question of " organi zation." The more I think of it, the more I am con vinced of its necessity up to a certain point, and at the same time the more I see its difficulty and danger. So long as the present anomalous state of Government exists, I confess I look upon it as almost a national dLity imposed upon us to endeavour to keep together. Dissipation or absorption of our little band has been, ever since we quitted office, a constant object of Lord J. Russell. We must counteract this if we can ; for though, with a Reform Bill impending over us, of whose importance or absurdity we know nothing, it is impossible to have any distinct view of the future, or of the course which duty may call on us to take, we are bound as honest men to stand together, that, if danger should threaten, we may be found in a situation to help the Country and the Crown at whatever risk or sacrifice. ' You lay great stress upon the question. Whom can we adopt as leader? So do I, though I see so much difficulty in it that I am led to think only a partial organization is at present possible. An election of a Leader of a Party would, I think, be a novel measure, and I incline to think a dangerous experiment. Is anybody strongly marked out for it ? I think not. Generally there is one Man in a Party who, without consultation amongst its Members, is universally felt to be the Man, either for his ability, his debating powers, his personal popularity, his general know ledge of affairs, his prescience, his caution, his courage, or perhaps all those qualities which go to form a Statesman. I doubt if you can point out such a man. The only other usual mode of a man becoming the Leader of a Party is his acceptance of the Sovereign's orders to form a Government ; but with the former alone have we now to deal. Graham I put aside at once. Great as are his powers, and valuable many of io6 LORD ABERDEEN [ch. v his qualities, there is that within him which in the opinion of us all makes him unfit to lead, and yet we cannot expect him to follow ; but, besides, he is play ing a game of his own *****, and his advice to Frederick Peel to join the Government shows there is a screw loose, and that he by no means takes up the notion of a duty of cohesion. Your opinion is that it should be either Lord Aberdeen or my self I will follow the exhaustive process, and there fore take myself first — only for the purpose of dis posing of your humble servant. I would, at the risk of derision, or any other personal detriment, place myself in any position under such a contingency as that present to our minds when we discussed the matter in Carlton Gardens in June last, if it appeared to me that I could help to ward off mischief, and stand in the gap till the Queen could make some arrange ment better for herself and the Country. In any other point of view I am unfitted for the purpose. I do not dream of it, and if I did, I am sure few would concur in such an hallucination. The objections to Lord Aberdeen are, to speak frankly of a friend for whom I have the most sincere regard, his age and consequent unfitness for the wear and tear of body and mind, his being little known (I really believe even by name) to the great bulk ofthe community in consequence of^his exclusive devotion to Foreign Affairs, his want of manner or knowledge of how to deal with mankind, his leaning to despotism on the Continent, his utter ignorance of Finance, and, I fear, his lack of courage. Nevertheless, I say to you now, as I said more than once to Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen is the only Public Man (now that he is gone) whom I would willingly serve under. I see his unfitness, I fear the consequences of his being our recognized Leader in Opposition ; but if others concur, and he himself will (for this I doubt), he shall have no more faithful and zealous follower (for in his integrity I have the firmest reliance) than myself . . .' A party which could not find a leader, which had no distinguishing principles or policy, and which could not even agree in any material point of difference 1851] PALMERSTON OUT OF OFFICE 107 from the existing Government, was not in a hopeful condition. Nevertheless, the Duke and three or four of his colleagues believed that as a Party, or, at any rate, as Peel's disciples, they had principles to enforce and a mission to perform, and were sincerely and un selfishly earnest in their efforts to consolidate it. In answer to a letter from his friend Bonham on this subject, the Duke writes : ' Clumber, 'April 18, 1831. ' If I were to consult my own inclinations and my own interests — to say nothing of my much impaired health and energies — I should confine my remaining activity and powers of usefulness to the attempt to retrieve the fortunes of my family and estates, and leave public affairs to others to whom office is an object of desire, and who have more sanguine hopes of being able to do good service to their country than any I now entertain. I have not, however, so learnt the duties of my position, and I at once answer your question by the reply : I am willing to take a part in tne proceedings which must soon succeed to this state of transition, and I entirely agree in the necessity for some more decisive and explicit line than hitherto we have been enabled to take.' Lord John RusseU's Government, never very strong, had become more and more discredited in the course of the Parliamentary Sessions of 1850 and 1851. In December of the latter year it received what proved to be a mortal blow by the loss of Lord Palmerston, who, owing to his having without authority from the Queen or the Cabinet gone out of his way to express to the French Ambassador his satisfaction at Louis Napoleon's cottp d'etat at Paris — this being not the first time he had so offended — was called upon to quit office. Aware that his Administration could not go on much longer unless it received an accession of strength from Io8 OVERTURES TO PEELITES [ch. v outside, Lord John made overtures to the Duke of Newcastle, as leader of the Peelites, with a view to inducing some of them to take office under him. The following is a memorandum by Lord John of an inter view which took place between them : ' Pembroke Lodge, (Meinoranditm.') ' December t,^, 1851. ' The Duke of Newcastle came to me yesterday about five o'clock, and stayed an hour.and a half I told him I had wished to see him soon, as Lord Clarendon had expressed a desire to leave Ireland in January. I wished, therefore, immediately to offer the office of Lord Lieutenant to the Duke of Newcastle. That Lord Clarendon had since informed me that he wished to stay till Easter, and therefore there was nothing urgent. That I still was desirous at that period to obtain for the country his services as Lord Lieutenant. But that I now wished more particularly to ascertain the views of his friends respecting a junction with the Government. ' That the separation of Lord Palmerston must weaken our position in the House of Commons ; that we were accused of being exclusive, but my wish was to unite in office with us those of Sir Robert Peel's friends who supported him in 1846, and who agreed in a Free Trade policy. ' I mentioned the general outlines of a measure for the extension of the suffrage. ' I also mentioned our desire to strengthen the defences of the country. ' I wished to know whether there was any bar in principle to the junction I proposed. ' The Duke said that, for his own part, he was dis inclined to take office. That if it were an obvious and imperative duty to come into office he would be ready to do so, but he thought no such necessity existed at present, nor could he anticipate that any good could arise to the Queen's Government from his doing so. That, generally speaking, junctions of this kind did not strengthen the existing Government, and injured those who ioined it. 1851] NEWCASTLE AND JOHN RUSSELL 109 'I differed from him in this, and quoted 1756 and 1793 as instances of strong Governments thus formed. ' He proceeded. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill would form an obstacle to his accepting the office I had named. He could not be a party to enforcing it, and he had said in the House of Lords that to leave it a dead letter would be as bad. ' I said that Sir F. Thesiger's clause had fortunately shown that it was from no remissness of the Govern ment, but from the want of evidence, that no prosecution was instituted. That I believed that no such evidence of the assumption of titles would be forthcoming. I said, however, that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would not be responsible for enforcing the Ecclesi astical Titles Act, or, at least, not alone ; for a direction had been given to the Lord Lieutenant not to com mence any prosecution under that Act without reference to the Government in England. ' He then said that if he were to mention obstacles to our agreement in office, he must mention on the part of himself, and he thought he might add of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert, the distribution of the patronage of the Church by Lord John Russell. That he did not disavow, but the reverse, opinions which were called High Church, but he was not extreme, and would deprecate the patronage of the Crown being bestowed upon ultra-men of one party in the Church as he did in regard to the other. That he knew the Prime Minister must be uncontrolled in his advice to the Crown in regard to Church Patronage, but that my disposal of it, after such advice, was not approved by those he had mentioned. ' I said that upon this subject I could not change, though I did not mean to say that objections might not be made to particular appointments. ' He then said that the Colonial Policy of the Govern ment was not approved by some at least of his friends, if not by all. ' I said the difficulty had arisen from Lord Grey's establishing more free constitutions than any other Colonial Minister had done ; that there were naturally dissensions and collisions in settling these new con stitutions, but that when once established they worked well no POINTS OF DIFFERENCE [ch. v ' I mentioned as an instance Canada, and the diffi culties experienced by Sir Charles Bagot and Lord Metcalfe, while at present the Constitution was fairly and successfuUy administered. New Zealand was the only Colony mentioned by the Duke of Newcastle. He referred to New Zealand as a bar specially applic able to himself, as he had given notice at the close of the last Session of a motion on the subject at the beginning of the next. ' He then asked me what I wished him to do. ' I said I should be obliged to him if he would state to Mr. Cardwell that in the event of a vacancy in an office, which I mentioned, I meant to pro pose to him to accept that office with a seat in the Cabinet. ' I stated further that I wished him to tell Sir James Graham the conversation I had had with him (the Duke of ^Newcastle), and endeavour to ascertain his feelings towards the Government. ' As regards Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert, I desired him to inform them of what had passed, but did not express any such wish as I had done in the other two instances. The Duke, on his side, said that he wished two things to be understood, one that the rank of the particular office which might be offered, whether of more or less importance, would not weigh with him, if he thought his services in any office could, under present circumstances, be rendered to the Queen with advantage to the country and honour to himself That he believed the same sentiment animated his friends. 'Secondly, that he and, as he firmly believed, his friends also had no personal objection to anyone. That although he had demurred to the Colonial Policy, he had great respect for Lord Grey and personally liked him. ' He concluded by saying, what he and Sir James Graham has said to me before, that if a Protectionist Government were formed, it would probably be one of the natural results of political discussions that those who agree in a Free Trade policy would draw nearer together. ' I have unavoidably omitted many things which passed in this conversation.' 1851] ECCLESIASTICAL PATRONAGE iii In the correspondence which ensued between Lord John and the Duke, the latter suggested some unim portant corrections and additions being made to the Memorandum before he could accept it as a correct account of what passed at their interview. There were three questions in particular upon which the Duke demurred to Lord John's policy : The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the exercise of Ecclesiastical Patronage, and Colonial Policy. As to the first, the Duke had opposed the Bill, and spoken and voted against it in its passage through Parliament, and he represented that if he accepted the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he might have to take the initiative in enforcing its provisions, which he could not consistently do. As a matter of fact, however, the Act never had been, and never afterwards was, put in force. As to Ecclesiastical Patronage, he objected to ap pointments being made exclusively from men of one school of opinion, as he said had been the case. To this objection Lord John answered : ' In these times I thought it absolutely necessary to maintain our National Church in the affections of the people by the appointment to dignities of men known to be faithful to the Protestant character of that Church. This is a great point of practical difference between us.' The Duke replied somewhat indignantly : ' I can put no other interpretation upon the latter paragraph than that, unlike yourself, I advocate the appointment to dignities of men whose ^^faithfulness to the Protestant character of the Church I either approve of or am indifferent to. I know not what circumstances either in my private or public life can 112 NEGOTIATIONS FAIL [ch. v an entitle anybody to bring such a charge against me . and you must therefore permit me to meet it by emphatic denial of its justice and truth.' What the Duke's objection was to the Colonial policy of the Government is not so clear. The Duke, as requested, passed on Lord John's offers of office to Cardwell and his other friends, saying nothing, however, to recommend their acceptance. On January 7 he went to Windsor, where he explained the position to the Queen. The negotiations, as might have been anticipated, came to nothing. Instead of seeking to minimize differences and clear the way to a coalition, each side was apparently disposed to catch at any slight divergence of opinion and to make the most of it, so as to have a tangible excuse for holding aloof* It could hardly have been otherwise. The leader of the Whigs was not likely to be cordially inclined to the leaders of a party which had forestalled and anticipated him on his own ground, and had for the past four and a half years stood in the relation of candid, and not always constant, friends to his policy. On the other hand, one who had sat for eighteen years at the feet of Peel, and risen to be his trusted and beloved lieutenant, * Lincoln writes to Gladstone : ' February 23, 1851. ' Forgive one line to meet you on your return— first, to express my joy that you are home again, but secondly, and most especially, to beseech you not to be too hasty in listening to overtures which, I doubt not, will be made to you without delay. ' I am sure our rule of conduct at this juncture must be a prudent waiting on events, and perfect readiness for any self-sacrifice which those events may prove to be a duty, I think a coalition at this moment would be fatal to character, and most mischievous to the Queen and the Country. I shall be in town on Thursday, and will call upon you.' i8s2] THE ROT IS IN THE PARTY 113 would naturally be reluctant to serve under a chief who did not — in his eyes, at any rate — possess the same personal claims to respect, and who had, more over, been the leader of an incongruous and not over scrupulous majority which had driven his venerated leader from office. A few weeks later, early in the ensuing session. Lord John's Government courted and received a defeat on an amendment of Palmerston's to their Militia Bill. Lord Derby came into office, and the Peelites found themselves in much the same relative position to this Government as to the last It is hardly to be wondered at that they were not particularly liked by either of the leading parties. The Duke writes, in the course of a letter to Glad stone : ,„'Clumber, 'March 8, 1852. ' I am convinced that if we do not now bestir our selves, not only will the Brigade become Derbyites, but the English Peelites will go over in considerable numbers. ' The rot is in the Party, and no wonder. If Easter finds us as we are, we had better shut up shop altogether, for Derby and Russell are agreed in this, if in nothing else, "extirpate the Peelites." ' I hope you are doing something about a general meeting. Such a reassurance would do much just now. You know it is no idleness or indifference on my part if I am not there.' In May he has to write to contradict a report that, in the event of Lord Derby's quitting office, he was to endeavour to form a Government in conjunction with Cobden and Bright. In July there was a General Election, at which the Conservatives gained some votes, but not enough to give them a majority in the House. 8 114 THE OXFORD CHANCELLORSHIP fcH. v The Duke of Wellington's death occurred in September. Amongst other offices which he had held was that of ChanceUor of the University of Oxford. Three candidates were suggested to fill his place— Lord Derby, Lord Shaftesbury, and the Duke of Newcastle. The Duke writes to his friend Bonham : 'September 19, 1852. ' I could not have presumed to put forward any pretensions to such an honour, but on the other hand I need hardly say how greatly I should prize it if others think me worthy, and the preliminary step in Oxford is highly gratifying. ' I told my friends explicitly that, little as I thought of Lord Derby either as a Politician or a Churchman, I considered him in the latter respect so preferable to Lord Shaftesbury that if the low Churchmen took the opportunity of a contest between Lord Derby and me to attempt to bring in Lord Shaftesbury, and that attempt seeme^i likely to succeed, I should insist upon being withdrawn to prevent so great a calamity to the Church as any apparent triumph of the " Lydian " party. The impression seems to be that if the contest IS between Lord Derby and me and no third candidate, I shall win, but I have no such expectations. The possession of power and patronage is of much value in such a contest, and the small country clergy are strongly imbued with an opinion that Lord Derby is the only defence against the abolition of tithes, and that I am one of those who have contributed to the " fatal " measure of a depression of the next seven years' averages ! ' If, however, the battle is a stand-up fight between the "chivalrous" Premier and myself, I am ready for the fray.' Eventually the Duke withdrew, and Lord Derby was chosen without opposition. A few months later Lord Derby wrote, as Chancellor, a friendly letter to the Duke ' for the purpose of ascertaining how far you may be willing, at the approaching Installation, to mark the 1852] NEWCASTLE AND DERBY 115 absence of any permanent contest between us by accepting, if you have it not already, the honorary distinction of D.C.L. on Tuesday, the 7th June. Personally I need not say that your acquiescence will much gratify me : academically I think it may be useful as indicating that such contests do not involve permanent discussion : and politically it may show that differences on public affairs are not inconsistent with private and personal regard. . . .' In the course of his reply the Duke writes : ' As between you and me I should very much regret if an acquaintance begun twenty years ago, when, as now, we were opposed to one another in Parliament, should drop into personal alienation. ' I have received with very great pleasure your letter as a conclusive proof that I have been in error for some months in supposing that your feelings in this respect differ from mine. ' If I decline the Academical honour which you have so kindly proposed to me, I hope that -you will not for a moment believe that my refusal is at variance with the sentiments I have expressed. I declined a similar offer a few years ago, and under any other circum stances than the present I should not have hesitated, as I now have for a few hours, to return at once a similar answer. ... If we are to be opponents in the arena of Parliament there is no public spot in which I would so gladly prove the absence of all contentious spirit as the Theatre of Oxford.' Lord Derby's answer was as follows : ' Though you decline compliance with my request, I am much gratified by your letter, and especiaUy by the candour with which you avow that for some months past you have been in error respecting my personal feelings towards you, which my last letter has removed. I had heard some months ago that some of your friends declared that you had good grounds for entertaining against me not only political but personal hostility. What these grounds were supposed to be I was then, as I am now, perfectly unconscious, nor do I wish to 8—2 ii6 GOVERNMENT RESIGNS [ch. v enquire. I am quite certain I never intentionally afforded any such grounds. I may have my own strong opinions with regard to the party movements which have led to the formation of the present (Lord Aberdeen's) Government; but during a pretty long public life 1 have never suffered merely political differ ences to influence private feelings or conduct ; and with respect to the first great change of policy which broke up the Conservative party, I must do you the justice to remember that your opinions on the subject of the Corn Laws had been stated to Sir Robert Peel previously to the Cabinet of November, 1845, ^^d con sequently long previous to that sudden and simul taneous conversion, which, as in all such cases, did not dispose the adherents of the old faith to look with a very friendly eye upon the professors of the new.' The new Parliament met in November for an autumn Session. Disraeli had still hopes of inducing some of the Peelites to join Lord Derby's Government, and with this object was even willing to yield the Leader ship of the House to Gladstone. But by this time the shifty and temporizing attitude of the Government with respect to the repudiation of or acquiescence in the Free Trade policy had completed, if anything were wanted to complete, the alienation of the Peelites. In the Carlton Club the majority would hardly speak to the Peelite members ; and the Peelite leaders would not so much as listen to any overtures. When Disraeli brought forward his Budget — though it did not attempt to reimpose a protective duty — Gladstone made a vigorous attack upon it, and the Government, being defeated, resigned. The situation was now again much the same as it had been when the Whigs quitted office. Neither of the great parties was strong enough, unaided, to main tain a Government in power. The Peelites realized that it was no longer permissible for them to stand 1852] THE COALITION 117 aloof, under pain of political extinction ; and the Whigs, on their side, were prepared to concede to them a much larger and more important share in the Govern ment than they had been willing to do before. Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Lord Aberdeen, and the Duke, met in conference at the Duke of Bedford's at Woburn to endeavour to arrange matters, and as a result a coalition Administration was formed of which not only was a Peelite (Lord Aberdeen) the head, but of a Cabinet of thirteen no less than seven were Peelites, and only five, including Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston, of the old Whig party, one Radical, Molesworth, making up the number. The Peelite Ministers had the reputation of being all of them good administrators ; but the number of places in the Cabinet assigned to their party was out of all proportion to the votes they commanded in ParUament, and still more so to their foUowing in the country. Nor was this all. They had not — as yet — changed their foreign, as they had changed their domestic, policy, and would not have taken office if Lord Palmerston had been reinstated at the Foreign Office ; and, indeed, among Lord John RusseU's followers also his high-handed ways had inspired alarm. He was therefore relegated to what was, for him, obscurity at the Home Office, and Lord Claren don, a comparatively inexperienced man, placed over the Foreign Office. The latter was a traditional Whig, but it seemed likely that the new Government foreign policy would take its direction less from him — new as he was to the work — than from Aberdeen as Prime Minister and formerly Foreign Secretary in Peel's Government. Now that a wave of absolutist reaction was spreading over Europe after the troubles of 1848 ii8 WEAKNESS OF THE COALITION [ch. v and 1849, Liberals were not altogether easy at the prospect of the influence that might be exerted by a Prime Minister whose sympathies had been hitherto inclined to the side, generally speaking, of the con servative and absolutist Powers in their contest with the liberal or insurgent movements throughout Europe ; and who, twenty-three years before, when Greece was struggling for independence, had striven — though fortunately in vain — to confine her limits to the Morea. Thus the Coalition, though it brought together several strong men, did not produce a strong or popular Government. Some of the Ministers had had to make sacrifices which they could not easily forget. To Lord John Russell it was not agreeable, after being for six years Prime Minister, to serve under a chief who had till lately been an opponent It could not be pleasant for Palmerston, after exercising for so many years almost independent authority at the Foreign Office, to go into comparative retirement at the Home Office. Nor was Lord Aberdeen a man of sufficient force of character to maintain such a predominant authority over an Administration thus composed as to give direction and consistency to its policy. The Colonial Office, which was the post assigned to the Duke, was one for which he was well fitted by inclination and capacity. He had for some time past paid special attention to the Colonies, especially with reference to emigration as a means of removing and assisting the unemployed and redundant population of Ireland, and his painstaking and assiduous attention to details gained him a knowledge of Colonial ques tions which few public men then took the trouble to acquire — so little did Englishmen at that time feel the 1852] TRANSPORTATION 119 responsibility and appreciate the value of their Colonial Empire. One of the first important matters he had to deal with was the disposal of convicts. More than five thousand persons in the United Kingdom were being annually sentenced to transportation for longer or shorter periods. It had become impossible to carry out the sentences in anything like all these cases, for want of Colonies where they could be received. New South Wales had formerly taken most of them, but a few years before this time that Colony had positively refused to receive any more. An increased stream was in consequence poured into Tasmania (then called Van Dieman's Land), and as a result of this influx the number of convicts had risen to a fourth of the whole population, and the Colony was saturated with criminals and crime. In the meantime, in 1851, gold had been discovered in Victoria in unprecedented abundance, and also in New South Wales, and so near the surface as to be easily procured. There was a great rush of the colonists to the gold-fields, and, as the news spread, a sudden influx of population to Victoria from the neigh bouring Colonies and from the old country. The price of everything rose enormously. Labour was only to be procured, if at all, at an extravagant rate. Even so late as June, 1854, when matters had had some time to settle down. Sir Charles Hotham, on arriving as the new Governor of Melbourne, writes to the Duke alleging ' the impossibility of living on £5,000 per annum in a place where three gardeners costing £700 per annum must be kept,' and where ' the keep of a horse is £200 per annum, wages for out-door men i2s. a day,' and 120 SIR W. DENISON [ch. v ' a cabman demands £3 as fare from Melbourne to my house ' (two or three miles). From Van Dieman's Land, the Governor, Sir William Denison, writes complaining of the depletion of that Colony of labourers, so that farming and other industrial operations were almost at a standstill for want of labour. From March i, 185 1, to October i, 1852, he writes, the number of adult males in the Colony had fallen from thirty-one to twenty-one thousand — nearly one-third, that is, had gone away. The remedy which Sir William Denison proposed, and in his letters to the Duke repeatedly urged, was that convicts should continue to be sent there, not in small numbers which would produce no material effect, but four or five thousand every year for some years. They would, he thought, be readily absorbed, and would afford such a relief to the labour market as would overcome the objections of those who wished to stop the importation of convicts altogether. For a man of his experience, and with the means of access he had to colonial opinion, he was strangely mistaken. Whatever may have been the case in earlier days, when free emigrants were scarce, and convict labour was useful or essential for the development of the country, the feeling of the great majority of the colonists was now strenuously opposed to receiving any longer the taint of crime from the old country ; and this was especially the case in Victoria, to which escaped or time-expired convicts often found their way, but which had never been itself a penal Colony. Dr. Perry, the able and excellent Bishop of Melbourne, expressed the general feeling in Victoria when he wrote to a friend : i8s2] DR. PERRY 121 ' Melbourne, 'October 5, 1852. ' There is a subject of another nature, not affecting our own Church in^particular, but affecting the Colony in general, upon which I am most anxious to call forth an expression of sympathy with us, and indignation (I am sorry to say so) against the Government — I mean the subject of transportation. If the present system, or any system of transportation to Van Dieman's Land, continue, the moral character of these Colonies will be most seriously endangered, not so much from the con tagious influence of the expired convicts themselves as by the evil passions which their robberies and out rages excite ; and by the deadly hatred (I use this language deliberately) which will be engendered in the mass of the population towards England. Nor is this feeling confined to Victoria, although we are the greatest sufferers from the system ; it is general in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, although a few interested persons do not participate in it. ' It is in a political point of view to these Colonies what the Stamp Act was to those in America ; and in a moral and social point of view it is of infinitely greater importance,' To reverse all at once and irrevocably the practice, which had lasted for more than two centuries, of send ing the bulk of British criminals to a Colony — first to America, and then to Australia — and to have to main tain them at home, was a new departure of some difficulty. But if the British Government had per sisted, or even hesitated, they would have embittered the Australian Colonies against the Mother Country to a degree which might easily have led to separation. The Duke had the sagacity to realize this, and to perceive that, though it was directly contrary to the opinion of the Governor, who ought to have been in the best position for coming to a right conclusion, the only thing to do was to stop transportation to Van 122 TRANSPORTATION [ch. v Dieman's Land at once, and that half-measures or delay would only make matters worse. He wrote to Sir WiUiam Denison as follows : ' Downing Street, ' February 22, 1853. ' By the mail which leaves London to-night you will receive a Despatch from me of to-day's date which will, I fear, be little in accord with your views and wishes. It announces that no more convicts will be sent out to Van Dieman's Land. I am not ignorant that under other circumstances there might have been consider able advantages in bringing transportation to a close by degrees, and after a specified time for its final and complete cessation had been announced to the Colony, but at the present time many causes combine to influence a decision in favour of the change being immediate. ' I St. The strong feeling of a large proportion g hough I am aware not all) of the inhabitants of Van ieman's land. ' 2nd. The unanimous wish of the two neighbouring Colonies. ' 3rd. The growing feeling in the country. '4th. The enormously increased expenditure of the convict system caused by the high price of provisions and the rise of freights. ' 5th. The great change in the deterring influence of transportation as a punishment since the gold dis coveries. 'And, lastly, the general rule that a Colonial Governor finds himself less embarrassed by an abso lute, though sudden, change than where the discretion of modifying it and preparing for it exposes him to charges of unfairness and almost certainly of undue exercise of his powers. ' I need not say that I shall look anxiously for your report, both of the reception of this measure in the Colony, and your own views as to the success of it I know how strongly you have advocated the con tinuance of transportation, and how gallantly you have supported the Home Government in its measures ; but I am not without hope that before this reaches 1853] WEST AUSTRALIA 123 you the great changes going on around you may have convinced you that it is right to do now what must of necessity be done very soon.' The Colony of West Australia could be counted upon, and was anxious to receive from eight hundfed to a thousand convicts annually for a few years to come, for as yet no objection had been made to this either by the Colony itself, or by the neighbouring- Colonies ; but in order to meet the case of the re mainder, a ' Secondary Punishments ' Bill was brought in by the Lord Chancellor, which changed the sentence of ' transportation ' to one of ' penal servitude,' and established a system by which criminals so sentenced would henceforward, in the majority of cases, undergo their term of punishment in Great Britain. About this there could be no real danger or difficulty, for their number at that time was only about one in thirty thousand of the population of this country, as com pared with one in four in Van Dieman's Land, and was showing satisfactory symptoms of decrease. CHAPTER VI THE WAR WITH RUSSIA The Eastern Question — Opinion in England — Lord Stratford — Lord Palmerston — Lord Aberdeen — Turkish disaster at Sinope ¦ — Ministerial crisis — Colonial and War Departments separated — The Duke takes the War Office — Expedition to the East — Lord Raglan — Proposal to attack Sebastopol — Absence of information about the Crimea — Dispatch to Lord Raglan urging the attempt. Before the Government had been long in office the condition of affairs in the East of Europe had reached an acute stage. Russia was menacing Turkey with dis ruption. It became necessary for Ministers to come to a decision as to what attitude this country should assume. The story of the occurrences and vain attempts at a settlement which led up to the Crimean War has often been told, and need not, except in brief outline, be repeated here. It began in a dispute between the Latin and Greek Churches and their respective traditional champions, the French and the Russian Emperors, as to certain privileges of priority at the Holy Places at Jerusalem. The Sultan, to whom it was a matter of indifference, tried in vain to please both sides. The Czar then made certain peremptory requirements with which the Sultan comphed ; but the former, so far from being satisfied, only made fresh demands, and put forward a claim to exercise a pro tectorate over the Greek subjects of the Porte, the effect of which would have been practically to reduce 124 1853] AGGRESSIVENESS OF THE CZAR 125 Turkey to a condition of vassalage to Russia. The demand was one which, in the opinion of every statesman in Europe outside Russia, including even Prussia, was to be resisted at all costs. And, to make matters worse, it was pressed in a manner so de liberately insulting as to make it clear that the Czar's real object was the humiliation of Turkey and the appropriation of her territory. Nicholas afterwards frankly admitted this to Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British Ambassador, to whom he proposed that England should share in the plunder ofthe 'sick man' by annexing Egypt. The temptation to this flagrant attempt at spoliation on the part of Russia arose from the mutual relations of the European Powers at the time, which seemed to afford that Power a free hand. Austria, the State most affected, had four years before been saved by the intervention of a Russian army from losing Hungary, and, perhaps, from breaking up altogether, and would surely, the Czar reckoned, not oppose her protector. The Prussian King was the Czar's brother-in-law and his devoted follower. France had lately got a new master, who was not very firm on his imperial seat, and did not at that time seem likely to exercise much influence in Europe. There remained England. Would England resist the Russian aggressor at the expense of war ? or would she be content with an ineffectual protest ? Had the answer to that question been given earlier and in plainer terms, Europe might probably have been spared the war which foUowed. Had the British Government known its own mind and spoken it, instead of waiting for public opinion to drive it ; had the peace-at - any - price clique been authoritatively 126 THE CZAR'S MISTAKE [ch. vi rebuked for presuming to pose at St Petersburg as though they represented the British nation, the Czar might have been warned in time and before committing himself too far to be able to retreat And if the Czar himself had known England better, he might have stayed his hand. For a foreigner, he had indeed a remarkably good knowledge of English ideas and English statesmen; but it was a knowledge which was of necessity too superficial and limited to enable him to foresee what would be likely to be the temper of the English people when greatly moved, and served only to lead him into error. He had marked the rise and influence of the Manchester School, its triumphant advocacy of Free Trade, its grudging parsimony as regarded the Army and Navy, and its attitude of in difference in regard to European politics and to most matters outside the British Isles. Unfortunately, he erred in attributing to politicians of this school a degree of influence and importance in the country which, as the sequel showed, they were very far from possessing. For the temper of the British people had begun to undergo a change since the days when it was the pre vailing belief that England's having taken a part in European politics and in Continental wars had been an unmixed blunder, the cause of high taxes, dear bread, and widespread distress, and that to take any such part in future would be an error not likely to be repeated. The returning prosperity of the last few years, and the security with which this country, almost alone amongst the great Powers, had weathered the storms of 1848, had reawakened the national pride and sense of strength. By all who loved liberty on the Continent the Czar was feared and hated as a 1853] LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE 127 mighty ruler whose absolute power and authority were not confined within the limits of his own empire. He had lately attacked and overwhelmed the Hun garians for no other cause than that they were striving to reclaim from the Austrian Government rights of which they had been unjustly deprived. It was Russia whose influence and power had turned the scale, and had prevailed to crush the aspirations after liberty of Germany and of Italy, and the dread of whose vast armies hung like a black cloud over Europe. Was this new and unblushing act of aggression on an unoffending State like Turkey to pass unresisted ? In the interests of European security and law was there no point at which a stand was to be made ? Instead of a desire for peace at any price, the prospect of a war which was unanimously proclaimed to be a just one, and to be waged against an aggressor and a despot, was not altogether unwelcome to Englishmen — so little did a generation which had not known war realize what it was. Two Englishmen, each a powerful personality, took a firm attitude against Russia from the first — Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, British Ambassador at Con stantinople, and Lord Palmerston. Lord Stratford was from the first convinced that the only means of avoiding war was to make it clear beyond mistake that England was prepared to accept the risk of it rather than yield to the demands of Russia.* And in the * The Russian Emperor had for some unexplained reason a personal antipathy to Lord Stratford, and had formerly refused to receive him when nominated Ambassador to St. Petersburg. There was an idea that Lord Stratford resented this feeling, and was in consequence less conciliatory and therefore less likely to be successful in pre serving peace than he might otherwise have been. The publication of Lord Stratford's life has removed the grounds for this impression. 128 LORD ABERDEEN [ch. vi British Cabinet the love of liberty and the confident and buoyant spirit of Lord Palmerston led him to take the same firm attitude. Though condemned to comparative ostracism at the Home Office, his strong will and long experience in the conduct of foreign affairs gave him great weight in the Cabinet. Lord Aberdeen, on the other hand, represented the pacific section of the Cabinet. Forty years before it had happened to him to have to travel in the wake of some of the armies engaged in the great European struggle with Napoleon, and the ghastly scenes which he had then witnessed had inspired him with a deep and lasting sense of the inevitable horrors and calamities of war, and a determination to take almost any course rather than be the instrument of bringing it about. He was personally well known to the Czar, who counted upon his peace-loving disposition for restraining his Government from measures leading to actual hostilities. Gladstone was known to incline Under the greatest provocation, and — for an irascible man — with great self-command, he preserved the utmost courtesy of manner in his interviews with Menschikoff. The writer says : ' Lord Stratford, so far from urging the Turkish Ministers to unnecessary resistance, went, as it might seem from subsequent evidence, almost too far in approving the Russian bases.' To his wife Lord Stratford writes, alluding to the prospect of war : ' This is an awful prospect — as near as it is awful. I have done what I could to avert it, but circumstances, swollen by mismanagement, have carried all before them.' And to Mr. Canning he writes : ' I have done my best for peace — in propria persona when I could with honour and conviction, as an agent when I did not like the manner of proceeding.' Nor was it true, as had been asserted on the authority of the Russian Foreign Office, that there was any political correspondence between Lord Stratford and Lord Palmerston. During the year 1853 the latter wrote twice only to the former, and on insignificant subjects (see Mr. Lane Poole's ' Life of Lord Stratford,' vol. ii., pp. 231, 265, 27s, 302, and 303). 1853] SINOPE 129 to the same view. The Duke of Newcastle, on the other hand, and Lord John Russell were understood to be more in accord with Palmerston. The Russian armies crossed the frontier and entered the Danubian Principahties on July i, 1853. Turkey, restrained by England and France, did not declare war till October 23. The British and French fleets entered the Bosphorus at the same date. On November 30 the Russian fleet, issuing from Sebastopol, surprised at Sinope and totally destroyed the whole of a squadron of light Turkish war-vessels together with their crews, amounting to four thousand men. The significance of the action lay in the fact that it was fought within a short distance of the allied fleets, ' and after Russia had been officially informed that they were there to protect Turkish territory from attack,'* so that it amounted almost to a challenge to them. This and the disparity of force, which — unreasonably enough, for it was a legiti mate act of war — made it appear to the British public an unfair and barbarous proceeding, fanned the war-fever in England into a flame, and thenceforward the chance of maintaining peace became small indeed. Just after the news of this event had arrived, it was announced that Palmerston had resigned. The ostensible reason was that he could not give his assent to the proposed Reform Bill, then before the Cabinet ; and it was the consequence of a letter, virtually one of dismissal, from Lord Aberdeen and three of his colleagues. But this was not the only, if, indeed, it was the chief, reason. He was unwilling to be com mitted to what he considered to be an insufficiently firm attitude towards Russia. Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell were quite * ' Life of Lord Stratford,' vol. ii., p. 329. 9 I30 CABINET DIFFERENCES [ch. vi prepared to carry on the Government without him ; but it was not likely that they could have done so for long. His presence in it would in all probability have been found essential in order to retain public confidence as regarded the Russian question, so as to counter balance what were, rightly or wrongly, believed to be Lord Aberdeen's over-pacific tendencies. Nor would a reconstruction of the Cabinet at that time under another chief have been practicable. Palmerston was the strongest and ablest man in it. But his Peelite col leagues' mistrust of his foreign policy, and of his inclina tion to act too much by himself in dealing with Foreign Powers, made him at the moment impossible. Lord John Russell was no longer in a position to count upon Palmerston's serving under him, and, moreover, had of late done much to shake the allegiance of his old foUowers. Lord Aberdeen, writing to Gladstone in the summer of 1852 as to who would be eligible for Prime Minister in the impending Coalition, had observed : 'Whether it would be possible for Newcastle or me to undertake the concern, I cannot say.'* The Duke was, indeed, not without qualifications for the post. He had been Peel's favourite lieutenant. In office he had been in a marked degree diligent, conscientious, painstaking, and on the whole successful. He was known to be entirely free from selfish or interested motives. He had high social rank, and his tall, erect figure, courteous manners, and countenance grave to sadness, gave him a distinguished and gracious presence. But his col leagues were well aware that in grasp of mind, sagacity, calmness of judgment and experience he fell far short of the standard of Prime Minister, especially at so critical a time. Nor was he himself under any illusions * ' Life of the Earl of Aberdeen,' by Sir Arthur Gordon, p. 210. 1854] WAR DECLARED 131 as to this. Reahzing that the only hope of sustained and vigorous action lay in keeping the existing Cabinet together, he set himself earnestly to the work of con ciliation ; and it was mainly by his good offices that Palmerston was induced to withdraw his resignation, and that for the present the Government escaped shipwreck.* But mutual toleration of divergent tendencies does not constitute unity. Doubtless it was in great measure owing to the reliance of the Czar on these divergencies, and to his underestimating the strength of purpose which underlay them and which actuated public opinion in England, that the two countries drifted into war. On February 27, 1854, England and France demanded, as an ultimatum, the evacuation of the Principalities by April 30, and no reply having been sent, war was de clared by them against Russia on March 29. Hitherto the Duke's responsibility as regarded affairs in the East had only been in respect of his share in the decisions and acts of the Cabinet. As Secretary for War, he was about to become, in the prospect of hos tilities, responsible for the preparations for, and support of, the war, and for all matters connected with it. It was obvious that this responsibility was more than enough for one M inister, without his having the manage ment of the Colonies in addition. It was therefore * Palmerston wrote to his brother-in-law — Sulivan, December 25, 1853 : ' I was much and strongly pressed to remain in the Govern ment for several days by many of its members, who declared that they were no parties to Aberdeen's answer to me, and that they considered all the details of the intended Reform measure as still open to discussion. Their earnest representations and the knowledge that the Cabinet had on Thursday taken a decision on Turkish affairs in entire accordance with opinions which I had long unsuccessfully pressed upon them, decided me to withdraw my resignation, which I did yesterday.' — Ashley's ' Life of Lord Palmerston,' vol. ii., p. 21. 9--2 132 MINISTER FOR WAR [ch. vi decided to make War and the Colonies separate departments, a decision which was carried out in July, 1854.* The Duke, having his choice between them, with characteristic readiness to accept responsi bility and undertake hard work, chose the office of Minister for War. It was a post which, to a civilian having no personal acquaintance with the army, and no previous experience of the complicated machinery of its administration, presented great difficulties. These difficulties were increased by the fact that a reconstitution of the War Office, and a selection of new officials and transfer of old ones, had to be carried out at the same time. One of these appointments, that of Mr. (afterwards Sir Ralph) Thompson, made by the Duke a clerk in the Colonial Office in 1853, transferred by him to the War Office in 1854, and subsequently Chief Clerk and Assistant Under-Secretary of State for the War Department, was in all respects an admirable one, as the event proved. But the Duke, who inherited the intellectual defect of being but an indifferent judge of men's merits and capacity, was not always fortunate in his choice of persons either in his public or his private capacity. That he was not unaware of the weight of work and of the gravity of the responsibilities that he was under taking, and not without foreboding of the censure he was to incur, appears from the following letter : ' In leaving the Colonial Office I am well aware what I have done. I know that in this new department, whatever success shall attend our arms I shall never derive any credit; and this, too, I well know, that if * They had been united for sixty years. ' In 1794 the new Secretary of State for War became also nominally Secretary for the Colonies and in 1801 the departments were regularly united ' (Egerton's ' History of Colonial Policy,' p. 256). 1854] THE COMMISSARIAT 133 there shall be disaster, upon me alone will come the blame and the public indignation.'* The separation of the War Department from the Colonial Office naturally opened up questions as to what other changes were requisite in the complicated system by which the British Army was managed. Hitherto the commissariat, with the expressed assent of the Duke of Wellington, had been under the control of the Treasury. As to this the Duke of Newcastle writes to Lord Aberdeen : ' Downing Street, 'jMZyS, 1854. ' It cannot have escaped your observation that, whenever the question of the administration of the army has been raised in Parliament, very strong objections have been stated to the existing connexion of the commissariat with the Treasury, and there is no doubt that, before the close of the Session, some questions will be put, and possibly a motion made in the House of Commons on the subject, the argument for the present arrangement being greatly weakened by the appointment of a separate Civil Department to superintend the affairs of the army. Such of our colleagues as have spoken to me on the subject have expressed their opinion that the commissariat ought now to be removed to the office of Secretary for War, and though I am well aware of the zeal and industry displayed by Sir Charles Trevelyan in its manage ment for some years, and much fear that for some time at least I may not be able to carry on the business as efficiently as he has, I am bound to say that this change has always appeared to me a necessary consequence of that which disunited the Secretaryship of War from that of the Colonies. I shall be glad to know your opinion as soon as you feel in a position to announce it as upon the decision other arrangements must depend.' Five months afterwards the proposed change was made. * Hayward's ' Letters,' vol. i., p. 220. 134 LORD RAGLAN [ch. vi Military preparations had been begun in January, two or three months before the declaration of war. The first order for sending troops abroad was given on February 9. It was thought that the fortresses of the Danube and even the difficult country of the Balkans could not long delay the advance of the Russian armies, and that by the summer or autumn Constantinople itself might be in actual danger of attack. Attention was therefore turned towards securing the safety of the city by occupying in force, and entrenching the peninsula on the north-west side of the Dardanelles and the town of Gallipoli, whence the flanlc of an army approaching Constantinople would be exposed to attack. Sir John Burgoyne, an experienced engineer of Peninsular reputation, and other officers were sent out to make preparations for the reception of a large number of British and French troops. In April ten thousand British soldiers were sent to Malta, as a step on the way to Gallipoli, where they were to be joined by the rest of the expeditionary army. The General appointed to command the expedition, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, created Lord Raglan in 1852, was eighth and youngest son of the fifth Duke of Beaufort, and was born in 1788. After serving first in a cavalry and then in an infantry regiment, and subse quently being attached to Sir A. Paget's embassy to Turkey, he went to Portugal in 1808 on the staff of Sir Arthur WeUesley. As Military Secretary he accompanied him from first to last throughout the Peninsular War. Not only was he present with his chief on every battlefield without exception, but he went out of his way to join in the assaults of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajos. As Military Secretary it i_/Pi^ t^^^^. ^ ¦n^ (i-^niZyiy r..^^aA-A^(^ 1854] LORD RAGLAN 135 was greatly due to his diligence, tact, and kindly temper, and to the minute knowledge which he ac quired of the capacity and merits of the officers of the army, that intimate relations were established and maintained between head-quarters and the different battalions, and general efficiency thereby promoted.* At Waterloo he was again on Wellington's Staff, and lost his right arm. From that time onward, except when sent on diplo matic missions abroad, he was continuously employed in the administration ofthe army. In 1827 he became Military Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, which office he held till the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, after which he became Master-General of the Ordnance. Thus in him were combined the qualifications of actual experience of war gained in the imme diate personal presence and under the instruction of the great Duke, and of an accurate and minute acquaint ance with the administration and personnel of every branch of the army. His cheerful, kindly temper, his dignified simplicity, and his unvarying calmness and intrepidity in action, had gained him universal respect * Sir William Napier, in his ' Peninsular War,' says : ' Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Military Secretary, had established such an intercourse between the head-quarters and the battalion chiefs that the latter had, so to speak, direct communication with the General-in-Chief upon all the business of their regiments, a privilege which stimulated the enthusiasm and zeal of all. ... By this method Lord Fitzroy acquired an exact knowledge of the moral state of each regiment, rendered his own office important and gracious with the army, and with such discretion and judgment that the military hierarchy was in no manner weakened. All the daring young men were excited ; and, being unacquainted with the political difficulties of their General, anticipated noble triumphs, which were happily reahzed.' 136 A MILITARY PARADE ? [ch. vi and affection ; and his familiarity with the French language and characteristics was an important recommendation for the command of an expedi tion the success of which largely depended on cordial co-operation with the French General and Army. One defect, however, he had, so serious that it might well have justified his being passed over. He was in his sixty-sixth year. That so obvious a dis qualification should not have been accounted fatal is in itself a striking testimony to his pre-eminence in all qualities for command. Still the trumpet of the British Government gave an uncertain sound. It was believed that Lord Aberdeen still entertained a hope that there would never be actual fighting between the Allies and the Russian armies ; and so convinced were many who had access to good information that so peace-loving a Prime Minister could not really mean war, that they believed that nothing more than a military parade and demon stration were intended. It was an impression which, if it had prevailed at head-quarters, might have led to serious consequences as regarded appointments to commands in the ex peditionary army. The Duke of Newcastle, as Secretary for War, was responsible for the nomination of Generals of Division and Brigadiers.* But Lord Raglan, not only as General in command, but also because he had a more intimate knowledge of the personnel of the British army than any other living man, ? The practice was for the Commander-in-Chief (Lord Hardinge) to submit these appointments to the Secretary for War for the sanction of the Government before recommending them to the Queen. If the Secretary for War, on behalf of the Government, had demurred to 1854] APPOINTMENTS i37 was very properly consulted, and probably suggested most of the appointments. Two important appoint ments, however — those of Lord Lucan to the command of the Cavalry Division, and of Lord Cardigan to that of the Light Brigade under him — were not submitted to him before being sent in to the Queen. These two officers were brothers-in-law. They were both men of difficult tempers, and were notoriously so ill-disposed towards each other as not to be on speaking terms. Lord Raglan made no decided objection to the appointment of either without the other, but he protested strongly against an arrangement which placed two irreconcilable men in important commands, and in close relations with each other.* Strange to say, his objections were overruled by the Commander-in-Chief, with what unfortunate results to the Cavalry Division and to the 'army is now matter of history. As the spring advanced the determined resistance offered by the Turks to the Russian armies in the Principalities, and their unexpectedly successful defence of the fortress of Silistria on the Danube, made it no any of them, the Commander-in-Chief would have given way. By an inadvertence — for which, on its being pointed out to him, Lord Hardinge at once apologized — three appointments — viz., those of Lord Lucan and of Brigadiers-General Torrens and Goldie — were recommended to the Queen without having been first submitted to the Duke. But this was an accident, and for these appointments also the Duke, with characteristic generosity, accepted the responsi bility, inasmuch as if he had felt that there were serious objections to any of them he could have advised the Queen to cancel the appoint ment (Evidence of Select Committee on Army before Sebastopol, Qu. 14, 349, et seq.). * My authority for this statement is General the Hon. Somerset Gough Calthorpe, who had it from Lord Raglan himself. 138 LUCAN AND CARDIGAN [ch. vi longer necessary to await the Russians in the neigh bourhood of Constantinople. In June, therefore, the British and French troops were transported to Varna on the west coast of the Black Sea, within a com paratively short distance of the contest that was going on on the banks of the Danube, and in which it was thought they would have to take a part in support of the Turks. But in the meantime the political situation had changed. Austria had at last resolved upon effective resistance to Russia, and on June 2, with the support of Prussia, summoned the Czar to evacuate the Prin cipalities under pain of war, and offered to co-operate with Lord Raglan* and St. Arnaud in a campaign there. With the Turkish, British, and French armies in front, the Austrians on their right flank, and the Black Sea commanded by the allied fleets on their left, the Russians were threatened on three sides, and had no alternative but to retreat, and on August 2 they recrossed the frontier. Thus concerted action by the European Powers had at last been brought to bear, and had baffled and driven back the offending Power, with heavy loss of men and prestige, into her own territory. Public law had been successfully vindicated. The belligerents had been parted, and the Austrian army, which had now entered the Principalities, been thrust between them. To all but the aggressive Power, what could be more satisfactory ? There was a breathing-space which, had the temper of the Russian * See Lord Clarendon's speech in the House of Lords reported in the Times of December 16, 1854. In a tieaty signed December 2, Austria engaged to defend the Principalities against any return of the Russian troops. 1854] RUSSIANS RECROSS FRONTIER 139 Czar and of the British people permitted, might have afforded opportunity for renewed endeavours after a peaceful solution. But it was not to be. For the first time for nearly forty years a British army of twenty-five thousand men, equal, if not superior, in quality to any army that had ever left the English shore, had been transported three thousand miles to defend what in England was almost universally believed to be a good and righteous cause. The English people were justly proud of it. Was it to remain inactive, keeping guard indefinitely, or until such time as another Russian advance, of which there was no present probability, took place ? Was there to be no counter-stroke ? Was it to return home ingloriously, without having added any bright page to British military annals ? If the allied forces were withdrawn, would not the danger to Turkey recur ? The Austrians, indeed, now barred the way by land. But by sea — was Constantinople safe so long as from the great fortress of Sebastopol, with its well-stored arsenals and its ample dockyards, a Russian fleet superior to any the Turks could bring to meet it could sail to the Bosphorus with no obstacle — if the allied fleets were removed — to oppose it? To take Sebastopol — if it were possible to take it — had from the first outbreak of war been recognized by the British Government as the most effectual counter- stroke to Russia that could be delivered. It was of the first importance to ascertain if this were feasible, yet, strange to say, it had been found impossible to pro cure any reliable information as to its land defences, the strength of its garrison, or the amount of the Russian I40 SEBASTOPOL [ch. vi force in the Crimea ; nor was anything known of the geographical features of the country, of its roads and its communications across the isthmus with the main land. In pursuance of his instructions. Admiral Dundas, who then commanded the Mediterranean fleet, in the summer of 1853 endeavoured, but in vain, to procure information. In Sebastopol alone of the prin cipal Black Sea forts there was no British Consul or Vice-Consul. The Russians evidently were at pains to keep out strangers who would tell tales, and Dundas complained that the British Ambassador at Constan tinople did not assist him, as he thought he might have done, by employing some of the many polyglot officials who were at his disposal, and by buying intelligence with secret-service money. Lord Raglan, having no such resources, and not coming on the scene till war had broken out, could find out nothing. On May 10 Dundas wrote to him : ' Sebastopol is a second Gib raltar. We see many new works erecting, and from prisoners learn that the land side is equally being strengthened. . . . We are told that a hundred and twenty thousand men are in the Crimea, thirty thousand of whom are in Sebastopol.' His letter was forwarded to the Duke of Newcastle, who characterized the esti mate of a hundred and twenty thousand men as 'ex tremely inaccurate,' which no doubt it was, though the authority for it was as good as that for any other informa tion on the subject which the Government possessed.* * Sir George Brown writes to Lord Raglan from on board the Agamemnon, July 27, 1854 : ' With its extensive magazines and other public buildings Sebastopol appears a magnificent city, and it is evident by the care that has been taken to defend this " sole harbour of the Euxine" that a due value has been set upon it by the Russian Government. The mouth of it may be considered as completely unassailable from the sea, and I should think an attack on Portsmouth child's play to it. . . .' i8s4] ABSENCE OF INFORMATION 141 On August 29 the Duke writes to Lord Raglan : 'You are no doubt pretty weU satisfied that the estimates of the Russian force I have [sent ?] you from time to time are much more accurate than those you have received in Turkey, and that it does not exceed 40,000 [men].' In the event it proved that the actual forces in the Crimea at the time of the landing, including the sailors and drilled workmen available for the defence of Sebas topol, amounted to about seventy-six thousand men.* But what increased the risk of the expedition even more than the uncertainty of the strength of the Rus sian force in the Crimea was the ignorance of the British authorities of the communications with the mainland by which it could be reinforced. It was vaguely believed that the isthmus of Perekop, which connected the Crimea with the mainland of Russia, could be commanded by the guns of the allied fleet, or occupied and fortified by a comparatively small force, so as altogether to exclude Russian reinforcements and supplies from entering the Peninsula, and isolate those already there. Accordingly, the Admiralty, when the Crimean expedition was determined on, sent instruc tions to effect this object to Dundas. Under the same impression the Duke afterwards wrote to Lord Raglan : 'September 28, 1854. '. . . You will recollect that in my dispatch of 29 June I called your attention to the importance of taking possession of and occupying Perekop. At that time you thought it impracticable. Let me again beg you to consider whether the Turkish force now in the Crimea would not be best employed in this service. If Sebastopol, and indeed the Crimea, is to be held by * Kinglake, vol. iii., p. 129. 142 ISTHMUS OF PEREKOP [ch. vi the Allied armies during the winter, it would be of great importance that this key of the country should be in your possession. Works could soon be thrown up which would render the position sufficiently strong.' Had such an operation been practicable, its import ance was sufficiently obvious. If the Russians in the Crimea could have been debarred from receiving re inforcements, they must have been driven from the field by the Allies, who, having the command of the sea, would soon have had the disposal of a greatly superior force, against which Sebastopol could not long have held out. But it was a complete error. The depth of the sea for several miles on both sides of the isthmus is often not more than two or three feet. The fleet could not get anywhere near it. Nor was this all. Independently of the isthmus, and some miles to the east of it, there was a well-made road joining the Crimea with the mainland by means of a bridge across the eastern end of a shallow lagoon called the Putrid Sea, of the existence of which the British Government was not even aware till near the end of the year 1854.* The British public was too ignorant, too impatient, too eager for a decisive success to contemplate the situation with calmness, or to be capable of weighing the probabilities of success or failure. The Times ex pressed and emphasized public opinion in an article (June 15) in which it asserted that 'the grand political ? Evidence of Duke of Newcastle, Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 14, 426, in which he says : ' I am bound to say that some four or five months afterwards we ascertained, what was not before known in this country or elsewhere until that time, that the Russians had another means of access into the Crimea some miles to the eastward of Perekop by a bridge." i854j CIVIUM ARDOR 143 and military objects of the war could not be attained as long as Sebastopol and the Russian fleet were in existence.' As for the Duke of Newcastle, on principle and in intention no one was less inclined to mould his opinion by that of a loud-voiced majority. It has been seen on a former occasion with what emphasis he repudiated the position of a delegate, and took upon his own conscience fuH responsibility for bis public acts. Probably he may have persuaded himself that he was guiding public opinion, when all un consciously he was being borne on its current and carried off his feet ; for on the occasions when he in the most marked way asserted his individual opinion by the assumption of personal responsibility, it was apt to be in the direction of outstripping public senti ment rather than of moderating it. In a dispatch of April 10 he had written to Lord Raglan : ' I have to direct your Lordship to lose no time after your arrival in Turkey in making careful but secret inquiry into the present amount and condition of the Russian force in the Crimea, and the strength of the fortress of Sebastopol. Your first duty will be to prevent, by every means in your power, the advance of the Russian army on Constantinople, if it should appear that there is any present serious intention of making such an attempt ; but you must bear in mind that if the Russian General should make no demonstra tions of any further onward movement, it may become essential for the attainment of the objects of the war that some operations of an offensive character should be taken by the Allied armies. No blow which could be struck at the Southern extremities of the Russian Empire would be so effective for this purpose as the taking of Sebastopol. It is unnecessary to point out that the destruction of the Russian fleet is one of the 144 PRAVA JUBENTIUM [ch. vi certain consequences, and that a solid guarantee for the future maintenance of peace would thus be obtained. Before, however, the siege of a fortress reported to be so strong can be attempted, it is neces sary that information which can be relied upon shall be obtained on many points of which little or nothing is at present known in England, or, as it would appear, even in Turkey. Captain Drummond, in H.M.S. Retribution, lately examined and reported upon the strength of the sea defences ; but your Lordship will have to ascertain whether in the last few months the works have been materiaUy strengthened on the land side, both on the South and North of the harbour, and what facilities for landing troops may exist on any part of the shore between the fortress and Kaffa on the one side and Eupatoria on the other. The number of men in the Crimea and Sebastopol is variously estimated, but 30,000 is generaUy believed to be the largest force which can at present have been sent there.'* During April and May, as the success of the Turks in resisting the Russians on the Danube continued, the Duke's eagerness for an attack on Sebastopol increased. On May 3 he writes : ' We must never forget that mere driving the Russians out of the Principalities without crippling their future means of aggression upon Turkey is not now an object worthy of the great [efforts ?] of England and France.' And on June 8 : 'Do not believe the Admiral's story about 120,000 men in the Crimea ; I do not believe there are more than 30,000, and that there are about 18,000 more in Odessa. At the same time do not suppose I want to * Lord Aberdeen, in his evidence before the Sebastopol Committee, says that the purport of their information was that the numerical force of the Russians in the Crimea amounted to about seventy thousand — forty thousand in Sebastopol and thirty thousand dispersed about. 1854] RUSSIAN STRENGTH UNKNOWN 145 urge you to the siege of Sebastopol against your and the Admiral's judgment. All I say is that in a political point of view this is the thing to do, and unless we destroy Russia's Black Sea fleet I do not see my way to a safe and honourable peace.' On June 28, though the uncertainty about the strength of the Russian force in the Crimea was as complete as it had been in April, the Duke wrote to Lord Raglan as foUows : ' Since I last wrote to you, events unknown to you at the date of these letters have been brought to us by the telegraph, and the raising of the siege of Silistria, and the retreat of the Russian army across the Danube (preparatory, probably, to a retreat across the Pruth), give an entirely new aspect of the war, and render it necessary at once to consider what shall be our next move. ' The Cabinet is unanimously of opinion that, unless you and Marshal St. Arnaud feel that you are not sufficiently prepared, you should lay siege to Sebas topol, as we are more than ever convinced that, with out the reduction of this fortress and the capture of the Russian fleet, it will be impossible to conclude an honourable and safe peace. The Emperor of the French has expressed his entire concurrence in this opinion, and, / believe, has written privately to the ]Vlarshal to that effect. I shall submit to the Cabinet a dispatch to you on this subject, and, if it is approved, you may expect it by the next mail. In the meantime I hope you will be turning over in your own mind and considering with your French Colleagues what it will be safe and advisable to do.' These letters led up to the well-known dispatch to Lord Raglan of June 29, 1854. This dispatch, after describing and commenting on the military situation, proceeds* : * Kinglake, in a well-known passage (vol. ii., p. 94), has described how this dispatch was read by the Duke to the assembled Cabinet one hot evening in June, after a dinner at Pembroke Lodge, and how 10 146 THE SLEEPING CABINET [ch. vr ' I have, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, to instruct your Lordship to concert measures for the siege of Sebastopol, unless, with the information in your possession, but at present unknown in this country, you should be decidedly of opinion that it could not be undertaken with a reasonable prospect^of success. The confidence with which Her Majesty placed under your command the gallant army now in Turkey is unabated, and if, upon mature reflection, you should consider that the united strength of the two armies is insufficient for this undertaking, you are not to be precluded from the exercise of the direction originally vested in you, though Her Majesty's Govern ment will learn with regret that an attack from which such important consequences are anticipated must be any longer delayed. The difficulties of the siege of Sebastopol appear to Her Majesty's Government to be more likely to increase than diminish by delay ; and as there is no prospect of a safe and honourable peace until the fortress is taken, and the fleet taken or destroyed, it is on all accounts most important that nothing but insuperable impediment — such as the want of ample preparations by either army, or the possession by Russia of a force in the Crimea greatly outnumbering that which can be brought against it — should be aUowed to prevent the early decision to undertake these operations. This decision should be taken solely with reference to the means at your dis posal as compared with the difficulties to be overcome. ... It is unnecessary to impress upon your Lordship the importance of selecting favourable weather for the those present fell fast asleep during the reading. The truth of the story is not denied, but it had not quite all the significance implied in Kinglake's narrative. The substance of the dispatch had no doubt been discussed and agreed upon already, and the reading on this occasion was but its final ratification. Still, its purport was so ambiguous, and its expressions so balanced, that every word might be of importance in its effect on Lord Raglan's decision ; and it is not to the credit of the Cabinet that a document which proved to be the death-warrant of not less than three-quarters of a million of men — British, French, and Russian — should have received even its formal ratification in such fashion. 1854] A HESITATING DISPATCH 147 purpose, and avoiding all risks of being obliged by storms to withdraw from the shore the vessels of war and transports when only a partial landing of the troops has been effected. '# * Strange to say, it seems that Ministers did not consider, even after the dispatch had been sent, that the die had been cast and the last word spoken whicli was to launch the expedition against the Crimea ; for the question came up again more than a fortnight later at a Cabinet on July 15, as appears by the following letter from Palmerston to the Duke : ' Brocket, 'July i6, 1854. ' My dear Duke of Newcastle, 'You said yesterday at the Cabinet that you wished to talk over what was to be written to Raglan by the Mail which would go before our next Cabinet ; and as I was obliged to leave the Cabinet early to save my railway train to this place, I send you my vote in writing. ' It seems to me that to keep the allied army in Bulgaria and carry on operations on the banks of the Danube would be to throw away time, money, men, and official and National Reputation. Nothing that we could do there would have any decisive effect on the war, nor could it help on a step towards the attainment of that future and permanent security which our convention with France specifies as one of the main Conditions of Peace. Even if we were to drive the Russians across the Pruth, it would be what the French call a coup d'epee dans I'eau, a temporary advance which would cease the moment we withdrew. ' I should indeed doubt the wisdom of an advance of the Turks to the North of the Danube, nor ought they to attach too much importance to the line of the Danube. Omar Pasha was quite right to defend the Danube and Silistria as long as he could, but I should not have thought less well of ultimate results if he had retired at length to Schumla, Pravadi, and Varna, or even to Adrianople. The Russian difficulties would increase with every day's march to the Southward, and the Dangers of their Position would become more and more serious. Our only chance of bringing Russia to terms is by offensive and not defensive operations. We and the French ought to go to the Crimea and take Sebastopol and the Russian Fleet, the moment the two armies are in a Condition to go thither. Sixty thousand English and French troops with the Fleet co-operating would accomplish the object in six weeks after Landing, and if that blow was accompanied by successful operations in Georgia and Circassia we might have 10 — 2 148 PALMERSTON'S OPINION [ch. vi How much of the language of the dispatch may have been the Duke's, and how much the result of interpolations, alterations, or additions by other members of the Cabinet, it is, of course, impossible to say. On the face of it, its diffuseness and the iteration with which the whole responsibility for whatever might happen — even for the weather ! — is thrown upon the commanders suggest modifications of the original draft. But however that may be, upon the Cabinet as a whole, and not upon a single Minister, must rest the responsibility for instructions of such transcendent importance ; for, in spite of the saving sentences leaving him a discretion, they put so great a pressure on Lord Raglan that it was practically impossible for him to decline to undertake the expe dition without incurring the imputation, not only of want of spirit — which he was too brave a man to regard — but also of want of confidence in the army he commanded. How Lord Raglan received the dispatch, and the a merry Christmas and a happy new year. There is not the sUghtest danger of the Russians getting to Constantinople. The Turks are able to prevent that, but even if they could not, the Austrians would be compelled by the Force of events to do so. Austria has, as usual, been playing a shabby game. When she thought the Russians likely to get [word illegible] while she fancied England and France needed hastening, she bragged of her Determination to be active against Russia. As soon as she found our troops at Varna she changed her tone, and, according to the Dispatch which Clarendon had in his Hand yesterday, she now says she shall not enter the Principalities, and the Russians must be driven out by the Turks, the Enghsh, and the French. She can hardly think us simple enough to do her work for her, but the best way to force her to act would be to send the Troops off to the Crimea. This is my vote. ' Yours sincerely, ' Palmerston.' 1854] LORD RAGLAN ACQUIESCES 149 impression it made upon him, is told in detail in King- lake's interesting narrative.* Not only he himself, but the French General St Arnaud and the Admirals Dundas and Hamelin, were in greater or less degree unfavourable to the expedition. So was also Sir George Brown, a Peninsula veteran of the same age as himself, with whom he at once took counsel concerning it ; but the two agreed that, as the Government at home when they sent the dispatch were in possession of all that was known as to the strength of the Russian force in the Crimea, it must be interpreted as a command which it was their duty to obey. Lord Raglan there fore replied to the Duke : ' It becomes my duty to acquaint you that it was more in deference to the views of the British Govern ment as conveyed to me in your Grace's dispatch, and to the known acquiescence of the Emperor Louis Napoleon in those views, than to any information in the possession of the naval and military authorities, either as to the extent of the enemy's force or their state of preparation, that the decision to make a descent upon the Crimea was adopted. 'The fact must not be concealed that neither the English nor the French Admirals have been able to obtain any inteUigence upon which they can rely with respect to the army which the Russians may destine for operations in the field, or to the number of men allotted for the defence of Sebastopol ; and Marshal St. Arnaud and myself are equally deficient in infor mation upon these all-important questions, and there would seem to be no chance of our acquiring it't * Kinglake, vol. ii., p. 113. f Sir John Burgoyne, writing just before the landing in the Crimea, says : ' After much discussion, I think the proposition affording the best chance of success is likely to be adopted ; but it is a desperate enter prise, forced, I believe, on Lord Raglan and the French General by 150 SIR JOHN BURGOYNE'S OPINION [ch. vi The Duke replied : ' I wish that circumstances which are engrossing my attention this afternoon permitted my expressing to you the feelings of intense anxiety and interest which your reply to mine of June 29 has created in my mind. I cannot help seeing through the calm and noble tone of your announcement of the decision to attack Sebastopol that it has been taken in order to meet the views and desires of the Government, and not in entire accordance with your own opinions. God grant that success may reward you and justify us ! . . . ' The cause is a just one if any war is just, and I will not believe that in any case British arms can fail. May honour, victory, and the thanks of a grateful world attend your efforts ! God bless you and those who fight under you.'* taunts from home. . . . Success or failure depends entirely on the force the enemy may have in the country, of which we have no information whatever ' (' Life and Letters of Sir John Burgoyne,' vol. ii., p. 83). * In the Debate on the Address, December 12, 1854, the Duke is reported (Times, December 13) to have said : ' When the noble Earl (Lord Derby) says that the orders for the invasion of the Crimea were given in spite of the opinion of the Generals, I deny that they were given in spite of the opinion of any General at all, but that on the contrary, as far as any military opinions were received, they were in favour of undertaking the expedition.' Sidney Herbert on the same day is reported to have said in the House of Commons: 'Those officers (the Generals of the Army in the East) took every means to ascertain the force of Russia in the Crimea. They held a Council of War, and decided, as I think they had a right to decide, that the attempt ought to be made. They knew their forces, and from information what forces they would be likely to meet, and Lord Raglan knew better than any man the military capacity of England.' It must be confessed that it is difficult to reconcile these two speeches with the expression of opinion of Lord Raglan against the expedition as disclosed in the above correspondence and commented upon by the Duke. 1854] STRESS OF ANXIETY 151 These and other letters of the Duke's at this time and subsequently indicate that he was in a condition of considerable nervous excitement, suffering, no doubt, from the strain of excessive work and the pressure of constant anxiety. The expression, ' I will not believe that in any case British arms can fail ' suggests a frame of mind of hardly adeqtiate calmness, and scarcely appropriate to a Minister for War on the occasion of sending out an expedition so fraught with grave peril as that which was contemplated. Con vinced at an early period of the justice and necessity of the war, he had from the first thrown himself heart and soul into the preparations for it. No responsi bility was too great, no detail too small, for him to take up. As early as December, 1853, three months before war was declared, he was at work on an average twelve hours a day.* With the exception of three days, when he was in official attendance on Prince Albert at Boulogne, he had been present in London during the whole of the year 1854,! not even going to his home at Clumber once during that time, and work ing under constant pressure morning, noon, and night. Not only did he give his attention to matters of the first importance, such as naturally appertained to him as Minister, but in his exceeding anxiety and assiduous ness concerned himself also with matters of detail, such as a chief of less eager temperament might have been content to leave to his subordinates. He is described by those who saw him at that time as worn and haggard with the strain of overwork and want of sleep. Great risks must needs be incurred when a country * Diary of Henry Greville. t ' Sebastopol Committee's Report,' vol. i., p. 204. 152 THE RISK TOO GREAT [ch. vi is in peril. But England was at that time in no peril. As to the future, the destruction of the formidable Russian fortress would, no doubt, be a valuable guarantee for future security. But had men's minds been calmer, the doubt would surely have arisen whether the risk were not too serious to be incurred to meet what was, after all, not a present danger, but an uncertain future contingency. CHAPTER VII the invasion of the CRIMEA The Expedition sails for tlie Crimea— Alma — North or south sides of Sebastopol to be attacked ? — Sanguine expectations not shared by Lord Raglan — Ships against forts — Admiral Dundas — Failure of bombardment — The army requires rest — Inkermann — Perilous position of the Allies — Winter troubles — Duke and Ministry at tacked — The Duke's strenuous efforts at the War Office — With whom did the fault lie ? — The Sebastopol Select Committee. It was on July i8, at a conference of the Generals and Admirals at St. Arnaud's quarters at Varna, that, in deference to the instructions they had received, the final resolve was taken to attack Sebastopol.* Almost immediately afterwards the cholera broke out in both armies and both fleets. No less than ten thousand men of the French Division that had advanced from Varna into the Dobrudscha died or were struck down with illness. The Admirals put to sea on August 1 1 and 12 in the hope of staying the epidemic, but in vain. The Britannia alone lost one hundred and five men.f By the third week in August it had somewhat abated, but the physical condition of the armies was still so bad that few, even of those who were not actually ill, were in their ordinary health and strength. Nevertheless, on August 24, the work of embarka- * Kinglake, vol. ii., p. 123. t Ibid., p. 133. 153 154 THE EXPEDITION EMBARKS [ch. vii tion at Varna began. By September 4 the French army was all embarked. The British, having more than a thousand cavalry — the French not taking any — necessarily took more time, and were not on board ship till the morning of the 6th. The next morning the great flotilla set sail. At the eleventh hour, when the expedition was already twenty-four hours on its way to the Crimean coast, the hazard of the undertaking, and the un certainty where and how a landing could be effected, and what the subsequent plan of operations would be, raised such apprehensions in the minds of some of the leading French Generals that they presented a memorial to St. Arnaud deprecating the intended landing on the coast north of Sebastopol, and suggesting that if a descent were to be attempted at all, it should be at such a safe distance from Sebastopol as would pre clude any hope of taking it before the winter. St. Arnaud, being very ill, sent on the memorial to Lord Raglan. Averse as he had been to the expedition when originally proposed, Lord Raglan was the last man to hesitate when it had once started, and when to do so would have been an exhibition of vacillation and weakness, and his decision was not for a moment shaken.* * Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons writes to Sir James Graham : 'September 13, 1854. ' The day after we sailed from Baljik I was summoned to a con ference at Sea, on board the Caradoc, where I found Lord Raglan, Generals Canrobert and Rose and Colonel Trochu, who is looked upon as the Emperor's friend (ami) by the Army. Admirals Dundas, Hamehn, and Bruat were also present. Colonel Trochu proceeded to read a paper which he said had been agreed to by Generals Canrobert and Rose and some superior officers in the French army. That paper professed to set forth in an impartial manner the advan- i8s4] HESITATING COUNSELS 155 But that the abandonment of the plan of campaign should have been even suggested by experienced officers at such a time is significant of the prevailing sense of its peril among those who were in the best position to judge. Writing to the Duke on board the Caradoc at sea on the voyage from Varna to the Crimea, Lord Raglan said: ' September 12, 1854. ' On the eve of the operation by which the invasion of the Crimea is to be undertaken, I think it due to Her Majesty's Government to state that I am fully alive to the difficulties of its execution and to the many obstacles that may be opposed to its success. I have from the first represented to your Grace the absence of all accurate information as to the force occupying the Crimea. . . . ' Adverting to the constancy with which the Public Press has urged the attack of Sebastopol and pro claimed the intention of the Allied armies to undertake tages and disadvantages of disembarking the Allied armies at Eupa toria, Katscha, Yalta or Kaffa, with an unmistakeable tendency in favour of Kaffa, though it was not denied by anyone excepting General Rose that the disembarkation at that place was tantamount to putting off an attack on Sebastopol until next j'ear. But what particularly concerns me in this matter is that the paper professed to be founded upon the preoccupation of the Admirals. On hearing this I asked, "What Admirals ?" and on receiving no answer, Admirals Bruat and I solemnly protested against our ever having said a syllable or done a thing that could authorize any such expression. It was at once admitted that we had, in fact, never wavered in the slightest degree from the decided opinion we had given at the first conference at Varna. . . . You will readily believe that the paper found no favour with Lord Raglan, who put it aside at once by asking whether it was founded on anything that had come to the knowledge of the authors of it since the expedition sailed. So that when we all met together again oh board the Caradoc for the Reconnaissance two days afterwards, it was not reproduced. Admiral Dundas was in total ignorance of the paper until he heard it read, and he then expressed a strong objection to Kaffa.' iS6 THE DUKE CONFIDENT Tch. vn the enterprise, and the extent to which it was spoken of in Parliament, it is not conceived to be possible that the Emperor should have neglected so general and re peated a notification of the designs of the English and French Governments, and should not have made every effort to reinforce the army in the Crimea and render it superior in numbers and equipment to anything it is likely to come into collision with. ' I entertain little doubt that Her Majesty's troops and those of the Emperor of the French will be able to establish themselves at the place where they dis embark. That circumstance, however, must not lead your Grace to suppose that our progress can, under any circumstances, be rapid. ... I hope you will understand that I am actuated by no desire to make difficulties. . . . My sole object is to show that I am fully aware that the enterprise is one of no ordinary character, and that I may have to encounter most serious obstacles in the execution of your Grace's instructions.' In his reply the Duke thus lightly but courteously brushes aside these words of warning : ' October 2, 1854. ' The representations which your Lordship has con sidered it to be your duty to make to me on these several heads are so many proofs to Her Majesty's Government of the wisdom and foresight which are the indispensable qualities of an able commander as well as of the zeal and devotion which have urged you to confront and overthrow those obstacles which might otherwise impede the progress of the undertaking which you have in hand and for the probable existence of which you have thus shown yourself to be prepared. ' The happy results which have so far attended the Erogress of the great undertaking entrusted to your ordship justify Her Majesty's Government in the sanguine expectation that those difficulties and obstacles which so naturally have presented themselves to your Lordship's mind will long ere this have vanished, and lead us to indulge the fervent hope that Providence may be pleased to crown with success the great object 1854] THE ALMA 157 of the expedition — the capture of the fortress of Sebastopol.' The landing of the allied armies in the Crimea at Old Fort began on the morning of September 14, and occupied five days. On the 19th they began their march towards Sebastopol, and on the 20th defeated the Russians at the Battle of the Alma, driving them in full flight from the position they had taken up. On the 23rd, after a delay of two days, the advance was resumed, and on the following day the Allies were within a short distance of the defences on the north side of Sebastopol. Here, however, the resolution was finally taken to attack not the north, but the south side, and accordingly, by a flank march of two days, they took up a position on the high ground to the south and east of the town, with Balaklava as the base of supply for the British army and Kamiesch for the French. With the news of the victory of the Alma had come to England a report, the origin of which never trans pired, that Sebastopol had, as an immediate con sequence of the battle, fallen by assault. It met with general belief, for the Government and the public had been expecting the place to fall by a coup de main.* No very clear idea seems to have been attached to the phrase. No one in England stopped to consider whether the stone forts were to be stormed without any previous battering by artillery, or whether field-guns * The allied Generals, in the absence of sufficient information, had not agreed upon any definite plan. Sir John Burgoyne (vol. ii., p. 332), criticizing a statement of Kinglake's, says : ' So far as there was any plan then on the part of the French, it was an elaborate plan of a regular siege of the Severnaya Fort, drawn up at Varna by General Bigot, Commanding Engineer, and therefore not, as impUed, one of assault at once,' 1 58 SEBASTOPOL [ch. yn were likely to be effective in breaching them. By some means or other the allied armies would, it was hoped, carry everything before them. Kinglake, following the opinion which Todleben, the Russian General, expressed in his account of the siege, considers that the demoralization of the Russians after their defeat at the Alma was so great, and the land defences of Sebastopol so incomplete, that, had the allied army advanced at once instead of waiting two days on the battlefield of the Alma, against the forts on the north side of the harbour, it could have taken them by assault. He also says that Lord Raglan was in favour of the attempt being made, and that it was only the opposition of St. Arnaud and the French that prevented it. On the other hand, the most experienced engineer in the British Army, Sir John Burgoyne, who was on Lord Raglan's Staff, asserts that an assault was quite impracticable and was never seriously entertained. Burgoyne's opinion is endorsed by Sir Edward Hamley, who points out many inaccuracies in Todleben's narrative which im pair its value and credit, and maintains that the fire from the Russian ships in the harbour would have swept the slopes around the ' Star ' fort — which was the main defence — and rendered any attack upon it impossible.* Nor would the capture of the north * On this and other points connected with the siege the reader is referred to Kinglake's 'Invasion of the Crimea'; to Sir Edward Hamley's 'War in the Crimea'; to Sir John Burgoyne's 'Life and Letters'; to 'Letters from Head-Quarters,' by a Staff Officer; to a ' Review of the Crimean War,' by Colonel Adye ; and last, but not least, to the Blue-Books which contain the evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Army before Sebastopol. Kinglake's account is so exhaustive and in general so accurate that it leaves little to be said. That the story which he has told so admirably is not as well known as it should be amongst his country- 1854] COULD IT HAVE BEEN STORMED? 159 side forts, Hamley goes on to say, have been of any avail to the Allies in destroying the docks and arsenals which were on the south side and separated by the width of the harbour, about a thousand or eleven hundred yards, from the north side, and whose capture or destruction was the main object of the expedition. Again, when the allied armies had taken up a position facing the defences of the south side, the question has been debated whether an immediate assault should have been made ; and again it is asserted by Todleben and Kinglake, and denied by Burgoyne and Hamley, that success was probable and the risk not too great. Probably there are few competent judges who will not now agree that in both cases Burgoyne and Hamley are right and Todleben and Kinglake wrong. And it must be remembered that, from the circum stances of the expedition, it was not open to the com manders to incur risks which it might possibly have been right for them to face had they been different, and had a retreat been open in case of a serious reverse. When, with the news of the victory of the Alma, the report came that Sebastopol had been taken, the Duke announced the intelligence to the Queen in the following letter : 'Downing Street, ' September Tp, 1854. ' The Duke of Newcastle knows not how to offer to Your Majesty his humble and heartfelt congratulations upon the Victory with which it has pleased God to men is probably due to the volumes of the work having appeared at long intervals, one after the other, and to their being overloaded with details which, interesting though they are, in some degree obscure the general drift of the narrative. i6o FALSE REPORT OF ITS FALL [ch. vn bless your Majesty's Arms, and which at this moment is being announced to Your Majesty by the telegraph. ' The Duke of Newcastle now feels convinced that the telegraph sent to Your Majesty this morning is also true, and that Sebastopol has fallen by assault. ' Confirmation of the blessed news will probably be received in the course of a few hours. ' God grant that Your Majesty's reign may now be blessed with an early and a long peace.' When the dispatches containing the details of the battle arrived, the Duke wrote again to the Queen : ' Downing Street, 'October 8, 1854, 11.30 a.m. ' The Duke of Newcastle presents his humble duty to Your Majesty, and has the honour of informing Your Majesty that Lord Burghersh arrived here at seven o'clock this morning with despatches and private letters from Lord Raglan. ' The Duke of Newcastle has had an extraordinary Gazette published of which he sends Your Majesty a copy. He also sends copies of Lord Raglan's two private letters and enclosures. ' Lord Burghersh was desired by Lord Raglan to express his regret that he had been unable to write to Your Majesty, but his unremitting labours subsequent to the battle of the Alma had totally precluded his doing so. ' Lord Burghersh has orders from Lord Raglan to remain here till the arrival of the next mail, when he will receive further instructions. The Duke of New castle expects this mail on Wednesday next. ' Your Majesty will learn with deep regret the great number of killed and wounded, but Your Majesty will be satisfied that so great a loss was unavoidable when the Duke of Newcastle mentions that the Russians had so strongly fortified their position that they hoped it would hold out for three weeks. Lord Burghersh states that a large number of the officers returned as wounded will be lost, as the wounds are generally inflicted by Minie balls, and are of a severe character. Lord Chewton has no less than eleven wounds. Sir 1854] NEWS OF THE BATTLE i6i George Brown's horse received no less than six shot- wounds and part of his coat was shot away. Sir de Lacy Evans' contusion was of a slight character. Many others of the officers who escaped had horses shot under them. ' Lord Raglan was during the whole time in the thick of the fire, and one of his aides-de-camp was wounded whilst standing close to him. Lord Raglan appears to have exposed himself more than those who estimate his life at its true value could desire, but he seems to have found it impossible to give his orders with effect at any greater distance. Lord Burghersh says, that never for a moment did Lord Raglan evince anj- greater excitement or concern than he evinces on ordinary occasions — never since the days of the great Duke has an army felt such confidence in and love for its leader, and never probably did any General-officer acquire such influence over the Allies with whom he was acting. ' The English forces engaged were 22,000 Infantry, 1,100 Cavalry, 2,700 Artillery, and 400 sappers, in all 27,000 men. The French Infantry were the same in number, but they had fewer Artillery and no Cavalry. ' The Duke of Newcastle feels that now more than ever Your Majesty has reason to be proud of Your Army, and to trust in the General whom Your Majesty has selected to command it. . . . ' The Duke of Newcastle regrets to inform Your Majesty that the exertion and exposure of the troops between their landing and the 27th of September has caused an increase of cholera, and many were dying when Lord Burghersh came away. ' The possession of Balaklava is strategically of such vast importance, and so materially changes the whole aspect of future operations for the better, that the Duke of Newcastle feels very hopeful that the tanta lizing rumour of a week ago will soon assume an authentic shape. The weakness and desperation of the Russians are evinced by their sinking their ships at the mouth of the harbour. This measure will, it is to be feared, prevent the Navy from sharing in the honours of that success to which their exertions will have so greatly contributed. ' The Duke of Newcastle regrets that he could not II i62 DIFFICULTIES OF THE SIEGE [ch. vn send off a messenger at any earlier hour to-day. He found that a special train was a matter of great diffi culty fpr so very long a distance, and on Sunday there are no ordinary trains affording facilities for sending a messenger through to Perth. ' The Duke of Newcastle had made arrangements for the circulation of the Gazette by means of the police throughout London in the course of the day by delivery at all the principal buildings of resort and at the Churches and Chapels. Copies will also be sent through the assistance of the Post-Office to every post-town in the Kingdom.' The Duke, like most of his countrymen, had never permitted himself to doubt that Sebastopol ought to fall, must fall, and would fall speedily. He had, how ever, no warrant for these sanguine expectations in anything ever written by Lord Raglan. The latter's dispatches, both before and after the Battle of the Alma, contain no word to encourage such anticipations. On the contrary, he over and over again deprecates them ; and when he heard of the false report being spread in England, he wrote : 'October i8, 1854. ' I cannot but deplore the ready credence which has been given by the public in England to the announce ment in the newspapers of the capture of Sebastopol. Indeed, it is an injustice to the troops to view the accomplishment of the enterprise as an easy operation, and with the full determination to do everything to ensure success, I must still regard it as one of extreme difficulty and of no great certainty.' Again, on October 8, Lord Raglan writes : ' I will not conceal from your Grace that the more the ground is examined, and the nearer the place is ap proached, the more formidable does the undertaking appear, and the less confident are the officers of engi neers of being able to carry out the objects of the attack.' 1854] SIR JOHN BURGOYNE'S OPINION 163 He writes again the same day : ' Since I wrote to you this morning I have had a serious conversation with Sir John Burgoyne. He was very sanguine of success at first, and considered that we had no very great obstacles to contend against, but he has gradually arrived at a different conclusion, and he now apprehends that the force we can command is wholly inadequate to the real attack of the front of the place to which we are exposed. ' The ground on which our troops are of necessity encamped, and that they would have to traverse on their advance, is so intersected with ravines that each division would in a great measure be isolated, and the enemy could fall upon one or more of them with an overwhelming force, without the one being able materially to assist the other, and would succeed in all probability in delaying any batteries which we might have established within fifteen or sixteen hundred yards of the town, a considerable distance no doubt, but the nearest we might hope to arrive at without first subduing the enemy's fire, an almost hopeless task, considering the number and weight of metal of the guns they have in position, and the cover they have been able to give them since they saw the necessity of strengthening the South side of Sebastopol, ' Sir John Burgoyne, having proposed to me the day before yesterday to draw the investment closer, I called the Generals of Division together yesterday, and upon announcing to them what I wished to have done, they were unanimous in opinion that, without cover, they could not maintain an advanced position but at a cost beyond what it would be right to risk. It was therefore resolved to confine ourselves for the present to such an operation as would enable us to place some of our long-range guns in battery. . . .' A prevalent delusion as to the lack of tenacity and courage of the Russians is expressed in the following letter from the Duke to Lord Raglan, informing him of the capture of Bomarsund by the Baltic Fleet : II — 2 i64 SHIPS AND STONE WALLS [ch. vn 'August 21, 1854. ' . . . We have at present few details beyond the fact that the loss has been very inconsiderable, and that 2,000 prisoners have been taken. There is, how ever, one circumstance which appears to me valuable as bearing upon your operations in the Crimea — the Russians do not fight behind stone walls like the Turks. When the ultimate issue of the struggle appears to them evident, they surrender, instead of protracting it, regardless of life. . . . May all this presage the events at Sebastopol; and, though I am not inclined to magnify the success at Aland, I cannot help hoping it forecasts the shadow of the far greater victory which is to crown your military career, and, God grant it, close the war in the Crimea.' Amongst the popular notions which were connected with the conviction that the taking of Sebastopol was a comparatively easy matter was the impression that the fire from wooden ships — for as yet there were no iron-clads — could prevail against stone forts. Possibly it may have arisen from an imperfect appreciation of the causes which led to the successful bombardment of Algiers and of Acre, which (except the Battle of Navarino) were the only important affairs in which the British navy had been engaged since the Great War. However that may be, the notion was impressed on the minds, not only of the public, but also of some members of the Government, and notably of the Duke, and in the navy itself there was considerable difference of opinion. Admiral Dundas had been asked by the Admiralty early in the campaign if he could undertake to bombard the forts of Sebastopol with the fleet with a prospect of success. He replied decidedly in the negative. The Admiralty afterwards wrote to ask him why he had not made an attack on the defences at the entrance of the harbour on Sep- 1854] ADMIRAL DUNDAS 165 tember 19, or on the 20th, as a diversion while the Battle of the Alma was being fought, and why he had not prevented the sinking of the Russian ships. His answer was that the presence of the fleet was neces sary to keep touch with the flank of the army in its march along the coast, as well for the protection of the numerous transports conveying the ammunition and provision for the troops as for affording to it an ulti mate refuge in case of a reverse, which, however little anticipated, could not, in the absence of all intelligence as to the amount of the enemy's force, be considered impossible. There was a popular idea in England that Lyons, the second in command of the British fleet, had from the first been eager to attack Sebastopol with the ships ; that he was confident of success, and that nothing but the backwardness and overcaution of Dundas stood in the way of a decisive result Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, seems to have inclined to this opinion, but that he did not fully adopt it, or that he was overruled by advisers who knew better, is indicated by the fact that Dundas was not recalled. But the popular estimate of the comparative merits of the two Admirals took such possession of the Duke of Newcastle's mind that when it became known that the report of the fall of Sebastopol was untrue, he wrote to Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, a letter in which, after describing the points in which he considered Dundas had proved incompetent, he goes on to say : ' Downing Street, ' October 5, 1854. ' If we have a siege of four or five weeks, this man's incapacity may cause a great disaster, and I really feel i66 THE DUKE'S PROPOSAL [ch. vn more anxious about it than I can express. If you were here I would have suggested to you to send out by Saturday's post somebody on whom you could rely, with an order of supersession in his pocket to deliver or not as his discretion might decide, according to the circumstances he might find ; moreover, if Lord Aber deen were here, I would have offered to go myself, for I do not think the judge of its necessity should be a naval man. ' Pray think over maturely what should be done, After all I heard on Monday morning I do indeed feel the responsibility of leaving the fate of 40,000 English men and the honour of our country in such hands to be most serious. ... ' I fear you will think this a disagreeable letter to follow you to the Highlands, but I cannot say how anxious I feel about the honour of that noble fleet.' Alacrity to assume responsibility, one would have thought, could hardly go beyond the Duke's proposal in the above letter ; but four days later he went a step further, and wrote as follows to Lord Raglan : ' Downing Street, ' (Confidential.) ' October 9, 1854. ' My dear Lord Raglan, ' I must address you a few lines on a most impor tant matter. Sebastopol may be in your hands while I am writing — probably it will be before you can read this letter. If so, what I am about to say will be un necessary, but, on the other hand, the siege may be a long affair, and in such a case any want of co-operation of the Fleet with your Army might be most disastrous, Eerhaps destructive. It is only a week ago that I first eard of the fearful incapacity (to use no harsher word) of Admiral Dundas. I was of course aware of his slackness and his deficiency in all the high qualities which characterize his admirable second in command, but I had no idea of the extent to which his unfitness for his post extended. Since then I have received more than one communication on the subject which has caused me very great anxiety. Unfortunately, 1854] TO LORD RAGLAN 167 Sir James Graham is at Balmoral. I am, of course, very unwilling to assume to myself any functions which do not belong to me or to encroach upon the duties and province of the Admiralty. This, however, I wish you to understand, and in case of necessity you may impart it to Sir Edmund Lyons. If Admiral Dundas gives orders which unnecessarily imperil your Army, and you can induce Sir Edmund Lyons to do so gallant an act as to disobey such orders, you and he shall have every support that I can give you. I cannot pledge myself, but such is my confidence in you and him in such an emergency — in your discretion as well as in your boldness — that my existence and position as a Minister will be embarked with you. With you both I will sink or swim. I know the irregularity, may be even the impropriety, of this communication to you, but I feel the emergency to be great, and I should be a coward if I shrank from any act which appeared to me necessary to meet it.* ' I am, my dear Lord Raglan, ' Yours most sincerely, ' Newcastle.' * The general purport of this letter, and the fact of its having been sent, is mentioned by Kinglake, vol. iii., p. 324; but he had not seen the letter itself. Two days later the Duke wrote to Lord Aberdeen : ' Downing Street, ' October 11, 1854. 'Graham has sent me his letter to you and your answer — both referring to a letter of mine respecting Admiral Dundas. ' From your answer I infer that you did not see my letter, or if you did, it must have been less intelligible than it should have been. ' I complained no doubt of Dundas's negligence in respect of the garrison of Anapa, but I by no means urged his recall (or rather con ditional power of recall) for that reason. I felt that such a step was necessary — not as a measure of punishment, but of precaution — and every day convinces me more and more of the serious responsibility attaching to us whilst he remains. The accounts I have of his mis conduct are most alarming, and they come from so many, as well as from such respectable sources, that I cannot doubt their truth. ' It is for the safety of the army that I am concerned mainly — and if Sebastopol falls the risks will be almost at an end, — but I can assure you during Graham's absence I have felt most anxious about the \68 LORD ABERDEEN'S OPINION [ch. vn Lord Raglan replied as follows : ' Before Sebastopol, ' (Confidential.) ' October 28, 1854. ' I thought it best to communicate your letter marked " Confidential " of the 9th inst. to Sir Edmund Lyons, who has since had letters from Sir James Graham of a subsequent date, in which he does not refer to what complaints daily coming in. Now that he has returned I shall tell him all I hear, and of course it will rest with him whether any steps ought to be founded on the information. I hope Lord Burghersh will tell you all he knows and has heard about the Admiral. ' I have written this rather in my own justification, for I should be ashamed of advising the degradation of an officer for a mere act of omission of duty such as that at Anapa at such a moment as this ; but when I beUeve that the lives of 40,000 may be imperilled by the incapacity of one I confess my individual sympathy with the unit is not very great.' Lord Aberdeen replied ; 'Argyll House, 'October 15, 1854. ' I do not understand from your letter that any question is now pending with respect to the recall of Dundas ; nor, indeed, is there any specific charge made against him, with the exception of his not having prevented the Russian garrison of Anapa from passing into the Crimea. I think this would be a very insufficient ground on which to act without further explanation. In the first place, the fact itself requires confirmation ; but even if true, Graham told me a month ago, when I spoke to him on the subject, that it would be impossible for Dundas to prevent the passage of the troops. ' Dundas may be remiss and incapable, but I could never agree to his recall on general accusations of incapacity without any proof or special charge brought against him. This would be most unjust, and an act against which Sir Edmund Lyons would be the first to protest. ' Dundas has behaved with great generosity to Sir Edmund Lyons. He has shown no suspicion of him, but, on the contrary, has had the good sense to give him his entire confidence. ' Had Dundas been lukewarm in the cause, he might easily have found professional reasons for demurring to the request of Lord Raglan that 1,000 marines should be landed at Sebastopol ; but he 1854] BOMBARDMENT OF SEA DEFENCES 169 you tell me, but appears to wish that if possible all scandal should be avoided. ' I am quite satisfied that this is in the highest de gree desirable, and I do not think anything can occur to make it necessary to take any such extreme step as you authorize the adoption of ' It is, however, very gratifying to me, and I make no doubt it is equally so to Sir Edmund Lyons, that you should place such confidence in us.' A week after it was written, and before it could reach its destination, the Duke's letter to Lord Raglan received a practical answer. On October 17 the com bined British and French fleets took up a position outside the harbour and engaged the forts. Their attack, skilfully conducted and resolute as it was, inflicted some damage on the Russian batteries, but failed to silence them, and, after being maintained for some time at the imminent risk of the loss of some of the ships, was discontinued, and the fleets withdrew without having achieved any results to compensate for the loss and damage that they had sustained. In a private letter to Sir Francis Baring, Dundas refers to this action : , ^^^^ furious, 'December 14, 1854. ' The promotion to the junior ranks of the squadron have been very fair for the action off Sebastopol — a seems to have given his assent at once on receiving the communica tion from Sir Edmund Lyons. ' If we take Sebastopol, as I presume we shall do in a few days, half the fleet may come home without delay ; for it cannot be wanted in the Black Sea. Dundas may return with the ships if it should be thought too long to keep him where he is until the end of the year. ' Of course, if any culpable omission can be proved, or specific misconduct of any kind, it may be open to visit it with severity. But a general charge of incapacity is no reason for depriving a man of his office without enquiry ; although it may be a very good one for not making the appointment.' 170 UNSUCCESSFUL [ch. vn more useless one never was fought — but General Canrobert commands the French fleet by order of the Government, and Lord Raglan agreeing to sanction, Canrobert caused such letters to be written that if I was sure half my ships would be sunk I determined to go in. Some of my fire-eaters were the first to call out, and are quite satisfied not to try again. One of them said : " If I go into such a place as I call my station I shall be sunk in an hour." I said : " Then go there (to another place), and Britannia (Dundas's own flag-ship) shall occupy that which you fear." Eden will explain all that passed. But I keep my temper, quarrel with no one, which you will say is a great change in me.' On the same subject Captain Eden, R.N., writes to Sir Francis Baring : ' London, ' January 15, 1855. ' I must write to tell you how much I felt your kind congratulations on " having been in, and having come out ' from under the batteries of Sebastopol. I believe we had our fair share of the work, if doing little or nothing in the way of injuring the enemy and getting roughly handled ourselves can be called work. Officers and civilians have differed so much in opinion on the subject of attacking forts with ships that I always felt shy of offering an opinion on the subject myself, for fear it should be supposed that I had no wish to try the experiment I now consider myself competent to offer an opinion, which is that no one but a fool would do such a thing.' Sir Henry Ward, Governor of the Ionian Islands, who was in frequent correspondence with the War Office throughout the war, writes as to the bombard ment to the Duke : ' Palace Corfu, ' November 6, 1854. ' As to the fleet, the concurrent testimony of every officer engaged is that they can do nothing against the i8s4] DUNDAS JUSTIFIED 171 forts. Everything that the most reckless gallantry could do was done without the slightest visible effect. ... I have letters to-day from two of the best young officers in the fleet, George Randolph of the Rodney and Stewart of the Firebrand. The Rodney was the next ship to the Agamemnon, and was on fire three times. The Firebrand towed the Albion in and brought her out again after being on fire five times. The Fire brand had 145 shots in her hull and rigging. Both ascribe the smallness of the loss in killed and wounded to the large number of marines and seamen on shore, and the consequent dispersion of those who remained on board.' In December, Dundas went home, and was suc ceeded by Lyons in the command of the fleet Sir Henry Ward writes to the Duke : ' Palace Corfu, ' (Private.) ' Christmas Day, 1854. 'The Admiral (Dundas) is expecting, daily, orders to return to England with the Britannia, and I think he will do so without regret You know that he has never taken a favourable view of the Crimean expedi tion, and has always thought the force employed inadequate — as indeed it has proved. He now con ceives that the town, south of the harbour, may be occupied, and the shipping destroyed ; but he says truly that the town cannot be held while commanded by the forts on the other side, or the forts reduced without another siege longer and more difficult than the first, unless we succeed in cutting [words left out] with Perekop. As Dundas writes to me in con fidence, I must beg your Grace to receive what I repeat to you in the same spirit But his opinion deserves attention. He has been right upon many points from the first And though he is soured by the harsh criticisms of the Press, and the unfortunate rivalry that has sprung up between the friends of Sir Edmund Lyons and his own, he tries to take a fair view of the position — admiring the immense merits of Lord Raglan — admitting that if he himself were younger he might take a more sanguine view of the 172 FRENCH BATTERIES SILENCED [ch. vii case — but perfectly satisfied that there are enormous difficulties to be surmounted, and that the result is by no means certain. . . .' But to return from the fleet to the army. Although the Duke had anticipated that Sebastopol would yield to an assault of the allied armies to be made as soon as they reached it, and to be combined with a bombardment by the fleets, he had not neg lected to provide for the eventuality of a regular siege, and had sent out two complete siege-trains. These and some ships' guns in charge of sailors were landed at Balaklava, taken to the front, and put in position in the trenches. The British and French batteries were ready by October 17, and opened fire a few hours before the bombardment by the fleets took place. At first all seemed to be going well, and the effect on the Russian defences produced by the fire satisfactory; but before long, by an unfortunate accident, a large powder-magazine belonging to the French exploded, killing so many men and doing so much damage that their fire was silenced ; and the British batteries, un able to carry on the contest alone, had to cease firing. But for this accident it is probable that the Russian defences might have been so damaged as to admit of an assault taking place at once with every prospect of success. The mishap at this crucial moment was fatal. Within ten days, and before the damage caused by the explosion could be repaired, large Russian reinforce ments had arrived, which gave the enemy a great pre ponderance of force, and wholly changed the aspect of affairs, postponing indefinitely the prospect of assault ing the fortress. This, however, was not immediately apparent. Matters still looked hopeful, and it became necessary 1854] QUESTION OF WINTER QUARTERS 173 to consider, if Sebastopol should be taken, what was to be done next, and where the arm}'^ was to winter. With reference to this, the Duke had written to Lord Raglan : ' Osborne, 'August 22, 1854. ' Your question about winter quarters for your Army is one of much anxiety, and has by no means escaped my attention, but I have forborne to trouble you with any remarks upon it because so much must depend upon the result of the expedition to the Crimea. The taking of Sebastopol would indeed solve the whole difficulty, for I apprehend that even if its occupation were not desirable for military or political objects, as a winter cantonment for the troops, it would be far preferable to any others. I will write to you more fully by the next opportunity, but in the meantime I think you should ask Lord Stratford to secure you the refusal of airy barrack the Porte has on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and any buildings which are suitable between Gallipoli and the Castles of the Dar danelles.' He writes again on the same subject : ' September 28, 1854. . . . ' At a moment when the fate of Sebastopol is not yet decided I am almost ashamed of foreshadowing any further operations ; and yet in the interest of an early peace I cannot forbear calling your attention to Anapa and to the Sea of Azof If possible, this last garrison of Russia on the coasts of Abkasia should be swept off before winter, and the Admirals should so far open the channel at Kertsch as to enable them to send the gunboats and steamers of light draft into the Sea of Azof and clear out all the vessels and boats which have for months past been conveying provisions and stores to the armies in the Crimea and in Asia from the North-east shores of that Sea. The effect of this stroke would be great. It would not only confirm Austria, and perhaps gain Prussia, but it would ensure the cordial co-operation of the Georgian and Circassian 174 THE DUKE SANGUINE [ch. vn tribes, and convert the half-concealed hospitality of Persia into an open friendship. ' If this can be done — and I hope I am neither too sanguine nor too exacting — the result of the war will be no longer doubtful. The Emperor will probably not at once sue for peace, but the terms will thence forth be in our own hands, and the labours of a land (?) campaign will be comparatively light. You and your brave army, as well as the rest, will be able to pass a merry Christmas, and be able to enjoy the com fortable reflection that in the coming new year there will be every prospect of returning home to a grateful country, full of honours, having won a peace which, with the blessing of God, we may fairly hope to be enduring. Most earnestly I pray that this letter may find you so situated as to participate in these hopeful prospects. You can hardly imagine, being on the scene of all our thoughts, how anxious is the longing of all here for the next telegraph. We have had none for five days.' Lord Raglan was not in a position to concur in these sanguine views. He writes : ' October 23, 1854. ' In the Crimea we hold only the position on which we stand. We have no command of its resources, no intercourse with the country whatever, and the enemy's posts of their field force come as close to our troops stationed for the protection of Balaklava as they can without engaging. ... If we take Sebastopol it may be considered as a matter of certainty that no further operations can be entered upon till the opening of the ensuing spring ; and, if this be admitted, the only question remaining for solution is what is to be done with the place ? After the injuries it has already suffered, and those it has yet to undergo, I doubt its furnishing winter quarters for either army, and, if it could, I doubt the expediency of its being so occupied, for it would be certain of being attacked by all the resources of the Russian Empire when the season of operations should return, and there would be no chance of peace until it should be surrendered, or its being given up should be admitted as the basis of all 1854] THE ARMY NEEDS REST 175 negotiation. I am inclined, after having given the deepest attention to the subject, to recommend that whatever constitutes Sebastopol a naval port should be destroyed — that is to say, its docks, its arsenals, etc. — and that it should be left with everything to reconstruct and re-establish, and then abandoned. It is with this object that the armies were sent here, and if it can be accomplished they wiU have fulfilled the expectation of the two countries in alliance, and can be called upon to surrender nothing. ' Before concluding, may I be permitted to say a word with regard to this army ? It requires, and should not be denied, repose. Although the marches have not been many, fatigue has pressed heavily upon the troops. The very act of getting water and finding wood has been a daily unceasing exertion, and the climate has told upon them independently of cholera. Sickness has prevailed to a great extent since the third week in July. Cholera, alas ! is still lingering in the army, and only yesterday we lost two officers from it. ... ' The Duke replied : ' November 9, 1854. ' ... I do not write an official answer to your dis patch of the 23rd, for I could only repeat the general assurance of confidence in the army and its General, notwithstanding the great difficulties which appear to impede you, and the long suspense in which an anxious country is kept I will not conceal from you that I do begin to feel a little nervous. The ascertained confi dence of Menschikoff — reflected in the mind of the Emperor himself — almost makes me fear what he so confidently anticipates — but yet I will not believe that you can fail. Of this I am certain — you will succeed if success is possible. ' I need hardly say that I recognize most fully all you say in your letter of the 23rd of the impossibility of carrying out the views shadowed forth in mine of the 28th September and 3rd October. It is one of the misfortunes of attempting to direct any operations at such a distance that circumstances frequently entirely change before letters are answered. I shall be too thankful to hear of your having taken Sebastopol to 176 BALAKLAVA AND INKERMAN [ch. vn expect or wish anything else to be attempted this year. I am, however much concerned to hear what you say about the prospect of wintering in the Crimea. . . . ' There can be no doubt that the army requires repose, and ought to have it ; it richly deserves it, and I wish there were an Eden prepared for it. My own idea is that if you were able to winter in the South of the Crimea, the climate of the neighbourhood of Simpheropol and the want of provisions would prevent the Russians from molesting you by a winter cam- Eaign. AU this, however, you will know for certain efore you can receive this. . . .' Alas ! it was no Eden, no such ' repose ' as Lord Raglan demanded for his overtasked army, that was in store for it ! How critical the situation had become was suddenly and unexpectedly made evident by the battle of October 25, when the town and harbour of Balaklava were in imminent danger of capture by the Russians. It was proved still more conclusively at the Battle of Inkerman on November 5, when the British army had to sustain an attack in which it was outnumbered three or four to one — an attack which, had it been delivered along a more extended front, so as to make the Russian superiority of force fully available, could scarcely have failed. Had it succeeded, the allied army must have been rolled up hopelessly to the edge of the cliffs on the seashore, with no possibility of retreat and little of embarkation. Every heavy gun must have been abandoned, and the bulk of the allied army could hardly have escaped destruction. On receiving telegraphic news of the Battle of Inker- man, the Duke wrote to Lord Raglan : ' November 18, 1854. ' . . . The losses are indeed distressing, and I tremble for the details which your dispatches will bring in a few days. . . . 1854] LQSSES AT INKERMAN 177 ' Nevertheless, you report the defeat of the enemy, and we must be grateful to you, to the army, and to Heaven. ' I will not conceal from you that intense anxiety — I will not say as yet depression — prevails in all classes here, forming a strong contrast to the cheerful tone of all private letters received from your army. It is right you should know this, for if success does at last crown your efforts, it will indeed be highly appreciated. The follies of over-confidence in the beginning of October have given way to very different feelings. . . . ' Lord Hardinge has promised to send you a state ment of the reinforcements we are sending you. You will, I hope, believe we are doing all we can, though not all we could wish.' In spite of the decisive repulse of the Russians at the Battle of Inkerman, which cost them a loss, variously estimated at from three to six times that of the Allies,* the hold of the latter upon their position was far from secure. On three separate occasions during the winter Captain Dacres, R.N., who was in charge of Balaklava Harbour, 'had notes from Sir Colin Campbell to say that he did not think he could hold possession of Balaklava, and I must be prepared to take care of myself, and we must leave the harbour.'! ' We were always exposed,' he says, ' to an attack from the enemy, who could have burnt the whole of the ships.' * According to Kinglake, the British loss in killed and wounded amounted to 2,487, and that of the French to 929. The Russian loss he puts at 10,729. Lord Raglan estimated the Russian loss much higher ; writing to the Duke (November 13) he says : ' We have good reason to believe that the Russians lost little short of 20,000 men on the sth. They are known to have buried of their own people 500. We have interred 3,000 ; the French 1,400 ; and as they must have had three times the number of wounded at the very least, 20,000 would not be an exaggerated estimate.' ¦)• Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 16,151, 16,279. 12 178 BESlEGLRS BESIfiGED [ch. vn For, owing to the arrival of large and repeated rein forcements from the mainland, the Russian forces in and outside Sebastopol now greatly outnumbered those of the Allies, so that, though nominally besiegers, the latter were for two or three months from this time really besieged themselves.* Their position had many of the disadvantages without the advantages of both a besieging and a besieged army. They had not the shelter from inclement weather or the ready access to arsenals and storehouses which a garrison has ; but had only tents to sleep under, and were dependent on transport by sea for their supply. Nor had they, like an army in the field, the command of the country and its provision of fodder, if not of corn. The situation on such a scale was unparalleled in modern warfare. It bore an ominous resemblance to that of the Athenians before Syracuse, where eventually their whole armament met with total destruction. The comparison, if it suggested itself, was not an agreeable one to contemplate. The harbour of Balaklava was too small, and the space between the cliffs and the water-side available for wharfage too confined for the requirements of the great numbers of vessels bringing stores and supplies for the army. Commissary-General Filder writes to Sir Charles Trevelyan : ' November 13, 1854. ' I am full of apprehension as to our power of keep ing this army supplied during the coming winter, not from want of supplies or of transport ; but in this crowded little harbour only a proportion of our vessels can be admitted at a time, and a gale such as has now * Sir John Burgoyne says : ' At the date of the Battle of Inkerman, the Russian troops in the Crimea exceeded 100,000 ; the Allies had liltle over 60,000 ' (' Life,' vol. ii., p. 344). 1854] TRANSPORT DIFFICULTIES 179 been blowing during the last three days here in terrupts all communication with those at anchor out side, which are, moreover, exposed on a dangerous coast to imminent risk of shipwreck. Nor can our vessels which are unladen get out ; nor even our steam cattle-vessels. Then, again, with all the siege and other stores which are being disembarked at the same time, we can do but little more than land sufficient supplies to keep pace with the daily con sumption of the troops ; and to add to our difficulties, the road from the harbour to the camp, not being a made one, is impassable after heavy rains ; our obstacles in these respects will increase as the winter comes on. We shall have many more stores also to convey than we have hitherto had — fuel, for instance. In short, I am full of anxiety and dread on the subject.'* * Sir Charles Trevelyan says in his evidence before the Sebastopol Committee (Qu. 13, 865): ' Filder had not only provided a sufficient quantity of transport, but he was able to appropriate 150 mules with a proportion of carts as a reserve against contingencies of weather, but soon after came Balaklava action, and the Commissariat chest was ordered on board ship and all transports ordered out of harbour for three days, during which it was understood to be in contemplation to evacuate Balaklava and contract our lines. After that a strong Northerly wind blew which kept them out three days more. . . . After that came the Battle of Inkermann, and the whole of his transport was employed for some days bringing up reserve ammunition . . . they had fired away a great part of their ammunition, and then came the hurricane and the catastrophe. . . . ' The road became broken up. The first effect of that was, that whereas draught animals and carts had been principally used before, the animals could afterwards be used only as pack animals, the con sequence of which was that the transport power was reduced at once by two-thirds, because an animal could draw 600 pounds, but could only carry 200 pounds ; so that it was reduced to one-third at once. Then, whereas, before the breaking up of the road, the draught animals made one trip a day ; very soon after the breaking up of the road the pack animals were able to make a trip only every other day, which reduced the one-third to one-sixth. Then the state of the road was such, being knee-deep, with holes in it, that it wore and distressed extremely both animals and drivers . . . and the drivers began rapidly to disappear.' 12 — 2 i8o DISASTROUS HURRICANE [ch. vn On November 14, the day after this letter of Filder's was written, a hurricane of extreme violence burst upon the coast. Several vessels which had been unable for want of space to enter the harbour dragged their anchors, and were dashed to pieces on the cliffs, In them were lost, amongst other things, a quantity of ammunition, an ample supply of warm clothing, and a quantity of hay, which last loss was the most serious misfortune of all, for it was urgently needed for the cavalry and transport horses. The tents in all the camps were blown down, and even the sick and wounded exposed to the fury of the gale and to the snow and bitter cold which followed it. Worst of all, the seven or eight miles of road from Balaklava to the camp, which had been good enough while the dry weather lasted, were converted by the rain and the heavy traffic over them into a quagmire. The road was now quite impassable for carts of any kind. From the first the British force had been inadequate in numbers for the operations of the siege.* The stress of work in the trenches was so great that the men were sometimes on duty in them four nights out of five. The heavy loss at Inkerman had reduced the numbers still more, and, in spite of fresh arrivals, the army dwindled daily from sickness, caused mainly by over work and exposure. And now the winter was upon them, when they had scarcely any fuel, insufficient warm clothing to protect them from the bitter blasts, no huts, and few or no extra articles of diet, such as rice, vegetables, or lime-juice, to supplement the daily * By this time the French army had been considerably reinforced, and was much larger than the British ; but Lord Raglan had thus far failed in his repeated endeavours to induce General Canrobert to occupy a fair proportion of the trenches. 1854] PRIVATION AND SICKNESS i8i rations of beef, biscuit, and rum, and even the rations, owing to the difficulties of transport, were sometimes short. The result was a reappearance of cholera, a terrible increase of dysentery and other forms of ill ness, and a high death-rate. Lord Raglan writes to the Duke : 'December 2, 1854. ' The weather has again been very bad, and the roads continue in such a state that we have great difficulty in keeping the division tolerably supplied with provisions, and there has been almost a total stop to the conveyance of heavy artillery from Balak lava to the trenches. ' Things therefore remain much as they were, which is unfortunate, considering the season of the year and the force around us.' And again : ' December 8, 1854. ' . . . The troops are very sickly, and we have lost many of the young men who came out with the drafts. I enclose the Morning State. I hope with the assistance of General Canrobert's cavalry to be able to move a good many of the sick to-morrow. The state of the roads and the miserable condition of our draft animals have prevented me from taking them away from the camp hospital lately. . . .' And again : ' December 13. ' I wish I could say that the men are tolerably healthy. The reverse is the case. I have ordered a return to be prepared, which I hope will be ready before the mail is dispatched, showing how the mortality has fallen. In some cases it has told dread fully on the newcomers, in others very little. The 46th has lost 102 men, the service companies of the 9th eighty, and yet they are encamped on the driest piece of ground occupied by the third division. The 9th has less than three hundred men under arms.' i82 SCUTARI HOSPITALS [ch. vn Worst of all were the accounts from the hospitals at Scutari. The vessels employed in the reception and conveyance of the sick and wounded from the Crimea had not been expressly adapted and fitted up for this purpose, and, crowded as they were, the condition and sufferings of the men during the voyage were dreadful. The landing arrangements at Scutari were inadequate, and the hospitals ill-prepared, without proper organization, and utterly insanitary, so that the mortality was very great. When, in painful contrast to the tidings of victory which had filled the country with rejoicing and with enthusiastic pride in the army, accounts of deaths, suffering, and privations began to arrive, with details suggesting that much was apparently due to pre ventable causes, there was a general outcry of dismay and indignation. The Government had been given carte blanche as to expenditure, and was responsible for the conduct of the war. The War Office, and the Secretary of State at its head, must be held account able, it was said, for whatever was wrong, and the blame was laid chiefly on the Duke. Whoever and whatever was wrong, there had been no lack of zeal, no slackness at the War Office. The old disposition to depreciate and neglect the British soldier, of which the Duke of Wellington had so bitterly and so justly complained, had at the eleventh hour, and since the war began, given place to enthusi astic interest in his welfare, and to a readiness to sanction any expenditure, however lavish, by which his well-being could be promoted and his comfort increased. The War Office promptly and eagerly responded to the impulse from without. His food was to be of the best, and to be abundant and varied. 1854] COMFORTS FOR THE SOLDIERS 183 The pattern of his clothing and of his head-covering was to be altered so as to be as comfortable and serviceable as they could be made. The stock was abolished, the tunic supplanted the tail-coat, the knap sack and its fastenings were improved and readjusted. The comparative merits of tea, coffee, and cocoa as extra rations were gone into. It was said that the health of the Guards would suffer if they were unable to procure the porter which they were accustomed to drink in London.* If the Guards were to have it, of course the other regiments must have it too. And a cargo of sixty-two thousand gallons of porter and ale, at a cost, including freight, of more than ;£'5,ooo, was sent to Varna and drunk there by the soldiers, till the cholera appeared and the doctors stopped it.f Three more ships, containing between them two hundred and twenty-one thousand gallons, * At the time when active preparations for the war were going on Sir Charles Trevelyan wrote to Mr. Petrie, the next official to him in the Commissariat : ' I entirely concur in opinion with Lord Hardinge and Dr. Smith that good porter and vegetables should be supplied to the troops at cost price as long as it is in our power to supply them. This is a simpler, cheaper, and safer arrangement than to undertake to supply these articles in the shape of a "small ration," which the troops would look upon as a right, and would be discon tented when it was discontinued on taking the field. Porter and vegetables are part of the ordinary diet of the troops, and especially of the Guards. Scurvy and dysentery and other diseases would ensue if they were discontinued. . . .' t ' True economy requires that we should prepare and send forward these things beforehand, and not depend upon the chances of a limited and precarious local market. Whatever may be the rules under which the porter may be distributed, there can be no doubt that a large quantity will be required. . . . Mr. Grant should be requested to procure a stock of the best quality, and put it on board our ships without delay ; Mr. Filder should ascertain what porter the Guards are accustomed to drink, and Mr. Grant should be requested to get that particular kind of porter.' (Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 14, 278.) 1 84 HUTS [ch. VII were on their way, but by that time the army was in the Crimea, and the porter was too bulky to be conveyed — at any rate, during the winter months — to the camp. When accounts reached the War Office that, owing to medical stores having been left behind at Varna, there was a lamentable deficiency of them at the Scutari Hospital, Lord Stratford (the Ambassador) was given unlimited discretion to advance money for their purchase, and the heads of the hospital received un limited authority to procure all that might be necessary for the welfare and comfort of the sick and wounded. It was not till the battles of Balaklava and Inkerman revealed the fact that the Russian forces in the Crimea greatly outnumbered those of the Allies that it seemed probable, and at last certain, that the siege would be protracted, and that the army would have to winter where it was. But before that date, foreseeing that huts for the troops would be wanted somewhere, the Duke had caused plans to be suggested for supply ing them. On receipt of intelligence of the battle, orders were at once given to supply them with the utmost expedition, and directions were sent to the Admiralty to take up steamers for their conveyance. The first vessel containing them sailed on December 3. To save time, orders were also sent through the Ambassadors for the preparation of huts at Constanti nople and at Trieste. The break-down of the transport from Balaklava to the camps unfortunately prevented most of them from being available till the worst part of the winter was already over. About the end of November, becoming aware of this difficulty of transport, the Duke took steps for the construction of a railway from Balaklava to the camp. 1854-5] COMFORTS FOR THE SOLDIERS 185 which in due course was completed, and proved a great success, putting an end to most of the transport troubles which had caused so much misery ; but it was not finished and available till after he had left office, so that in public estimation he got little credit for it. Nor did the Duke fail to appreciate and to co-operate cordially with the efforts that were being made privately to send gifts of comforts to supply the soldiers' wants. On hearing that they were coming. Lord Raglan writes : ¦ December i8, 1854. ' I shall confer with Mr. Filder respecting the mode of issuing the good things Fortnum and Mason are to Srovide, and the wine and brandy to be supplied by lessrs. Cunningham. I dare say the liquors will find their way up to the camp without my assistance. But our great difficulty arises from the want of the means of transport. However that may be, the officers and men of the Army will feel most grateful to you for the efforts you have made and are daily making to meet our necessities, to cover the men from the weather, and to furnish all ranks with warm clothing and pro tection from the cold and wet This benevolent act demands our warmest thanks.' Nevertheless, it was a fact beyond question that the army before Sebastopol was for nearly three months in a deplorably suffering and miserable condition. With whom did the fault lie ? A Select Committee of the House of Commons which was afterwards appointed, and sat from March to Christmas, 1855, 'to enquire into the condition of the army before Sebastopol and into the conduct of those departments of the Government whose duty it has been to administer to the wants of that army,' brought out much, but by no means all, of the truth. i86 THE SEBASTOPOL COMMITTEE [ch. vn A Committee of the House of Commons is not a just or satisfactory tribunal for the investigation of charges of misconduct. In general some of the members are already committed to an opinion, others are subject to the warping influence of party interests and passions, and few probably have the experience or training necessary for estimating the value of evidence. They are bound by no salutary rules as to its reception ; and there is no security against aspersions being made on persons wholly innocent, but who are not present to be heard in their own defence. The Sebastopol Committee was no exception to the rule. Hearsay evidence was listened to from witnesses who had no knowledge of their own as to what they were stating. Accusations or imputations were made against anybody and everybody in office connected with the army, whether in a military, civil, or com mercial capacity. Evidence was given by visitors to the seat of war, who were encouraged to relate not only what they had seen, but the stories they had heard. The officials who were examined as witnesses were able in almost every instance to justify them selves more or less completely. But the absent — those who were, most of them, still bearing the burden and heat of the day in the Crimea — suffered grievous injustice.* Nevertheless, partial and incomplete as the enquiry was, a great deal of valuable information was elicited, and many foolish stories and impressions exploded. What was revealed was for the most part very different from what the mover and promoters of the * See, as to this, a criticism of the Sebastopol enquiry entitled ' Whom shall we hang ?' by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Benson Maxwell. 1854-5] THE SEBASTOPOL COMMITTEE 187 enquiry anticipated. They were prepared for a con firmation of the rumours which had been flying about of favouritism, jobbery, corruption, and incapacity amongst naval and military officers high in command, and amongst commissaries, purveyors, contractors, and others charged with the supply of the army. Roebuck, the Chairman of the Committee, had a strong bias against the constituted authorities in general. He was a Queen's Counsel, used to the practice of cross- examination in the common law courts, and well able to apply it to the witnesses before the Committee. Amongst many others who gave evidence were the Cabinet Ministers Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of New castle, Sir James Graham, and Sidney Herbert ; amongst officers of the army, Sir John Burgoyne, the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Hardinge, and Sir de Lacy Evans ; amongst naval officers, Admiral Dundas and Captain Dacres ; amongst army surgeons, Dr. Menzies, Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, and Dr. Andrew Smith, Director-General of the Medical Department ; and as to the Commissariat, Sir Charles Trevelyan from the Treasury. A very few officials, amongst very many, were shown to have been un equal to the duties of their position, but of wilful misconduct or corruption, or even of neglect of duty through indifference or indolence, there was from first to last no evidence whatever. It may be confidently asserted that no one with an impartial mind and capable of estimating evidence would rise from the perusal of the evidence in the Sebastopol Committee's Report without a conviction of the zeal, intelligence, and faithfulness with which the Queen had, almost without exception, been served, not only by officers of the army and navy, but by all classes of officials, i88 THE SEBASTOPOL COMMITTEE [en. vn from the highest to the lowest, under circumstances of the utmost difficulty.* Two or three instances will suffice of the false accu sations which were dissipated by the Committee. The Duke had been charged with nepotism, to the detriment of the public service, because he had appointed a relative, Colonel Mundy, to the post of Assistant Military Under-Secretary. The facts were these : It was a post requiring exceptional qualifica tions, and the Duke asked Lord Raglan before he left England to recommend him some one for it. Lord Raglan, after taking time to consider, sent him two names — General Yorke and Colonel Mundy. While the Duke was considering' which would be the best selection. General Yorke was appointed by Lord Hardinge Military Secretary at the Horse Guards. The Duke therefore naturally appointed Colonel Mundy. There had been a general charge against the military * With reference to the Office over which he presided — that of the Secretary at War — Sidney Herbert says: 'I must say that I am bound in gratitude to the men in that office to state that I believe it to be the best constituted office under the Crown. The clerks worked with the greatest possible zeal. I made great demands upon their time, and I lengthened the office hours, but they never mur mured or objected ; and I must say that no man was ever served by his subordinates better than I was ; some of them are quite first-rate men as public servants.' (Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 20,152.) Strange to say, it was this office which had the management and control of the Medical Department of the army, which was the one in which the organization proved most defective, and in which the most deplorable break-down occurred during the first three or four months after the Battle of the Alma. Prompt attention to defects, and the arrival of Miss Nightingale and her nurses, soon wrought a great change for the better. Before the winter was over the hospitals were in a most satisfactory condition, and so continued to the end of the war. 1854-5] POPULAR DELUSIONS 189 authorities that they were addicted to pedantic and obsolete traditions in the matter of soldiers' dress and equipment — to pipe-clay, tight uniforms, and especially to the leather stock, which was a survival of one of the bad fashions of the Regency, and was still worn by the soldiers, and was supposed to make them hold their heads up. The following letter from the Duke to Lord Raglan was probably the death-blow to the stock, in its old form at least. It also marks a turning point in the fashion among Englishmen of shaving the chin. Before the Crimean War no one with a reason ably good beard could walk in the streets of London without being jeered at 'April 28, 1854. ' De minimis non curat a Secretary of State ! Perhaps this is a sound maxim, but I fear you have already found me unmindful of it ' I am not going to write to you about the colour or tightness of Cardigan's cherry pants, nor about the tooth-brush to be carried in each man's knapsack, but I am going to plead on behalf of the soldiers' necks and chins. ' I have been in the East myself, and if I were called upon to say what two things were most con ducive to my bodily comfort, I should name the absence of a neckcloth and the presence of a beard. ' I really think you would endear yourself to the men under your command if you would abolish two articles in their kit, the stock and the razor. I dare say the spruce parade appearance would be deterio rated, but their comfort, and I feel confident their health, would be greatly improved. ' I have told Lord Hardinge that I should make this suggestion to you, and I was glad to find that he was not at all shocked at the innovation. ' Pray give this a favourable consideration. When the hot weather comes, every man will pray for the protection of a beard.' 190 BEARDS AND STOCKS [en. vn It had been announced with indignation in the papers, as a flagrant act of fraud of a contractor, that a dead sheep had been found in the hay supplied by him to the army, it being of course assumed that the dead sheep had been fraudulently inserted to make up weight. It came out before the Committee that the hay supplied by that particular contractor was particu larly good — the best of any that had been received — and that the dead body had been that of a new-born lamb, weighing at the most a pound. Evidently it must have crept into a crevice in the haystack to die, and been carried off unintentionally in a truss. It had not occurred to the indignant public that a con tractor, intending fraudulently to make up weight, would have put in a stone or a bit of metal rather than so inconvenient an article as a dead lamb. A real grievance for the time being was the issue of a ration of coffee unroasted. On the bare tableland before Sebastopol there was little or no fuel to be got, and the soldiers had no means of roasting it. But even for this the authorities could scarcely be blamed. Coffee in its green, unroasted condition had been found to keep better and to be less liable to damage from damp, and had therefore been preferred in that condition by the regiments which had lately been serving in the Cape war; nor until the army left Varna had there been any complaint of it The Crimea being so far from home, it took some time before the authorities could be made aware of the altered circumstances and of the inconvenience ; but as soon as it was known roasted coffee was sent instead. As to the deficiency in the supply of warm clothing, amongst the vessels totally lost in the storm of 1854-5] LOSS OF CLOTHING 191 November 14 was one of the finest and largest vessels afloat, the steamer Prince, which had lately been pur chased by the British Government. It had taken out, amongst other things, an immense supply of warm clothing — woollen frocks, socks, etc. — enough and to spare for the whole army, and had arrived at Balaklava just when these things began to be wanted, a few days after the Battle of Inkerman.* Unfortunately, the cargo had not been landed when the storm burst upon the vessel, holding on to a single anchor outside the harbour, and drove it upon the rocks. As soon as the news of the loss reached London, the Duke, realizing at once how serious it was, did not lose an hour in taking steps to repair it. He writes to Lord Raglan : ' December 2, 1854. ' I am greatly concerned at the very serious loss of ammunition, and, if possible, even more so at that of the large supply of warm clothing ; and I cannot help thinking that some blame must attach either to the Commissariat or some other department for leaving the Prince in the open roadstead for some days with out discharging any portion of the valuable cargo, especially when that cargo was so immediately wanted by the troops. ' The few hours which have elapsed since the receipt of the intelligence of this sad disaster have been de voted to its repair. Fortunately, we had taken steps when the rumour by telegraph of the loss of the Prince reached us to purchase warm clothing in all directions, though we felt assured her cargo would be safe. The * The following clothing was lost in the Prince : ' Woollen socks, 35,700 pairs ; woollen frocks, 53,000 ; woollen drawers, 17,000 ; watchcoats, 2,500; blankets, 16,100; rugs, 3,700' (Appendix to ' Sebastopol Report,' p. 346). Immediately after the loss of the Prince Lord Raglan gave orders for the purchase of warm clothing at Constantinople and elsewhere. 192 LOSS OF HAY [ch. vn 82nd Regiment was to have embarked in the Adelaide steamer on the 4th Inst. Upon receipt of your letter I countermanded this embarkation, and the vessel in question will now take on board the large supplies of clothing and blankets, etc., of which I enclose a list, besides several other kinds of warm clothing, of which a list is not yet prepared. The men will be kept at work all to-morrow (Sunday), and I hope the things will be nearly all on board on the following day. . . .' In the same storm was lost the Progress, with eight hundred thousand pounds of hay. It was a great misfortune, for in this and other vessels twenty days* provision of hay for all the horses in the army was lost ; and not only were the cavalry horses and the horses and mules engaged in transport nearly starved for want of it, but also, till a sufficient supply could be procured, it was necessary to defer importing any more transport animals, the want of which was the chief cause of the misfortunes that followed.* The Sebastopol Committee concluded its evidence in June, 1855. Roebuck, the chairman, and Layard were in favour of a Report strongly condemning both the Government and Lord Raglan. This, however, did not obtain the assent of the rest of the Committee ; the two stood alone, and the majority presented a dis cursive Report, moderate in tone, which, though un fair to those who had not been heard, and notably so to Lord Raglan, did not cast any very severe censures upon any individual.f * Much was said at the time about the neglect to utilize the hay from the wrecks, which was floating about in great quantities in and outside the harbour. The fact was that the animals refused to touch hay which had been soaked in salt water. t General Peel, one of the members of the Committee, afterwards said in the House of Commons : ' I have arrived at the opinion that 1854-5] A GREAT WAR 193 The paragraphs in the Committee's Report under the head of 'The Secretary of State for War' ran as follows : ' On accepting the Secretaryship for War, the Duke of Newcastle found himself in this disadvantageous position : he had no separate office for his department, no document prescribing his new duties, no precedent for his guidance, and his Under-Secretaries were new to the work. In this situation he undertook the super intendence of numerous departments with whose in ternal organization he was dissatisfied, and the manage ment of a war urgently requiring prompt and vigorous operations. ' The Duke was imperfectly acquainted with the best mode of exercising his authority over the subordinate the calamities which occurred in the Crimea arose from circumstances which it was not in the power of any individual in the Crimea to control. I am happy to find that Lord Panmure expressed the same opinion in the speech which he made at Arbroath. The mistake of those who had been foremost in demanding inquiry into the sufferings of the Crimean army consists in the attempt to throw the blame upon individuals. I am certain that anybody who reads the evidence given by the head of the War Department must admit that he did everything in his power to avert the calamities that befell the army, and that he was only responsible with the rest of the Government for what took place. I also believe that Admiral Boxer, Captain Christie, and Lord Raglan fell victims to that senseless clamour which was raised against them in this country upon anonymous authority. ... I think it is impossible to exaggerate the hardships and privations to which the army was subject during the winter of 1854-55, ^id equally impossible to exaggerate the patience and heroism with which they were endured. But ... I believe that nobody was responsible for them. . . . What, then, were the causes of these hardships ? . . . / believe that the chief cause was your commencement of a great war with little means. . . With that army, suffering much from sickness, you undertook a great military operation with no reserve whatever. The Government were not so responsible for that as the country, which raised the universal cry that the war should be carried on with vigour. ...'(' Review of the Crimean War,' by Lieutenant-Colonel Adye, pp. 170-172). 13 194 WITH LITTLE MEANS [ch. vn departments, and these departments were not officially informed of their relative position, or of their new duties towards the Minister for War. His interference was sought for in matters of detail, wherein his time should not have been occupied, and he was left un acquainted with transactions of which he should have received official cognizance. Feeling his large respon sibilities, he took upon himself to remedy innumerable deficiencies which were brought to his notice, and in the meantime matters of paramount importance were postponed. ' The evidence, moreover, shows that the Duke Ayas long left in ignorance, or was misinformed, respecting the progress of affairs in the East. He was not, till a late period, made acquainted with the state of the hospitals at Scutari, and the horrible mode in which the sick and wounded were conveyed from Balaklava to the Bosphorus. . . . ' The clothing of the troops was not within the pro vince of the Secretary of State, and the Duke of New castle says it was extremely doubtful whether he had any right to interfere. The soldiers had received the ordinary supply for the year ; yet the peculiar circum stances in which the army had been placed induced the Duke to recommend to the Commander-in-Chief that an extra supply should be furnished, and in addi tion to this warm clothing should be prepared to meet the inclemency of the weather. The system of clothing was then, and is still, in a state of transition ; when ever the existing contracts cease, the clothing will be supplied by the Ordnance, or by a clothing department. ' The warm clothing was considered so important that, upon hearing of the loss of the Prince steamer, all the military departments were occupied with this supply : the Secretary for War issued orders ; the Secretary for War was constantly at the Ordnance, urging and hastening these proceedings ; clothing was bought also in Austria and in Switzerland. Ambas sadors, Ministers, Consuls, Agents, were apphed to for assistance ; money was profusely expended, and at a later period of the winter the troops must have re ceived a supply far larger than was required for their reduced numbers.' CHAPTER VIII the winter TROUBLES IN THE CRIMEA The British Army — Its excellent quality but defective organization — Deficiency of force in the Crimea the main cause of the trouble — Newspaper correspondents^The Duke remonstrates with Delane — Mutterings from the camp — Lord Raglan and Staff attacked by the rm« — Ministers fail to defend them — Credulity of Palmerston — A strong delusion — Correspondence between the Duke and Lord Raglan — Commissary-General Filder — Lord John Russell's resignation — Defeat of Government — The Duke justified by Sir Charles Wood — Palmerston Prime Minister. How, then, did the troubles come to pass ? ' L'infanterie Anglaise est la plus terrible du monde; heureusement il n'y en a pas beaucoup,' said Bugeaud, speaking from a Frenchman's point of view, of the British Army as he knew it in the Peninsula. Trochu, a generation later, quoted the saying as equally true of it as he knew it in the Crimea. Unlike the con scripts of Continental Powers, the British soldier enters the army by choice and not on compulsion. The army at that time was composed of men the older ones of whom had enlisted practically for life, and the younger ones — those who had joined since 1847 — for a period of twelve years. Hence officers and men were wont to look on the quarters of their regiment in England, in India, or in a colony, as their abode, not for a short service of a few years, but as their home for the best portion of their lives. Not only were British regiments at the beginning of the war com- 195 13—2 196 THE BRITISH ARMY [ch. vni posed of excellent physical material, but each had its own proud traditions and distinctive characteristics, and was actuated by an esprit de corps perhaps un equalled elsewhere. As units they could not be surpassed, and few, if any, other troops then existing in the world could have done what they were called upon to do, and did do, at the Alma, at Balaklava, at Inkerman, and in the trenches before Sebastopol. But during the long peace it had come to be accepted that the probability of these regiments having to take the field together as an organized army in a European war was so remote that it need hardly be taken seriously into account. Their numbers were main tained at an amount not greatly in excess of the requirements for garrison duty at home and in the Colonies, and for their turn of service in India. Thus it happened that, by the middle of November, there were no longer any reserves to draw upon ; every available soldier, and even some recruits too young for service, had been sent to the seat of war, and yet the numbers were painfully and cruelly inadequate to man the trenches and perform the other duties of the siege. The commissariat and transport services which the Duke of Wellington had with infinite pains organized in the course of the Peninsular War had, after the lapse of nearly forty years, to be almost created anew. Still more was this the case with the Medical Department, with the trans port of the sick and wounded, and with the hospitals, where the shortcoming — notably in the Scutari hospitals — was far worse than in any other department Few of the surgeons had ever seen war, and their experience had hitherto been in dealing with individual patients, not in planning the sanitary arrangements of large 1854-S] ITS QUALITY 197 hospitals or in classifying patients. Such men, how ever able and devoted, could not be expected to be prepared at all points for so unexpected an occurrence as having fifteen hundred wounded, besides a great number of cholera and dysentery patients, thrown all at once upon their hands, as happened after the Battle of the Alma, or for the still greater number of sick and wounded after Inkerman. Heads of subordinate departments, who, during the long peace, had been taught to look for credit from their superiors for the practice of a rigid economy, were now suddenly called upon to incur lavish expenditure on their own re sponsibility in or out cf their own department, wherever the need presented itself to them. ' At the commencement of the operations,' says Sidney Herbert in his evidence before the Select Committee, ' owing to the long peace, nobody had seen any operations conducted on a large scale. I think they were frightened at the responsibility, and the expression used by Dr. Andrew Smith (Director- General of the Army and Ordnance Medical Depart ment) as regards his own case will apply to many others ; he said it took him five months before he could believe that he could spend as much money as he required. I think we are in error in putting the blame so much upon the system. I think it results most from the men who have had to work the system having had no previous experience of the duties they had to perform.'* * Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 20, 140. A notable instance of this occurred in the case of the Scutari Hospitals, which, during October and November, were in an in describably horrible state owing to defective sanitary arrangements, which cost hundreds of hves, and might have been set right at an expense of a few hundred pounds. The commandant, in rank a Major, was a good officer, anxious to do his duty ; but he had been taught that his first duty was not to spend a penny that was not authorized by the regulations, under pain of having to recoup the money from 198 ITS ORGANIZATION [en. viii The Secretary for War was responsible for the whole conduct of the war. He Could, if he pleased, overrule everybody and everything. But the depart ments through which he had to act were imperfectly organized, located in different buildings so as to make communication inconvenient and slow, and their respective functions were ill-defined and complicated. For instance, in order to give directions for sending out the expedition to Malta, the Duke had had to com municate, as regarded cavalry and infantry, with the Commander-in-Chief, as to artillery and engineers with the Master-General of the ordnance, as to the commissariat with the Treasury, and as to the Medical Department generally with the Secretary for War. The discipline of the army was in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, and the army finances in that of the Secretary for War. Even the old officials were sometimes puzzled to know to which department to address themselves, much more the crowd of persons who now for the first time were concerned in the supply of the multifarious wants of the army. The inconvenience of this want of concentration was obvious, and all that was practicable was done to remedy it. The separation of the War Office from the Colonial Office had been completed in July, and was a great improvement, though it necessitated the intro duction into the War Office of a staff of secretaries his own pocket. Being a man risen from the ranks, without private fortune and with a wife and familj"-, he could scarcely be blamed for not exceeding his authority at such a risk to himself, or for faihng to perceive that lavishness — instead of, as hitherto, penuriousness — was now to be the rule of the army for the time being. Early in December he was succeeded by a general officer, whose rank and private means prevented such difficulties arising. 1854-S] INADEQUACY OF BRITISH FORCE 199 and clerks who were more or less new to their work. In December the commissariat was placed under the direct control of the War Office, instead of being, as heretofore, under the Treasury. A military board of representatives of all the military departments was established, at the Duke's suggestion, and proved to be an advantageous arrangement. Other and greater changes were left for quieter times, for it was ill changing horses in midstream. Complicated and faulty as the system was, the best was being made of it, and, except perhaps as regards the hospitals and medical arrangements, little would have been heard of ' winter troubles ' had it not been for the inadequate strength of the army. Lord Raglan urged this inadequacy plainly enough in his letters to the Duke. If he did not use many or strong words about it, it was because he knew the British Army better than any one — how slender its strength was, and how impossible for the Government to send him all the reinforcements he needed. He writes : ' Before Sebastopol, 'October 2?,, 1854. ' What we want at this moment are troops of the best quality. Ten thousand men would make us com fortable. As it is, the Divisions employed in the trenches are overworked, and of necessity scattered over a too extensive frontier, and we are enabled, and that with difficulty, to give but one British brigade, the Highland, for the defence of Balaklava, assisted, however, by marines and Turks and a French brigade. We must try to utilize the Turks. The French say they cannot be trusted in the trenches either as work ing or covering parties. We shall see. ' When I say we want the best troops, I do not say this as a reproach to you for not having sent a large 200 CONSEQUENT DANGERS [en. vin reinforcement I know that you have it not to send. I only state the deficiency as a fact.' About Balaklava he writes : ' Before Sebastopol, 'November 3, 1854. ' Every possible step has been taken to secure this important point; but I will not conceal from your Grace that I should be more satisfied if I could have occupied the position in considerably greater strength.' 'November 13, 1854. ' . . . I have just heard that the Jura has arrived with the drafts and the rest of the 62nd, and we have between 400 and 500 recovered men from Scutari ; but these go but little way in filling the voids occasioned by the late actions and the constantly increasing sick ; but I hail with satisfaction any arrival, and shall be flad to have as many Regiments as you can send us. resh battalions, fully officered, are what we require ; but, alas ! you have very few of these within your immediate reach ! . . .' ' December 18, 1854. ' . . . I wish that we had older men than those sent out. Some of the drafts lately come out are little more than sixteen years of age, and there is a boy with my guard who only enlisted nine weeks ago, and though professing to be sixteen, he looks, I am told, about fourteen. But I know that you have not older men to send. . . .' It was because his army was not strong enough for the task it had in hand that Lord Raglan had been unable to guard the approaches to the Inkerman ridge — well aware as he was of the risk of not doing so — which enabled the Russians to reach it unperceived on the morning of the great battle, and caused the British so much loss before they were repulsed. His request to Canrobert that the latter should occupy it with a French force had not been complied with. 1854-5] ROAD TO THE CAMP 201 It was because the army was too small for the work it had to do that the harbour of Balaklava could not be securely guarded. Fear of its capture by the enemy on several occasions necessitated the suspension of the landing of cargoes, and added seriously to the diffi culties and delays arising from the harbour being too small for the work that had to be done in it. It was the impossibility of sparing any men to make a metalled road from Balaklava to the camp* that after the storm of November 14 made the passage of carts impossible, and even that of pack-horses laborious and difficult; whence it often happened that what was * Lord Raglan's not having made this road was afterwards made a grave and often repeated cause of complaint against him by the British press, public, and, alas ! the Government also. In his dispatch of March 2, 1855, Lord Raglan says : 'If the Government, on receiving the announcement that the expedition was determined upon, had at once sent out reinforce ments, it is probable that I might have been able to employ a con siderable body of men in converting the track which leads to and along this ridge into a stoned road before the weather broke up ; but the number required to effect so extensive and serious a work would have been very great, and I had not an English soldier to apply to such a purpose, however important. Some time before the bad weather set in, a survey of the road was ordered leading from Balaklava, and as many Turks as were available were employed in its repair ; but their labour was not very efficient. . . .' Sir John Burgoyne's calculation (Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 17, 225) was that a thousand men could not have made the road in two or three months. In one of his letters, February 8, 1855 (' Life and Correspondence,' vol. ii., p. 214), he says: 'Why have we not made roads ? Nothing so easy to you gentlemen of England ; it is only to withdraw a division from the hill for that purpose. Why, keeping all our troops on the hill (except one brigade at Balaklava), the men have been killed by the duties, many of them not one night in three off ; we cannot get men to do the most necessary work in the trenches, as you may suppose from reports almost daily of men killed by shots coming through the body of the parapets. Withdrawing a division ! Why, it would be raising the siege !' 202 THE QUEEN'S LETTER [ch. viii greatly needed in the camp was existing in abundance at Balaklava. Above all, it was the want of sufficient troops that made it necessary to call upon the men to undergo excessive and prolonged periods of duty in the trenches, which was — more than any other cause — the chief reason of the amount of sickness and deaths. Yet the Government had not been without warning from one whose high office alone should have secured attention. More than six months before the expedition to the Crimea left Varna the Queen wrote to the Prime Minister : 'Buckingham Palace, 'February 24, 1854. ' The Queen must write to Lord Aberdeen on a subject which appears to her of paramount importance — viz., the augmentation of the Army. The ten thousand men by which it has been ordered to be augmented can hardly be considered to have brought it up to more than an improved Peace Establishment, such as we have often had during profound peace in Europe ; but even these ten thousand men are not yet obtained. We have nearly pledged ourselves to send ing twenty-five thousand men to the East, and this pledge will have to be redeemed. To keep even such a force up in the field will require a strong available reserve at home, of which we shall be quite denuded. But we are going to make war upon Russia ! en couraging Austria and Prussia to do so likewise, whereby we assume a moral obligation not to leave them without assistance. We engage in a war which may assume in its course a totally different character from that of its beginning. . . .' "" All this, which seems plain enough now, was at that time hidden from the eyes of people in England. From confident expectations of speedy success they had, after the news of Inkerman and of the storm of November 9, 1854-5] MORTALITY IN THE ARMIES 203 suddenly passed to the conviction that the army, victorious as it was, was in grave peril and with difficulty holding its own. Its sufferings, to a genera tion which had had no experience of the inevitable losses and miseries of war, seemed monstrous and intolerable.* And, indeed, it was not easy, at first sight, to account for them. For by this time warm clothing and other things of which the men in the trenches were sorely in want had been arriving in considerable quantity at Balaklava. Yet the men, most of them, were still ragged and shivering. Few, except those who had been able to walk to Balaklava to fetch what they wanted, were supplied. How could this be, it * ' The deaths in the British Army in the East during the three worst months of the winter — December, January, and February, 1854-55 — amounted to nearly one- tenth of the strength of the force. Great as this mortality was, it probably did not amount to what had been suffered at times in the Peninsular War, much less to that of the Walcheren Expedition. It would have caused little surprise or Qmotion had it occurred to any other European nation more used to war. The French, in the three months of January, February, and March, 1856, when fighting was almost or quite over, lost from 30,000 to 40,000 men, being over one-fifth of their force in the East, chiefly from typhus brought on by bad food, bad clothing, and insanitary quarters. ' During the two years that the Crimean War lasted, the British loss from all causes amounted to 264 officers and 22,187 men. The French always carefully concealed their losses, but they admitted a loss of 62,492 men during the war. This was very far short of the real number. In June, 1855, PelisSier told Lord Raglan that they had already lost upwards of 72,000, and this was before their heavy losses at the storming of the Malakhoff, and from typhus in the following winter. ' The Russian loss during the war is variously estimated at from 500,000 to 800,000, including those who died on the line of march. The loss on the line of march during the winter amounted to from a third to a half of the number that started ' (' Letters from Head quarters,' by a Staff Officer, pp. 399, 400). 204 THE NATURE OF THE SIEGE [ch. viii was asked, unless some one in authority was careless and incompetent ? The fact was that the geographical and strategical situation was beyond all experience, and required no little imagination for people at home to understand and realize — twenty to thirty thousand men on a bare tableland, hemmed in on all sides but that of the sea, dependent for all the necessaries of life upon what could be brought to them seven miles from a small seaport with only one avaUable road to it, and that road impassable for wheeled vehicles of any kind; pack-horses insufficient in number and dying daily for want of hay, which it was impossible to procure, and frequently deserted by their Turkish or Maltese drivers; the harbour too small to contain more than a portion of the vessels that arrived, so that each might have to wait its turn outside, and wharves narrow and inadequate by reason of the cliffs, which came almost to the water's edge; landing operations in terrupted or impeded by the fear that the harbour was not secure from capture by the enemy;* lastly, an * ' If I am asked by the Committee for an explanation of all the confusion with reference to the matter of the transport service, I can give an answer. Turkey is a country abounding in all kinds of resources, but it wants three things — it wants wharves ; it wants warehouses ; it wants roads. The want of neither of these three great facilities, requisite in all the arrangements of the West, appears never to have been communicated to our Government at home, or to have entered into their calculations. The result was that those giant steamers were sent across the ocean filled with all kinds of things, and when they reached Constantinople or Balaklava they immediately were converted into storehouses. What was immediately and press- ingly requisite was taken out of them ; what remained was forgotten, and hence the confusion. It was exactly as if one end of London Bridge had either broken down or been stopped up, and the ordinary traffic of the Metropolis had been allowed to go over it, and there was a smash at the other end ; that is my explanation of the confusion 18S4-5] THE PRESS 30S army, victorious indeed, but grievously overtasked and sickly, and still suffering from cholera and from the ill-effects of its sojourn in the unhealthy climate of Varna. It was the first European war that had taken place since the daily Press had attained the height of its power and influence in England, and it was not difficult to foresee that that power was not unlikely to be so used as to constitute a serious difficulty in the way of successfully conducting a campaign. A newspaper cannot confess that it has no news to tell from the seat of war. A special correspondent cannot be silent, and if he has nothing to tell, he must relate some story or repeat some rumour which he has heard. With the best intentions he cannot fail to be wrong sometimes, and thus in more ways than one it is easy for him to do serious mischief A vicious professional custom exists which prevents a newspaper from con fessing itself to have been in the wrong, even in such circumstances as would impel a man of honour in a private capacity, or in almost any other business or profession, to do so with alacrity. Even if the bare facts are correctly described, professional rivalry and eagerness to have the credit of publishing the earliest or the most sensational news may too often prevent a correspondent from admitting his inability to under stand the situation. He is tempted and hurried into the position of a critic, and cannot even suspend his opinion till he has adequate means for forming one. The Peelites as a party, it was said, exaggerated the power and importance of the Press, and paid undue in the whole of the transport service' (Evidence of Mr. J. C. Macdonald, Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 7405). 2o6 THE DUKE'S SENSITIVENESS [ch. vni deference tb it.* This seems to have been the case with the Duke. His letters show that he watched its utterances with nervous anxiety, was sensitive to its attacks, and was inclined to listen, if not to defer, to its opinion even on questions as to which his own private sources of information were complete and reliable. On August 8 he had written to Lord Raglan : ' I am grieved beyond measure at the unpatriotic conduct of the Times. Whilst you are endeavouring by feints and every legitimate device to draw off the attention of the enemy from your real designs, this Journal is proclaiming to the Emperor the attack on the Crimea. ' I believe it is a mere guess on its part, but every foreign nation thinks the Times in the confidence of the Government.' He writes again to Lord Raglan : 'August 12, 1854. ' I have given two formal letters of introduction to you which require explanation. ' Mr. Delane, the editor of the Times, Mr. Kinglake, the author of a very clever book of Eastern travel which you [have] probably read — called " Eothen " — and, I believe, IVIr. Layard, the explorer of Nineveh, start to-morrow for a tour in the Crimea. ' Mr. Delane engages not to correspond with his Paper, and Mr. Kinglake has promised not to publish * Not excepting Peel himself (see his letter of April 18, 1835, to the editor of the Times, quoted in Carlyle's ' Life of Sterling,' part iii., chap. v.). When Lord Panmure succeeded the Duke at the War Office in February, 1855, he put an end to all communication with the Times, and never even made Delane's acquaintance till after he had left office. No Press people of any kind were admitted to the War Office during his reign, except those of the recognized Government organs — the Globe and the Observer. I8S4-S] THE TIMES 207 anything during the continuance of the war without Eermission. With a view to the future, however, I ope you will make friends of the " Mammon of Un righteousness." I know you will wish them anywhere but in your camp, but I cannot prevent their going, and such civility as you can show them will not, I feel sure, be thrown away.' Lord Raglan could not comport himself otherwise than courteously to any man ; but he had too high a standard of conduct to ' make friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness,' and a representative of the Press was not likely as such to be exceptionally treated by him one way or the other. Had it been otherwise, the tone of some of the correspondents' letters might perhaps have been different from what it was, and some of the Times' leaders, which will hereafter be described, might possibly not have been written. The smallness of the area over which operations were being carried on before Sebastopol made it com paratively easy for special correspondents to see much of what was going on, and to be in daily communication with a number of officers and others engaged in the operations. As long as great battles were being fought and marches made there was plenty to write about ; but after Inkerman the siege became monotonous, there was little to relate, and the correspondents took to minutely describing the localities of the camp, the effect of the Russian fire, and the wants, privations, and dangers to which the army was exposed. In the weak condition as to numbers and health to which the British force was reduced, it was of great impor tance as far as possible to conceal these circumstances from the enemy, and, by showing a confident front, 208 SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS [ch. vin to avoid inviting an attack. To publish the weakness of the army even without the exaggeration which usually accompanied the description was to add an additional danger to the situation; and this was greatly aggravated by the fact that the garrison of Sebastopol, having their communications uninterrupted on the north side, were in telegraphic communication with the main land of Russia and the capitals of Europe, and thence with London, so that the contents of an article or a letter in a London paper would be known in a few hours to the Russian Commander. On November 13, Lord Raglan wrote to the Duke to complain of the publication of the Times of details the knowledge of which ' must be invaluable to the Russians and in the same degree detrimental to Her Majesty's troops.' The letter goes on to say : 'You will perceive that it is there stated that our losses from cholera are very great; that the Light Division Encampment is kept on the alert by shot and shell which pitch into the middle of it ; that forty pieces of artillery had been sent up to our park, and twelve tons of gunpowder safely deposited in a mill, the posi tion of which is described, and which, of course, must be accurately known by the enemy ; that the Second Division had moved and taken ground in the vicinity of the Fourth Division, in which a shell had fallen with fatal effect in a tent occupied by some men of the 63rd Regiment ; and that the French would have sixty heavy guns, the British Army fifty, and sixty more could be supplied by the Navy. The men tion of the employment of red-hot shell was then adverted to. The position of the 93rd is stated, as is that of the Head-Quarters of the Commander of the Forces; likewise the possible dearth of round shot, and of gabions and fascines. . . . ' I am quite satisfied that the object of the writer is simply to satisfy the anxiety and curiosity, I may say of tne public, and to do what he considers his duty by 1854-5] LORD RAGLAN REMONSTRATES 209 his employers, and that it has never occurred to him that he is serving much more essentially the cause of the Russians, and is encouraging them to persevere in throwing shells into our camps, and to attempt the destruction of the mill where our powder is reported by him to have been deposited ; but the innocency of his intention does not diminish the evil he inflicts, and something should be done to check so pernicious a system at once. ' I do not propose to take any violent step, though perhaps I should be justified in doing so; but I have requested Mr. Romaine to endeavour to see the differ ent correspondents of the newspapers and quietly point out to them the public inconvenience of their writings, and the necessity of greater prudence in future ; and I make no doubt that they will at once see that I am right in so warning them. ' I would request that you should cause a communi cation to be made to the editors of the daily press, and urge them to examine the letters they receive before they publish them, and carefully expunge such parts as they may consider calculated to furnish valuable information to the enemy.' On receipt of this letter the Duke wrote to the editors of the morning papers, enclosing an extract from Lord Raglan's letter, and appealing to their patriotism * to insure a rigid supervision of all such letters, and an endeavour to prevent the mischief of which Lord Raglan so reasonably complains.' From all of them he received courteous replies, promising to exercise care in future. His letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of the Times, was as follows : 'War Department, ' December 6, 1854. ' My DEAR Mr. Delane, ' I am quite sure that you will not only thank me for sending you a copy of the letter I have received from Lord Raglan, but will give such directions as H 210 THE DUKE AND DELANE [ch. viii will prevent a recurrence of the mischief of which he complains. ' I can assure you that Lord Raglan is not the only person who has remarked evil consequences arising from knowledge acquired by the enemy from the columns of the English newspapers. I heard of a particular instance in which the persevering direction of the Russian guns excited great astonishment in our camp until the arrival of a letter in the Times disclosed the mystery. A Russian agent in London had no doubt telegraphed to St Petersburg the intelligence contained in the letter the same day that it was pub lished. Private correspondents require quite as much watching as your own. A letter from Captain K. which lately appeared in all the papers ought never to have been published, and I have learnt to-day that it was given by a person who had received it from Cap tain K.'s Father only for his own perusal. ' I fear the heavy loss of general officers at Inkerman may be attributed to the information conveyed by the correspondent of the Times that the white plumes were worn not by Commissariat officers but by Generals. ' I need hardly say I have read with admiration as well as pleasure many of the descriptions written by Mr. Russell, and I am convinced that it is very far from his wish to do anything but what is patriotic and useful, but his pen runs away with him sometimes. ' I am well assured that this long letter is not re quired as an appeal to you to do all in your power to prevent anything appearing in the Times which can injure the great cause of our country, or hurt one hair of the head of the least valuable of our noble soldiers. ' I am, my dear Mr. Delane, ' Yours very truly, ' Newcastle.' Delane replied : 'Serjeant's Inn, ' December 6. ' My Lord Duke, ' I am very much obliged to your Grace for the opportunity of privately perusing Lord Raglan's letter, 1854-5] AMENDMENT PROMISED 211 and for the terms in which you have conveyed his suggestion. ' I am sure I shall not suffer in your Grace's opinion when I confess that until about a fortnight since, when the possibility of information useful to the enemy reaching him through the Times was mentioned to me by one of your colleagues, I thought the chief danger was in describing the number and force of the ships and other reinforcements we were sending out from here, and not in anything we could tell of the progress of the operations in the Crimea. ' Since then I have most carefully expunged all speculations as to the future, and will continue to confine all my correspondents exclusively to the version of past events. ' On such a subject no one can feel jealous of criticism or complain of interference, and if any further sug gestion should be necessary, it will meet with the most ready acquiescence. ' Your Grace's faithful servant, ' John S. Delane.' To Lord Raglan the Duke wrote : 'December 7, 1854. ' Upon the receipt of your letter of the 13th Novem ber, pointing out the grievous mischief done by the correspondents of the London newspapers, I deter mined to write to the editors of them all and appeal to their patriotism to exercise a careful supervision, not only of the letters of their own correspondents, but of those numerous letters sent to them by the relations and friends of officers in your army, which frequently contain a good deal which the writers never meant to meet the public eye, but which even in that case had better not have been written at all. ' I especially called the attention of the editor of the Times to the article of the 23rd October, and I have now the pleasure of sending to you his answer. I think it is even more satisfactory than might have been expected. I only hope the promised supervision may be maintained. ' I assure you I have more than once made verbal 14—2 212 PROMISE BROKEN [ch. vni communications in quarters which I had hoped would have been influential with a view to check the publi cation of everything which the enemy must most wish to know relating to the movements of the army, but I have not until now resorted to the more formal measure of written remonstrance.' Unfortunately the ' promised supervision ' was not ' maintained.' Lord Raglan writes to the Duke : 'January 4, 1855. ' I deem it my duty to send you a copy of the Times newspaper of the i8th December and to draw your attention to an article, or rather letter, from its corre spondent with this army. ' I pass over the fault which the writer finds with everything and everybody, however calculated his strictures may be to excite discontent and encourage indiscipline ; but I ask you to consider whether the paid agent ofthe Emperor of Russia could better serve his master than does the correspondent of the paper that has the largest circulation in Europe. I know something of the kind of information which the com mander of an army requires of the state and condition of the troops opposed to him, and I can safely say that during the whole of the war in the Peninsula the Duke of Wellington was never supplied with such details as are to be found in the letter to which I am desirous of attracting your attention. . . . ' I am very doubtful, now that the communications are so rapid, whether a British army can long be main tained in presence of a powerful enemy, that enemy having at his command through the English Press and from London to his Head-Quarters by telegraph every detail that can be required of the numbers, condition, and equipment of his opponent's force.' It is pleasant to find the late Duke of Newcastle's old friend, Lord Winchelsea— who was an honest man, if not a very wise one — speaking plainly on this matter in the House of Lords (January 27, 1855) ; 1854-S] LORD WINCHELSEA'S OPINION 213 ' My opinion is that, if a spy were within our camp paid by all the gold with which the enemy could reward him, he could not give them more useful infor mation or more detrimental to the interests of our army than the correspondent of the Times newspaper has afforded them.' There is a trite saying about not being able to see the wood because of the trees. Thus it was with the army in the Crimea. Regimental officers and privates, one and all, did their duty bravely, and saw their com rades in other regiments doing the like. They had been victorious in every engagement ; yet now they were all, in greater or less degree, suffering. It must be some one's fault. Not unnaturally they attributed it to the commissariat, to the transport service, to the Quartermaster-General, to the General, to the War Department — to anybody and everybody in authority whose sphere of action and whose limitations and difficulties were out of their sight and their ken. The commissariat officers did the same. They, at any rate, they said, were not to blame. How could they supply an army from an inadequate harbour, with the road broken up, and the horses and mules starving for want of hay and corn ? As had happened in the Peninsula in 1810 — calling forth a reproving general order from the great Duke — private letters from officers in the camp, full of their own particular grievances and complaints and surmises, written generally currente calamo, with no idea of publication or sense of re sponsibility, found their way into print, or were sent to the War Office. The officers of the Guards espe cially, hitherto accustomed to enjoy the best of every thing, but now, like others, in great discomfort, might naturally remark on the comparative luxury which the 214 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE [ch. viii Staff enjoyed in having at least a roof over their heads and dry clothes to put on. The recipients of their letters, wives and relations for the most part living in London, and having a certain rank and position in society, were well able, and did not hesitate, to make their voices heard. The War Office was besieged day after day by a succession of these friends, male and female, each with his or her grievance, real enough perhaps in itself, but often coupled with random and futile charges and suggestions as to the cause or person responsible for it, to whom the Duke listened with only too much patience and attention. The spirit of ignorant and arrogant fault-finding was abroad. Young civilian correspondents, who would not have presumed to teach a cobbler how to sew a sole on a shoe, being admitted to regimental messes, listened to the gossip and the complaints they heard there, and thought themselves quite com petent to set a Peninsular veteran right about how to command an army and to fight a battle. ¦ Lord Raglan (writes the Times correspondent) shows neither ideas nor genius, nay, not even energy. He seems to live in the past rather than in the present, and thinks to supply every want by his cherished Peninsular recollections. But with all his recollec tion? he seems to forget that imitating a few peculi arities of the old Duke makes a great general just as little as taking snuff imparts the genius of a Napoleon. He exposes himself for the sake of exposing himself, instead of choosing the position where he could best overlook and direct the action. I saw him myself in the Battle of Inkerman occupying during a great part of the day a position where the cocked hat soon attracted an unenviable notice from the enemy's guns, and where at the same time nobody could find him,. The Duke was cold and harsh with his soldiers ; Lord Raglan caricatures him, and his coldness assumes the 1854-sJ PRESS ABUSE 215 character of indifference. . . . No one ever sees him, and I am bound to say that nineteen-twentieths of the army do not know him. . . . Quick must be the remedy — nay, instantaneous — else there will be no English arrhy left, notwithstanding the reinforce ments.'* And again : ' The rawest lad from Addiscombe could have at once declared that the mountain-tracks, beaten hard by wheels and horse-hoofs, which form the roads to our camps would have been turned into mud by a few hours' rain. Still, the fine weather was allowed to go by, and the roads were left as the Tartar carts made them, though the whole face of the country is covered thickly with small stones which seem expressly in tended for road metal. 't To mutterings and complaints such as these were added, it is understood, others arising from a still baser source. Lord Raglan's rule at the Horse Guards had been discerning and just. The most kindly of men, he was no man's enemy. But no one could be concerned with the dispensing of patronage for so long a period as he had been without giving offence to disappointed candi dates for commissions and aspirants for promotion. And the tradition of promotion hitherto had more or less recognized the principle that — merits being equal — young members of the aristocracy of the military hier archy had a sort of preferential claim to commissions in the army as their natural hereditary profession, and afterwards to positions where they would have an opportunity of distinguishing themselves. Some portion of the unpopularity of this practice may have attached to the Duke as Minister for War and as a pro- * Times, February, 3, 1855. f Ibid., December 18, 1854. 2i6 DISAPPOINTMENT [en. vin minent member of the privileged class; but it was Lord Raglan with whom it was generally identified, and on whom chiefly rested the responsibility for the hierarchy of the army being constituted as it was. It was under stood that among the officers serving in the Crimea, and also amongst professional writers in the London Press, there were men with private grievances arising from this source who could not resist so favourable an opportunity for paying off old scores. Disappointed expectations of speedy success, too, were making the English people — even that part of it which had no personal connexion with the army — angry and unreasonable. Half-conscious of their own unreasonableness, dimly aware that they themselves in their ignorant clamour for the expedition had been the original cause of the trouble, men were in a mood to find some scapegoat who could, with any plausibility, be charged with neglect and misfeasance more direct and flagrant than it had been found possible to fasten on the Duke of Newcastle. For various reasons which have been indicated, and as happens not infrequently in like cases, the scapegoat selected to suffer was the very man the neglect of whose counsels had led up to the disasters, the one man to whom more than anyone else it was due that matters were not far worse than they were — nay, that an undefeated British army was in existence in the Crimea at all. So late as December 12 a leading article in the Titnes had said : ' If the mail from the Crimea does not bring in teUigence of any decisive success, or even of any extraordinary progress in the immediate operations of the army, it conveys, we think, information of a very satisfactory character as regards the general aspect of the war. . . , 1854-5] WANTED A SCAPEGOAT 217 ' The only complaint that can be brought against the Government is that it has not prosecuted the war with sufficient vigour and decision in the earlier part of the campaign, that its counsels were divided, and that it only made up its mind when the season was too far advanced for success. . . . Never was war prosecuted so vigorously and resolutely as at this moment. . . .' Suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason for the change of front, in a leading article of December 23, the Times gave utterance to a burst of abuse of all who exercised authority in the Crimea. It accused them, and notably Lord Raglan, not merely of incapacity, but of criminal neglect. It charged him with being personally almost unknown to his soldiers,* with failing to make himself acquainted * The only shadow of an excuse which it is possible to make for so gross a misrepresentation as that Lord Raglan was never seen by his soldiers is that— unlike the French General Canrobert, who used to visit the French camp with a large escort of Spahis in conspicuous uniforms, and unlike Pelissier, who went about in a carriage and four — Lord Raglan rode about attended by a single aide-de-camp, and in cold weather generally wearing a cloak of foreign make, sent him as a present from Vienna, which covered and concealed the empty sleeve so characteristic of his usual appearance. Hence he often passed by unrecognized and unremarked. Also, according to Admiral Lyons (' Greville Memoirs,' vol. ii., p. 39), Lord Raglan's only ' reason for not riding round all the Divisions was that he could not prevent the soldiers turning out to salute him, and he could not bear to see this ceremony done by the men who had been all night in the trenches or otherwise exposed to fatigue.' But on Lyons pointing out to him the misapprehension that arose in consequence, he said he would ' henceforward make a point of riding round every day, and so he ever after did.' In his reply to Lord Panmure's dispatch reiterating this charge. Lord Raglan says : ' I have visited the camps as frequently as the constant business in which I am engaged, and which occupies me throughout the day and a part of the night, will permit ; and, though I have made no note of those visits, I find that one of my aides-de-camp, who keeps a journal, 2i8 THE TIMES SLANDERS [en. vin with their wants, and with being callous and in different to the hardships they were suffering. The first leader in the Times of December 23, 1854, con tained the following passage : ' The noblest army England ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanage ment Incompetency, lethargy, aristocratic hauteur, official indifference, favour, routine, perverseness, and stupidity reign, revel, and riot in the camp before Sebastopol, in the harbour of Balaklava, in the hospitals of Scutari, and how much nearer home we do not venture to say. We say it with extreme re luctance, no one sees or hears anything of the Commander-in-Chief Officers who landed on the 14th September, and have been incessantly engaged at all the operations of the siege, are not even acquainted with the face of their Commander. . . . If the Staff itself made up for the invisibility of the Commander we should not complain of a military fiction bearing a strong resemblance to the privacy and inviolability of the Crown. But unfortunately the Staff is said to consist of young gentlemen . . . disposed to treat the gravest affairs with a dangerous nonchalance. Unfortunately, too, all the results agree too nearly with the fact of an invisible Commander. Had the eye of a General fallen on the confusion in the Harbour of Balaklava, on the impassable state of the road from that place to the camp, on the miserable condition of that camp, on the state of the trenches, on the unprotected state of the right flank before the Battle of Inkerman, and before that on the circum stances under which the fatal charge of Balaklava took place, we can hardly suppose but that so able a man as Lord Raglan undoubtedly is would have prevented such errors and neglects. . . . Fifty thousand men, or and who frequently, though not always, attends me — that he has accompanied me in my rides above forty times in the last two months. A ride is not taken for pleasure on this ridge and in this weather' (Kinglake, vol. vi., p. 34). 1854-5] THE TIMES SLANDERS 219 what now remains of them, are drifting with their eyes open, but hand-bound, spell-bound, towards destruction.' On December 26 a Times leader advocated an assault, for which it assumed that there are ten thousand men available, while leaving a sufficient number to protect Balaklava, the right flank, the batteries, and the trenches ! It says that ' it is head, head, head that is wanted, as well as the limbs of the rude, helpless soldier.' On December 30 it says : ' There are people who would think it a less un happy consummation of affairs that the Commander-in- Chief and his Staff should survive alone on the heights of Sebastopol, decorated, ennobled, duly named in dispatch after dispatch and ready to return home to enjoy pensions and honours amid \sic'\ the bones of fifty thousand British soldiers than that the equanimity of office and the good-humour of society should be dis turbed by a single recall or a new appointment over the heads now in command. . . .' On January i, 1855 : '. . . The real administrators of the army are all good fellows, and though one, if report speaks true, who should be the very eye of his chief is almost blind ; another never had much capacity and has had no experience ; a third is too inferior to appear except in a carriage ; and the Staff is otherwise crowded with beardless youths. . . .' On January 5 : ' Our successes in the Crimea have been owing simply and purely to the undirected valour of the British soldier, who has caught up his fire-lock and fought straight before him whenever an enemy has come in sight' 220 THE TIMES SLANDERS [ch. viii On January 20 it began to prophesy the total destruction of the army : ' We had no doubt from the information we receive from various and most trustworthy quarters, not merely that the state of things in the Crimea is very bad . . . but that the British army is menaced with a disaster to which there can be found few parallels in the dreary annals of war. . . . The ratio of sickness will not diminish — will not remain constant It will, it must, fearfully and rapidly increase. We have 14,000 bayonets and corresponding numbers of other services. But in what state are these survivors ? . . . It is computed that of these 14,000 men there are hardly 2,000 in good health. . . . We are about to lose, unless some extraordinary stroke of good fortune intervenes, our one, our only army. . . .' Again and again, for more than six weeks, leading articles to the same effect appeared. The army was described as doomed to almost certain annihilation ; the sending out of reinforcements was actually deprecated, as only devoting them to inevitable destruction ; and it was asserted to be only a question of time for the last British soldier to perish, when the Generals and the Staff would return to England cheerful and un abashed. On February 3 : ' Their aristocratic General and their equally aristo cratic Staff view this scene of wreck and destruction with a gentlemanlike tranquillity. Indeed, until stung into something like activity by the reflections of the Press, the person on whom the highest responsibility for their situation devolves had hardly condescended even to make himself superficially acquainted with its horrors.' On February 8 the writer prophesied that Lord Raglan and his staff would 1854-5] THE TIMES SLANDERS 221 ' return with their horses, their plate, and their china, the German cook, and several tons' weight of official returns, all in excellent order, and the announcement that, the last British soldier being dead, they had left our position to the care of our gallant Allies. In general no one was mentioned by name. The War Office was denounced parenthetically, but it was against Lord Raglan that the most savage attacks were directed. Sometimes he was treated contemptuously as being in relation to his Staff in the position of a constitutional Sovereign to his Ministers — powerless, that is to say, without their initiative or assent — and then the Staff were assailed as being composed partly of senile dotards and partly of beardless, inexperienced boys. Not only were the charges against him untrue — they were essentially and emphatically the reverse of the truth. Never was a General to the utmost of his capacity more assiduous, zealous, and devoted in the performance of the duties of his command. Conspicuous and forward to a fault in his place on the battlefield, constant on quiet days in visiting the camps and hospitals, working far into the night at heavy masses of correspondence, he was acquainted with every detail concerning the state and condition of the army he commanded. Nor, as he has emphatically testified, was ever General better served by the chief officers of his Staff. As to the capacity he displayed, it is no slight proof of it that each in turn of the French commanders — St. Arnaud, Canrobert, Pehssier — re cognized his superior ability and bowed to his opinion. Over each in turn he exercised a remark able ascendancy, and as to Pelissier this is the more significant, as he was by disposition headstrong and 222 MINISTERS SILENT [en. vin dictatorial, and disinclined to take a second place to anyone. Angry and unreasonable as opinion about the con duct of the war had by this time become, the coarse violence and venomous malignity of the Times' attacks produced astonishment and disgust Ministers would surely, it was thought, in their places in Parliament defend the Generals whom they had nominated, and whom till a few weeks ago they had been loading with praise and compliments. But alas ! by no member of the Government was any defence worthy of the name made. Could the Duke of Newcastle have listened to the one man who knew, and was telling him the simple truth, Lord Raglan's plain words from the Crimea w6re answer enough. Could he, even at this eleventh hour, have listened* * It was afterwards made a subject of complaint against Lord Raglan that he had failed to disclose to the Government at home the wants and sufferings of the army. His letters to the Duke of Newcastle, extracts from which have been given, are a sufficient refutation of the charge. And upon this point Sir Richard Airey, in his address to the Chelsea Board of Officers, says of him: ' In those times of trial he ceased to be equal with other men, for his personal ascendancy gave him a singular faculty of carr3ring his fixed determination into the minds of those who approached him. Without dissembling facts, he would calmly withhold his assent to all gloomy apprehensions, and manfully force attention to the special business in hand. . . . Men went to him anxious and perturbed ; they came away firm. ' By a like happy ascendancy he sheltered the home authorities from the danger of undue apprehension. He knew that their fears would rapidly spread panic in England, and that panic in England would be injurious to the efficiency of the forces. Yet he did not conceal — he carefully denoted the wants of the army, and it is singular that he could find words to do so without creating alai-m. . . , 1854-5] SIR RICHARD AIREY 223 to the plain tale which each mail brought him from the calm and steadfast man who was wearing out his life in the faithful performance of the task which had been laid upon him ; could he have perceived that the very journal which was ascribing the Crimean -misfortunes to Lord Raglan was itself the most guilty cause of them, for it had hounded on a too eager public to demand the expedition under circumstances which almost inevitably led to them ; could he from his place in Parliament have replied to the writer in the Times who demanded the punishment of the unnamed offender, as Nathan replied to David, 'Thou art the man,' he might have saved his countrymen from the disgrace which now stands recorded against them in history of having too generally acquiesced in an unjust censure of the one man whose leadership had preserved the army in its extreme peril, of having stoned the prophet who had refused to prophesy smooth things. But no such part was possible for the Duke. Brave, honest, patriotic, and devoted as he was, he needed to ' It is possible that, by one unaccustomed to military affairs, the true import and consequence of the facts thus conveyed would have been more completely understood if the narrative had been given in that tone of lamentation which can appropriately be adopted by civihans when labouring under heavy trials. But it was not well that that should be, and perhaps, too, it may be conferred that against such a way of wilting and speaking Lord Raglan had a soldier's prejudice. 'The Morning State told all with dreadful exactness. This he regularly enclosed from time to time, and he was accustomed to say, with a touching indulgence for the difficulties of others, that it was not possible for the home authorities to do much, but he knew they would do all they could. And then, discarding vain words and regret, he bent his vast powers of business to the object of saving his gallant soldiers from destruction, . . .' 224 A STRONG DELUSION [ch. viii have been possessed of exceptional powers of per ception and independence of judgment to have been right when all about him were wrong; to have dis covered and confessed that the Government had from the first wrapped themselves, and were still enveloped, in a cloud of delusion as to the magnitude of the risks and difficulties of the expedition, and that the trouble and peril of the army were in the main due, not to in competency or neglect in the conduct of the war, either at home or in the Crimea, but simply to the military strength of the country not being adequate to attain the end in view. Worn out and wellnigh broken down as he was with the strain of overwork, per plexity, and anxiety, he had to bear in addition the pressure of his colleagues, urging him to ' do some thing ' — a something which could not be particularized — to ' remedy the state of things.' On January 4 Lord Palmerston wrote to him : ' Broadlands, 'January 4, 1855. ' My dear Duke of Newcastle, '. . . Did you read a letter from a Staff Officer in the Crimea in yesterday's Times? and have you been told that which I have heard upon the authority of an officer lately returned, that on the morning of the battle of Inkermann not only was our small band of heroes left for hours to maintain without support their unequal fight, but that Raglan did not come to the ground till past nine o'clock, though the action had been raging from before day-break ? ' It is quite clear that in many essential points Raglan is unequal to the task which has fallen to his lot, but it is impossible to remove him, and we must make the best of it, and endeavour to point his atten tion to things which he has neglected, that is to say, to those arrangements which by preserving the health and strength of officers and men maintain an army in 1854-5] PALMERSTON'S OPINION 225 a state fit to perform the duties for which it is em ployed. But there are two incompetent men under him holding stations which are the keystones of the organization of an army, and there cannot be the same difficulty in dealing with them. Airey and Estcourt, but especially the former, ought to be removed, and better and more active men should be put in their places. It may be said that there are no men young and strong enough who have had as much experience as these two men. This may be so, but if they have had experience of their respective duties it has only been since they were sent to the Crimea, and unfor tunately during that time we have had experience of them, and we ought to profit by our experience better than they have done by theirs. In a matter where there are at stake the health and lives of thousands of brave men, the success of a great enterprise, the honour and vital interests of a great countr}^ personal feeling and delicacy towards individuals ought not to stand in the way ; salus exercitus suprema lex. Airey's affec tion of his eyes might well account for his return home to his quieter duties at the Horse-Guards, and Est court might have a military command there or else where suited to his rank and capacity. I will own to you that the sufferings of this fine and heroic army, mainly caused by the incapacity and apathy of its local chiefs, make me miserable when I think of it, and it is impossible not to think of it all day ; and great blame will justly be thrown upon the Government at home if, aware of the enormous evil, and conscious of its prin cipal causes, the proper steps are not taken for estab lishing a better order of things. ' Yours sincerely, ' Palmerston.' The Duke's reply was as follows : 'War Department, 'January 9, 1855. ' My DEAR Lord Palmerston, ' . . . I have heard that Lord Raglan was not on the ground at Inkerman till two hours after the battle began, — but two things should be recollected — ist, that the Guards are very angry with him for saying that 15 226 AIREY AND ESTCOURT [ch. viii they ever gave way even for a moment, and are some what interested in making out that he did not see it himself ; and, 2nd, that even if it be true, he can hardly be blamed for not being present at the commence ment of a battle which was a complete surprise even to the troops first engaged, and began before day break at a point distant from Lord Raglan's Head- Quarters. ' I have never concealed my opinion that Airey and Estcourt are not fit for the responsible offices they hold, and I am quite prepared to recommend their removal if better can be found. What, however, can I do ? I should not be justified in removing Airey, whom Hardinge recommended as the best man for Quarter- Master-General, and whom Raglan appointed as second best man, and whose unfitness neither have yet ad mitted, without having some substitute of marked fit ness to send in his place. ' I can hear of no such, for no man has had ex perience. I have written to Raglan advising that Airey should have a Division, for which, I am told, he is qualified, that he might appoint Pennefather or any other man who shows talents for the office, or have any officer sent from here whom he may fancy. ' I assure you I feel much too deeply for the army to allow any personal feelings for any officer to influence my conduct — even if he were ever so intimate a friend, and Airey is nothing to me but an official acquaintance. I am ready to advise the dismissal of anybody, nay, everybody on the Staff in any command, [if ?] I can have the hope of saving the lives or the health of the men, but what I confess I am not prepared to do is to recall men against whom there is a newspaper clamour, and for whom I have no better substitutes, merely to save myself No doubt two small tubs to the whales as Airey and Estcourt might save me from playing Jonah. I am not ambitious of being swallowed alive on the 23rd, but I had sooner share that fate than escape it by a dodge.' It is strange to find the ablest member of a Govern ment of able men, and a man of the world ordinarily so 1854-5] AIREY AND ESTCOURT 227 clear-sighted and shrewd as Lord Palmerston — one, too, with a reputation of being so loyal to those serving under him — listening and giving credit to idle tales calumniating as incapable tried veterans of war, sug gesting that even in the administrative details of his camp the General should be instructed and controlled by orders from civilian Ministers at home, as though he were ignorant and inexperienced in the very ele ments of the profession in which he had spent fifty years of his life. It would seem as if some strong delusion were possessing men's minds, and a cloud of suspicion and credulity obscuring their judgment, that they should permit to be condemned unheard, and with out a shadow of reliable evidence, the man whose devo tion and steadfastness were with difficulty preserving his overmatched and overtasked army, and saving the country from the consequences of its own rash ness.* The allegations against Lord Raglan, and also those against Generals Airey and Estcourt, were wholly untrue and without foundation.! * ' We have never seen such symptoms as are now visible — such a thorough confusion and political chaos, or the public mind so completely disturbed and dissatisfied, and so puzzled how to arrive at any just conclusion as to the past, the present, or the future. People are furious at the untoward events in the Crimea, and cannot make out the real causes thereof, nor who is to blame, and they are provoked that they cannot find victims to wreak their resentment on ' (' Greville Memoirs,' Third Part, vol. i., p. 243). t As to the time of Lord Raglan's arrival on the field of battle of Inkerman, Captain (now Lieutenant-General) Calthorpe wrote three days after the battle : 'Head-quarters before Sebastopol, 'November 8, 1854. ' Lord Raglan received information of the attack in force by the enemy on our extreme right about twenty minutes after six a.m., and a few moments later intelligence reached him of the Russian advance 15-2 228 LORD RAGLAN AT INKERMAN [ch. viii There could be no question of superseding Lord Raglan. It was confessedly impossible to name anyone competent to take his place. But from December i8 onwards the Duke's letters to him show a marked change of tone. From unqualified confidence and admiration the Duke passes to doubt, dissatisfaction, and censure. The suggestion that Generals Airey and Estcourt were unequal to the duties of their respective positions — with whomsoever it may have originated — was made by the Duke to Lord Raglan in a letter of December 22, and was also insisted upon in the Times leader of December 23.* on Balaklava. The horses were ordered out, and scarcely a quarter of an hour elapsed before Lord Raglan and his staff were mounted and ready to start for the scene of action. Lord Raglan was doubtful for a moment to which point he should go, as, having been informed of the advance of the army on the two extremes of our position, he was sure that one was intended as a feint. Knowing that the ground before Inkerman was our weak point, he felt that there his presence would be most required. . . . Lord Raglan therefore decided to go to the Second Division, having first of all sent to General Canrobert to inform him of the state of affairs. He then dispatched an aide- de-camp with orders to Sir George Cathcart and Sir George Brown as to the relative support they were to give to one another. Colonel Steele was dispatched to General Bosquet, commanding the French troops on the rear of our position, to beg him to send whatever reinforcements he felt able to spare to the support of the English troops on the extreme right. I was sent to Sir Richard England with instructions for him to occupy the ground in rear of our siege works. . . . ' Lord Raglan and his staff arrived at the field of battle — i.e., at the camp of the Second Division — at ten minutes before seven a.m. I joined the Head-quarter Staff a few minutes later, and found Lord Raglan, with several of his Generals, endeavouring to make out the enemy's force. ...'(' Letters from Head-quarters,' by a Staff -Officer, third edition, p. 144). * It has been asserted, and never contradicted, that there was frequent intercommunication between at least one member of the Cabinet — one not specially connected with the conduct of the war — 1854-S] AIREY VINDICATED 229 He writes to Lord Raglan : ' December 22, 1854. ' I am sorry to be obliged again to revert to the com plaints which thicken from all quarters of the want of system and organization which prevails in all the departments of the camp, and whilst great aUowance ought to be made for the peculiar and difficult position in which all those in authority are placed by the weather, the state of the roads, and other causes, it is impossible not to reflect that the same causes prevail in the French camp where any report that reaches the Government says that things are in a much better condition. ' I wrote last mail about the baggage of officers and men not having yet been landed. Since then I have heard that whilst our horses are obliged from want of nose-bags to feed from the mud and waste half their corn, and are, moreover, dying of starvation, the French horses are looking as well as when they landed; and that whilst our men are lying in their tents knee-deep in mud, the French have got a sort of rough pavement to all theirs which keeps them clean and dry. 'Again, the complaints of want of any regulation or method in the harbour of Balaklava are most dis tressing. Last night in the House of Lords Lord Hardwicke read an account of the quantities of timber and pressed hay which was washing about the shores for days whilst the troops are suffering from want of fuel and material for huts, and the horses are dying for want of forage. Again, I am told that there is such confusion that ships cannot get into the harbour for days, and that when once in it takes as long a time to get out. Ships with assorted cargoes constantly return to Constantinople, and two have even come back to England with large portions of their cargoes still on board. Ammunition and clothes arrive in and the Times office. Kinglake notices the coincidence of the Duke and the Times both adopting the singular theory of the General being a quasi-constitutional ruler, and his staff responsible Ministers. 230 COMPLAINTS [ch. vni large quantities, but nobody considers it his duty to order its immediate discharge. ' I assure you that these things are raising a sensation here which neither Government nor any other power can withstand. Of course, at present I have to bear the whole blame, and I am told that the want of change of linen and the state of the roads are equally my fault; but already public attention is turning to the officers in the camp, and when Parliament meets again on January 23, unless some great improvement takes place, we shall have motions of enquiry which it will be impossible to resist ' Let me earnestly urge upon you to insist upon these great errors being repaired. Some individual should be made responsible for each department, for nothing is more true than the old saying that " what is every body's business is nobody's." The country will not grudge any expense for the care and comfort of the Army, but it will exact a heavy account from those who fail to make available all that has been and will be spent for this purpose.' He writes again : ' December 25, 1854. ' I am grieved beyond measure to appear to be com plaining in my letter I now write, but I am bound in duty to say that the private letters from the camp received in town two days ago give an account of affairs growing from bad to worse. They speak of many of the Regiments — even men in the trenches — on half rations for four days, and complain that whilst there is no deficiency in Balaklava, no care is taken to keep the troops supplied. Making all allow ance for the badness of the roads, this surely ought not to be! With such a state of things the number of sick and dying is not wonderful. Again, I must repeat, there appears to be carelessness amongst the higher departments which requires vigorous correction.' Lord Raglan writes : 'January 13, 1855. ' I have received your letter of the 25th December. My reply to your letter of the i8th of that month will 1854-51 THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN 231 have made you acquainted with the feelings of deep regret and mortification which that communication had occasioned me, and with the frankness with which I have always dealt with you, I will not conceal from you the painful impression to which this last expression of dissatisfaction has given rise in my mind. ' I have frequently alluded to the difficulty of bring ing up supplies from the state of the roads. That difficulty, and the want of sufficient means of trans port, have been the cause of irregularity in the issue of rations and of the inadequate supply from time to time. I have done all in my power to correct this evil, and so have the officers under me, and I have afforded every support and assistance in my power to Mr. Filder; but his establishment is inadequate to his duties, his horse transport dwindles away to nothing, and the Commissariat generally is in a very unsatis factory state. ' There are undoubtedly no deficiencies with regard to supplies in Balaklava ; the difficulty has been, and is, to bring them up, and for some time this could only be effected by the men going down for them. ' You establish as a fact that " no care is taken to keep the troops supplied," and you repeat that " there appears to be carelessness amongst the highest de partments which requires vigorous correction." ' If these severe observations are intended to apply to the Staff Officers of the Army, I positively and distinctty deny their accuracy, and must testify to their zeal, ability, and unceasing devotion to their duty. They have hardly any rest The machinery of the Commissariat is undoubtedly defective. I do not question either Mr. Filder's ability or his zeal, but his department is not well manned, and the horses and mules have not been well fed or cared for. The Turkish drivers do their work very ill. The Maltese are better, but they have died in great numbers.' The Duke writes to Lord Raglan : ' December 29, 1854. ' I am really grieved to sing the same song again to-day, but complaints come in so thickly and so 232 THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN [ch. vin strongly that I cannot, if I would, think or write of anything else. Letters every day reach me from relations of officers reproaching me for leaving the army to die away from want of proper care, and at every Cabinet which is held my colleagues complain that more is not done to remedy the defects complained of Yet what can be done here ? Abundance of^ every thing has been sent out, but from want of method nothing is forthcoming. ' There is one matter which is much commented on, that the men of the English army are kept longer in and put more frequently to the trenches than their health or strength can bear. It is said — but this, I think, cannot be true — that the English are frequently in the trenches two nights out of three, whilst the French are seldom so occupied more than one night out of every seven or eight. Now, the length of the lines is no doubt the cause of a greater number being sent to the trenches than the strength of the army admits without overworking the men, but is there not a remedy for this ? The lines were apportioned be tween the Armies when the English was somewhat the more numerous of the two. The French is now about double that of the English. Ought not the extent of the English lines to be reduced ? I should think General Canrobert would at once admit the justice of the proposal, or rather its wisdom or pro priety ; for the welfare of the one army is the interest of the other, and the more they can in these opera tions act as one the more hopeful must be their success. ' The truth is, General Airey and General Estcourt are much complained of as not being up to their work, and those under them appear to be little capable of supplying their deficiencies. From neither of these departments have any requisitions been sent home to me or to any of the military officers,* and we have * The Duke was in error on this point. General Airey had sent in requisitions to a large extent, and to the proper quarter. Kinglake (vol. vi., p. 303) says : 'General Airey was so far from having omitted to send home requisitions that on one day — viz., November 28, 1854 — he sent home requisitions for, inter alia, the following things : 100 hospital marquees. 1854-5] THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN 233 been obliged to form our unaided opinions as to what is wanting, whilst the deficiencies of land transport and the other neglect to which I have before referred appear to be wholly attributable to these Staff- Officers. 'I have sent in to Lord Hardinge the names of six or eight officers who might be sent out to be placed upon the Staffs of the Quarter-Master and Adjutant- General. If he thinks them qualified, I hope they may be very soon on their way ; but as the quantity appears already enough, and the improved quality is what is wanted, I would suggest to you whether, when these officers arrive, you would not allow the least efficient of those now serving to return to their Regiments, as they are all short of officers. . . .' Lord Raglan writes : 'January i8, 1855. ' Your letter 01 29th December, which I received on Saturday after the departure of the mail, has given me the greatest pain, and, after an attentive consideration of it, and of the contents of those of the 22nd and 25th ultimo, which I have already answered, I can arrive at no other conclusion than that I no longer enjoy your confidence. ' This, which is strongly impressed on my mind, I cannot but regard as a heavy misfortune, and as calcu lated to increase the difficulties and add very seriously to the anxieties of my present position, the only alleviation to *which has been the countenance and support which you have hitherto invariably manifested towards me. 3,000 tents, 7,000 camp kettles, 2,500 spades, 2,500 shovels, 2,500 pick axes, 2,500 felling axes, 2,500 saws, 6,000 nose-bags, and 3,000 reaping hooks. . . . Irrespectively of these requisitions, all duly sent home to London, his department, with the sanction of Lord Raglan, effected vast purchases at Constantinople, there obtaining, with happy promptitude, huge supplies of warm clothing, of tarpauling, and of tools, together with 4,700 camp kettles, and numberless other supplies. The great supplies of timber (planks and scantling) which General Airey obtained were drawn from various parts of the Levant.' 234 THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN [ch. vin ' My duty, however, to the Queen will induce me to persevere in doing my best to carry on the service to the utmost of my ability, apart from all personal con siderations. ' I infer from what you say that you suppose that I have made no effort to prevail upon the French General- in-Chief to take a part of the duties which I have long been aware have been more than this army could per form. So far from this being the case, I have repeat edly urged the question upon General Canrobert, and, indeed, so early as the day after the battle of Inker mann ^he promised me a Division. I have frequently pressed this upon him since, and have always been assured that when he could he would aid me to that extent He has, however, been in the habit of plead ing that the reinforcements which had reached him were detachments, and not complete military bodies, and that he was not then in a condition to fulfil what t should be justified in calling his engagement, at the same time declaring that his corps de siege underwent as hard work as our own. He has at length consented to render me assistance, not exactly in the way I sug gested, but as stated in my dispatch marked " Secret " ofthe 13th inst ' The strength of the French army at present is at least four times that of the British, and the duties of the corps d'observation and of the reserve, many thousands of which have recently arrived in English steamers, are comparatively light ; but the men com posing these corps are far from being exempt from suffering both on account of the weather and of the want of tents, and this particularly in the Division of General Bosquet, who laments exceedingly that his men have only " des tentes abries," which furnish but little or no shelter. I believe that the sick are very numerous and the mortality is considerable. ' My conviction is that I have gone as far as was politic in my endeavours to obtain the participation of the French in the occupation of the position on which we stand. The advantage of keeping on good terms with them is too obvious to require discussion. General Canrobert, I must do him the justice to say, exhibits a very friendly disposition, and so do all the officers with whom I am in the habit of communi- 1854-S] THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN 235 eating ; but I have not always had a very easy task, as my dispatches and letters will demonstrate, and it is natural that, as the numbers of the French army in crease, the greater may be the difficulties which 1 may encounter in my communications with the General-in- Chief ' It is with the deepest concern that I observe that, upon the authority of private letters, you condemn Generals Airey and Estcourt and the Staff generally, and this without reference to me, or the expression of a desire to have my opinion of their qualifications or imputed deficiencies. I have been conversant with public business nearly half a century, and I have never yet known an instance of such condemnation before. I am witness to their daily labours, their constant toil, and I can with truth say that they merit the tribute of my warmest approbation. General Airey, whose duties cover a wider surface and are more continu ously in operation than those of his colleague, is a very able man, and particularly qualified, according to my humble judgment, for the post he occupies, and I consider myself most fortunate in having him in the situation of Quarter-Master-General. Am I, or are the writers of private letters, in the better position to pronounce upon his merits ? ' Neither have I any complaint to make nor have I received a single representation of the incompetence of the officers of the Staff generally or individually ; and it is impossible for me to deprive them of their appointments without, so far as I know, any ground whatever. 'You must pardon me for adding that I can only regard your adoption of the imputation against these officers as an indirect reflection on myself, and an indication that you consider me incapable of judging of departmental officers, the chief of whom receive their orders from me. ' I find that the attack upon the Staff has been so indiscriminate as to extend to my present Staff, who are accused of aristocratic hauteur, incivility, and God knows what besides. This, indeed, is a matter of surprise, more particularly as it has been frequently mentioned to me by officers of the highest rank and consideration that the general opinion was quite the 236 THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN [ch. vin other way. They are all perfect gentlemen, extremely intelligent, zealous beyond everything, and most courteous to all. We live most happily together and on the terms of the closest intimacy, and there is not one of them who is not ready at the slightest hint from me to undertake any duty at all hours either of day or night' The Duke writes to Lord Raglan : 'January i, 1855. ' . . . You mention that the sad prevalence of sick ness amongst the newly-arrived troops is surprising on account of the regiments best placed having in many instances suffered most. I cannot help thinking that some enquiry into the causes of this apparent mystery will bring to light fresh cases of neglect and want of precaution. 'Thus, for instance, I have heard that an officer of high rank here has received a letter from the Crimea stating that when the last strong draft for the Guards' Brigade arrived at Balaklava no Staff-Officer received them, and they landed and marched to camp without being able to find a guide. In consequence, they lost their way, and when at last they reached the Brigade, there were no tents for them. This, I am afraid, has happened in several instances, and the men, worn out with a march through wet and mud of twice the distance that a guide should have taken them, having had to lie out without shelter, swelled the sick-list before they had even performed a day's duty. ' Such things as these are producing great irritation here, and coupled with facts of horses dying by hundreds of starvation while the hospital at Scutari is choked up with chopped straw, and the men on half rations whilst bullocks are kept on board ship at Balaklava for five days without forage and are then landed dead and unfit for food, are creating a ferment in the public mind which will soon find a vent in a burst of unreasoning violence. I shall, of course, be the first victim to popular vengeance, and the papers, assisted by the Tory and Radical parties united, have pretty well settled my fate already. To this I am as indifferent as a man who has done his best and worked 1854-5] THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN 237 zealously ought to be; but more victims will be re quired. You and I will come first ; but those who are most to blame will not escape. Their names are already in the mouths of everybody. Thus this very day an angry relative of an officer dying from sickness said to be brought on by avoidable causes asked me how a Quarter-Master-General was likely to attend to his important duties who found time to write long Erivate letters to at least half a dozen fine ladies in ,ondon. I mention these things because it is right you should know them. ' I am informed by the wife of an eye-witness that on the nth December the first batch of 3,300 sent to Scutari embarked on board the Sydney, and that the poor creatures had to crawl up the ships' sides as they could, without a medical officer on board to receive them or a single soul to assist them. Such things should not be, for they can be prevented, and such soldiers deserve every care. When I hear of this needless suffering, and of many of our regiments being on quarter rations and not tasting fresh meat for ten days whilst the French get it every other day, I confess I blush for a country which has sent out such a Fleet of steam transports and cannot find people who know how to use them. ' I cannot say how it pains me to write all this to you. Gladly would I spare you a participation in the bitter anxiety which I suffer day by day from such neglect of duty by those who ought to know how to perform it, but I cannot remain silent till either remedy is found, or some other person relieves me of the painful duty of trying to cure such evils. . . .' Lord Raglan replied : 'Before Sebastopol, 'January 20, 1855. ' I have received your letter of the ist inst., in which I deeply lament to see that you adopt further reports in private letters and charge the administra tion of the army with fresh neglects and want of attention. 'The regiment to which I alluded as being best placed, and which I mentioned as one of the great sufferers, was the 9th Foot, then recently arrived from 238 THE DUKE AND LORD RAGLAN [ch. vin Malta. Sir Richard England encamped it on clean ground free from stone and in all respects eligible, yet there it was attacked by cholera and suffered great loss. The regiment had been unhealthy at Malta, and cholera has been everywhere, and has committed great ravages with this army, not only in Bulgaria, but on the passage to the Crimea and in the Peninsula itself ' With reference to your charge against the depart ment of the Quarter-Master-General, I send you his reply, to whom I thought it necessary to refer your observations. You will see that the drafts of the Guards remained at Balaklava many days, having been placed on their ground there by an officer of the Quarter-Master-General, who went on board, saw them landed, and conducted them. When they came up to the ridge, the officer commanding them pro ceeded to join his division, having made all his arrangements, and neither from that officer. Lord Arthur Hay, nor from the Colonel of the Guards, have I heard that anything whatever had gone wrong, nor do I believe it ' I have called upon Mr. Filder for an explanation of bullocks having been kept on board ship starving, and he informs me that he will transmit his report to your office by this mail. He is obliged to [go] up to Con stantinople about the chopped straw, said to be at Scutari. I enclose his answer to that part of your letter which relates to the want of fresh meat.* * Filder's letter was as follows ; ' Balaklava, 'January ig, 1855. ' In the hurricane of November 14 two of our cattle vessels were seriously damaged, and were more than a month in dock undergoing repairs. The troops may in consequence have been ten or twelve days without fresh meat ; but it is to be observed that the French suffered no losses connected with their commissariat supplies on that occasion, or none of any consequence, and that the French ration of meat is only half a pound, whilst the English ration is one and a quarter pounds. I feel assured that the quantity of fresh meat issued to the British troops since the arrival of the allied armies in the Crimea has greatly exceeded that supplied to the French troops, although it may not have been issued at so uniform a rate.' 1854-5] COMMISSARY-GENERAL FILDER 239 ' Upon that point I have been incessantly pushing him. The French receive meat only once in three days, and then only the half of a French pound. Occa sionally they only receive it on the fourth day. ' I can of course give no reply to the charge of an officer dying from sickness brought on by avoidable causes ; but I can say this, that the Quarter-Master- General can have nothing to do with these causes. He has not the charge of sick officers. General Airey pleads guilty of having written to Miss Hardinge, who was in great anxiety about her brother, then confined by illness to this house, and to Lady Raglan to let her know how I was ; and these are the only ladies he has written to except to his wife. ' I really cannot understand any gentleman venturing to intrude upon you such an insinuation. ' I cannot say how all these attacks annoy me and add to my anxieties, and these are far from being few. ' I passed a part of the night before last in reading over the correspondence with you since the month of October, and I perceived that I had set before you all the difficulties by which the army was surrounded, and that I told you the serious consequences of the state of the roads, and of the deficiency of transport, and that I asked your attention to a report of Mr. Cattley's on the climate, and to the opinion he gave that ' nobody could withstand the cold unless pro perly sheltered. You sent me Dr. Lee's book, which tended to the belief that the winter here was not rigorous. ' Mr. Cattley's experience shows that he spoke with more connaissance de cause than Dr. Lee. ' P.S. — Mr. Filder has just sent me extracts of his correspondence with Sir Charles Trevelyan. No roasted coffee has been received since these letters were written.' The Duke writes again : ' January 8, 1855. ' By almost every messenger since the middle of last month I have written you private letters with com- 240 THE STAFF [ch. viii plaints against the principal members of your Staff. I much wished to avoid embodying any of these com plaints in an official dispatch, but some of my coUeagues are of opinion that for the purposes, of remedying defects your hands will be strengthened by having them laid before you in a more grave and formal shape. If anything could add to the pain of writing anything which could give you annoyance it would be the fact that I am called upon to do so at a moment when you have been so unfairly and ungenerously attacked by the ruffianly Times. That I have no sympathy with those attacks I believe you will readily admit ; for I think there can be little doubt that their object is not so much to injure you as through you to ruin me — and to say the truth I should at first have written publicly as well as privately, if the sudden outburst of that most versatile paper had not made me anxious to avoid the semblance of shifting the blame from my own shoulders to those of others. ' I earnestly hope, I wish I could add I confidently expect, that before my long dispatch of the 6th reaches you, the circumstances of the army may in all respects have changed, but even then I think there can be little doubt that the Staff of your army would require con siderable modification. Would it not be a good change to give General Airey a Division ? I have always heard he is a good soldier, but to be frank with you I must say what I saw of him at the Horse-Guards led me to anticipate that he would not prove a good man of business, and therefore not a good Quarter-Master- General. ' If you made this change Pennefather might prob ably succeed him beneficially, unless some other officer in the camp has developed greater capabilities, or unless you would like to have KnoUys or any other officer sent out from home.' And in another letter he writes : ' January 26, 1855. ' I cannot but regret the obvious pain which my letter of the i8th December had occasioned you, and the more because I know that others which you will since have received will increase that pain — but I am 1854-5] JOHN RUSSELL LEAVES THE SHIP 241 sure you will find out that I have not written heedlessly or on insufficient information, and certainly not too soon. On my part I feel great concern at the unequi vocal terms in which you express entire approval of the Quarter-Master-General's Department. The pre sent condition of the army — wet, cold, and hungrj'-, within seven miles of warm clothing, huts, fuel, and food, must be caused by the improvidence of some body. Who is it ? ' I have not time to-day to write at any length ; for I must go to a Cabinet and thence to the House of Lords. ' The storm at home which some time ago I told you was inevitable is about to break. Lord John Russell has quitted the Government. To-night a motion for enquiry into the conduct of the war comes on in the House of Commons. It is almost certain that the Government will be beaten. If so, we shall of course all resign. But if not, it is impossiljle that I can remain in office. The public feeling against me is so strong that I should only be impeding the public welfare if 1 attempted to resist it. I must therefore make way. God grant it may be for somebody more capable, though certainly not more anxious or devoted to the cause of this country — whatever vaa.y happen to others.' Lord Raglan writes in answer : ' February 10, 1855. ' Since I last wrote to you the mail of the 26th has arrived, and has shown that the state of politics was then very critical. ' I have written so much in answer to the accusations which have been so unscrupulously made against the administration of the army that I shall add nothing new. But I cannot refrain from making one observa tion upon a remark of yours which has occasioned me as much surprise as pain. ' After stating that you have not written heedlessly or on insufficient information, you say, " I on my part feel great concern at the unequivocal terms in which you express entire approval of the Quarter-Master- General's department." ' I cannot conceive why you should feel this concern. 16 242 ANONYMOUS ASSAILANTS [ch. viii I should have thought that you would have been happy to learn from the man best qualified to give a just opinion and to form a correct judgment that I was ably assisted by General Airey and perfectly satisfied with the manner in which he conducted his duties under my directions. I do not know whence you derive your information, but this I know, that the author or authors of it are not avowed, and that their object is to assail a man's character without exposing themselves to the consequences of making accusations which they could not establish, and the probability is that they are wholly ignorant of the duties the Quarter- Master-General has to discharge. ' I, on the contrary, must be able to judge whether an officer with whom I am in communication from early morning till midnight is efficient or the reverse, and if I know him to be efficient, I shall not be worthy of confidence if I hesitate to express my opinion be cause the press and private letter-writers thought fit to attack him without measure or reason, and simply to gratify vindictive feeling and love of rancorous abuse.' The official dispatch referred to in the Duke's letter of January 8 was dated and sent on January 6. Another was sent on January 22. Neither of these has been published, and the War Office still keeps them secret, and will not permit their publication.* Their general * As to the question of the staff, there are amongst the Duke's papers copies of the minutes relating to it made by four members of the Cabinet. Sidney Herbert's is not amongst them. With one exception, they are more favourable to Lord Raglan and his staff than their neglect to defend him in ParUament would indicate. Sir William Molesworth writes : ' Our army in the Crimea is in a state of disorganization, and in danger of perishing from the incompetency of the chief persons in command. The remedy, I believe, is to remove the most incompetent, especially the Adjutant and Quarter-Master-Generals. We must not fear wounding the feelings of a few individuals when the safety of a whole army is at stake. Tenderness of heart in such a case is a crime on the part of those who are entrusted with the administration of public affairs.' 1854-5] MINUTES OF MINISTERS 243 purport may be conjectured to have been the same as that of the Duke's private letters to Lord Raglan, and they may perhaps have been the joint production of the assembled Cabinet. Kinglake, who had, no doubt, The Duke of Argyll writes : ' I agree with Molesworth that good nature in refusing to dismiss incompetent heads would be a public crime at such a juncture ; but I also agree with Sidney Herbert that the Government at home can hardly determine with accuracy or justice where the incompetence lies. It is hardly enough to know that certain defects have lain in the department of the Quarter-Master-General, because that office may have been deficient in means and instruments, and may have been impeded by a thousand physical difficulties of which we know nothing. I think, therefore, the proper course is to express to Lord Raglan our impressions as regards those departments, to urge on him the duty of exercising a very rigorous judgment, and to offer him every sort of support from the authority of the Government. . . .' Sir George Grey writes : ' I entirely agree in the course recommended by Mr. Sidney Herbert to be taken on Lord John Russell's memorandum. I think it would be impossible for the Government at home to order the removal of any officer from the head of a department on the evidence we possess without the risk of committing injustice to the officer and injury to the service. . . .' Sir Charles Wood writes : 'January 8. ' I am afraid, after making full allowance for exaggeration, of which, I have no doubt, there is abundance, our troops, are in a bad condition. I am inclined to think, however, that it would not be difficult to find in the accounts of the Peninsular Campaign sufferings as great, and as much apparent want of management. I mention this merely to corroborate the opinion given by Mr. S. Herbert and Sir George Grey that it is utterly impossible for us here to say where the fault lies. . . .' After Lord Panmure had succeeded the Duke at the War Office, General Simpson was sent out to the Crimea in the new capacity of ' Chief of the Staff,' chiefly with a view to his reporting on the efficiency of Lord Raglan's staff. He reported as follows : 'There is not one of them whom I would wish to see removed. ... I do not think a better selection of staff officers could be made, and therefore have no reason to recommend any changes. . . .' (Kinglake, vol. vi., p. 350). 16 — 2 244 CENSURE [ch. viii seen the original among Lord Raglan's papers, says of the first of these dispatches: ' This dispatch was beyond measure wordy, and less precise in its terms than the letters we have been quoting ; but its main object was to cast blame on the military administration in the Crimea, to enjoin vigorous reform, and call for special reports from several ofthe Headquarter Departments.'* In writing to the Queen the Duke refers to the second dispatch as follows : 'January 22, 1855. ' . . . The Duke of Newcastle at the same time sends for your Majesty's perusal the copy of a dispatch which it has been his painful duty to address to Lord Raglan to-day. The information therein referred to was received by a highly respectable clergyman, and there , is too much reason to fear that it is strictly correct' Commissary-General Filder, who had been selected for the general superintendence of the commissariat of the army in the East, was a man of tried merit. He had gone through the Peninsular and Waterloo cam paigns with credit, had been placed in charge of one important station after another, and though sixty-four years of age, was active in mind and body, quick, * Vol. vi., p. 309. Another dispatch to the same effect, but more distinctly censuring Lord Raglan, sent by Lord Panmure (February 12, 1855) immediately after his coming into office, is severely and justly animadverted on by Kinglake (p. 331). But Kinglake was mistaken in laying the animus of this dispatch on Lord Panmure's shoulders. It was essentially the act of the Cabinet, and, though Lord Panmure was officially responsible for it, he seems to have formed a juster estimate of Lord Raglan's merits than any of his colleagues, or, at any rate, than Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston continued to urge Airey's dismissal from the staff ; but Lord Panmure maintained the right of a General to choose his own staff, and stood to his guns at the risk of a rupture with his chief. I8S4-5] FILDER AND CORRESPONDENTS 245 ready, and energetic* All that a man in his office could do he seems to have done, but from the causes already detailed it became sometimes impossible for him to supply the wants of the army adequately and with regularity. In the heated atmosphere of indig nation at the sufferings of the army, and of impatience to fix the blame on some responsible person on the spot, public opinion fastened upon him, and charged him with incapacity and neglect. This opinion — mistaken as it was — was shared by the Government. The following letter to him from the Duke was evi dently written under the unfavourable impression produced by it : 'War Department, '(Private.) 'January 19, 1855. ' A few days ago Mr. Gladstone sent me a lettert purporting to be addressed by you to Sir Charles * Sebastopol Committee, Qu. 13, 453. Like Lord Raglan, Filder remained at his post in the Crimea, and had no opportunity of vindicating himself by being examined before the Committee. t The letter referred to was as follows : 'January 2, 1855. ' I perceive by the newspapers that Mr. Layard has attacked the commissariat again in the House of Commons. There may be some personal feehng, perhaps, mixed up with the question on the present occasion; for, when he was out there as an amateur, I refused to allow him to draw rations — rather impolitic, you will say — and he made it a matter of complaint, I understand, on his return to England, both to the Duke of Newcasde and to Mr. Sidney Herbert. ' I had given directions that any of the reporters for the London daily press with the army who might be so circumstanced that they could not purchase provisions should be allowed to draw rations on paying their value, but I could not have granted [this] to Mr. Layard without conceding the like to the many other amateurs who were here at the time, or have been here. ' Notwithstanding my refusal, however, he is somewhat ungrate ful; for he messed latterly with some officers of the camp before Sebastopol, who lived entirely on their rations — for nothing could be purchased at that time— and he got fat. ' An incident, moreover, occurred which somewhat comphcated 246 FILDER MISUNDERSTOOD [en. vin Trevelyan which I must candidly say to you does not appear to me to be authentic. ' The statements in it respecting the grant of rations to correspondents of newspapers are so much at variance with what those correspondents have written home to their employers; and the facts relating to Mr. Layard, Mr. Herbert, and myself are so necessarily unknown to anybody in the Crimea and even here, except to one or two persons only, that I am unavoid ably led to the conclusion that that letter emanated from the Treasury and not from you. ' A former proceeding of Sir Charles Trevelyan in a somewhat similar case, and which was much com mented upon at the time, leads me to the opinion that you must have been requested to put in writing facts which he communicated to you, if, indeed, the letter is written by you. 'As the whole question of giving rations to the correspondent of the Times and not of other news papers must come before Parliament, and may prob ably, if your letter is used in Parliament, even come before a Committee, I must request you to give me a full explanation of this letter, as well as the case to which it refers. ' I have complaints from several newspapers, and they will not be silent in the House. ' I am far from wishing to give you pain — nor, indeed, do I throw blame in the first degree upon you — but I am sure you will see that I am entitled to know the secret history ofthe transaction.' the matter : for on Mr. Delane's arrival in the Crimea I gave an order that he should, like all other gentlemen connected with the newspaper press, be allowed to draw rations ; but Mr. Delane dis appeared the next day, and the commissariat officer, never having seen him, by some mistake converted the order intended for him into one in favour of Mr. Kinglake, also an amateur. This was entirely without my knowledge ; but Mr. Layard, no doubt, left the army under the impression that I had granted an indulgence to one amateur which I had denied to him. ¦ This should be no reason, however, why, in alluding to me, he should add some six years to my age ; for at the time he first said I was seventy years of age I had but recently completed my sixty- fourth year.' I8S4-S] CORRESPONDENTS' RATIONS 247 Filder replied : 'Crimea, ' February 4, 1855. ' I have had the honour this day of receiving your Grace's letter of 19th ultimo. It is, as your Grace infers it must be, painful to me to be supposed capable of being made to subserve by my correspondence the views of another public officer, and I trust the foUowing explanation of the transaction to which your Grace adverts will show that no such preconcerted com munication as supposed has taken place in regard to them. ' The letter alluded to purporting to be one from me to Sir Charles Trevelyan is authentic, and I can assure your Grace that neither in that nor in any other instance whatever have I written a letter at the instigation of, or by previous arrangement with. Sir Charles Trevelyan. ' The former proceeding to which your Grace alludes relates, I presume, to the speech made by Earl Grey in the House of Lords last Session. The coincidence of another Commissariat Officer having written at the same time on the same subject as myself might possibly afford grounds for inferring that this had been done by previous consent, and it has been mentioned to me that such a suspicion had been entertained by the authorities in England ; but that, I can assure your Grace, was not the case. I wrote my letter without previous communication with Sir Charles Trevelyan or any other person, and the coincidence appears to me natural, considering that the other officer and myself had both of us had charge of the Commissariat duties at the Stations more particularly alluded to by his Lordship at the time the abuses or negligences were said to have occurred. ' That Mr. Layard had made it matter of complaint to your Grace and Mr. Herbert that he had not been permitted to receive rations whilst he was with the army in the Crimea was mentioned to me by Lord Raglan, but without any injunction to secrecy. ' At the time I gave the order that the correspondent of the Times should be allowed to draw rations on paying their value, I made it known to the Commis sariat officers attached to the divisions in front that 248 LORD JOHN RUSSELL [ch. vin the correspondents of any of the other London news papers might have the same indulgence extended to them. This was at Varna, and subsequently on our arrival in the Crimea in September I stated such to be the rule in the presence of the Adjutant-General of this army, Mr. Layard, Mr. Delane, and other gentle men, and on that occasion I told Mr. Layard that if he could say he was in any way connected with the London daily Press, I would order rations to be issued to him on the same terms as to the other gentlemen similarly circumstanced. ' No application was ever made to me by the corre spondent of any of the other London newspapers until recently, and then I immediately gave an order in favour of the three gentlemen who applied, and whom I had never seen before nor have ever seen since. ' Trusting that the foregoing explanation wUl be satisfactory to your Grace, I have the honour to be, etc' The foundation of the Order of the Victoria Cross, which has taken deep root as a valued institution of our Army and Navy, owes its origin to the Duke of Newcastle. The following letter was written by him to Prince Albert : 'War Department, ' January 20, 1855. ' Your Royal Highness will recollect that some time ago I expressed an opinion that the circumstances of the present campaign and the alliance in which we have engaged in it seem to render either an extension of the Order of the Bath or the institution of some new Order of Merit, if not necessary, at any rate de sirable. ' Subsequently to the conversation I had with Your Royal Highness the question was raised in the House of Commons, and no doubt will be raised again — more especially because no grant of the honours of the Bath has as yet been made. ' Your Royal Highness mentioned several objections to the proposition of adding to the three classes of the 854-5] THE VICTORIA CROSS] 249 Order of the Bath, and I hope I am not taking too great a liberty if I ask Your Royal Highness's opinion upon the other suggestion, the institution of a new decoration to be confined to the Army and Navy, but open to all ranks of either service. ' I confess it does not seem to me right or politic that such deeds of heroism as this war has produced should go unrewarded by any distinctive outward mark of honour because they are done by privates or by officers below the rank of Major, and it is impos sible to believe that Her Majesty's troops fighting side by side with those of France do not draw an invidious contrast between the rewards bestowed upon them selves and their allies. ' The value attached by soldiers to a little bit of ribbon is such as to render any danger insignificant and any privation light if it can be attained, and I believe that great indeed would be the stimulus and deeply prized the reward of a cross of military merit ' There are some Orders which even Crowned Heads cannot wear, and it would be a military reward of high estimation if this cross could be so bestowed as to be within the reach of every private soldier and yet to be coveted by any General at the head of an army. ' Such a reward would have more effect in the Army than the grant of Commissions, and the sight of one of these crosses on the breast of a soldier returned home invalided would bring more recruits than any of the measures we can now adopt. ' Of course great care would be requisite to prevent abuse, but I am sure Your Royal Highness will not consider the danger of abuse a sufficient reason to reject this proposal if there appears sufficient good in it to justify its adoption.' When the intelligence of the suffering condition of the army reached England in November, one of the Ministers, Lord John Russell, had been content, with out probing the matter for himself, to accept the popular opinion of the moment that it was mainly 250 SIR FRANCIS BARING [en. vni attributable to the mismanagement of the War Office by the Duke. Towards the end of that month he pro posed to Lord Aberdeen that Palmerston should take the Duke's place ; and when Lord Aberdeen, after consideration, refused to assent to this, he announced his intention to resign office as soon as the short autumn Parliamentary Session, then being held, should be at an end. From this intention he was for the moment with difficulty dissuaded ; but when, on the reopening of Parliament in January, 1855, Roebuck gave notice of a motion in the House of Commons for a Select Committee ' to inquire into the condition of our Army before Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those departments of the Government whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that Army,' Lord John announced that he could not oppose or vote against the motion, and sent in his resignation. He afterwards made an attack in the House of Commons on the Duke's administration of the War Office, to which the Duke made an effective reply in the House of Lords. The following letter from Sir Charles Wood to Sir Francis Baring shows in what light the Duke's work was regarded by the other members of the Cabinet. It was written in reply to a letter from Sir Francis Baring remonstrating with him for not having spoken in defence of Lord John, and has the greater significance as coming from one whose party allegiance and natural ties would be on the side of the Whigs and their leader rather than on that of the Peelite Duke. ' February 3, 1855. ' I was very anxious to have seen you to correct your impression as to certain matters of fact, in mis conception of which you impute blame to Aberdeen 1854-S] SIR CHARLES WOOD 251 and to some of Lord John's colleagues, which I don't think either he or we deserve. ' Now I will give you a short summary of facts. ' In June Lord John thought Newcastle the best man for the War Department ; he had some little fancy for it himself, but never for Palmerston. ' He told Hayter in July that Newcastle, having all the threads of the preparations in his hands, was the best man for it. ' In October (8th) he told Newcastle he was quite satisfied. ' In November Lord John wrote to Aberdeen, pro posing to substitute Palmerston for Newcastle. ' In proof of Newcastle's incapacity he quoted two cases, in both of which he was wrong. Aberdeen declined recommending the change. Palmerston thought it wrong. ' After this we heard of it,* Lord John saying that he had no proposal to make, but should resign after the short Session. ' We all thought that there was no sufficient case then of Newcastle's misfeasance for removing him, and we urged Lord John not to resign. ' He agreed to postpone any step till after the short Session. 'On the 1 6th of December he told Aberdeen that he was convinced by Panmure that he ought not to press the change or resign. ' We never heard of this fact at the time, but we heard no more of resignation or change. ' Lord John proposed several measures for the Session, obtained our assent to many proposals and Bills of his own ; and though some expression of dis content was used to G. Grey, the great majority of his colleagues had no reason to suppose that he had not finally abandoned his notions above stated. ' Either on Friday, 19th, or Saturday, 20th, he pro posed or revived a scheme for putting into formal shape a sort of Board, being a meeting of the heads of the War Departments which had practically sat for some time. This was determined on and settled. * The correspondence was circulated after a Cabinet held on December 4. 252 SIR CHARLES WOOD'S OPINION [ch. vin ' On Saturday evening he sent some suggestions to Aberdeen for improving his scheme, which were to be discussed at the next Cabinet — i.e., Wednesday, the 24th. ' On Tuesday night he sent his resignation to Aber deen, not referring even to any change of office, but simply saying that he could not oppose Roebuck's motion. ' Early on Wednesday morning he sent a copy of this note to the Queen, who thus received it, not in the constitutional way through Aberdeen, but direct from Lord John ; and when Aberdeen arrived at Windsor he was greeted by " I know what you are come about" ' These are the facts. ' Now I will give you my views. ' I believe that Newcastle was and is a better man for the place than Palmerston. ' I believe that nothing which could have been done here could have prevented any material portion of what has happened. 'I believe that nineteen-twentieths of the blame rests with the people out there. . . .' The following day Sir Charles Wood writes again to Sir Francis Baring : , belgrave Square, 'February 4, 1855. ' Thank you for your long letter. You touch upon many points to which I did not refer. I wrote simply on the two points to which your speech referred. I don't say that I think it now advisable to retain New castle. I did say that I thought and think he was the best man in July and in November. . . .' Sir Charles Wood's opinion that 'nineteen-twentieths of the blame rests with the people out there ' was, as we have seen, a totally mistaken one.* What had * Some of the members of the Cabinet, however, clung tenaciously to this opinion. Nearly two years after this time, Sir James Graham writes to the Duke: 'Nethkrby. ' November 23, 1856. '. . . Had Lyons commanded instead of Dundas, and Keppel instead of Napier, at the commencement of the war, the result of 1854-5] ROEBUCK'S MOTION 253 been going on in the Crimea was a matter outside his knowledge. But what had passed in the Cabinet was within his knowledge, and his concise statement of indisputable facts disposes of the case in the Duke's favour as between the latter and Lord John Russell. Nor could any member of the Cabinet afford to cast blame on the Duke, for the fault lay with the Cabinet as a whole. Parliament met on January 23. With the exception of Lord John, the Cabinet stood by the Duke, and when Roebuck made his motion for a Committee of Inquiry, they opposed it. But the excitement and anger about the conduct of the war swept all resist ance before it The motion was carried against Ministers by the overwhelming majority of one hundred and fifty -seven, and the Government re signed. The old difficulty of finding a chief under whom Whigs and Peelites or Conservatives and Peelites would consent to serve again presented itself Lord Derby was sent for, but failed to obtain sufficient support. Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston then tried, and finally Palmerston succeeded. The influences of private ambition and jealousy were at work amongst the front rank of statesmen. The Peelites hesitated to serve under Palmerston. As for the first naval campaign would have been very different. It was doomed, however, to failure, in spite of every exertion to secure success. The moral effect of these disappointments is salutary, but they are hard to bear, especially when suspicions, the most unjust, are attached to them. If we had been well served by our com manders, we might have made short work of the Russian War before the commencement of the first winter. All this is now gone by, and the glories both of peace and war are attendant on the lucky star of Palmerston. . . .' 254 GOVERNMENT DEFEATED [ch. vni the Duke, the vote of the House of Commons con demning the conduct of the war, for which he was held responsible, not only put him out of the question as a possible Prime Minister, but had the effect of excluding him for the present from any Cabinet office. But with unselfish patriotism, he used his utmost influence to persuade the other Peelites to take office under Palmer ston. He writes to Gladstone : ' February 5, 1855, ' I have thought much upon the resolution which you told me three hours ago you had taken and announced to Lord Palmerston. I have also had some conversation with Lord Aberdeen. I feel that I am acting in utter inconsistency with the letter I wrote to Lord Aberdeen this morning by now writing to you ; but I confess I am greatly concerned at your resolve, and believe firmly that you have made a mis take both as regards the public and yourself ' I admit that some of the reasons arising out of the personal qualifications of Lord Palmerston are shared lay me ; but on the other hand, I believe that the public danger which you apprehend, and which has mainly influenced your decision, would be prevented by your joining him and would be produced by your refusal. I think security must be taken upon your joining the Government that all matters relating to the war, so far as our foreign relations are concerned, should come before the Cabinet. In the next place, the position of Lord John Russell is not so menacing as you apprehend. If any factious opposition is attempted, a Dissolution would be the instant remedy, and this is almost to be desired. 'The refusal of all the Peelites to contihue in the Government (for this is almost the right word) would be painfully misunderstood by the public, and could not easily be explained. It gives a colour to the rumour, false as it is, that we have been always luke warm in the war, whilst the Russell section of the Government has been anxious to show more pluck and vigour. In short, it looks too like a cabal. ' 1 have told Lord Aberdeen that I think he ought to 1854-5] COALITION DIFFICULTIES 255 facilitate your joining by himself doing so. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to hope he will reconsider his refusal to do so. It is curious that GranviUe and some others are holding off unless Lord Lansdowne will join. He tells me he reserves to himself to do so if no satisfactory arrangement can otherwise be made. It appears, therefore, that in reality the formation by Palmerston of any Government which is worth having depends upon Lord Aberdeen and Lord Lansdowne consenting to form part of it. ' You must forgive me for this departure from my isolated position. I am not sure that I am right in trying to influence anybody; but, at any rate, you will not misunderstand my motives. I am alarmed at the position assumed by a man who is the impediment at this moment to the formation — I will not say of a strong, but of the strongest possible Government. That position it seems to me more than possible may be yours, and as your friend I cannot go home without writing to ask you not only to reconsider it, but to talk it over again with Sidney Herbert Gladstone replied : ' (Secret.) ' I am not in a position to reconsider anything, nor am I sure that, according to your view, there is the need. The manifest unfitness for Prime Minister, the want (as I believe) of a fair prospect of parliamentary support, the shock which the change of head will create abroad, all these, as well as the very painful question of personal feeling towards Lord Aberdeen, I had made myself willing, after a hard struggle, to put out of view. But for what ? ' For the conduct of the war and for the sake of treading the right road to peace. ' The resolution to which we came at the Admiralty this morning was that, without Lord Aberdeen in the Cabinet, we could not have the requisite confidence as to its desires and acts for peace. Lord Aberdeen said he could not enter the Cabinet. I said to him : " Lord Aberdeen, if we join the Palmerston Cabinet and you do not, will you stand up in your place in the House of Lords and there say you give it your confidence 256 PEELITES RESIGN [ch. vin with reference to foreign policy, the war, and the peace ?" He said : " No ; I will express my hope, but I shall not say my confidence." ' He recommended us to join, but after this his re commendation was, for me, stillborn. ' It is, however, you will see, upon him that we depended and depend.' Eventually the Peelites were induced to join, but in so half-hearted and reluctant a mood that within a few days — when Palmerston found it necessary to assent to the appointment, in accordance with the vote of the House of Commons, of the Sebastopol Committee — they made it a reason for resigning in a body, and their places were filled by Whigs of the old allegiance. They did not, however, quit office in any unfriendly spirit, and continued to give Lord Palmerston's Government a general support, though disliking, and sometimes complaining of, his foreign policy. The following letter from Lord Granville to the Duke of Newcastle shows how cordially he, an old Whig, was disposed towards him. The Duke's letter, to which it is a reply, is not extant. 'April 17, 1855. ' Many thanks for your note, the greater part of which has taken me completely by surprise. ' For the last five years I have been of opinion that an amalgamation of the Peelites and Liberals was essential for the Liberal Party and for the public cause. I have always held this language so strongly that I am considered and put down as a Peelite. The obstacles to a cordial junction arose chiefly from the Whigs, but some faults were committed by the friends of Sir Robert Peel. The Morning Chronicle was a mistake. It was inexpedient, on the formation of Lord Aberdeen's Government, to give so many Places to Peelites. The arguments used to justify it were necessarily offensive to the larger Liberal Party. It was an error, small in itself, but productive of much 1855] LORD GRANVILLE 257 evil, that the leading Peelites remained in the Carlton. It was absurd to insist on their coming into Brookes', the Club of a Political clique, but it was open to much plausible censure from the Liberals, wno did not enquire whether the Peelites attended or not, that they should remain in the Hotbed of Toryism. It was a misfortune that when Lord Palmerston formed his Government there should have been delay, and that it was known how the Peelites, as such, were sitting in conclave round Graham's bed. Having said this much, or rather this little, I have completely exhausted my grievances against you or any of your friends. I can conceive nothing more honourable or more straight forward than the conduct of the Peelites towards the Whigs during Lord Aberdeen's Administration. I claim the same merit for the other members of the Government with one exception, which I need not name. When you left the Government there was nothing but praise of your high-minded and generous conduct. When Gladstone, Herbert, and Graham left us, the only person who used language which was offensive to them was your present correspondent. I did so to young Herbert privately, and to the others before my colleagues, because I was much excited, not by Public or Party Spirit, but by deep personal morti fication at the prospect of being separated from all of those whom I liked and respected so much, and in whose political opinions I so entirely agree. ' Since the formation of the present Government I have heard nothing to which you could object. I have heard your Minute about Roberts disapproved in the same tone and in the same spirit as individual acts of Palmerston, Ch. Wood, Panmure, G. Lewis, and others have been disapproved. I have heard the whole Cabinet discussing how matters could be arranged in a manner most agreeable to you. I have heard your praises sung by a portion of the Cabinet at the expense of a Whig coUeague. ' As to the intrigues you mention, I can say nothing about them, as I know nothing of them, and have not heard a whisper about their existence. ' I am, however, perfectly certain that if they exist they are as much in hostility to the wishes of my colleagues as to my own. 17 258 DEATH OF THE PEELITE PARTY [ch. viii ' I have written unreservedly to you, and thank you for doing the same. We may be of use in continuing to do so. Many persons are interested in making our temporary separation a permanent one. My most sincere wish is that they may not succeed.' Thus died the Peelite party. Three of the most distinguished of them (Newcastle, Gladstone, and Cardwell) survived to take office in Palmerston's Cabinet of 1859; but it was on their own separate merits, and no longer as leaders of a Peelite party, or with any following as such. More or less coincidently with the Duke's quitting office, and with the cessation ofthe violence ofthe Times, a progressive change for the better began to be apparent in the condition and health of the army, till, before many months had elapsed, the death-rate from sickness became, for an army in the field, after having been alarmingly high, remarkably and exceptionally low. Careless speakers and writers have attributed to these circumstances a relation of cause and effect.* It needs only to recapitulate dates to expose the fallacy of such a suggestion. The Duke quitted office in the first week of February. Among the causes of the improvement were the construction of the railway from Balaklava to the camp, the mending of the road by navvies sent out from England, and the supply of huts, forage, transport animals, and other necessaries which had been wanting. All these — so far as they emanated from the War Office in England — were the *• The popular condemnation of the Duke's administration does not seem to have continued long. Charles Greville's ' Diary,' which was the echo of the clubs, says (August 21, 1855), speaking of Lord Panmure : ' It is evident that Newcastle was a much abler man, and if he had happened to come after Panmure, he would have been as much belauded as he has been abused ' (vol. i., p. 283). 1855] THE TIMES LIBELS 259 results of orders given by the Duke in November, a month or more before the Times attacks began. But the other chief cause was the too-long-delayed taking over by the French from our soldiers of a portion of the right attack, so that the English were at last no longer overtasked by having an undue pro portion of the trenches to defend; and this had nothing to do with any orders from England. To the Times is justly due the credit of having been the first to make known in the month of October to the public and to the Government the defects and maladministration of the Medical Department, and especially the shocking condition of the Scutari Hospital. To the Times commissioner was entrusted a store of requisites and comforts of all kinds, and but for this many a sick and wounded man would at that time have lacked not a few needful things, which, though provided by the Medical Department, were not forthcoming when wanted, having been left behind at Varna or otherwise misplaced. But from the violent and unmeasured language con tained in the Times articles, beginning on December 23 and continuing through the following month and the beginning of February, nothing but evil followed, or could possibly follow. The aspersions and allega tions were for the most part either altogether untrue or gross exaggerations, born of delusion, malignity, or blatant self-conceit. The officers condemned or held up to contempt were men conspicuous for their ability, their merit, and their unswerving devotion to their arduous duties. The effect of publishing these falsehoods and libels was not only to do grievous wrong to those maligned, but to mislead public opinion in England by confirming existing delusions 17—2 26o THE TIMES' LIBELS [ch. vin and suggesting fresh ones ; while abroad the result was to cause the estimation and character of the country, its institutions and its administration, to be lowered and undervalued to such an extent as to weaken its influence in the councils of Europe not only at the time, but for years to come. CHAPTER IX THE TAKING OF THE MALAKHOFF The Duke starts for the Crimea— At Vienna hears of Lord Raglan's death — Visits Scutari Hospital — Describes the storming of the Malakhoff and the failure at the Redan— Sebastopol evacuated — Visits the town— Sails to the coast of Circassia — Returns home. When the controversies arising out of Lord John RusseU's resignation and the sittings of the Sebastopol Committee drew to a close, the Duke found himself released from public duties and free to take the rest for body and mind which his overtasked strength so much needed. Anxious to see with his own eyes the army and the scene of conflict which had absorbed his attention for so many anxious months, he started in June for the Crimea. He travelled by Cologne, Dresden, and Prague to Vienna, and with characteristic energy, and in spite frequently of depressing headache, he made the most of his time by seeing all that he could in the day-time and travelling by night He writes in his journal at Vienna on July 3 : ' Unused to sleep in a bed since I left England, I had a wakeful night. Up early, and after breakfast wrote for some time and read, not liking to face the heat of the streets. About eleven walked to the Imperial Gallery of pictures. On the way looked in at the Royal Manege, one of the largest and most 261 262 COUNT BUOL [ch. ix complete I ever saw. . . . From the Gallery I went to call on Count Buol. We conversed for some time, but of course nothing very new or confidential was the result on either side. . . . He expressed his fear of the consequence of protracting the war, and said that one of the main reasons which influenced Austria in assuming her present attitude was the apprehension that hostilities would be long, expensive, and tedious ; if the war were to be sharp and decisive, Austria would have less to fear. I asked him whether he did not think the social condition of Russia would prevent her continuing the war with obstinacy when once she had lost the Crimea and had, perhaps, sustained reverses in Georgia and the Caucasus, and whether he did not think the pressure upon her trade, the drain of the population for the army, the losses of her nobles, and the dissatisfaction of the non-Russian provinces, must soon tell upon her means of resistance. He admitted that these influences would all have their effects, but seemed to have much apprehension of obstinate perseverance on the part of the Government, and of readiness for passive resistance on the part of the people against any such warfare as could alone be carried on after Sebastopol was lost to the Russian power. He seemed to be less annoyed at the language held in our Parliament respecting the conduct of Austria than I expected. ... I am convinced his feelings are with the Western Powers, and he will endeavour to thwart Russia ; but Austria has no money, and she is afraid to strike a blow which may commit her to a long war.' At Vienna the intelligence reached the Duke of the death of Lord Raglan. With no serious illness, after two or three days of fail ing strength, which at first caused little apprehension to those about him, and none at all to himself, the pulses of life had stopped. He had worked to the very end at the utmost strain of body and mind, under a weight of misunderstanding and want of appreciation by his countrymen at home such as has rarely fallen to the 1855] DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN 263 lot of a General who never, in long and arduous service, suffered defeat in the field. Even his habitual cheer fulness had not given way until the last and heaviest trial came, when, owing to an unexpected and most disastrous change of plan at the eleventh hour by the French Commander — by which an assault which should not have been delivered till midday was ordered at daybreak — he was placed in the terrible dilemma of either sending British soldiers on an almost hopeless attempt, or of failing in the promised co-operation with his Allies. The sacrifice of life which was the consequence, followed soon after by the death of Estcourt (his Adjutant-General), added the last crush ing weight to his overburdened spirit. Uttering no word of complaint, he sank to his rest, as unselfish, as noble, as heroic a soldier as ever devoted his life to his Sovereign and his country. Never, perhaps, in an allied force composed of armies of different and naturaUy jealous nationalities has the General of one of them obtained from both armies more absolute and universal confidence while he lived, or been more sincerely mourned when he died. The rough, overbearing Pelissier entered the chamber of death, and remained there upwards of an hour, cry ing like a child ; and his excessive grief was a type of the feeling of the rank and file of the French army, many of whom had witnessed and noted with admiration Lord Raglan's calm, intrepid bearing in the stress of combat on the fields of Alma and Inkerman. To reach the harbour of Kazatch, where the Caradoc was waiting to convey it to England, the coffin, placed upon a gun, had to traverse at a slow pace a distance of seven miles from east to west across the front of 264 LORD RAGLAN [ch. ix Sebastopol. For the whole distance the way was lined with British, French, and Sardinian troops, evincing every manifestation of sorrow and respect, whilst the measured boom of the minute-guns for the time took the place of the roar of siege artillery. At home in England the feeling was different ; for there men had not learnt to know Lord Raglan save through the misleading utterances of the Press. He was indeed now spoken of with respect, and his death as a national misfortune, but there was missing any adequate recognition of the value of his services, any expression of remorse or regret for the wrong that had been done him by public opinion. The most mendacious of his slanderers — men who had used their pens not only to defame him and his Staff person ally, but with criminal recklessness to exaggerate, and, by persistently disclosing them to the enemy, to aggravate the dangers and trials of the army he com manded — were still held worthy to be admitted to the society of English gentlemen. It was only slowly and partially that the truth came to be known, and to this day, to the disgrace of this country, no statue of Lord Raglan stands among those of our Generals which adorn the streets of London, no mark of public recognition exists of achievements and services which in arduousness, merit, and importance stand second to those of no English General of the century, save only those of the great Duke whose worthy pupil and suc cessor he had proved himself to be. And this is the more strange because on the side of the Allies Lord Raglan was the only man of whom it could be said that he had achieved marked distinction during the war. A great war generally brings to the front great men ; and the Crimean War produced on 1855] LORD RAGLAN 265 the Russian side General Todleben. But neither in the Councils of the Allies at home nor in their armies in the Crimea did it produce anyone except Lord Raglan, who will go down to history as having reached the foremost rank, or as having exercised a dominant influence on the course of events. The Duke writes in his diary : ' Learnt with deep sorrow that intelligence had been received of the death of Lord Raglan by cholera. 1 had hoped once more to shake him by the hand and dispel, if it existed, the idea that in the performance of my official duties I had treated him harshly. My con science tells me I not only did not so injure him, but I sacrificed myself for him — not from love of him (though that would have made me do much), but because I believed, and still believe, I best served the Queen and my country by supporting him and resisting the pressure for his recall — the result of a maddened public opinion and a cowardly concession to a spiteful Press. He is gone to his account ... a good, an amiable, an honourable man. His country will now judge more generously of his services. So it is with all. Such is the reward of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty. Abuse during life, tardy justice to the tomb ! It is curious how one after another all those who have borne the brunt of public indignation for the disasters of last winter in the Crimea are sinking into the soil reek ing with the corpses of those they are charged with having no less than murdered. Poor Christie went first, then Boxer, then Estcourt, now Raglan ! In a few days I shall probably stand on the same spot. Shall I alike find a grave and a reversal of the opinion of my countrymen by this rapid instrument of justice, cholera ?' And again : ' Thought much this evening of the effects of Lord Raglan's death. I fear one will be a great and unfor tunate change in the position of England in the East 266 SCUTARI HOSPITAL [ch. ix So long as Lord Raglan lived, his moral influence with the French Generals and with Omar Pasha made up for the relatively small number of our army. With him as our General we seemed to have a right to claim an equal position in the field and an equal voice in the Military Council. Now I fear that the General who succeeds him will find himself valued only as the Com mander of an auxiliary force. I augur much ill from the change unless, happily, Sebastopol should fall soon.' From Vienna the Duke went to Trieste and embarked on a Lloyd's steamer for Constantinople. At Corfu he visited his old friend Sir John Young, then High Com missioner, and at Smyrna inspected the British Hospital, which was under the management of Colonel Storks and Dr. Meyer, and where he found ' the present Staff decidedly too large, not merely for the present greatly reduced number of patients, but for any number which without overcrowding it could be made to contain.' At Constantinople he took up his quarters at Miseri's Hotel, ' outrageously extravagant and bad in every respect' His first object on arriving at Constantinople was to visit the Scutari Hospital, where the worst suffering from want of organization and prepara tion had taken place in the previous autumn and winter. 'After breakfast Captain Burke, A.D.C. to Lord William Paulet (Governor of the Hospital), called upon me. He had brought Lord William's caique to convey me to Scutari, and as I wish to remain here only three days, and, if possible, to see all the English Hospitals, I at once accompanied him. I spent eight hours in visiting the various departments of that enormous and magnificent establishment the " Barrack Hospital." This Hospital, previously a Turkish barrack, was the 1855] SCUTARI HOSPITAL 267 scene of the greatest complaints last winter. Upon the very liberal scale of about 1,000 cubic feet of air to each patient, it now makes up about 1,700 beds; in the winter it had, I believe, sometimes double that number. The change in its condition, even making great allow ance for exaggeration, must be immense. How far the stores of every requisite are ample for any emergency that may arise it is impossible to judge by mere in spection, or how far the Medical Staff is qualified for its duties ; but I have no hesitation in pronouncing all that meets the eye most excellent The cleanliness both of the floors and the beds is admirable ; the venti lation is perfect. . . . The patients seemed extremely comfortable. I went into most of the wards and con versed with many of the worst cases. Being accom panied by the Commandant and others, of course I was not likely to hear any complaints ; but I am con vinced that he must be a grumbler indeed who is not satisfied with the lodging, clothing, and food of this Hospital. I examined the bread, which is as good as possible ; very different indeed from that which those who pay M. Miseri £2 a day for lodging and the table d'hote can procure, and the various emanations from M. Soyer's kitchens can only be characterized as luxurious. That really remarkable and public-spirited man showed me all his arrangements, and made me taste many of his dishes for the soldiers. They were fit for the epicures of the Reform Club, and some lemonade he gave me would shame any Mr. Gunter ever supplied to a London ballroom. I believe Stafford told him he would find no kitchen. He has four now in full play, and certainly he has not built them. In this large building there are at present only 863 patients ; one reason for this is the good health of the army, another is that wounded cases are now generally treated in the Hospitals in the Crimea, where they are found by late experience to heal faster and better. ... I am confident that any true and impartial person would say that, as regards accommodation, no hospital in England can for a moment be compared with this, and, as regards cleanliness and general comfort, none of them can surpass it.' 268 VISITS THE CRIMEA [ch. ix From Constantinople he went on, after a few days' stay, to the Crimea. His diary continues (July 27) : ' We made Balaklava early in the morning. . . . The coast is one of the most bold and beautiful I ever saw. It is finer than sketches generally represent it. . . . This little harbour, or rather natural dock, for such it really is, would be an object for admiration to a visitor, even if it were not occupied as it now is, and if it had not been the scene of so much labour and suffering, and the object of so much reprehension. The entrance is difficult, even if it were not crowded ; but it is wonderful that in its present condition collisions should be of rare occurrence. There are now about two hundred vessels moored stem and stern, most of them of considerable size, and many of them very large. . . . The water is very deep, even up to the shore, so that vessels of any draft can lie there ; and so completely land-locked is it that I imagine no sea, even with the wind in the South, can be felt within it. The inconvenience of the place, as all the world knows, is twofold. It is so narrow that the Ottawa stands across it nearly two-thirds of its width. It is so steep in its sides that there is little room for quays, and less for warehouses and other accommodation for landing stores of all kinds. In spite of all its disadvantages it is now in very tolerable order. Very great changes have been effected by the indefatigable exertions of the late much - abused Admiral Boxer, and improvements are still continuing. . . . The cleanliness of the harbour surprised me — only at the extreme head is there any dirt at all — and the police seem to be efficient. The railroad comes down to where the hospital ships he, so that the sick can be carried straight on board.' General Simpson, then commanding the British Army, invited him to head-quarters, and he slept in the room in which Lord Raglan died. The next day he ' met General Airey. I feared our meeting would have been unpleasant in consequence of the severe 1855] ASSAULT OF SEBASTOPOL 269 remarks I had felt it my duty to make respecting him to Lord Raglan, but to his credit I must say such was far from being the case. In the afternoon I rode with General Barnard to Cathcart's Hill, where I propose to pitch my tent I found General Bentinck there. He most kindly placed at my disposal an excellent lined tent which he is not using — far more roomy and com fortable than my own — and asked me to breakfast and dine with him as long as I remain here and do not dine elsewhere.' Here, with occasional absences to visit Eupatoria and other places, he remained encamped for nearly two months within long range of the Russian guns, so that more than once a round shot fell within a few yards of or beyond his tent, studying the various scenes of the great siege, visiting the trenches and battlefields, and conversing with English and French Generals and officers, to whom his rank and position gave him ready access. In spite of occasional attacks of illness, he was indefatigable in going about, and did not shrink from witnessing the most horrible scenes of the battlefield and of the assault, both during the fighting and after it was over. He just missed witnessing the Battle of the Tchernaya, at which the Russian attack was repulsed by the French and Sardinians, by having gone a trip in the Banshee to Eupatoria. On his return he went over the battlefield, still covered with dead. In his diary he thus describes the final assault of Sebastopol : ' 8/A September. — The morning was wild and boister ous, such as suited the fiendish work we were about to be engaged in ; heavy clouds of dust were blown by a cold, northerly wind in such masses as frequently to obscure everything; the waves were breaking over the harbour mouth and washing over the new Russian 270 THE MALAKHOFF TAKEN [ch. ix bridge ; whilst the sea outside ran so high that it was evident the fleet would not be able to come in and take that share in the bombardment which the Admirals had agreed upon. Parts of the town were on fire from the shell of the two preceding days, though the flames did not seem to increase with the wind. During the whole morning our batteries and the French left attack kept up a most vigorous and terrific fire, and the wonder seemed that anything of flesh or stone could stand against such showers of iron. After ten o'clock the Redan fired only four shots at our batteries and the Mamelon, and one was led to specu late whether they were concentrating all their force on the left in expectation of the attack being made there and there alone, or whether they were themselves preparing a trap and lulling us into false security. There was but little movement across the bridge, working parties and carts only passing in and out General Simpson passed by about 1 1 o'clock on his way to the battery on our left attack with his Staff, but as the dust and smoke were blowing in that direction, and it was evident it would be the worst place for seeing what was going on, I changed my intention and went down to the right, from where I could command a full view of those sides of the Malakhoff and Redan upon which the assaults were to be made. 'At five minutes before noon the French mortar battery in the Mamelon opened, and their trenches began to fill rapidly with men. At a quarter past twelve I saw the French troops swarming like a body of ants up the side of the parapet of the Malakhoff, having crossed the ditch without being perceived. Not a shot was fired upon them, and the thought instantly crossed my mind — the whole place is mined, this is a trap, and in a minute these men will be blown into the air. Still they were unopposed, and in about two minutes they had crossed the main height of the Malakhoff, and could be seen rushing down the flank batteries on the proper right of the defence, and it was now evident that this fiercely contested position, this key of the whole town, was taken, and by surprise! It was not long, however, before the Russians were alive to the error they had committed, and a deadly 1855] ASSAULT ON THE REDAN 271 struggle commenced for the recovery of what they had lost Their troops were brought up with great haste from the Karabelnaia, and a tremendous fire of musketry commenced on the Malakhoff and at the head of the Careenage Bay, spreading rapidly over the space which extends to the Little Redan. At about twenty minutes to one the Russian reserves which were brought over the bridge from the north side began to come into action, and the blaze of musketry was now terrific, and seemed even to vie with the great guns and mortars which were still firing most furiously on the left. Here, however, for nearly an hour muskets alone carried on the fight, but the French galloped down from the rear of the Victoria Redoubt a battery of Horse Artillery, which they had prepared in case of success, and as soon as the nature of the ground would permit these guns did great service. ' Before this time, however — about a quarter before one — the signal of the occupation of the Malakhoff by the French which had been agreed upon — a white ensign — was hoisted, and now the Redan became the object of the most intense and anxious interest. Every now and then clouds of smoke obscured the view and rendered the anxiety even still more overpowering. It was evident that the attack had begun, for the Russians were firing with musketry over the parapets, and our guns from the batteries were still firing into the Redan. Soon after one o'clock I saw a body of redcoats close under the Redan — for a time they seemed to stop between the abattis and the trench — shells were flying over their heads from our guns, the enemy was lining the parapet, and many of them, with utter disregard of life, stood there firing and loading till one after another fell back dead, and were as speedily succeeded bj^ fresh men, who soon followed their fate. It was not till ten minutes to two that I could see that the salient of the Redan was lined with our men — they were in ; and ' Thank God I' was never more fervently uttered by my lips. This joy was short-lived. A tremendous fire was for a time kept up inside the Redan; but at three minutes after two the English troops were driven out and repulsed, and I could see many Russians on the parapet throwing stones at them, whilst a murderous fire was poured in, 272 BRITISH ASSAULT REPULSED [en. ix both of musketry and grape, from each face of the salient. . . . Windham, finding himself with only a few men inside the Redan, sent back three officers in succession to Sir William Codrington to request him to send him up "formed men," without which he could not possibly hold the ground he had gained. Failing to obtain them, he returned himself across the ground where so many fell, and having received the ist Royals from Sir William Codrington, he was proceeding to form them and lead them on, when the men who had constituted the assaulting party rushed out and fell back with precipitation, the Russians, of course, instantly manning the parapets they had quitted. . . . At about half-past two the long lines of wounded, walking and borne on stretchers to the rear from Gordon's battery and along the Woronzow Road, showed clearly and sadly how heavy was our loss in this unsuccessful attack. At a quarter before three the French left attack was silent, and I afterwards learnt that they had sustained a repulse in that direc tion similar to ours at the Redan. ... At half-past five the firing on the right became fainter — the Russians, who had most gallantly fought to recover the Mala khoff, and had once been near succeeding, were beaten off — the French had effected a lodgment, and the day was practically over, though firing was continued till after dark. At six o'clock I returned to my tent as soon as I saw Russian soldiers and carts moving across the bridge to the North side. I came back with Rokeby and some other officers, who naturally were lamenting our repulse from the Redan. I, of course, concurred, but, adhering to the opinion I had formed that the Malakhoff is the key of the whole glace, I ventured to prophesy that in the night the Russians would blow up their magazines, and probably fire the town, and that at daybreak in the morning I expected to find that the ships were sunk. At ten o'clock at night several fires, at first small, appeared in the town, and at eleven an explosion occurred. More very soon followed, and it was now evident that my anticipations were correct, and that the evacuation of the town had commenced. At midnight some of our sentinels, creeping up to the Redan to look after the wounded in case any should not have 1855] SEBASTOPOL EVACUATED 273 been carried off, found the place vacated, and took possession. Sir Colin Campbell, however, who was m command in the trenches, very prudently forbade any of our men to enter, as he apprehended an explosion. ^gth September. — At five o'clock this morning there was a terrific explosion in the Redan. The effect was magnificent. The fires in the town were rapidly in creasing. At daylight I was delighted to see the harbour clear of ships ; those vessels for the destruc tion of which we have been contending so long had disappeared, destroyed by those who had sacrificed so many lives to save them. . . . ' What a change this afternoon ! The whole aspect of the place as well as of things is altered. I feel as if I were at home instead of engaged in fierce struggle for life and mastery in a hostile land. In spite of explosions and flames there is a calm all round. The shells no longer whistle angrily through the air, the cannon's roar is over, and earth seems again to be substituted for hell. The poor soldier smiles at the happy thought that the trenches no longer call him every other night to that odious work and inglorious risk of life which it is marvellous that twelve months' duration of has not completely demoralized him, and those whose thoughts have been turned to the future prospect of the army for the coming winter now breathe again, for the great difficulty is over. . . . ' 10th September. — I rode down to see the works so lately occupied by the Russians and the town. . . . On entering the Malakhoff I was astounded at its strength and the number and intricacy of its internal works. It is one vast series of continuous defences, and may indeed be called impregnable. Some French officers and soldiers who were there were unanimous in the candid confession that, except by surprise, it never could have been taken. The ditch is very deep and well formed ; the ladders, of course, are still there, and the bridge which the French threw across as soon as they had gained possession now offers a passage to horses. ... I was much struck with the mantelets by which the Russians have protected their gunners from our rifles ; they are beautifully made of rope, and must have effectually prevented any fire into 1$ 274 THE RUINED CITY [ch. ix the embrasures being dangerous. . . . The burial of the vast heaps of slain was going on, and a most painful and disgusting sight it was. The bodies were picked up by French soldiers told off for the duty, and carried on stretchers to the edge of the deep ditch which surrounds the Malakhoff, and there thrown in with much less ceremony than would attend the burial of animals at any other time. ... As I left the Malakhoff and passed along in the direction of the Little Redan, and subsequently of the suburb called Karabelnaia, the heaps of slain increased, and in some parts it was difficult to ride without one's horse tread ing upon corpses. It was there that the great struggle for the recovery of the Malakhoff took place, and the number of dead horses on one spot showed where the French Field Artillery had halted to open its fire. . . . From Karabelnaia I passed into the Docks, and was really astonished at their beauty, capacity, and splendid condition. Six line-of-battle ships might find accom modation here, and three more in a basin; the walls are of beautiful white stone, capped with red and grey granite, and the gates were brought from England. In one of the docks is a steamer still burning ; she was probably not finished. . . . ' The " Creek battery " defends the passage between the two parts of the town, and is a very fine work. Here there are English sentinels posted. The ascent hence into the town is steep, and I soon found myself in streets which showed how determined a defence the Russians had resolved on making if any other part of their works than the Malakhoff had been stormed. The streets are barricaded by traverses of stone, each armed with a gun, and the walls on either side are loopholed, whilst every house has been supplied with a large store of ball-cartridges. ... A French sentinel in an advanced stage of intoxication stopped our party in the further end of the town with his bayonet, but one of his officers coming up and dis arming him, we went on till we were struck by the entire absence of any other visitors. We afterwards learnt that this part of the town was mined, and ex pected every moment to explode. The sentinel had been placed to give warning, but this he was too drunk to do. In returning, near the Creek battery, 1855] SCENES OF CARNAGE 275 an explosion did take place just below us ; two English soldiers were killed. Many parts of the town were almost unendurable from the heat of the burning houses. I left this most beautiful city — once one of the finest in the world — by the Woronzow Road, but ruined cottages and explosions had made one part so impassable that it was very difficult to lead our horses over it. ' 12/^ September. — The steamers are all burnt and sunk. Thus has perished the whole Russian fleet ! ... At noon I rode down with General Barnard to the Redan. It is fearful to look on the spot at the space of ground over which our assaulting party had to advance, exposed to the whole fire of the enemy. The engineers have always said that from the fifth parallel to the edge of the ditch was 180 yards ; this is a most formidable distance, but on looking at it to-day, I was so convinced that it was much greater that I got off my horse and stepped it I found it to be 275 paces, and even from the point of the wretched little sap in advance of it, which I cannot dignify with any other name than that of gutter, and which affords no shelter to troops, and could be used but little in the assault, the distance is 210 paces. In the ditch where our men crossed, the dead, as in the Malakhoff, are now buried in heaps ; but it is still easy to see how formidable a defence this ditch presented. It could not be less than fifteen feet deep. . . . ' I went into the Hospitals on the quay — the only buildings in the town not destroyed by shot or fire — and here was one of the most horrible sights I ever beheld. Not less than six or seven hundred dead bodies lay in various stages of decomposition, some on the beds, more on the bare floors, and some on the steps and on the stones outside. The smell was sickening to such a degree as almost to produce fainting, and the sight as horrible as the odour. Very few of them had had their wounds dressed ; the utmost that had been done had been to bandage roughly a broken limb. I saw only one table in all the rooms, and upon this there was one broken bottle and a few old bandages. In short, these poor wretches had been brought in to die, without medical care and unattended. They were only discovered in these rooms and vaults 276 SAILS FOR CIRCASSIA [ch. ix by our men yesterday, and the place was more fully examined this morning, when one poor creature was actually found alive in the midst of this putrefaction, where he must have remained nearly four days with out food or water.' On September 27 the Duke left the Crimea and sailed from Balaklava in the Highflyer for the eastern coast of the Black Sea, partly for the sake of seeing the country, and partly also to take any opportunity that might offer of establishing friendly relations with the Circassian Chiefs, and encouraging them in their resistance to Russia. 'At daybreak this morning we left our anchorage outside Balaklava. . . . The first object is Cape Aia, a bold and noble promontory to which few can com pare, rising almost perpendicularly from the sea, which is very deep at its base, and towering to the great height of 1,500 feet The light of the early sun gave an additional beauty of colouring both to this great rock and to its neighbour, Cape Seritch. Here begins that curious zone of country, girt above by a vast chain of mountains which stretches along the coast as far as Alushta, in itself precipitous and deeply intersected, and fairly claiming the character of moun tainous, if it were not for the overtowering giants above in one long continuous range. This tract re sembles on a very large scale the Undercliff of the Isle of Wight, and from the same cause possesses the like superiority of temperature to the country above it. The pass of Phoros, which I visited two days ago by land, was the next prominent object, and then a succession of Russian villas upon scales of greater or less grandeur, till we came to the magnificent and charming Palace of Prince Woronzow at Alupka. It is a strange mixture of architecture — Moorish, castel lated, Elizabethan, and other styles combine to form a whole, far less inharmonious than would be supposed ; whilst Italian terraces towards the sea and facing the Eastern glen give an idea of luxurious enjoyment such as few countries and climates could produce. It is i8s5] RUSSIAN VILLAS 277 upon an immense scale, and there are besides several detached buildings, such as a small temple of Theseus, probably devoted to chapels or museums. A few miles further on, and in a less picturesque situation, though still very beautiful, is Orianda, a new Palace of great size, built a few years ago by the late Emperor for the present Empress Mother, and a little beyond the small tower of Yalta. From hence the scenery becomes a little less bold, though still very beautiful, and several more villas are scattered along the coast as far as Alushta, where the great Tchatir Dagh comes into full view at a distance of seven miles from the sea, and towering to a height of upwards of 5,000 feet. From hence our course lay more out to sea.' He landed at Kertch and proceeded to Yenikale at the eastern end of the Crimea, which places had re cently been occupied with but slight resistance by the British and French forces, and were being strengthened against any attempt to retake them. Thence he sailed to Anapa on the Circassian coast, where he found the Turkish flag flying ' in defiance of the firman pro mised to us by which the Sultan resigns all claims to sovereignty on this country. It may be difficult to know what to do with Circassia, but for its own sake, and for the interests on behalf of which we have entered into this war, it ought not to be handed over to Turkey.' At Anapa he went on shore for some days, and rode twenty-five miles inland to see the Pasha, who received and entertained him with magnificent hospitality. At Waia, a small place on the coast, he took on board at his request the Naib ' priest, prophet, and prince ' among the Circassians, together with one hundred followers — a matter of difficulty, as the surf was high, and more than once a boat was swamped on the beach 278 OMAR PASHA [ch. ix in the process, though happily no one was drowned. The Naib had recently been engaged in several battles with the Russians, of which he gave the Duke an ac count ' Upon anchoring at Souchoum Kaleh, a Turkish boat came off for the Naib, and he landed under a salute of eleven guns from the Highflyer. This is the most civilized and prettiest place I have seen on the coast ; nothing further north had yet assumed under Russian rule so much the character of a regular town ; but in addition to this circumstance is the fact that whilst they destroyed every place in Circassia when they evacuated it, they spared this because the Prince of Abkasia, who was very friendly to them, warned them that if they burned the place the natives would turn against them and cut off their retreat. . . . We went on shore to see Omar Pasha, and called in the first instance on the Chef d'Etat, Major Ferhat Pasha, a German, whose real name is Stein. . . . He lent us horses to ride up to Omar Pasha's tent, which is pitched on a high ridge of ground about a mile and a half from the sea, and commands a superb view of the bay, the town, and the camp which now surrounds it. The tent is spacious, of the usual Turkish green colour, but lined with silk and handsomely embroidered. I had not seen this now celebrated man before. He is, I believe, not yet fifty years of age, but he looks much more ; his eye is very keen, and shows both cunning and fun ; his hair and beard are grey, almost white. . . . He thinks there are yet two months more left for cam paigning in this country before the winter sets in, and hinted broadly that it was the fault of the AUies that he was not here much earlier.' The journal ends abruptly on October i6. On November i8 he writes from Constantinople to his friend Abraham Hayward : ' On my way home. I hope to be in London the end of the first week in December. ' Never in my recollection was the whole London 1855] PUBLICATION OF HIS PAPERS 279 daily Press so dishonest, and never had a man who seeks no interest but that of his country so little chance of fair play ; whilst the great mass of the people, having neither leisure nor mind to form their own opinions, found their political judgment upon the trash they imbibe with their tea and coffee, or their gin and bitters, as the case may be.'* The two following letters to the same, though of later date, may be inserted here : ' Clumber, ' December 5, 1856. ' If you ever say anything to Kinglake respecting our conversation at the Athenaeum, pray take care that he does not conceive the idea that I object to my private papers coming before the world, so far as I ain con cerned ; all that I require is that if any are used, all should. I am quite prepared to abide by an impartial examination of all I did, but I do think it monstrous that letters written in the spirit, not only of official but private confidence, should be given for publication without even the knowledge of the writer. 1 shall take no step to prevent publication. If, when they appear, I think they do not give a fair explanation of events, I shall publish for myself; and if I do, I shall spare nobody though I shall strike at nobody.'t ' Clumber, ' November 4, 1858. ' I almost fancied Kinglake must have given up his history. I fear it will be too fair to justify my pubhca tion, which in that case will have to wait for a less interested editor than myself | Finally, upon this subject of the Duke's administra tion of the War Office, the Times Obituary Notice of the Duke may be quoted here, as containing its last * Hayward's ' Letters,' vol. i., p. 257. f Ibid., p. 299. X Ibid., vol. ii., p. II. 28o A SCAPEGOAT [ch. ix word upon the matter. As to ' the disruption of Lord Aberdeen's Government,' it says : ' It was not long before the public began to see that the Duke had been made the scapegoat of a powerful but ineffectual Ministry. His colleagues were quite as much to blame.'* * Times, October 19, 1864, CHAPTER X THE COLONIAL OFFICE FORTY YEARS AGO The Duke Colonial Secretary — General indifference to the Colonies not shared by him — Accompanies the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States — Difficulties with the Orangemen — ¦ American Civil War — The Trent incident — Death of the Prince Consort— Estimate of colonial statesmen — New Zealand — Colonel Gore Browne — Sir George Grey — Pensions — Ecclesiastical appointments — Kinglake's ' Crimean War ' — Resignation and death. Of the Duke's life from the end of the year 1855 to June, 1859, there is little to record; and there are no materials. He held no important public office except that of Chairman of the Education Commission. The few letters of his which have been preserved indicate that he was chiefly occupied with private or local matters at Clumber, endeavouring to set straight the large and heavily encumbered estate to which he had succeeded, attending Quarter Sessions, drilling with the Yeomanry — he was Colonel of the Sherwood Rangers — going out with the hounds, and shooting. When in London he frequented the Athenaeum Club, of which he was a member. In November, 1856, the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire — from which his father had seventeen years before been dismissed — fell vacant. Lord Pal merston wrote to him : 281 282 LORD-LIEUTENANT OF NOTTS [ch. x ' November 15, 1856. ' My dear Duke, ' The Lieutenancy of the County of Nottingham being vacant, I should be very glad if you would be willing to undertake the duties of that office, which could not be so well placed as in your hands. ' Yours sincerely, ' Palmerston.' The Duke replied : ' November 18, 1856. ' My dear Lord Palmerston, ' . . . The manner in which you have been kind enough to propose to me to undertake the duties of the Lieutenancy of the County of Nottingham relieves me from any difficulty which 1 might have felt in accepting them. ' I frankly confess that I should not be willing to sacrifice my political independence, and though the office in question has sometimes been conferred even upon political opponents of the Minister, I should have hesitated if I thought acceptance was likely to expose me to any misconstruction on your part. ' If, however, I read your letter aright, I believe I may undertake this honorable office with no other feel ings than those of gratification that you should have thought me worthy of recommendation to the Queen on the grounds you have assigned. Permit me to thank you for the honour thus conferred, and believe me, ' My dear Lord Palmerston, ' Yours very sincerely, ' Newcastle.' Lord Palmerston answered : ' November 19, 1856. ' My dear Duke of Newcastle, ' I have received with much Pleasure your letter of yesterday. You have rightly understood the grounds on which I proposed to you to undertake the Duties of the Lieutenancy of Nottinghamshire. I consider these offices to be, in the present state of things. Posts of great Importance in many essential Respects, and I hold that the Government of the Day is under obliga tion to men of Rank, Influence, and large Property, and ability, who will undertake to give their Time and 1856] LORD DERBY'S OVERTURES 283 attention to the Performance of the Duties of these situations. ' I therefore accept your acceptance on the clear understanding that any obligation involved in the Transaction is an obligation conferred on me, and not by me. ' Yours sincerely, ' Palmerston.' So independent was the Duke at this time of any party that, when in February, 1858, Lord Palmerston's Government quitted office, and Lord Derby was charged with the formation of an Administration, the latter called him into council, and wrote to him as follows : 'February 21, 1858. ' The Queen having accepted the resignation of Lord Palmerston's Government, has called upon me to undertake the task of forming an Administration ; and looking to the critical state of public affairs, I have not thought it consistent with my duty to decline the responsibility thus placed upon me. In executing the command which I have received, I am anxious to form the new Cabinet upon a comprehensive basis, availing myself of the services of eminent men of Liberal- Conservative opinions who are not at this moment fettered by engagements which would render their co-operation hopeless. Believing that you stand in that position, and that, filling the high station you do, you would feel it a duty to aid, if not in violation of your principles, in carrying on the Queen's Govern ment, I venture to make an appeal to you for your assistance. Should you be disposed so far to enter tain the question as to come up to Town to discuss it with me in person, I shall be happy to enter upon it with the most entire unreserve, and with the fullest conviction that my frank confidence will not be abused. In that case, or indeed in any, may I beg that you will have the kindness to telegraph to me as early as you can to-morrow, simply to say whether you are coming up to town or not. My servant, who takes this down, has orders to return by a Train which I see leaves 284 DECLINED [ch. x Retford at 7.32. He could take charge of your telegraphic message.' The Duke replied : 'February 21, 1858. ' Your proposal has taken me by surprise, for with all sincerity I assure you I did not anticipate that my assistance was likely to be required by anybody who might be commissioned by the Queen to form a new Government, and if I had contemplated the possi bility I should not have been the cause of so much inconvenience as you have had in sending down here a special messenger, but should have gone up to Town when I heard of the resignation of Lord Palmerston. ' You may have conjectured from my course in the House of Lords during the last three years that I have no wish to undertake again the responsibilities of Office, and nothing certainly but a sense of duty would induce me to do so. ' If I could convince myself that such was my duty, the present critical state of public affairs, and the difficulties which must surround any Minister whom the Queen calls to Her councils, would be to me the strongest additional incentive to give that Minister any assistance in my power ; but I do not believe that by joining the Government you are about to form I should either give you strength or render real service to the country. ' As you invite me to go up to Town to see you on the subject, I do not think it either respectful to the Queen or courteous to you to hesitate to do so, and I shall therefore be in London by the train which arrives at 4 p.m. to-morrow, soon after you will receive this letter. ' I can, however, easily imagine that after so decided an expression of opinion as I have given you may no longer wish to see me, and I shall therefore not call upon you unless I find a note at my house saying that you desire it, and naming the hour that will be con venient to you. ' I shall telegraph, in anticipation of this letter, that I am coming to Town.' 1859] IN OFFICE AGAIN 285 In answer to this Lord Derby wrote : ' (Private.) ' While I thank you for the friendly tone just received, I cannot but fear from its contents that your mind is made up, and that I have little, if any, chance of obtaining your co-operation. Still, the state of things is so critical, and your acceptance of office would be in many ways so important (and, so I may venture to say, the Queen would consider it), that I am unwilling to abandon any chance, however small ; and I will, therefore, as you have had the trouble of coming up to Town, so far trepass on your kindness as to ask you to call here as soon as convenient to you after your arrival in Town.' The interview, as was to be expected, led to nothing. Lord Derby having failed, after a Dissolution, to obtain a majority, quitted office, after holding it for a year and a quarter, in June, 1859. Lord Palmerston was sent for again. He wrote to the Duke : ' June 15, 1859. ' It would give me very great Pleasure, and would be greatly advantageous to the public service, if you would consent to become a Member of the Cabinet about to be formed, and if you should give me a favourable answer, I would propose to you to take the Colonial Department under your care.' The Duke replied : ' June 15, 1859. ' In common with every Englishman, I am most anxious that the Government of the Queen should at this moment be as strong as existing circumstances permit, and therefore feel that those who are supposed to be best qualified to form part of it should not lightly refuse. At the same time, you will not be surprised that, before I give an answer to the offer you have been good enough to make to me, I should wish to know how your Government is to be constituted, and what is to be its Policy as regards Reform at home 286 COLONIAL SECRETARY [ch. x and Neutrality abroad. I hope, therefore, you will permit me to call upon you at one o'clock.' After calling, he writes : ' I have carefully considered all that passed in my long conversation with you this morning. As regards Reform, I am satisfied with your assurance that your Government will be pledged to introduce a measure, and that the questions of detail, in which I feared some difference of opinion, are quite open for discussion in Cabinet 'As regards the very grave question of Foreign Policy, without again troubling you with my opinions, I accept your engagement that the practice of Clarendon in Lord Aberdeen's Government will be adhered to, and that no measures affecting the Foreign Relations of the Country will be taken till they have been sub mitted to and approved by the Cabinet. ' I therefore place myself at your disposal, and undertake the duties which you are kind enough to propose to the Queen to commit to my charge.' There was no longer any question of coalition. The Peelites had ceased to exist as a party, and the sur viving leaders who took office did so each on his own individual account The prejudice against the Duke on the ground that he was individually responsible for the sufferings of the army in the Crimea had long since passed away. Forty years ago it had become less usual than at the present time for a Cabinet Minister of the first rank to preside over the Colonial Office. It was too often filled by its occupant because it was the only con venient berth open rather than because he had any special qualification for it, and the frequent changes which took place — there were thirteen Colonial Secre taries in the eighteen years from 1852 to 1870 — offered little opportunity for acquiring experience. 1859] THE COLONIAL EMPIRE 287 The British Colonies at that time occupied but a small place in the thoughts and interests of English men at home. There was a strange blindness and indifference to their value, and to the dignity, power, and responsibUity involved in the possession of the vast and growing Empire which had been built up with so much enterprise and labour. Australia was chiefly thought of as a place to which convicts used to be sent, and which now supplied gold and wool. It was no longer available for the former purpose, and the latter it could discharge as well if cut adrift from the Mother Country, an event which it was taken for granted would naturaUy take place within a longer or shorter interval. Canada and the other North American colonies were, it was supposed, gravitating towards annexation by the United States. The Cape of Good Hope was always giving trouble, and involving us in wars alike inglorious and costly in blood and treasure. As for the island colonies — Jamaica, the Bermudas, Malta, St Helena, Mauritius, Hong-Kong, and the like — which were indispensable as docks and coaling- stations for the navy, the only problem in respect to them was how to reduce their garrisons and their cost to the smallest possible amount. Nor were these views held by an ignorant outside public only. They may be found in the letters of permanent secretaries of the Colonial Office of that generation, and were generally accepted by the leaders of the Liberal party then dominant, and particularly by its advanced wing. But they were not the views of the Duke of New castle. His father, forty years before, had — as has been mentioned in a former chapter — been a subscriber to the formation of the Albany Settlement in South Africa, ultimately, and after its early troubles were 288 LITTLE ENGLANDERS [ch. x over, one of the most successful of colonization schemes, and he had himself been a promoter of emigration, especially from Ireland. He had already had more than tWo years' experience at the Colonial Office, had directed the cessation of transportation to Tasmania, and had carried on the work, initiated by Lord Grey, of establishing responsible government in most of the Australian colonies. His resumption of the seals of the Colonial Office in 1859 rnay be looked upon as coincident with the birth of a juster concep tion of the value and responsibilities of our colonial possessions — a conception which owed much to his advocacy and to the painstaking sympathy with which he endeavoured to master the conditions and circum stances of each of the colonies under his charge. He wrote to Lord Palmerston on the opening of the first Session of Parliament of the new Government : ' Downing Street, 'January i8, i860. ' My dear Lord Palmerston, ' The Colonies have rarely been mentioned in a Queen's Speech, unless when they have incurred a censure for some rebellious indication. I cannot but think it would be wise to introduce the innovation of a little praise and sympathy, and I am sure it would gratify them much. 'You will probably allude in the Speech to our Defences and the raising of Vokmteers. If so, this would give you an opportunity of saying that the same spirit had been evinced by all the Colonies, and that the Queen is deeply gratified by the proofs of loyalty which they have evinced. You might also connect this spirit with the Constitutional liberty which they now enjoy, and express satisfaction at the large amount of material prosperity which marks the progress of all these portions of the British Empire. 1859-60] SYMPATHY WITH COLONIES 289 ' Pray consider whether a few words of this sort would not be well bestowed. ' I am, ' Yours very sincerely, ' Newcastle.' And in a letter to him of November 11, 1861, he says : ' You speak of some supposed theoretical gentlemen in the Colonial Office who wish to get rid of all Colonies as soon as possible. I can only say that if there are such they have never ventured to open their opinion to me. If they did so on grounds of peaceful separation, I should differ from them so long as Colonies can be retained by bonds of mutual sympathy and mutual obligation ; but I would meet their views with indignation if they could suggest disruption by the act of any other, and that a hostile. Power.' But the Duke had fallen upon evil times, and had in one notable instance to bend to the storm. It was through no fault of his own that he had to be the instrument for casting adrift, in the teeth of the ex pressed desire of its inhabitants, a loyal and valuable British province of South Africa. Influenced by circumstances which it is not neces sary to recount here, Lord Grey had, in February, 1852 written : ' The ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty should be a settled point in our policy.' During the short tenure of office of Lord Grey's successor the question was still open. But Sir George Cathcart, then recently sent out as Governor of the Cape, expressed so strong an opinion in favour of its abandonment that the Duke of New castle, then (1853) new to the Colonial Office, was not in a position to gainsay it, and on January 30, 1854, the 19 -290 ORANGE RIVER SOVEREIGNTY [en. x Royal Proclamation withdrawing the Sovereignty was signed. Sir George Grey, whom the Duke, early in 1854, appointed to be Governor of the Cape, being a clear headed and far-seeing man, was not long in perceiving the gravity of the mistake that had been committed He pressed on the Home Government the importance of reconsidering it, and of adopting a policy of retain ing and federating the South African States instead of abandoning them, but in vain. Lord Palmerston's Government in 1857 refused to reopen the question of the Orange Free State, and Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, in 1858, though he went so far as to invite Sir George Grey's opinion on the general question of federation, yet eventually decided against it and in favour of leSiving matters as they were, and wrote to Sir George Grey to that effect. Sir George Grey, however, would take no denial. In his opening speech to the Cape Parliament he, without any authority from the Home Government, discussed the question of federation. For this act of insubordination Bulwer Lytton, just before quitting office, wrote to recall him; and this was the position when the Duke again became Colonial Secretary in June, 1859. That he should have reversed the decision of his predecessor as to the Orange Free State — a decision to which he had himself assented six years before — was not to be expected. But he so far evinced his appreciation of Sir George Grey's views and of his career at the Cape as to cancel his recall and continue him in office, cautioning him at the same time against acting without authority in future. In the summer of i860 it was arranged for the Prince of Wales to visit Canada and the other North American 1859-60] SIR GEORGE GREY 291 colonies, and also the United States. He was then in his nineteenth year, and it was the first tour of the kind he had made. He had an exceUent Governor in General Bruce, who, with others, was to accompany him ; but as the visit to the British colonies was one of State — the Prince going as the Queen's repre sentative — it was requisite that he should also be accompanied by an official adviser of recognized political position. It was a delicate and difficult position to fill, and the success and good results of the tour depended greatly upon the social tact, judg ment, and conciliatory manners of the man who would be practically the leader of the party. The choice fell upon the Duke. The Prince and his suite sailed in the Hero on July 10, and reached St. John's, Newfoundland, on the 23rd. After three days' stay he went on to Halifax, and thence to St. John's, New Brunswick, and to Fredericton. Visiting Charlotte Town in Prince Edward's Island, he sailed up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, meeting the Governor-General of Canada, Sir Edmund Head, at Gaspe Bay, at whose house near Quebec he spent five days, going thence to Montreal. Thus far nothing could have gone better. His re ception everywhere had been enthusiastically loyal beyond all expectation. The Duke writes to Lord Palmerston : ' Ottawa, 'September 2, i860. ' We are now out of Lower Canada, and to-morrow commences the visit to the Upper Province, and I may safely and with confidence pronounce the whole pro ceedings to have been up to the present time a most remarkable success. In the four Lower Provinces the 19 — 2 292 THE PRINCE IN CANADA [ch. x inhabitants are almost exclusively of British origin, but they have been much divided into factions by religious differences and other causes, and the loyalty of a great many of them has often been more than questionable. On the present occasion the only rivalry has been which should be most prominent in the display of their attachment to the Queen and the Prince as her representative. The efforts made by each community to do honour to the Prince have been really extraordinary, and the expense to which they have put themselves must have been very great. I never saw in any part of England such extensive or beautiful outward demonstrations of respect and affec tion either to the Queen or to any private object of local interest as I have seen in every one of these Colonies, and, what is more important, there have been circumsta"nces attending all these displays which have marked their sincerity, and proved that neither curiosity nor self-interest were the only or the ruling influences. ' Of course, the Prince could only go to a few of the treat towns — in the case of Newfoundland and Prince Idward's Island he only went to the capitals — and yet I have reason to think, from the least calculation I could make, that almost three-fifths of the population saw him. They poured in from all parts of the Colonies, regardless of any means of procuring beds or provisions. At Halifax, and St. John, New Bruns wick, the scene was not only most exciting, but most beautiful. ' Upon entering Canada a new state of things has to be met. Here are not only ancient feuds ofreligion and party, but the old animosities of hostile races ; and yet here English and French have gone hand in hand in every display of loyalty, and it is impossible to say that one portion of the community has evinced a warmer feeling of devotion and attachment than the other. The American papers put forth black fore bodings of the French spirit to be displayed in Mon treal, but so little truth was there in them as regards the general feelings of the people that four members of the Municipal Council, having ventured to pro pound old rebellious opinions, were unable to show their faces during the visit, and two of them have i86o] QUEBEC 293 found it advisable to resign their seats, the remaining two being about, it is expected, to follow their example. ' You need not, however, conclude from what I have said that all has been smooth water. The labour to keep small jealousies and personal rivalries from inter fering with the general goodwill has been very great. Contending religions and religious sects have caused many difficulties as to addresses and the answers, and many other objects of strife. Nor have larger questions been wanting. ' I found the French flag displayed everywhere. I did not think it wise to notice it when it was displayed as an ornament on private houses, but when we landed at Quebec the English flag and the tricolor were hoisted side by side on the two towers of the R.C. Cathedral. I thought it very unadvisable that the people should be taught to look upon the latter as a national flag, and I therefore pointed out to the Archbishop in a friendly spirit the mis construction that might be placed on the act. He assured me that it was only a relic of the Crimean alliance, and immediately removed it and substituted a flag with St George's Cross, which remained on the tower the whole time the Prince was at Quebec. The same circumstance occurred here yesterday, and with a similar result. I am sorry to say some serious difficulties are threatened by the Orangemen in King ston and Toronto, and a good deal of alarm is felt by some. I only heard of the preparations two days ago, and immediately addressed to Sir E. Head a letter, of which I send you a copy. He dispatched a special messenger with it to Kingston, and to-night we have a telegram to say that the Orangemen, after my letter, intend to persevere. I intend to do the same, and as soon as the boat arrives at Kingston I shall send for the Mayor and tell him that, if within two hours the Orangemen do not abandon their intention, the Prince will by my advice pass on without entering the city. I feel very confident that firmness will make them yield, but, if not, I hope the Queen and you and my Colleagues will approve of my course. ' I assure you I shall feel immense relief when I have got the Prince again safely on board the Hero, 294 ORANGEMEN [ch. x The anxiety and fatigue is almost too much for so long a tension. ' 1 hope to write to you again from Niagara before entering the United States. ' The Prince is extremely well. He bears work admirably.' Three days later the Duke writes again to Lord Palmerston : ' Bay of Quinte, off Belleville, 'September 5, i860. ' In my letter of the 2nd I mentioned the difficulties threatened by the Orangemen of Kingston and Toronto, but as these difficulties have assumed a serious aspect, I feel it to be due to you to send another report earlier than I had intended. 'Yesterday afternoon we reached Kingston in the steamer. . . . From the deck I could see that the main street up which the Prince was to pass was com pletely occupied by an immense force of Orangemen with a band, scores of elaborate banners, the leaders dressed in scarlet cloaks, the rank and file with orange scarf and all the tomfool insignia which distinguish such processions, whilst the top of the street was spanned by an arch covered all over with devices the most offensive to the Roman Catholic population, and under which the Prince was intended to pass. ' I sent immediately for the Mayor, and he came on board with three of the leading gentlemen of the city. I explained to him fully the objections I felt to allow ing the Prince to sanction such a display, and told him plainly that, if the Orangemen did not abandon their plans, the visit to the City would be abandoned, and the Prince would pass on without landing. He told me he feared they were obstinate, and those v/ho accompanied him endeavoured to induce me to com promise. I told them my letter had been written before I received any remonstrance from the Roman Catholics, and quite irrespectively of their objections, and that I must insist upon a literal compliance with the demand of that letter. I gave them, however, till this morning to endeavour to persuade the Orange men, and told them that if they did not succeed the i860] KINGSTON 295 Prince would receive any addresses on board the steamer and then pass on. ' This morning they came to inform me of their entire want of success, and, indeed, I could see that the Orangemen were marching and countermarching down the streets which the Prince must pass, and were determined not to allow him to enter the City without passing through their forces. I cut the matter short by telling them that the Prince would proceed westwards as soon as steam was got up. They went on shore immediately and occupied three hours which intervened unavoidably before we could get away in vain attempts to conciliate the Orange men ; but every man in the place is afraid of them, and everything was done in the half-hearted way that ensures failure, and there is no doubt that up to the last moment they expected that I should follow the course to which they were at one time too much accustomed, and give way. This, of course, I could not do, and at three o'clock we left Kingston, and I have written to the Mayor the letter of which I enclose a copy. ' The Orange movement is essentially political, and every attempt is being made to urge them to " no sur render." I am not, however, without hope that I have already broken the neck of the conspiracy, though I cannot engage that I have done so till I see what happens at Toronto.'* * Lord Palmerston's reply was as follows : • Broadlands, ' September 24, i860. ' I am very much obliged to you for your highly interesting letters of the 2nd and 5th of this month, and entirely concur in the Propriety of the course which you therein describe yourself as having adopted towards the Orangemen of Canada. It was really too bad of them to endeavour to convert into an occasion for proclaiming Party Dissensions a royal visit intended as a symbol of unity. But the Reception given to the Prince throughout his Progress has been in the highest degree satisfactory, and shows the wisdom of the excursion. It has been well, however, that he had with him a good Head like yours, and though you must have had to go through a great amount of fatigue of Body and Mind, you will, I think, have been satisfied that the great sacrifice which you have made of personal 296 BELLEVILLE [ch. x ' September 6. ' I wrote so far last night after dropping anchor near Belleville at the head of the Bay of Quinte, which we intended to visit this morning at 8 o'clock. At that time it was arranged that a gentleman who had gone on by railroad from Kingston should come on board and report whether any Orange demonstration was to be made. It appears that up to two o'clock this morning no such display was intended, but at that hour a number of the Society came in from Kingston, and almost by force decorated the arches with emblems, and placed banners, etc., in the streets. Some of the most respectable inhabitants came off and begged me to let the Prince land and take no notice, but I posi tively refused, and told them that in half an hour the steamer would be off. Accordingly, at 9 a.m. we were returning down the Bay of Quinte, and are now on our way to Cobourg, where this letter must be posted, and where, if everything is right, the Prince will attend a ball to-night. We had telegrams at Belleville from Cobourg and Toronto saying that in both places the Orangemen would yield, but if the Kingston emissaries arrive soon enough they may probably override their more prudent intentions. comfort in going with the Prince has been usefully made for the Interest of the Empire and of the Royal Family. . . . ' Things in Europe are going at Railway Pace. The Kingdom of Naples has rapidly disappeared, and the Roman State is about to be confined to a small District between Rome and Civita Vecchia ; but I am happy to say that Garibaldi has for the present given up his intention of knocking his own Brains out against the French Garrison of the City of Rome, and Cavour gives up for the present his Intention of bringing on a general war by attacking the Austrians in Venetia. ' Venetia must either be much better governed than at present by Austria, or it must inevitably be conquered by the Italians. As a specimen of Austrian defensive Powers there, it was discovered a little while ago that the Guns in a principal Venetian Battery had been spiked during the night by the Garrison who were expected to fire from them. The Austrian Government is sliding deliberately towards its Ruin, to the great detriment of independent Europe. John Russell, who is gone with the Queen, hopes to have an oppor tunity of seeing some Austrian Statesman, and of making him see the necessity of immediate and vigorous measures of Improvement.' i860] TORONTO 297 ' I have felt that both on Colonial and Imperial grounds it is necessary to make a stand. Lord Metcalf set his face against Orangeism and discouraged it, but unfortunately they gained a victory in this very town of Kingston over Lord Elgin, and ever since they have been assuming a bolder tone. It is most unfortunate that such a thing should have happened during the Prince's visit, but I could not purchase present quiet by future mischief to the Colony and personal embar rassment to the Prince. At the same time I feel the responsibility I have taken upon myself, and I am well aware that many condemn me here, and many probably will in England.' All went well at Cobourg. The Duke writes again to Lord Palmerston : ' Toronto, ' September 12, i860. ' ... At Whitby I received a letter from the Mayor of Toronto which he had been requested to write, say ing that all was quiet, and the Orangemen would make no procession, and had removed all symbols from the arch. In consequence, we landed at half-past six in the afternoon, and the most magnificent spectacle I have ever seen welcomed the Prince. As an artistic effect it cannot easUy be excelled, but as a popular demon stration I never witnessed its equal. I must leave its description to " our own correspondent" A grand procession was formed, and before we could reach the main street it was dark, and every house was most beautifully illuminated. All went on well till we reached the "Orange Arch," the locality of which we were of course unaware of, and the leading horses had passed under it before I perceived that there was a huge transparency of WiUiam III. Upon reaching the house in which the Prince is lodged, I sent for the Mayor and reproached him in strong terms for the deception he had practised upon me, and told him to call together his Council, for he had now removed the quarrel from the Orangemen to himself, and I insisted upon reparation for what I considered an insult to the Prince. The next morning at eleven was fixed for a 298 AN ORANGE ARCH [ch. x Levee, and as no reparation had come from the Mayor by ten minutes before that hour, I wrote to say that I could not allow him to attend it in the absence either of apology or explanation. In the course of the day he sent me a letter confessing his offence, and taking the whole blame on himself, whereupon I wrote ac cepting the apology. I will send you a newspaper with the correspondence. ' The Orange Arch is placed, no doubt purposely, in the street which would naturally be passed in going to the Cathedral. Of course, however, I could not allow the Prince to pass under it again, and the next day (Sunday) we went by another route. The Orange men were so angry at being foiled that during Church- time they covered the Arch with flags and meant to cut the trace and drag the Prince through the Arch. They could not accomplish the latter, and we drove away with no other satisfaction to the blackguards than three hearty groans for me. In the afternoon I heard that they were very violent in their language, and threatened me if I went out This, of course, could not be submitted to, and I therefore took a walk with General Bruce and my Private Secretary by a pro menade up the main street as far as the obnoxious Arch, and then turned back. A mob of some two or three hundred collected and followed me all the way home, hissing and groaning, but I walked slower and slower to show them that I knew they dare not touch me, and when I reached the gate I stopped, and there were nearly as many cheers as groans. They are so accustomed to successful bullying and being feared that I did this, not as an idle bravado, but as a stroke of policy, and I am happy to say I heard from many quarters yesterday that it was successful. ' Yesterday we made a long excursion to Lake Huron through a strong Orange district, and met with no annoyance. ' To-day the Prince has received a deputation from Belleville of no less than four hundred persons who have come more than one hundred miles to present a fenitential address ! This is an immense victory, but am in expectation of another as great The Prince leaves Toronto to-morrow, and I have received an inquiry whether the Prince will drive down the street i860] UNITED STATES 299 if the transparency is removed. I replied, " Certainly," and if this is done let Orangemen never henceforth talk of " No surrender." ' I assure you I have gained a great moral triumph, but it has required some pluck and temper, for I have been besieged with advice to "conciUate" — which meant nothing more or less than "give in." I augur much good to Canada, and Carlisle and Cardwell* ought to thank me, for I have heard on good authority that the movement was ordered from home, and much was to be founded upon it if it had succeeded. . . .' No further unpleasantness of the kind occurred. The Prince went on to Niagara and thence to Hamil ton, and on September 20 took leave of the Canadians and crossed the United States frontier to Detroit. Thence he went to Chicago, and, after two days' shooting in the prairies of Illinois, to St Louis, where the annual Fair was being held, which had brought twenty or thirty thousand people from the country. From Cincinnati, the next place visited, the Duke writes to Lord Palmerston : 'The reception of the Prince of Wales has* been everything I could have wished. Great anxiety to see him, much excitement and dense crowds, but much civility and more delicate consideration on the part of the masses than could be expected. Of course, the Prince has had occasionally a little more roughness of manner than he has been accustomed to, but I hope he will not be so much impressed with this as he ought to be with the very kindly spirit with which he is everywhere received.' And in a final letter from New York he writes : ' October 14, i860. ' ... In every city we have been to the reception of the Prince, the conduct of the people, and the kindly "• The Lord-Lieutenant and the Secretary for Ireland. 300 RECEPTION AT NEW YORK [ch. x feeling towards England of all that I have conversed with, have been most gratifying and beyond all my expectations, sanguine as they were ; but at Washing ton and at this city it is impossible to rate too highly the value of all that has occurred and the marvellous absence of any untoward incident. The President played his part at the White House admirably, and I really believe that he and his Ministers were as much pleased with all his visitors as they certainly were with their reception. The Times will give you a better account than I can of the magnificent scene of the reception in the streets of the city. Such an ovation was probably never given to a foreign Prince in any country. Every man, woman, and child in the five or six hundred thousand people assembled seemed mad with enthusiasm and overflowing with intense delight. There could be but two causes for such a demonstration : personal love of the Queen, which amongst this people is a passion, and rapidly growing affection for England, which I am thoroughly con vinced this visit will speedily ripen into a firm and (if properly watched and fostered) an enduring attach ment. I told you that in Canada we left a People confirmed in loyalty and safe in any event of foreign war. I think I am not too sanguine in saying now that we shall leave the United States on the 20th a faster friend to our country than they have been since their separation.' This estimate of the depth and permanence of the good impression produced by the Prince's visit was unhappily soon to prove exaggerated. In the course of the very next year events following on the outbreak of the American Civil War strained almost to breaking the relations between the two countries. For this very reason that good impression, as far as it went, and as its effects lasted, may possibly have been especially opportune. The knowledge which the Duke had acquired of the localities in Canada and the North American colonies. i86i] SEWARD 301 and his personal acquaintance with the Governors and leading men, were now of great use, for it was chiefly on the Canadian frontier that aggressive action and, in case of war, invasion was to be apprehended. He writes to the Governor-General, Sir Edmund Head : ' Downing Street, ' June 5, 1861. ' I entirely concur in what you say in your letter of the 1 8th May about Mr. Seward's speculations and unfriendly views towards Canada, but I think you hardly make sufficient allowance for his hyper- American use of the policy of bully and bluster. When I saw him at Albany last October he fairly told me he should make use of insults to England to secure his own position in the States, and that I must not suppose he meant war. On the contrary, he did not wish war with England, and he was confident we should never go to war with the States — we dared not and could not afford it. I then told him there was no fear of war except from such a policy as he indi cated, and that if he carried it out and touched our honour, he would some fine morning find he had embroiled his country in a disastrous conflict at the moment when he fancied he was bullying all before him. I mention this because I am convinced his first idea is that we should swallow all the insults he pleases to cram down ouf throats, and that he will establish his own power and reputation among his Rowdies without the danger of war ; but his second idea, I have no doubt, is to prepare the minds of the mob for war with England if the result of the quarrel with the Southern States should render an inroad into Canada a measure of political advantage to his " posi tion " — I quote his own expression. ... In whatever aspect, therefore, we regard this war, it is obviously necessary to increase our force in Canada, and assume quietly an attitude of preparation. You are already aware that one Regiment is under orders (the 47th), and two more will speedily follow, with a battery of Field Artillery of Armstrong guns. They will receive orders at once. 302 DEFENCE OF CANADA [ch. x ' I hope this manifestation of our determination to defend Canada will, in the first place, make our neigh bours a little more cautious, and, in the second, en courage corresponding efforts for their self-defence. ' Let me know how the Colony is provided with arms, and of what quantity and in what condition are the stores which I made over to the Canadian Govern ment from the Ordnance in 1854. ... I wish you would also let me know how our naval yard at King ston is. . . .' Three months later, however, he writes to Lord Palmerston deprecating as premature the sending out immediately of three more regiments to Canada, which had been announced in the papers : ' Clumber, ' September 3, 1861. ' . . . I wish you to believe that I am no more satis fied than you are with the footing upon which we stand with the Cabinet of Washington. I know it is precarious so far as their feelings go. If I rely upon anything, it is their want of power to attack us at present. ' My belief, subject to correction by military opinion, is that Canada is safe till the Spring, and that if so we shall be preparing and husbanding our strength better by keeping our Regiments in a high state of discipline at home than by subject ing them to loss by desertion and the demoralizing effects of imperfect accommodation during a long winter. In the meantime I should be glad to see military stores of all kinds prepared and sent over, and more artillery, both field-guns and guns of posi tion. The works of Quebec should also be looked to. I cannot agree with you that the want of barrack accommodation will be as strongly felt in the spring as now. Very soon after the frost breaks up the weather becomes so fine that troops might be en camped, besides which material for hutting can be prepared. . . . Another point I will touch upon, and then I have done. I was strongly in favour of^ sending i86i] THE TRENT INCIDENT 303 the last reinforcements, not only because of the effect upon Lincoln and Seward, but because of the spirit it would infuse into the Colonies. Is it certain that the same effect will be the consequence of more regi ments ? You must mainly rely upon the efforts of the Canadians themselves. Will they not rather relax than increase those efforts if they think you are going to send an army to defend them ? Can we afford to spare 10,000 men from England ?' Sir Edmund Head's term of office as Governor- General of Canada had by this time expired. There was some difficulty in finding a successor. In a letter of August 27 the Duke teUs him that the post had been offered to and refused by Lord Wodehouse, Lord Harris, Lord Eversley, and the Duke of Buckingham. It will probably be a surprise to those who knew Lord Eversley — and his silence on the subject was a characteristic instance of his dis cretion — to learn that in his sixty-eighth year — more than three years after he had retired from the Speaker ship ofthe House of Commons, never having been out of Europe, and rarely out of England — he was offered the Governorship of the most important of the British Colonies at an especially critical time. Ultimately Lord Monck was appointed. Before he had been many weeks in Canada occurred the Trent incident. The British mail-packet Trent was stopped on the high seas and boarded by Captain Wilkes of the American war steamer San Jacinto, and two Con federate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell, forcibly taken from on bpard as prisoners. On receipt of the intelligence a demand for their release was made by the British Government, upon compliance with which depended the maintenance of peace. In the meantime the American Congress had passed a vote of thanks 304 THE TRENT INCIDENT [ch. x to Captain Wilkes, and he was received with acclama tions in the Northern States. There was no longer any question of delaying the sending out of reinforcements to Canada. The Duke writes to Lord Monck : 'Downing Street, ' December S, 1861" ' Soon after your last letter was written (Novem ber 16) you must have learnt ofthe affair ofthe Trent, and the serious complications which it must produce. I am bound to warn you that war is too likely to be the result. Such an insult to our flag can only be atoned by the restoration of the men who were seized when under its protection, and with Mr. Seward at the helm of the United States, and the mob and the Press manning the vessel, it is too probable that this atone ment may be refused. You will be able to form your own opinion from what you hear from Washington. You may be assured we shall insist upon our demand. ' Every preparation should be made to defend Canada from invasion. We are doing all that the season of the year will allow here. A ship with 30,000 stand of arms and a battery of Armstrong guns sails to-morrow. Two regiments will sail in a few days for Rivifere du Loup. More will follow through Nova Scotia. Officers for organizing the militia will go out at once. These things I tell you more in detail by dispatches to-day. . . . 'We shall want room for the regiments which must soon be with you. You should take up all the vacant buildings in the Provinces fit for barracks, and you should procure the requisite materials for erecting good and warm huts in such places as troops will have to be quartered in. Montreal should be looked to. If a tete-de-pont can be erected at the Victoria Bridge it would at least retard the progress of an attacking force. There must be guns for this purpose at Quebec. ' We have issued proclamations forbidding the export of arms and all materials of war. I think you should see that there is no possibility of any such export across the border. . . . 1861] DEFENSIVE MEASURES 305 ' If the Yankees show an intention of coming in any force all means of transport and provisions should be removed out of the line of their march to some safe depot. Preparations for doing this quickly when the emergency arises should be organized. The difficulties of the winter must be made the most of; by the spring we can have a strong army in the field, and I hope your contingent will be 100,000 militia, for all of whom we will provide Enfield Rifles.' To Lord Mulgrave, Governor of Nova Scotia, and to the Hon. Arthur Gordon, Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, he writes in similar terms, announcing that two regiments and 5,000 stand of arms would be sent to Halifax, and a regiment to St. John's on its way to Canada. He made arrangements for a mail to go regularly by Halifax to Quebec instead of through the United States, which was the usual route when the St. Lawrence was closed with ice. ' A few days will decide,' he writes to Sir John Young at Sydney, 'whether we have peace or war. I fear the latter.' As late as January 4, by which time the prospects of a compliance with the British demand were practically assured, he writes to Lord Monck : ' Even if peace be for the present preserved, as our last accounts from Washington lead us to hope it may be, I fear we cannot count upon its safe continuance for any length of time in the present temper of the American people, and it is of great importance that our North American Possessions should not again allow themselves to be caught in a state of utter unpreparedness.' He had taken the precaution of sending Lord Monck a cipher. But it was not carefully preserved, and he had to write a remonstrance : , p,,,yuary 6, 1862. ' I must call your serious attention to the culpable carelessness of some persons who take charge of your correspondence. 20 3o6 THE TRENT DISPATCH [ch. x ' Two mails ago I received your dispatch (confi dential) of January 7 acknowledging mine of Decem ber 18, and informing me of the 'number' you would use in the cipher. Obviously this is a dispatch which ought to be sent with every possible precaution for secrecy which could be provided. Instead of which it was sent via Portland not in a bag, but in a common envelope and very insufficiently sealed. I return you this envelope that you may see that there is fair reason to think that the seal has been tampered with, in which case the United States Government is, of course, in possession of your "number." ' Two days ago I received from you another dispatch of a similar nature (secret, January 14). This was sent not in a separate cover, but mixed pell-mell with all the other dispatches in one common envelope secured merely by an adhesive coat of arms ! True it is that this envelope was placed in a bag, but its seal has the same appearance as the envelope I send. ' It is quite unusual to send several dispatches in one cover, and certainly these are not times when ordinary precautions should be laid aside, and "secret" dispatches sent through American territory so as almost to invite inspection.' When the news of the incident of the Trent reached England, the Prince Consort was already smitten, though not yet disabled, by the disease of which he died. His last public act, the last service that he rendered to the Queen and country, was to soften and render more conciliatory — without weakening their force — some harsh expressions in the dispatch de manding the release of the Confederate Commis sioners. When the answer came that the demand would be complied with, and the imminent danger of war had passed, he was no longer living. The Duke wrote to Sir Charles Phipps : 'Downing Street, 'December 16, 1861. ' It was very kind of you to write to me yesterday in the midst of the overwhelming sorrow which has i86i] DEATH OF PRINCE CONSORT 307 fallen upon us all, but which you necessarily feel with even greater keenness than those who were brought into less daily intercourse with the admirable man whose untimely death is at this moment the one ab sorbing thought of England. ' Each succeeding day will make the country more and more deplore the clear intellect, the calm judg ment, the singular intuitive perception of what is right, wise and fitting which have exercised so remark able and yet so modest an influence over all the events of the Queen's reign, and the thought that He can no longer be consulted by any person or on any occasion almost makes a patriot despair. I for one shall always try to think what He would have advised, what He would have desired for the good of the country which owes him so much. ' The heart ofthe Nation bleeds for the poor Queen. May God give her strength for Her own sake, for the sake of Her family, and for our sake, to bear this awful blow. " She has nothing in the world to look to, no stimulus to action. . . ." She has the stimulus of duty, she has the good ofthe people who love Her with an affection exceeding that which any other Sovereign ever enjoyed. She will feel that she must live — must reign — must act — for them. Heaven calls upon her to grapple with this great grief, to rouse the energies of a noble nature which affliction must depress, but ought not to subdue — and I believe she will answer to the call, and though happiness in the pure and holy form she has hitherto enjoyed it cannot again be Hers, there will yet be a compensation in a sense of the most sacred duties well performed, and in a knowledge that though no longer aided by the wisdom of Her husband. She is yet the source of good and prosperity to a mighty nation. ..." It was to Canada that, owing to the breaking out of the Civil War in the United States, and the difficulties that from time to time arose on the frontier, the attention of the Colonial Office was at this time chiefly directed. But Canada was only one of some thirty colonies, the affairs of which were more or less completely under its 20 — 2 ' 308 COLONIAL GOVERNORS [ch. x supervision and control. To select Governors for all these colonies was a difficult, and — as the Duke's cor respondence shows — often a thankless task, and many were the complaints at not being reappointed, or at not receiving the expected honours at the end of a term of office. In earlier days, when a voyage to the Antipodes took five or six months, and when to go to Australia in any capacity was in popular estimation almost equivalent to banishment for life, governor ships in that part of the world were in comparatively little request, and were generally given to officers who had proved their capacity on active service, and were qualified to act as gaolers over convicts, as well as practically absolute monarchs over settlers. But a new system to meet a new state of things was now necessary. The Duke writes to Sidney Herbert, then Secretary for War : ' Downing Street, 'November 18, 1859. ' I fear I cannot hold out any hopes of my being able to relieve you of Colonel . ' The old practice of appointing new men upon almost every vacancy in Colonial Governments of course threw a large number of unemployed ex-Governors on the world, and now that, mainly by my practice when here before, though it had been begun in a smaller degree by Grey, Colonial Governorship has become a profession, all these men come back upon me with claims for employment. ' My list of such applicants is very large, and out of it I could select more really eligible men than I shall have a chance of employing if I remain here five times as long as I wish. The only chances I am likely to have for new men are in the wretchedly paid or un healthy small places, and in such important Colonies as the Cape — when if I have nobody on my list good enough to promote, I must look out in India or else where for some one who has shown a specialit6 for the government of mankind,' i86i] COLONIAL CONSTITUTIONS 309 Some of the colonies were governed by a Governor assisted by a nominee Council ; in others the Council was partly nominated and partly elected, the Ministers being in each case nominees of the Governor or the Colonial Office, while others were in an intermediate stage and possessed elected Assemblies with effective control over taxation, but with no power to turn out Ministers. Other colonies, again, had a full-fledged Constitution, with Ministers responsible to the Houses of Representatives and dependent upon a majority for continuance in office. The Cape Colony was at this time in the second or intermediate stage. Sir George Grey, the Governor, writes to the Duke : 'June 21, 1861. ' One difficulty from time to time arises from there being here a representative Government without a responsible Ministry. Each member, to gratify his constituents, carries motions for the execution of ex- gensive local works, and yet the whole body of the [ouse of Assembly will not vote the total amount of funds requisite for the completion of all these works, because they are unwilling to have recourse to in creased taxation. The Government is thus continually threatened with financial difficulties.' The difficulty was obvious and practically insuper able. Responsible government was the only way out of it. But however inevitable and ultimately beneficial the change to a Parliament and a Ministry responsible to it was, it was not in those days in general attended by good results at first. A colony in its early days has no leisured class. Its best men are too intent on their own affairs to have time to spare to take part in the business of legislation and the debates of a Legisla tive Assembly, and are not likely to be tempted by the 310 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [ch. x comparatively small emoluments, uncertain tenure, and slight prestige attaching to a Colonial Minister. The correspondence of the different Governors is full of complaint of the corruption and petty selfish ness of Ministers and officials. Lord Monck, on his arrival in Canada, took a more sanguine view. ' I am bound to say,' he writes (April 26, 1862) to the Duke, ' I have failed to detect any great amount of political immorality ; but this may arise from want of acuteness in the observer. I am quite sure they are as pure as we should be if by any accident all the men above the gangway in the House of Commons were removed and the administration of the country com mitted to the remainder of the House.' Very soon, however, he had reason to modify this opinion. A carefully considered Militia Bill — a measure of the first importance in view of the civil war then going on in the United States — had been brought in by the Government. He writes : ' . . . Attorney-General for , who had charge of the Militia Bill, was prevented from attending in his place in the House during the whole of last week nominally by illness, but really, as every one knew, by drunkenness.' And the following day (May 24, 1862) he writes : ' Administrative abuses to my own knowledge have risen to a fearful degree. . . . There is a general and, I am sorry to say, well-founded distrust of the adminis tration of the public money here, and I am quite sure that this consideration had as great an effect in bring ing about the adverse vote on the Militia Bill as the magnitude of the sum proposed to be devoted to its objects.' On August 4 he writes : 1862] ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES 311 'The new Ministers are a wretched lot. Not one of them is capable of rising above the level of parish politicians, and they are led away by all the small jealousies and suspicions to which minds of that class are prone.' In reply to these and similar remarks of Lord Monck's the Duke writes a word of caution : ' November 29, 1862. ' . . . You have twice excused yourself for not dis missing your Government. I hope you will not think of doing so unless in a clear case of necessity. . . . Your position in Canada would be greatly prejudiced if you were supposed to show favour to any political party, or that you did not place confidence in the men whom you had accepted as your Ministers. I know how hard it is to appear to trust where no real con fidence is felt, but the Governor of a constitutional Colony should endeavour to imitate the conduct in this respect of our good Queen, who has never throughout her reign allowed any whisper to be raised that she was the sovereign of a Party. . . .' And in reply to a question of Sir Arthur Gordon, Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, as to the course he should take in the event of a publicly dis graced man being forced upon him as a Minister, the Duke writes : 'November i, 1862. 'Your question about Mr. is not very easily answered in a few lines. It is one of those cases which may arise in small colonies with responsible Government, and which when they do arise, it is far from easy to deal with by any fixed rule. If he were to be forced upon you by the contests of party and a change of Government, then I think you would have little or no option, and the moral stigma would attach to those by whose instrumentality he was raised to power, and you would be unscathed. But I under stand that what you apprehend is that his late 312 DISQUALIFICATION [ch. x colleagues may try to get him back again with a view to strengthen themselves and prevent a change of Government. I should certainly consider that the reintroduction into the Government of a Colony of a man whose conduct had been enquired into by a Com mittee of the Legislature— who had been pronounced guilty of the aggravated dishonesty of using his official position for corrupt purposes — and had been dismissed from the Council m consequence, was a crying scandal and disgrace to the whole community, and must lower the standard of morality and proclaim something like immunity to official peculation. I need hardly there fore say that you ought to do everything in your power to prevent such a proposal being made to you, or if made, to induce the proposer to withdraw it. ' I am inclined to think you might go still farther, but writing as I am without having had opportunity to enquire for any precedents since I received your letter, I do not like to tell you absolutely to refuse your assent. Such refusal would, I presume, entail the resignation of the Government, and probably involve you in a quarrel with the majority of the Legislature. I will at once enquire whether any similar case is on record in the office. . . .' A fortnight later the Duke writes again : ' November 15, 1862. ' This is only a postcript to my letter of the ist of this month to say that I cannot find any known precedent either in the North American or Australian Colonies for refusing to appoint an ex-Councillor on the recommendation of the local Ministry. I cannot therefore recommend you to carry your resistance to the reappointment of Mr. to this extent. . . .' To Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, the Duke writes : ' April 26, 1861. ' The account of your Ministers and your Parliament in your private letter is indeed deplorable, but though on a larger scale and with a wider sphere of mischief, it is not worse than the Lower Province of British i86i] NEW ZEALAND 313 North America. Canada is infinitely superior in every way, and I cannot help hoping that the very excess of democracy to which Victoria has fallen may prove the means of raising her to a higher level, and bring her to the position which Canada occupies, where though the moral sense is not high and the love of jobbing is far too common and too little reprobated, yet the pLiblic men possess education and ability, and upon the whole study the public interests. . . .' Widely different from any other colony were the peculiar circumstances and difficulties to be encountered in New Zealand. The Canterbury Settlement in the middle island contained a knot of Oxford graduates, some of them men of ability, culture, and deep religious convictions, who were actuated by higher views of the responsibilities attaching to the founders of a colony than are generally met with in settlers in a new country. From amongst these men the Governor, Colonel Gore-Browne, had been happy in being able to select some of his Ministers when, in 1855, he received in vague terms from the Colonial Office the order to establish 'responsible government.' But if New Zealand Ministers at that time were exception ally capable and reliable, the difficulties to be faced in that colony were exceptionally formidable. By the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 the whole of New Zealand had for sufficient reasons been annexed, and thenceforward the responsibility of maintaining the Queen's authority and the Queen's peace through out the country had rested with the Governor. But for many years the British settlers in the Northern Island occupied a mere fringe of territory round the coast. In the interior the authority of the Maori chiefs was practi cally undisturbed. If a settler was murdered or a robbery committed by a native, the surrender of the 314 THE MAORIS [ch. x. criminal became a matter for negotiation, and was de pendent on the view taken of the offence by the local native chief In short, the Queen's writ did not run, and British law could not be enforced. The natives having no need to cultivate, and no use for more than a very small portion of the country, had been glad to sell their land to the settlers, and were well content with the price they received for it ; but as the latter increased and spread farther inland, it gradually dawned upon the Maoris that the white man was becoming domi nant. Their pride of race was touched. A movement was made for setting up a Maori King of their own choosing, whose authority should be as complete over a large portion of the Northern Island as that of the Queen over the rest. Some of the chiefs began to assume an authority to forbid the sale of land to the settlers — though claiming no private proprietary rights for themselves — as a means of staying the advance of the white man. Colonel Gore-Browne, the Governor, was an old soldier, who had seen hard service under Nott in the Afghan campaigns of 1839-41, and was a man of ability, culture, and exceeding gentleness of nature, tender of the rights, lives, and welfare of Europeans and Maoris alike. At a gathering of the native chiefs at New Plymouth in March, 1859, he delivered a care fully prepared address, in the course of which, re ferring to the disputes about land, he said : ' He never would consent to buy land without an undisputed title. He would not permit anyone to interfere in the sale of land unless he owned part of it On the other hand, he would buy no man's land without his con sent.' Immediately after this declaration a native named Teira stepped forward and offered for sale a i860] COLONEL GORE-BROWNE 315 block of six hundred acres, known as the Waitara block. The offer was accepted conditionally on his title, after investigation, proving to be a good one. Upon this WUliam King, a chief who not only claimed no proprietary right to the land, but held no such authority among the Maori as entitled him to intervene, rose and said : ' Notwithstanding Teira's offer, I will not permit the sale of Waitara to the Pakeha. The land is theirs, but I will not let them sell it. . . . Though they have floated it, I wUl not let it go to sea.' It was announced that due respect would be paid to all claims on the land, and in the meantime Government officers we're sent to survey it. As the surveyors were at work, William King, with an armed band of Maoris, drove them away by force, and threw up, fortified, and occupied apah, or stockade, on the land. So open a defiance of the law could not be tamely acquiesced in. The pah was the work of a single night, and was held by only eighty Maoris; and, in the hope of preventing serious resistance, an over whelming force of two hundred and forty Queen's troops, with artillery, was sent to take it. Most un fortunately and unaccountably, owing to the care lessness and incompetence of the officer in command, and to the astonishment of the Maoris themselves, the British attack was unsuccessful, and the enemy slipped away in the night. A second failure from the same cause foUowed. The spark of rebeUion was now blown into a flame. The origin of the quarrel— as to which most of the Native chiefs had taken the British side — was forgotten in the exultation of successful fighting, and reinforcements came to the rebels from tribes hitherto friendly. 3i6 THE WAITARA BLOCK [ch. x Colonel Gore-Browne writes : ' Auckland, ' September 7, i860. ' I take the liberty of submitting to your Grace a Memorandum which I have prepared on the affairs of New Zealand : it is scarcely suited to a dispatch, but will perhaps convey what I wish to say more dis tinctly. ' I might rest the justice of my proceedings with William King upon the advice of Mr. McLean, the native Secretary, and upon that of my executive Council, confirmed and approved by large majorities of the Legislative Council, the House of Represen tatives, and of the Chiefs assembled at the Conference ; but, my Lord Duke, I do not shrink from any re sponsibility which attaches to my office. The war was forced upon me by William King, and could only have been avoided by humiliating concessions, which might have delayed, but could never have averted it ' I do not wish to disguise from your Grace that two Bishops and many of their Clergy have condemned the course I have pursued, but I must add that several of the Missionaries of the Church of England and all the clergy of other denominations differ from them in opinion. ' I entertain the highest respect for the Bishop of New Zealand and most of his supporters, and am aware of the influence many of them possess. I believe, however, that their zeal, their horror of war generally, and their attachment to the people for whose spiritual welfare they have laboured so earnestly, has blinded them to the impolicy, not to say disloyalty, of the course they are pursuing. ' The alliance they have made with those who have been until now their bitterest opponents, and the use made of an unscrupulous and untruthful Press, will sooner or later be a subject of regret to themselves, as it is now to many who (hke myself) have been among their firmest adherents. . . .' The Memorandum enclosed was a clear and able exposition of the state of affairs. It is too long for insertion here. i86i] A FREE HAND TO COLONEL BROWNE 317 The answer to this letter has not been preserved, but eight months later the Duke writes to Colonel Gore-Browne : ' April 26, 1 86 1. ' . . . You have no doubt been long looking out for the more detailed dispatch respecting the war which I led you to expect . . . but each succeeding mail from New Zealand has more and more convinced me of the danger of laying down at this distance any precise instructions either for your guidance or that of the military authorities. I fear it may be some annoy ance to you and others, as it may very probably be cause of future reproach to me by the JEnglish public, but whilst war continues I am sure I should be running a great risk of complicating the already serious difficulties of the Colony if I attempted to regulate affairs by didactic dispatches which require more than two months for their transmission. ' I therefore necessarily leave you, more than, per haps, either of us wish, to the exercise of your own discretion, except dealing with isolated cases as they arise. . . .' Would that the same temper had oftener been dis- ¦ played by other Chiefs in letters from the Colonial Office, and that there had been on other occasions of difficulty the same unwillingness to dictate from London the methods of solving complications arising in a far distant land. How many mistakes, how many disasters would have been avoided if Colonial Governors, the chosen representatives of the Crown, had been more trusted and oftener left to their own discretion ! Nor did this suspension of judgment arise from any taint of indolence or indifference. Those who had best reason to know — namely, the Governors who served in the Colonies under the Duke — testify to the painstaking industry with which — as contrasted with 3i8 A PAINSTAKING MINISTER [ch. x too many of his predecessors and successors — he studied and mastered the details of every question, considered the claims of each officer to support, and, if he was satisfied that they were right, defended them against all comers from his place in Parliament. It was a serious aggravation of the difficulties of the situation that there, was among the settlers a small but influential party — alluded to in Colonel Gore-Browne's letter — who placed themselves on the Outbreak of the war in direct opposition to the Government, and gave moral support to the insurgent Maoris. Bishop Selwyn and some of his clergy, in the course of their zealously performed missionary work, had acquired great authority among the Maoris, and had done much towards establishing what seemed to them a sort of ideal ecclesiastical rule. They were inclined to view with something of apprehension and dislike the advance of the white man into the country, fore seeing that the civil power advancing with him would bring about a different state of things. Their con fidence in the hold which they believed Christian doc trine and morality had obtained over their converts was unbounded ; in the teeth of what to ordinary men seemed conclusive evidence, they refused to admit that the rebels were in the wrong, and by letters and pamphlets sought to enlist, on the side of the insur gents, the sympathies of the British public at home, where stories of the supposed ill-treatment of savage races at the hands of British settlers have not infre quently found too ready acceptance. The Duke, when the facts were all before him, was satisfied that, in very difficult circumstances. Colonel Gore-Browne had, on the whole, acted rightly, and he supported his action. i86i] THE GOVERNOR SUPPORTED 319 In a letter to Gladstone, marked ' Private,' he writes : 'Colonial Office, ' January 21, 1861. ' My dear Gladstone, ' I think a good deal of what I fear is erroneous argument in the Bishop's letter arises from a mistake in his position. No. 2 — that Wirimu Kingi had nothing to do with the " King movement." ' The King movement, the Land League, and Wirimu Kingi are all separate parts of a whole — a desire on the part of the IN atives to reassume the sovereignty of N. Z., and with that view to prevent any more land being sold. ' Martial Law was no doubt a mistake, and other mistakes have been made, but the Clergy would do better for all Parties if they did not shew their almost bitter partizanship for the Natives against the Governor and the Settlers — the Governor having always hitherto been considered to go as far as possible in justice and common sense in the same direction. ' Yours affectionately, ' Newcastle.' In the absence of special instructions to the contrary. Colonel Gore-Browne had had no option but to refuse to listen to any suggestion of the recognition of a Maori King, which would have been derogatory to the Queen's sovereignty. But what was now to be done ? Reinforcements had been sent, and still the rebels were unsubdued. Some change of policy, it was thought, must be tried, and if so, it was better — as Colonel Gore-Browne's term of office was almost at an end — that it should be initiated by a new Governor. The Duke therefore resolved to send, to succeed him. Sir George Grey, whose eight years' previous experi ence as Governor of New Zealand,* and supposed ^ He had been appointed to the Governorship of the Cape by the Duke when Colonial Minister early in 1853, being transferred from New Zealand. 320 NEW ZEALAND [ch. x personal influence over the Maori chiefs, might, it was thought, produce good results. The Duke's letter to Colonel Gore-Browne conveying to him this decision is a specimen of his kindly and considerate manner of dealing with his subordinates : ' Downing Street, ' May 27, 1861. ' There is so much uncertainty, and upon the whole much that is unsatisfactory, in the last account from New Zealand — showing whilst on the one hand there is amongst some of the natives a desire to close the war, there is on the other a growing disposition amongst tribes which have hitherto kept aloof to join in it — that I feel it my duty to endeavour to take some measures which may give a turn to this lamentable state of affairs, and induce the natives to sue for peace upon terms which the British Government may accept, and which may have some prospect of becoming a per manent settlement. ' The first step for this purpose appears to me to be a change of government — and I at once assure you that I say this without in the least intending to imply censure upon your conduct. I have all along said that it may be questionable whether the question of Teira's land could not have been settled without recourse to arms, but I believe that if it had, the natives would soon have fixed on some other question which would have brought on the same result, as opposition to British supremacy was really at the bottom of their proceedings. Your difficulties were great, and upon the whole I am fully prepared to continue to defend, as I have hitherto defended, both your administration of the Government before the breaking out of the rebellion, and what you have done since. ' I am strengthened in the opinion that it is desirable now to appoint another Governor by the consideration that your period of six years will expire in a very few weeks after you receive this letter, and in all probability before your successor arrives; and in either case — whether the war becomes extended or peace be restored — a course of policy must be entered upon which it i86i] NEW ZEALAND 321 will require a long time to mature, and which it is desirable that he should initiate who will remain in New Zealand to complete it. ' With these views I naturally turn to Sir George Grey, and I propose to write to him by the next Cape mail sending him instructions to proceed to New Zealand as soon as he can make his arrangements. I trust that his thorough knowledge of the natives and the confidence which, in spite of some hostihty in fornier days, the settlers as well as natives must feel in him, will render the selection one of good promise ; whilst I feel that as regards yourself, if you are to be relieved ofthe government, there can be nobody whom you would with so little feeling of jealousy see take your place. ' I cannot think that any of those opposed to you personally, whether amongst the Colonists or the natives, can look upon your being now relieved as an act signifying disapproval of the Queen or of the British Government. If this had been our intention or our view, of course we ought and should have relieved you many months ago. To prevent, however, the possibility of such a misunderstanding, I have taken the Queen's pleasure and obtained Her Majesty's sanction to my offering you an Australian Government. The Colony to which I propose to appoint you is Tasmania. . . . ' I cannot but feel that in some respects you will be glad to quit New Zealand. Circumstances have oc curred, more especially the unfair conduct of some of the Clergy, and the desertion of your old friend. Sir William IVIartin, which must be painful to you. Be this, however, as it may, I assure you of my sincere good wishes for your future welfare, and earnest hope that the Australian Colonies may yet have to thank you for further good services.' A week later the Duke wrote to Sir George Grey, then Governor of the Cape, requesting him to sail for New Zealand as soon as possible and take up the government. The following extracts from his letter give an idea of the painstaking solicitude which he threw into his work : 21 322 BISHOP SELWYN [ch. x ' June 5, 1861. ' . . . I have had all the dispatches and papers con nected with New Zealand affairs put together to be sent to you to the Cape, in order that you may take up the thread of events from the time you left the Colony until now and read them on your voyage. One of your private letters to me some five or six months ago showed that, with such information as you had, your impressions were strongly adverse to Colonel Gore-Browne's proceedings in the case of Taranaki. I trust you will endeavour to forget past impressions, and reform an opinion from this complete series of documents which I send you, for I cannot help thinking they will much modify your views. At any rate, you will see that Teira's land is now an event of history, and a state of circumstances has arisen which will require a treatment having only an indirect reference to this original cause of, or, as I believe, pretext for, the war. ' I have come very reluctantly to the conclusion that the Bishops of New Zealand and Wellington and Archdeacon Hadfield have done much mischief by the part they have taken, and you will see that both Lord Lyttelton and I have expressed this opinion in Parliament. It may be said that Bishop SelWyn's " solemn protest " was not published by him and was only sent to the Governor ; but such protests are not fitting productions from the Prelate of any Church, and it is only too well known that the spirit of that document has actuated the dignitaries in question and some of the missionaries.' The following sentences with which the Duke con cludes his letter testify how heartily and ungrudgingly he accepted the establishment of responsible govern ment in the Colonies, beheving it to be not only inevitable, but beneficial : ' One last word I must say, and that is an important one. Let me earnestly press upon you the importance of winning over to your support and confidence the New Zealand politicians. I do not expect you to be i86i] RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 323 pleased to find the system of responsible Government in full work. I know your habits of mind and views of government of a Colony are not strictly attuned to these ultra-popular institutions; but for good or evil they exist, and I cannot agree with Lord Grey that it would be desirable, even if it were possible, to change them, and I trust you will prove how good a workman you are by turning out a good job, even though you are provided with tools to which you have not been accustomed and which you do not like. It is quite possible you may find your old opponent, Mr. Fox, installed in power, and have to inherit him as your Prime Minister. If so, you will only be in the position of many a constitutional sovereign, and I should not fear that, if you will lay yourself out for conciliating these necessary means to your success, you will obtain over them and with them almost as much power and influence as you enjoyed under a different system. ' And now, my dear Sir George, I will release you from a too long letter ; but not without expressing the most earnest wishes for the success of your great task — first and foremost for the sake of my country and her most interesting and important Colony ; and secondly, and in no small degree, for your sake as redounding to your honour, and by so dfoing healing many a sore wound and compensating for many a bitter sorrow by the establishment of a high claim to the gratitude of your Sovereign and your countrymen.' Sir George Grey's return to New Zealand was followed by liberal concessions to the Maoris. The dis puted block of land was abandoned to them, and the Maori King was partially recognized. Alas ! all was in vain. The personal influence which Sir George Grey was believed to possess over the chiefs availed nothing. At one of the great native meetings a chief said that ' Governor Browne was like a hawk which soared over them ; but Governor Grey was like a rat who burrowed at their roots till he destroyed them'; and this was repeated over the whole country. The powerful 21 — 2 324 THE MAORI KING [ch. x Waikato tribe, hitherto friendly, now burst into rebellion. Matters were become very serious. The Maoris were not, like an army in the field, to be met on the plain, nor had they any fortified towns or permanent strongholds, the destruction of which would bring them to terms. The dense New Zealand bush is interlaced with a strong, tough, thorn-bearing creeper, which makes it very difficult to penetrate. In the open, close on the edge of the bush, the Maoris would with great rapidity and skill throw up pahs, or earth-work intrenchments. These they would defend with deter mination till they were rendered untenable, and then generally contrive to escape, with little loss, to the bush, where they could not be overtaken, and could subsist for a length of time on fern-roots, and whence they would reappear to make a raid on some isolated station or settlement. Thus every exposed position had to be guarded at the same time. To do this a force numerically superior to the enemy had to be employed, and still there was no security. Outlying farms and settlements had to be abandoned, and re inforcements were urgently required. From the following letter of the Duke's to Sir George Grey it appears that to send Indian troops to serve at a distance from India was not, as commonly supposed, an idea originating with Disraeli when Prime Minister : 'July 27, 1863. ' Though I wrote hopefully by the last mail in answer to the -satisfactory letters which I had just received from you, you might have perceived that I was not free from apprehension, and looked to the next accounts with some anxiety. These accounts have now come in, and are indeed serious and distressing. 1863] SIKHS FOR NEW ZEALAND 325 ' You will probably open this letter before my dis patches, and therefore I proceed at once to tell you what I have done to meet the requirements which you sent me. On the day following the receipt of your letters I laid the whole case before my colleagues, and by the Indian mail of that evening a letter was dispatched to Lord Elgin directing him to send to New Zealand, with as little delay as possible, two Sikh regiments made up to 2,200 men, unless intelli gence should have in the meantime reached India that all was quiet and that apprehensions of a rising of the natives was at an end. At the same time orders were sent for the Himalaya (which was to sail in three or four days from England for Ceylon with a regiment on board to relieve the battalion now in that Island, which battalion was to proceed to India) to convey the Ceylon battalion, which it would find ready for embarkation, direct to New Zealand, with the same Eroviso in case of the natives having given up their ostile intentions. In this way you would obtain the English regiment considerably sooner than you would be likely to procure it from India, the voyage of the Himalaya to Ceylon being calculated at six weeks. The Sikh regiments are, of course, as proposed by your Ministers, to be paid for by the Colony. ' You will thus see that everything possible has been done to help you. I thought it better to take the course I have described than wait for another mail, though you still entertained hopes of peace, as in the case of your hopes being disappointed, promptitude would be of the utmost importance. ' I reckon that when these three regiments arrive there will be 9,000 men of all arms in New Zealand besides Militia and Volunteers. I rely upon your not keeping this very large force one day after any portion of it can be dispensed with. There is no doubt that much complaint will be made in Parliament, especially if any military movements should assume, however necessarily, a dilatory character.' Before, however, the letter was sent, the plan was changed. The postscript says : ' Since writing this, letter. Lord de Grey and Sir 326 A SERIOUS WAR [ch. x Charles Wood (Secretaries for War and India) have called upon me to state that it is necessary to change the arrangements as to the Sikh regiments. It seems that, according to precedent, any regiments serving with Indian Native regiments are placed upon Indian allowance. This was the case in China, and could not be otherwise in New Zealand without causing much dissatisfaction. The additional expense of the force now in New Zealand would thus become nearly ;^65,ooo a year, and would have to be doubled if your proposal to give the Sikhs double pay were carried out. Moreover, some good Indian opinions are very doubtful of any superiority of Sikhs over Europeans for warfare in New Zealand, and one fact, of which you are probably unaware, tells much against them — they are all armed with smooth bores, and must carry with them separate ammunition. 'Orders will therefore be sent out to India to-night to substitute two European regiments for the two Sikhs; this will be considerably cheaper to the Colony, and military men seem to think will also be better in other respects.' Five months later the Duke writes again : ' December 25, 1863. ' The Colony seems to be now exerting itself nobly and in earnest. The account you sent me shows nearly 10,000 Colonial troops under arms, and as there are upwards of 10,000 British soldiers in the Islands besides the naval forces, I hope your sanguine ex pectations of closing the war before the end of the summer may be realized. ' I send you a dispatch informing you that the Treasury will introduce a measure in the approaching Session for guaranteeing a loan for New Zealand of ;£"5oo,ooo.' These sanguine expectations were not realized ; the natives remained unsubdued, and it was not tiU several years after this time that the rebellion subsided and came to an end. 1863] SIR DUNCAN CAMERON 327 Nor could the want of success be attributed — as was the case at the first outbreak — to want of ability in the commanding officer. Sir Duncan Cameron's reputa tion stood high, as the following letter from the Duke to Sir Cornewall Lewis, written at a time when the danger of war with the United States was imminent, sufficiently testifies : 'December 13, 1861. ' I think the answer to your question about Cameron must depend upon the measure of his military merits which is taken at the Horse Guards. If he is really facile princeps of the Generals of his standing, the lesser service should yield to the greater, and serious as would be to New Zealand his recall three months hence, if, as is too probable, the war with the Maori should then be raging, the general good might justify it. ' I would beg you, however, to consider that at least six months must elapse before he can reach Canada, and in the meantime and for so long you will have two Generals wasted on the sea, as you must send out another to succeed Cameron.' To pass from the new world to the old — from New Zealand to Malta — the Duke writes to Lord Russell : 'October 14, 1862. ' If I thought there was the remotest chance of the Pope accepting your offer of a Palace at Malta I should be inclined to raise two difficulties : first, that I am by no means sure that we have a Palace to give him, and, secondly, that his presence might make Malta a centre of religious and political intrigue. ' I do not, however, attach great importance to the second, for I do not think his being there would give any additional strength to plots for undermining our power, and, as for plots of a more general character, I do not know that they are more dangerous if carried on in Malta than in Rome. ' The Palace difficulty is more material and less 328 THE POPE AND MALTA [ch. x easily disposed of Still, as we managed to lodge the Queen Dowager, I suppose we could put up the Pope — either in Valetta or in the interior. 'So much for my department. Now as regards yours, Is there no danger of so curious an offer assuming all sorts of mysterious and suspicious forms in the eyes of the Cardinals and of the French ? ' If, however, you think there is no harm in this, I see no objection as regards Malta itself, convinced that the offer will not be accepted, and if it were that somehow we could provide clean sheets and a leg of mutton. ' I rather envy Odo Russell the pleasure of reading the dispatch to AntoneUi, though I think that even he will hardly keep his countenance. . . .' Up to this time the Governor of a Colony, on accepting office, had to face the fact not only that he might not at the end of his term obtain another appointment, but that no pension was attached to the service. One of the Duke's last acts before quitting office was to bring about a remedy for this hard ship. He writes to Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer : 'February 15, 1864. ' I am always sorry to make any demand upon the Exchequer for Colonial purposes, and though I have been able in the past year to make prospective reduc tions in military expenditure to twenty times the amount I am about to ask, I do not feel that that fact strengthens my case for any increase of civil contribu tion. ' I do, however, very strongly feel that the case which I bring before the Treasury in the letter of which the enclosed is a copy is one of justice and not less one of expediency, and that the good government of the Colonies is deeply involved in it. I feel entitled to speak with some authority on the subject, for I have now held the seals of the Colonial Office for a greater number of years than any Minister except Lord Bathurst, and if bad health compels an early resig- 1864] RETIRED GOVERNORS 329 nation, I should be additionally anxious to do an act of justice to so many who have served under me, and not leave them in the cruel position in which I found many, and must, if nothing be done, leave still more. ' The enclosed letter gives the leading arguments in favour of pensions to Governors, but a great deal more might be said. By the present system a man's very merits lead to his destitution. Men of conspicuous ability are urgently required in the more difficult posi tions. They perhaps rise rapidly, and when they nave attained the highest post they are necessarily placed upon the shelf — not only with no provision, but with the habits of expense acquired by a style of life required by their public position. ' I have no doubt you will say all this is true, but the Colonies should pay. I have been most anxious to find my way to this result, but the more I have looked at it the more impracticable I find it. I have consulted the best men in the Office — Taylor, Rogers, etc. — and they all believe that to impose this condition is in truth to abandon the scheme.' The following letter to Lord Palmerston serves to indicate the Duke's views on ecclesiastical matters at this time. He writes (August 22, 1861) strongly urging the claims to preferment of a clergyman, a former col league of his on the Education Commission, and goes on to say : ' And now, having pen in hand on the subject of the vacancy in the Episcopate, I cannot help imploring you to raise to the Bench a Prelate of a different stamp from those who have recently been appointed. You may remember that when I took office in your Government I ventured to remonstrate against some of the appointments made when you were last in office; but since then the selection of such men as Drs. Wigram and Waldegrave, and the promotion of my poor friend Dr. Villiers, have created a feeling in the Church by no means confined to one party, of 330 EPISCOPAL APPOINTMENTS [ch. x which I am convinced you are little aware. There is amongst the clergy a large party who look upon Toryism as a stone round the neck of the Church, and desire, if they meet with encouragement, to follow moderate Liberal statesmen ; but often and often I have heard them say that if the highest places in the Church are to be filled by very inferior men merely because they take in the Record newspaper and speak in Exeter I-Iall, they can only look to Lord Derby for fair play. ' This is only the lowest point of view of the subject, but the higher will readily occur. ' I must apologize for this liberty, and only hope you will not be offended at this remonstrance coming from no ultra-Churchman — my own private bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage would prove that I am not what is foolishly called a Puseyite — but I do look with real anxiety upon the present condition of the Bench of Bishops.' A few days later (September 3) he writes again : ' Many thanks for your note informing me of the elevation of Dr. Thompson to the Episcopal Bench. I do not know Dr. Thompson, and have no acquaint ance with his works, but, not doubting his fitness, I was glad to receive your intimation of the step you had taken as a proof that I had not offended you by my plain speaking in rebus Episcopalibus.' In December, i860, the Duke had been made a Knight of the Garter. In February, 1862, the office of Lord Warden of the Stannaries was conferred upon him. In answer to a letter from Kinglake, who was about to publish his great work on the war in the Crimea, the Duke writes : ' November 13, 1862. ' My dear Kinglake, ' You appear to me to have in no way mis interpreted my meaning as to your publication of any part of my correspondence with Lord Raglan. 1862] PUBLICATION OF CORRESPONDENCE 331 'So far from wishing to "interpose any obstacle" in the way of publication, I think you will recoUect that on the occasion of our very first conversation on the subject — a conversation commenced by yourself — I told you that I thought these letters ought not to have been placed in anybody's hands without my leave, and that I had been advised by several friends to obtain an injunction to prevent their publication ; but that, so far from intending to follow that advice, I should take no steps to prevent publicity in any thing I had done during the war, but reserve to myself the full right to meet any publication which appeared to me partial or incomplete by one only measure — fhe publication ofthe whole. ' I hope I never showed any undue sensitiveness or unmanly querulousness at the bitter attacks and charges of incapacity which were made upon me for the conduct of the war ; but I do not deny that I felt deeply much that was then said and done, and if I could have divested myself of all but selfish considera tions, I should have been glad if the whole of my correspondence of that time, official and private, could have at once seen the light, because I was fully pre pared to accept without hesitation, appeal, remon strance, or repining, the matured judgment of the public formed calmly and upon full information. ' I did not, however, for such a purpose think that I should be justified either in publishing myself or offering facilities to anybody else, and I therefore had carefully arranged any scrap of paper throwing light upon the momentous events of those months for the use of some future historian, when I should be as little mindful of his careful vindication as I perhaps ought to have been of the ceaseless attacks of the Journalists of the day. ' ' All this is only to show you that so far as I am concerned you are at full liberty to publish much or little — all, any, or none — of my private letters, trusting to your own feelings not to quote what may hurt the feelings of others, but not in the least objecting to what may tell against me, though, of course, still reserving the right to print more or all of my own letters, if I should think it necessary. ' I presume from your letter that your book is very 332 FAILING HEALTH [ch. x near its birth ; I shall hope to hear about Christmas that you are "as well as can be expected." ' Believe me, ' Yours very sincerely, ' Newcastle.' Early in the year 1864 his health, which had been failing for some time, became worse. He was unable to attend in his place in the House of Lords when Parliament met.* In the middle of March he became very ill, and on his partial recovery became aware that there was no prospect of his being able to resume the duties of his office. On April 2 he wrote to Lord Palmerston tendering his resignation, and on April 4 he wrote to Sir Charles Phipps : * His old friend (now Cardinal) Manning writes to him from Rome: ' 28, Via del Tritone, ' Rome, ' February 12, 1864. ' My dear Duke of Newcastle, ' I have had tidings of you through the Campdens and Lord Rokeby, and I cannot refrain from writing a few words, which need no answer. I am very sorry to hear that you are unwell. And to a man who loves work, and has lived for it as you have, to be ill is a trial in many ways more sensible than the illness itself. But you have one great consolation, which is that for the last thirty years your life has never been at rest. It is a great thing to wear out, and I never can think any man to have cause for regret, in this sense, who wears out early and in full work. Terar dum prosim. It seems to me but the other day when we were all starting from Oxford into active life, little knowing what a future was before us, and how our paths would part asunder. I have always looked upon yours as one of the most useful and consistent public lives of those who began so full of hope thirty years ago. ' I shall hope to hear through some of our friends that you are regaining health, and I hope you are retiring as much as you can from work and anxiety for a time. ' Believe me, with every kind wish, ' Always affectionately yours, ' H. E. Manning.' 1864] RESIGNS OFFICE 333 ' The messenger who conveys this takes a box for the Queen with three letters recommending various Colonial appointments which have accumulated during the iUness which has now necessitated my resigna tion. ' If without inconvenience to Her Majesty you can obtain a speedy answer you will much oblige me, as I shall have various further steps to take in the matter, and it is desirable that my successor should be in possession of the seals on Wednesday or Thursday. ' I have this morning received a letter from the Queen accepting my resignation, so gracious and kind to me, and so beautiful in itself that it would amply repay all the suffering which has rendered it necessary. It will take its place among my greatest treasures with two others written to me when I was hunted out of the Queen's service in January, 1855.' Thus ended his official life. He lived six months longer; and then, on October 18, at Clumber, the end came, somewhat suddenly. It was weU that it happened thus, and that his Ufe was not prolonged; for he was suffering from a terrible malady, a softening of the brain of an unusual char acter, which had evidently existed for some time, over which no human skill could have exerted any power for good, and which could only have led ultimately to a state of ' mental and physical paralysis.'* His bodily strength had never been wholly adequate to the heavy demands made upon it ; for he had not spared himself The pressure of work devolving at all times upon a painstaking Cabinet Minister, and es pecially the tremendous strain of unintermitted labour, constant anxiety, and bitter disappointments during his tenure of office at the time of the Crimean War had severely tried him — persevering and conscientious but * Letter dated October 20, 1864, from Dr. G. H. Kingsley, who was with the Duke when he died. 334 DEATH [ch. x highly strung and sensitive as he was. Nor could he find in a widowed and desolate home that rest, consola tion, and counsel which his frank and affectionate nature so sorely needed. Deficient — like his father — in the power to perceive and rightly estimate the characters and capacities of men or women with whom he came in contact, he had not been always fortunate in the choice he made of the guardians of his children. Trouble had followed him, wave upon wave, and year after year, from the time he reached manhood to the end. The strain of what he had to endure enhances the merit of his pubKc services. In view of the innocency of his life, his patience, his conscientiousness, his unfailing kindness and courtesy to the least and to the greatest, his unswerving and unselfish devotion to the service of his Queen and country, we are reminded — if we need to be reminded — that 'whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.' INDEX The page references in italics refer to foot-notes Aberdeen, Earl of : and Duke of Newcastle, 104, 106 ; Prime Minister, 117; Eastern'Question, 128, 136; Lord Palmerston's resignation, 129, 130 ; Sebasto pol Committee, 144, 187-194; Queen Victoria on increase of the army, 202 ; and Lord John Russell, 250, 251 ; defeat of the Government, 253 ; and Lord Palmerston, 254, 255 Adye, Colonel, Review of ihe Crimean War, 158, 193 Africa, South, Albany settlement in, 287 ; abandonment of Orange River Sovereignty, 289 Agamemnon, H.M.S., bombard ment of Sebastopol, 171 Agricultural Protection Society, 54. 59. 60 Airey, General Sir Richard, Quartermaster-General: on Lord Raglan, 223; Lord Pal merston's attacks on, 225-227 ; vindication of, 228, 229, 233; Lord Raglan's appreciation of, 235, 239 ; and Duke of New castle, 268 Albert, Prince. See Consort Alma, Battle of the, 157 America. See United States Anapa, 173, 277 Argyll, Duke of, on the Crimean army, 243 Armagh, Archbishop of, on the Irish Church, 79 Army, Commissariat, 133; Crimean War, 134; military appointments, 137 ; Varna, 138 ; invasion of the Crimea, 153 ; Battle of the Alma, 157 ; siege of Sebastopol, 172 ; question of winter quarters, 173 ; need of rest, 175 ; Balaklava and Inker- man, 176 ; transport difficulties, 179 ; privation and sickness, 181; comforts, 183-185; beards and stocks, 189-190; excellent quality but defective organiza tion, 195-198 ; inadequacy of, 199 ; hardships, 202 ; mortality, 203 Austria, Emperor of, 94 Aylesford, sixth Earl of, 63 Balaklava, 157, 161, 176 ; dis astrous hurricane at, 180 Baring, Sir Francis, 250 Barkly, Sir Henry, Governor of Victoria, 312 Barnard, General, at Sebastopol, 269, 275 Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Dis raeli Bedford, Duke of, coahtion Government, 117 Bentinck, General, 269 Bentinck, Lord George, attacks Sir R. Peel, 80, 88 ; Jew Bill, 88 Bermudas, the, 287 Bessborough, fifth Earl of, 50 Bigot, General, siege of Sebas topol, 157 Bomarsund, capture of, 163, 164 Bonham, Mr., 69, 97, 107 Bosquet, General, 228, 234 Boxer, Admiral, igs, 268 Bright, John, 82, 83 335 336 INDEX Britannia, H.M.S., cholera on board, 153 ; bombardment of Sebastopol, 170 Bromley, Sir R., 35 Brown, Sir George, Sebastopol, 140, 149, 161, 228 Brownlow, first Earl, 64 Bruat, Admiral, 154 Bruce, General, 291 Bruce, James (afterwards eighth Earl of Elgin), at Oxford, 19; at Cuddesdon, 20 ; and the Orangemen, 297 ; Maori rebel lion, 325 Buccleugh, Duke of, Corn Laws, 56 Buckingham, Duke of, 303 Buller, Mr. Yarde, Newark elec tion, 42 Bulwer L3^ton, Sir E., and Sir George Grey, 290 Buol, Count, 262 Burghersh, Lord, Crimean des patches, 160, 168 Burgoyne, Sir John : Crimean War, 134, I4g, 157, 158, 159 ; Sebastopol, 163 ; Inkerman, 178 ; Sebastopol Committee, 187, 201 Burke, Captain, 266 Calthorpe, General the Hon. S. G., Crimea, 757, 228 Cambridge, Duke of, Sebastopol Committee, 187 Camden, third Marquis of, 63 Cameron, Sir Duncan, Maori re bellion, 327 Campbell, Sir Colin, Balaklava, 177; Sebastopol, 273 Canada, no; and United States, 287 ; Prince of Wales's visit to, 291-300; American Civil War, 300 ; defence of, 302 ; Trent affair, 303-306 ; colonial con stitutions, 308-312 Canning, C. J. (afterwards Earl), 8, 17; at Oxford, 19; at Cud desdon, 20 ; and Gladstone, 39 ; Eastern Question, 128 Canning, Sir Stratford. See Strat ford de Redcliffe Canrobert, General, Crimean War, 154, 170, 180, 200, 217; and Lord Raglan, 221, 228, 234, 235 Caradoc, H.M.S., 154, 155 Cardigan, Earl of, Crimean War, 137 Cardwell, Mr. (afterwards Vis count), at Oxford, 19 ; and Sir R. Peel, 45, 89 ; and Lord John Russell, no, 112; death of the Peehte party, 258 ; Secretary for Ireland, 299 Carlisle, seventh Earl of, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 299 Cathcart, Sir George : Crimea, 228 J Governor of the Cape, 289 Chelsea Hospital, 51, 52 Chewton, Lord, wounded in the Crimea, 160 Cholera in the Crimea, 161, 175 Christie, Captain, ig3 Church of England : Gorham case, 90; resignation of Arch deacon Manning, 100-103; Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 109; ecclesiastical patronage, in Clarendon, fourth Earl of. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 108 ; Foreign Office, 117; Austria and Principalities, 138 Clifton, Sir Arthur, 64 Clifton, Sir Jukes, 62, 63 Clinton, family of, i, 2 Clumber, Duke of Newcastle's seat, 21, 33 Codrington, Sir Wilham, assault on the Redan, 272 Colonies, the British, 287-299, 307-329 Conservatives: Maynooth College, S3 ; protection of agriculture, 54, 83 ; Lord EUenborough, 85 ; General Election, 113 Consort, Prince : purchase of Osborne, 50 ; and Lord Pal merston, 130 ; and Duke of Newcastle, 151 ; the Victoria Cross, 248, 249 ; his death, 306, 307 Constantinople, 134 Corn Law crisis, 54 ; repeal, 80 Crimea, the : the Eastern Ques tion, 124-130 ; war declared. INDEX 337 131 ; invasion of, 153 ; Battle of the Alma, 157, 160, 161 ; how to attack Sebastopol, 158 ; difficulties of a siege, 162, 163 ; failure of bombardment, 169, 170 ; French batteries silenced, 172; question of winter quar ters, 173 ; Battles of Balaklava and Inkerman, 176, 177 ; trans port difficulties, 179 ; disastrous hurricane, 180 ; Scutari hos pitals, 182 ; Sebastopol Com mittee, 185-194; winter troubles, 19s ; Lord Raglan on inade quacy of the British force, 199- 205 ; Duke of Newcastle's visit to, 261-276 ; Lord Raglan's death, 263 ; assault on Sebas topol, 269 ; the Malakhoff taiien, 270 ; assault on the Redan, 271 ; Sebastopol eva cuated, 273 Dacres, Captain, R.N.: Balaklava, 177; Sebastopol Committee, 187 Dalhousie, tenth Earl and first Marquis : and Sir R. Peel, 45 ; Duke of Newcastle, 79; Lord John Russell, 81 Danubian Principalities, Russia enters, 129; war declared, 131; Russia's retreat, 138, 147 Delane, John T. (see also the Times), editor of the Times, 206 ; Duke of Newcastle's letter to and reply, 209-211; rations, 246-248 Denison, Evelyn, M.P. for South Notts, 43 Denison, Sir William, Governor of Van Dieman's Land, 120, 121 Denman, Thomas (afterwards Lord Chief Justice), 28 Derby (see also Lord Stanley), fourteenth Earl : Prime Minister, 113; Chancellor of Oxford, 114; Duke of Newcastle, 115, 116, 130, 150; failure to form a Government, 253 j forms a Government, 283 ; quits office, 285 Disraeh, Benjamin (afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield) : Duke of Newcastle's opinion of, 8 ; Sir R. Peel, 81 ; Jew Bill, 88 ; Peelites, 116 Doyle, Sir F. H. C, 19 Drummond, Captain, H.M.S. Retribution, 144 Dundas, Admiral, Commander of Mediterranean fleet, 146 ; Sebastopol, 140, IS4, 164, 165 ; Duke of Newcastle's opinion of, 165-170; bombardment of Sebastopol, 169, 170; goes home, 171 ; Sebastopol Com mittee, 187 Ecclesiastical patronage, in Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 109 Eden, Captain, R.N., bombard ment of Sebastopol, 170 Egypt and France, 95 Elgin, Earl of. See Bruce EUenborough, Earl of, 85, 93 England, Sir Richard, 228, 238 ' Englanders, Little,' 288 Essex, fifth Earl of, 63 Estcourt, General : Palmerston's attacks on, 225-227, 228, 232 ; vindication of, 235 ; death, 263 Eton CoUege : Duke of New castle's life at, 14; Newcastle scholarship founded, 17 Evans, Sir de Lacy: Crimea, 161 ; Sebastopol Committee, 187 Eversley, Lord, 303 Exeter, second Marquis, Jew BiU, 88 Falmouth, first Viscount, Duke of Wellington's duel with, 25 Filder, Commissary - general : transport difficulties at Bala klava, 178, 180, 183, 185, 231, 238 ; correspondence, 245-248 Firebrand, H.M.S., bombard ment of Sebastopol, 171 Free Trade, 54-61 ; and Peelites, 82, 83, 116 Garibaldi, 2g6 22 338 INDEX Gladstone, W. E. : and Duke of Newcastle, 18; Newark elec tion, 36-43; in Sir R. Peel's Government, 44; resignation, S3 ; Colonial Office, 58, 65 ; the Irish Church, 76-79; and Graham, 89 ; Gorham case, 90, 91 ; Duke of Newcastle's letters to, 92-97, 104-106; Lord John RusseU, 109,110; Disraeli, 116; Eastern Question, 128, 245 ; the Palmerston Cabinet, 254; death of the Peelite party, 258; pensions for retired Governors, 328. 329 Globe newspaper, 206 Godfrey, Mr., 41 Goldie, Brigadier-General, 137 Gordon, Honourable Arthur, Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, 305, 311 Gorham case, go Gore-Browne, Colonel, Governor of New Zealand, 313; Maori rebeUion, 314-320; appoint ment of Sir George Grey, 319- 321 Graham, Sir James, 89; Sir R. Peel's death, 98, 105 ; Lord John Russell, no; Sebastopol, 165 ; Admiral Dundas, 167, 168, 232; Sebastopol Com mittee, 187 Granville, Lord, Duke of New castle, 256 Greece, Don Pacifico incident, 95. "8 Greville memoirs, 22, 151, 227, 258 Grey, Sir George, Governor of Orange River State : Coercion Bill, 87; Crimean army, 243; Orange River Sovereignty, 290 ; Governor of Cape Colony, 309 ; Governor of New Zea land, 319, 321 ; his treatment of the Maoris, 323 ; rebeUion, 324 Grey, tliird Earl: Jew Bill, 89; colonial policy, 109; corre spondent's rations, 247 ; Austra lia, 288 Grey, Lord de. Secretary for War, Maori rebellion, 325 Hamelin, Admiral, Sebastopol, 149. 154 Hamilton, Duke of, 65, 79 Hamilton, Lady Susan : marriage to fifth Duke of Newcastle, 21 ; her illness, 46; tour on the Continent, 48 Hamley, Sir Edward, War in the Crimea, 158, 159 Handley, Mr., 41; M.P. for Newark, 43 Hardinge, first Viscount, Com mander-in-Chief, 136, 177 ; Sebastopol Committee, 187 Hardwicke, Lord, 230 Harris, Lord, 303 Hay, Lord Arthur, 238 Hay, Lord John, 63 Hayward, Abraham, 278, 27g Head, Sir Edmund, Governor- General of Canada, 291, 301,303 Herbert, Sidney, at Oxford, 19; in Sir R. Peel's Government, 44, S3; Duke of Newcastle, 69, 87-89; Lord John Russell, 81 ; purchase of the Morning Chronicle, 82; Sir R. Peel's death, 97 ; Lord John RusseU, 109, no; Sebastopol, 150; Sebastopol Committee, 187 ; tribute to War Office clerks, 188; on the army medical department, 197, 243, 246, 247 ; Secretary for War, 308 Herries, WiUiam, Jew BiU, 88 Heytesbury, Baron, Irish famine, 75 Hildyard, Mr., 63 ; success at the poll, 65 Holland, Henry, Baron : Lord Winchelsea, 23, 24 Hong-Kong, 287 Hotham, Sir Charles, Governor of Melbourne, 119 Howe, 64 Hungary and Austria, 125, 127 India, troops for New Zealand, 325, 326 Inkerman, Battle of, 176, 177 Ireland : potato famine, 55 ; reUef measures, 71-76 ; Coercion BiU, 80, 87-89 ; emigration from, 288 INDEX 339 Jamaica, 287 Jew BUI, 88 Kaffa, 155 Kamiesch (Crimea), 157 Keate, Dr., Headmaster of Eton, and Duke of Newcastle, 16, 17 Keble, Rev. John, 19 Keppel, Admiral, 252 Kertsch, 173 ; Duke of Newcastle at, 277 King, WiUiam, the Maori King ; rebellion, 315-320 Kinglake, Alexander Wilham : Invasion of the Crimea, 143, 146, I4g, 153; siege of Sebas topol, 158, 159 ; Duke of New castle's letter to Lord Raglan, 167 ; losses at Inkerman, 177, 206, 218 ; the Times, 229 ; General Airey, 233; General Simpson and the Crimean staff, 243; rations, 246; Duke of Newcastle on publication of his papers by, 279, 330-332 Kingsley, Dr. G. H., on death of Duke of Newcastle, 333 Larcom, Captain, 76 Layard, Sir Henry, 206 ; and the Crimean Commissariat, 245, 246, 247, 248 Lewis, Sir CornewaU, 327 Liddell, Henry George (after wards Dean of Christchurch) : at Oxford with Duke of New castle, 19 ; at Cuddesdon, 20 Lincoln, Earl of. See Newcastle, fifth Duke Lincoln, President, 303 Liverpool, Earl of, 9 Louis Napoleon, 149 Lucan, Lord, Crimean War, 137 Lyons, Admiral Sir Edmund : Invasion of the Crimea, 154, 155 ; Sebastopol, 165-169 ; suc ceeds Admiral Dundas in com mand of the fleet, 171, 217, 252 Macdonald, J. C, Sebastopol Committee on transport service, 205 Malta, 287 ; and the Pope, 327, 328 Manchester election, 83, 84 Manning, Archdeacon (after wards Cardinal), 19 ; received into the Roman Church, 100- 102 ; letter to Duke of New-^ castle on his illness, 332 Manvers, Earl, 64 Marble Arch, removal of, 50 Martin, Sir William, 321 Mason, Mr., Confederate Com missioner, 303 Mauritius, 287 Maxwell, Sir Benson, 186 Maynooth Grant, 76 Medical department in the army, defects in, 196, 197 Menschikoff, Prince, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, 128; Crimean War, 175 Menzies, Dr., Deputy Inspector- General of Hospitals, 187 Metcalfe, Lord, and Orangeism, 297 Meyer, Dr., 266 Militia BiU, 113, 310 Molesworth, Sir W.: Coalition Government, 117; on Crimean army, 242 Monck, Lord, Governor-General of Canada: Trent incident, 303, 305 ; and Canadian Govern ment, 310 Morning Chronicle newspaper, 256 Mozley, Rev. Thomas, 19 Mulgrave, Lord, Governor of Nova Scotia, 305 Munday, Georgina EUzabeth, marriage to fourth Duke of Newcastle, and death, 3 Mundy, Colonel, Assistant MiU tary Under-Secretary, 188 Musters, Mr., Nottingham riots, 30 Naib, the Circassian priest, pro phet, and prince, 277 Napier, Sir William : Peninsular War, 13s; Crimea, 252 Naples, kingdom of, 2g6 Napoleon, Louis, 149 Navy : invasion of the Crimea, 153, etc.; capture of Boraar- 22 — 2 340 INDEX sund, 163 ; ships and stone walls, 164 ; bombardment of sea defences, 169, 170 ; dis astrous hurricane at Balaklava, 180 Needham, Mr., Nottingham riots, 32 Newark election, 27, 36-40 Newcastle, Thomas, first Duke of, Prime Minister, 2 Newcastle, Henry, second Duke of, and ninth Earl of Lincoln, 2 Newcastle, third Duke of, mar riage and death, 2 Newcastle, Henry Pelham, fourth Duke of, and eleventh Earl of Lincoln : education of, 2 ; four years prisoner in France, 2 ; marriage and wife's death, 3 ; his journal, 4; lonely life, 4, 5 ; conscientiousness, 6 ; limited capacity, 7; ideal, 8; and Sir R. Peel, •'8; failures and mis takes, 9 ; and George IV., 9 ; ten children, 10-13 J Newcastle scholarship, 17 ; son's marriage and election, 21 ; Lord Win chelsea episode, 23, 24; and Duke of Wellington, 25 ; his boroughs, 26; Newark elec tion, 27, 28 ; Nottingham riots, 28-34; Nottingham Castle burnt, 31, 32; fortifies Clum ber, 33 ; compensation, 35 ; Gladstone and Newark elec tion, 36-44 ; Maynooth College, 53, 54; and Gladstone, 58; es trangement from his son, 62 ; 65-68 ; troubles and embarrass ments, 68, 69 ; death, 70 Newcastle, Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, twelfth Earl of Lincoln and fifth Duke of, 1811-1864: birth and parentage, i, 2; death of his mother, 3; childhood, 11- 14; life at Eton, 14-18; goes to Christ Church, Oxford, 18, 19; Union Debating Society, 19 ; Long Vacation at Cud desdon, 20 ; marriage, 21 ; M.P. for South Notts, 21 ; Reform Bill riots, 29-34 > Not tingham Castle burnt, 32 ; Re form Bill passed, 34 ; candidate for South Notts, 35 ; invites Gladstone to stand for Newark, 36-42; M.P. for South Notts, and Gladstone for Newark, 43 ; on the Treasury Board, 44, 45 ; tours on the Continent, 47, 48 ; Commissioner of Woods and Forests, his work, 49, 50 ; Duke of WeUington on Chelsea Hospital, 51 ; intimacy with Sir R. Peel, 52 ; in the Cabinet, 53 ; estrangement from his father, 53, 62, 65-70 ; Corn Law crisis, 55 ; Chief Secretary for Ireland, > 58; election address, 59-61 ; canvassing, 62-64 ; father's death and successor to the dukedom, 70 ; Irish potato famine, 71-76 ; corre spondence with Gladstone, 76, 78 ; M.P. for Falkirk, 79 ; Sir R. Peel's Government's defeat, 80 ; declines office under Lord John Russell, 81 ; purchases the Morning Chronicle, 82 ; re fuses to stand for Manchester, 83, 84 ; no truce with Protec tion, 85 ; letter on leadership of liouse of Commons, 85-87 ; Whig Coercion Bill, 87; the Jew Bill, 88 ; Peelite party de cadence, 89, 90; the Gorham case, 90-92 ; iUness and tour in the East, 92-95 ; Don Pacifico incident, 95; visits Palestine, 96 ; Damascus, 97 ; Sir R. Peel's death, 97-100; returns to Eng land, 100 ; divorces his wife, 100 ; Peelites without a leader, 104-106; overtures from Lord John RusseU, 108-113; Lord Derby and the Oxford Chancellorship, 114-116 ; Government resigns, 116 ; takes the Colonial Office in the Coalition Government, 117- 118; transportation to Tasmania stopped, 119-123; want of labourers in Van Dieman's Land, 120; the Eastern Ques tion, 129; as possible Premier, INDEX 341 130, 131 ; Minister for War, 132 ; the commissariat, 133 ; military appointments, 136, 137; Sebastopol, 140; absence of information, 141, 143, 145; Isthmus of Perekop, 141, 142; famous dispatch to Lord Rag lan and reply, 145-150 ; Pal merston on the dispatch, 147, 148; stress of anxiety, 151; overwork, 152 ; Lord Raglan on Crimean difficulties, and the Duke of Newcastle's reply, 155, 156 ; false report of Sebas- topol's fall, 159, 160; Battle of the Alma, 160-162 ; difficulties of the siege of Sebastopol, 162, 163 ; capture of Bomarsund, 163, 164; his opinion of Admiral Dundas, 165-169 ; question of winter quarters, 173 ; sanguine views, 174-176; Balaklava and Inkerman, 176-177 ; privation and sickness, 181 ; Scutari hospitals, 182 ; Balaklava rail way, 184 ; comforts for the soldiers, 184, 185 ; Sebastopol Committee, 185-194 ; beards and stocks in the army, 189, igo ; loss of army clothing, 191 ; inadequacy of British force, 199, 200 ; special cor respondents and Press abuse, 206-222 ; correspondence with Delane, 209-211 ; Ministers' at titude, 222 ; Lord Palmerston on Lord Raglan, and the Duke's reply, 224-227; complaining letters to Lord Raglan, and replies, 229-244 ; and Commis sary-General Filder, 245-248; Victoria Cross instituted, 248, 249 ; and Lord John Russell, 250 ; the Cabinet's opinion of, 251-253 ; Government defeat, 254 ; and Gladstone, 254, 255 ; and Lord Granville, 256-258 ; death of the Peelite party, 258 ; his administration, 258, 259 ; starts for the Crimea, 261 ; and Count Buol, 262 ; on Lord Rag lan's death, 265 ; visits Scutari hospitals, 266-268 ; visits the Crimea, 268 ; meeting with General Airey, 268 ; visits the battlefields, 269 ; assault of Sebastopol, 269-276 ; sails for Circassia, 276 ; visits Omar Pasha, 277, 278 ; as to publi cation of his papers by King- lake, 279, 330, 332 ; 'a scape goat,' 280 ; Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, 281, 282 ; de clines office under Lord Derby, 283-285 ; Colonial Secretary under Lord Palmerston, 285, 286 ; his fitness for the post, 287-289; abandonment of Orange River Sovereignty, 289 - 290 ; accompanies the Prince of Wales to Canada and United States, 291-300 ; the Orangemen in Canada, 293-298 ; defence of Canada, 302, 305 ; the Trent incident, 303-306 ; Prince Consort's death, 306, 307 ; Colonial Governors, 308 ; Colonial con stitutions, 309 ; administrative abuses, 310, 311 ; rebellion in New Zealand, 313-327 ; gives a free hand to Colonel Gore- Browne, 316, 317 ; letter re calling Colonel Gore-Browne, 320, 321 ; appoints Sir George Grey Governor of New Zea land, 321-323 ; Sikhs for New Zealand, 325, 326 ; on Sir Duncan Cameron, 327 ; Pope's Palace at Malta, 327, 328 ; on pensions for retired Governors, 328, 329; on episcopal appoint ments, 329, 330 ; Knight of the Garter, 330 ; failing health, 333 ; resigns office, 333 ; and Queen Victoria, 333 ; death, 333, 334 Newcastle scholarship, founda- of, 17 Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 19 New South Wales, transportation to, and discovery of gold in, 119-121 New Zealand, no; Maori rebel lion, 313, 327 ; Sir George Grey 342 INDEX succeeds Colonel Gore-Browne as Governor, 3ig; serious war, 326 Nicholas, Emperor of Russia : Eastern Question, 124, 125 ; and England, 126 Nightingale, Miss Florence, 188 Nottingham : Reform Bill riots, 30-34 ; burning of Nottingham Castle, 32 ; compensation to the Duke of Newcastle, 35 O'Brien, Sir Lucius, potato famine in Ireland, 71 O'Brien, Stafford, Irish famine, 75 Observer newspaper, 206 Omar Pasha, 278 Orange River State, abandon ment of sovereignty over, 28g Orangemen and Prince of Wales's visit in Canada, 2g3-299 Oxford : Duke of Newcastle and Gladstone at, 19 ; Union De bating Society, 19 ; advantages for peers' eldest sons, 20 Pacifico, Don, incident, 95 Paget, Sir Edward, Governor of Chelsea Hospital, 50 Palestine, Duke of Newcastle's visit to, 96 Palmer, Sir Roundell (Earl of Selborne), 19 Palmerston, Viscount, 14 ; Don Pacifico incident, 95, and Napoleon's coup d'dtat in Paris, 107 ; his resignation, 107, io8 ; Mihtia Bill, 113; Home Office in the coahtion Government, 117; Eastern Question, 127, 128 ; resignation, 129, 130 ; withdraws his resig nation, 131 ; views on Lord Raglan's conduct in the Crimea, 224-226, 251, 252 ; forms a Government, 253 ; Peelites quit office, 256 ; and Duke of New castle, 282 ; change of Govern ment, 283 ; resumes office, 285; and Orange River Sovereignty, 290 ; Orangemen in Canada, 294-299 ; episcopal appoint ments, 329 ; Duke of New castle resigns, 332 Panmure, Lord, Secretary for War, ig3 ; and the Press, 206 ; and Lord Raglan, 243, 244; and Lord John RusseU, 251 ; comparison with Duke of New castle, 258 Paulet, Lord William, Governor of Scutari Hospital, 266, 267 Peel, Frederick, 106 Peel, General, Sebastopol Com mittee, jg2, ig3 Peel, John, 63, 82, 83 Peel, Sir Robert ; and Duke of Newcastle, 8, 9 ; Catholic Disabilities Bill, 23 ; forms a Government, 44 ; resigna tion, 45 ; again in office, 49 ; Maynooth CoUege, 53 ; Corn Law crisis, 54-56 ; Irish potato famine, 55, 71-76 ; resignation, 56 ; return to office, 57 ; on Duke of Newcastle's election, 63 ; and the fourth Duke of Newcastle, 68 ; defeat of the Government, 80 ; Lord George Bentinck's attack on, 80 ; and Disraeli, 81 ; resignation, and Lord John Russell Premier, 81, 82 ; and Duke of Newcastle, 83 ; decadence of the Peelite party, 89 ; death, 97-100 Peelites, position of the, 81, 82 ; and the Whig Government, 87 ; Jew BiU, 88 ; Church prin ciples, go ; without a leader, 104-106 ; overtures from Lord John Russell, 108-112; and Lord Derby, 113 ; the Coalition Government, 1 17 ; and the Press, 205 ; quit office, 256 Pelham, family of, 1,2 Pelham-Clinton, Henry Pelham Fiennes. See Newcastle, fifth Duke of Pelissier, Marshal: French loss at the Crimea, 203, 217 ; on Lord Raglan, 221, 263 Penal servitude, 123 Perekop, Isthmus of, 141, 142 INDEX 343 Perry, Dr., Bishop of Melbourne, on transportation to Tasmania, 121 Persia, 174 Phipps, [Sir Charles : Duke of Newcastle's resignation, 332, 333 Press, the, in war-time, 205-208 ; indiscretions of, 2og-222 Prince, S.S., loss of, igi Protection, 54-61 Protectionists, 75 ; Irish Coercion BiU, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87 ; Jew BiU, 88 Prussia, Eastern Question, 125, 173 Pusey, E. B., Regius Professor, 19 Raglan, Lord, in command of the army in the Crimea: his career, 134, 135 ; Crimean War, 136; Sebastopol, 140, 143 ; Duke of Newcastle's dispatch, i4S-i4g; his reply, 149; expedition embarks, 154; hesitating counsels, 134, 133; letter to Duke of Newcastle and reply, 155, 156; Battle of the Alma, 157, 161 ; siege of Sebastopol, 158; difficulties of the siege, 162 ; Duke of New castle's letters on Admiral Dundas, 166, 167; army needs rest, 17s; Balaklava and Inker- man, 176, 177; army privation and sickness, 181 ; comforts for the soldiers, 185 ; Sebasto pol Committee, 186-194; inade quacy of British force, 199; consequent dangers, 200; im possibility to make roads, 201 ; and the Press, 207-209; press abuse, 214-222; Sir R. Airey's description, 223 j Lord Palmer ston on, 224-226; dissatisfac tion of the Duke of Newcastle with, 229-242, 243; censure of, 244 ; death of, 262, 263 ; tributes to, 264, 265 ; Duke of New castle on publication of Cri mean correspondence with, 330-332 Randolph, George, bombard ment of Sebastopol, 171 Redan, assault on the, 271 Reform Bill, 26, 28 ; riots, 29 ; passed, 34 Reshid Pasha, 93 Riots, Reform Bill, 29 Rodney, H.M.S., bombardment of Sebastopol, 171 Roebuck, Mr., Crimean War Committee, 186-194; his motion, 250, 253 Roman Catholics' Emancipation, 7-9 ; Maynooth College, 53 Rose, General, 134 Rothschild, Lionel N. de, Jewish Disabilities Bill, 88 Rous, Admiral Henry John, 63 Russell, Lord John: Corn Laws, 56; failure to form a Govern ment, 56; Premier, 81; and Peelites, 87, 105 ; Jew BiU, 88 ; Sir R. Peel's death, gg; his weak Government, 107; over tures to the Peelites, 108-110; defeat on Militia Bill, 113; coalition Government, 117; Eastern Question, i2g; Lord Palmerston's resignation, 129, 130; leaves the Government, 241, 249-252 ; and Duke of Newcastle, 251 ; failure to form a Government, 253 RusseU, Sir William H., Crimean War correspondent, 210 Russia, Emperor of. See Nicholas Russia, and France, 95 ; Eastern Question, 124; enters the Danubian principalities, 129 ; destroys Turkish fleet at Sinope, 129; war declared, 131 ; Turkey's successful resist ance, 137, 138, 144; Austria's ultimatum, 138 ; Sebastopol, 140-142 ; force in the Crimea, 144; Battle of the Alma, 157; Balaklava and Inkerman, 176, 177 ; Battle of the Tchernaya, 269; Malakoff taken, 270; Redan, 271, 272; Sebastopol evacuated, 273, 274; destruc- 344 INDEX tion of the Russian fleet, 275 ; villas, 276, 277 Rutland, Duke of, 64 Sadler, M. T., Newark election, 27 St. Arnaud, Marshal: commands French army in the Crimea, 138, 145, i4g; invasion of the Crimea, 153 ; hesitating counsels, 154; siege of Sebas topol, 158; and Lord Raglan, 221 St. Helena, 287 St. Sophia, 94 Sardinians, Battle of the Tcher naya, 269 Saunders, Rev., afterwards head master of Charterhouse and Dean of Peterborough, 20, 43 Scutari Hospital, 182, ig7; Times libels on, 259, 266 Sebastopol, 139, 140; Russian force in, 141 ; siege of, 157- 273 ; false rumours of its fall, 157; difficulties of the siege, 162, 163 ; bombardment of, 169, 170; nature of the siege, 204 ; assault of, 269-270 ; evacua tion of, 273 Selborne, Earl of. See Palmer Selwyn, Bishop, Maori rebellion, 318 SeragUo, 94 Seward, Mr., 301, 303 Seymour, Sir Hamilton, British Ambassador, on Eastern Ques tion, 125 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 1 14 Shaw, Sir F., on Irish potato famine, 72 Simpson, General : successor to Lord Raglan, 268; assault on Sebastopol, 276 Sinope, Turkish defeat at, 129 Slidell, Mr., Confederate Com missioner, 303 Smith, Dr. Andrew, Director- General of Medical Depart ment, 187 Somerset, Lord Fitzroy. See Raglan, Lord Stanley, Lord (see also Derby, fourteenth Earl of), Colonial Office : Corn Laws, 56, 57 ; resignation, 58 Steele, Colonel, 228 Storks, Colonel, 266 Stratford de Redcliffe, Viscount : British Ambassador at Con stantinople, g2-94 ; Eastern Question, 127; and Emperor of Russia, 127; and Menschikoff, 128, 173 Talbot, Mr., at Cuddesdon, 20 Tasmania (Van Dieman's Land) : transportation to, 119-123; cessation of transportation to, 288 Tchernaya, Battle of the, 269 Thesiger, Sir F., Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 109 Thompson, Dr., 330 Thompson, Mr, (afterwards Sir Ralph), and Duke of New castle, 47 ; War Office, 132 Times, the : Sebastopol, 142, 143, 150 ; Duke of Newcastle, 206 ; and Lord Panmure, 206 ; and Lord Raglan, 207, 208; its indiscretions, 210, 212-214 ; abuse of Lord Raglan, 214, 215; slanders, 216-222, 22g, 240 ; correspondents' rations, 246, 247 ; Crimean War libels, 259 ; and Duke of Newcastle, 279, 280 ; Prince of Wales's recep tion in New York, 300 Todleben, General, 158, 159, 264 TomUnson, Rev., Bishop of Gib raltar : Sir R. Peel's death bed, 97, 98 Torrens, Brigadier-General, 137 Trent, incident in American Civil War, 303, 306 Trevelyan, Sir Charles : commis sariat, 133 ; transport difficul ties at Balaklava, i7g; com forts for soldiers, 183 ; Sebas topol Committee, 187 ; and General Filder, 246, 247 Trochu, Colonel, 154 Turkey : the Sultan of, 94 Turkey, Don Pacifico incident, 95 ; Eastern Question, 124 ; suc cessful defence, 137, 138, 144 INDEX 345 Union Debating Society, Oxford, 19 United States of America and Canada, 287 ; Prince of Wales's visit to, 299, 300 ; American Civil War, 300 ; Trent affair, 303-306 Van Dieman's Land. See Tas mania Varna, 154, 190 Venetia, 2g6 Victoria, Queen : purchase of Osborne, 50 ; Sir R. Peel's death, 98 ; and Lord Palmer ston, 130 ; necessity for in creasing the army, 202 ; Prince Consort's death, 307 ; on resig nation of Duke of Newcastle, 333 Victoria, Letters of Queen, 53, 37 Victoria Cross, the institution of, 248, 249 Victoria, gold in, 119; Govern ment of, 312 ViUiers, Dr., 329 Waldegrave, Dr., 329 Wales, Prince of (now King Edward VII.) : visits Canada, 2go-2g8 ; United States, 2gg Ward, Sir Henry, Governor of Ionian Islands, on the bom bardment of Sebastopol, 170 Warrender, Sir George, 63 Wellington, Duke of, 8, 9 ; Catholic Disabilities Bill, 23 ; duel with Lord Winchelsea, 23-25; and Duke of NewcasUe, 25, 68 ; and Chelsea Hospital, 51 ; Corn Laws, 56, 64 ; death, 114 Westmeath, Marquis of, 25 Whigs: Reform BiU, 28 ; Newark election, 43, 44 ; return to office, 45 ; Corn Law crisis, 54, 62 ; Irisii Coercion Bill, 80, 87 ; 81, 83 ; and Peelites, 90, 108- 112 ; defeat on Militia BiU, 113; coalition Government, 117; Lord Palmerston's Govern ment, 255, 256 Wigram, Dr., 329 Wilde, Serjeant, Newark elec tion, 41 Wilkes, Captain, Trent incident, 303, 304 Winchelsea, tenth Earl of : duel with Duke of Wellington, 23-25; and the Press, 212, 213 Windham, Colonel, assault on the Redan, 272 Wodehouse, Lord, 303 Wood, Sir Charles, Secretary for India : on the Crimean army, 243; on Duke of Newcastle, 250-252, 257 ; on the Maori rebellion, 326 Woronzow, Prince, 276 Yorke, General, Military Secre tary, 188 Young, Sir John : High Com missioner at Corfu, 266; at Sydney, 305 the end BILLING AND SPNS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 8876