hill, and was soon placed in position, and brought to play upon the confronting bastion, and, with a carcass, set fire to the buildings inside the fort. This the general thought an auspicious signal and time for an assault; and, having got the scaling-ladders up, the storming party made a rush, and carried the place at once, the Bhootans bolting out on the opposite side. Dalimkote is a fearfully strong place, and was not taken without several casualties—the general having had several men shot close to his side, and not a few narrow escapes. Our work is not completed yet, as we have one more fort to take-that of Dhurm Sing―said to be nearly as strong as this, but not in such a commanding and difficult position. Our loss has been heavy; but, considering the important result, and the rapid way in which it was obtained, I do not think it disproportionate if we deduct those killed by the unfortunate explosion. Collins, of the engineers, is wounded severely-both his legs having been broken by the explosion; McGregor, the general's brigademajor, slightly wounded on the scalp by a gun-shot; and Loughman, of the 18th native infantry, wounded by an arrow through his right arm. We have, besides, eight men killed, and forty-six wounded. We were at it from ten in the morning until six in the evening; and you may imagine that we were not sorry when the affair was over, and the fort in our possession. We are not enamoured of hill and jungle warfare, where the highest military skill, and the best soldiers, may be employed with comparatively inadequate results." In taking leave of India, we must not omit the violent cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, in November, 1864, which extended along the coast from Calcutta nearly to Madras. The waters of the Ganges were driven back by the wind, and submerged a large portion of the Sonderbunds. The island of Saugur was inundated, and 7,000, out of a population of 8,500 persons, were drowned. greatest suffering was experienced at Masulipatam, where the sea broke over the land along a space of more than eighty miles; and, in some places, to a distance of seventeen miles inland-destroying villages, crops, and cattle; filling up the wells; and, as the waters broke in during the night, allowing little chance of escape to the wretched inhabitants. The total loss of life, during this terrible night, was estimated at not less than from 60,000 to 70,000 souls. On the flood retiring, the number of bodies of men and animals left behind was so great, that but for the strenuous exertion of the English in burying and burning them, and providing food and shelter for the surviving population, an infectious fever would have followed close upon the previous calamity. Here we close our summary of Indian history. We see it fruitful, prosperous, and at peace: no longer the heritage of a trading Company, but under the sway of Queen Victoria. Under the old Company's rule wonders had been wrought: warlike races had been subdued; native princes dethroned; and a great empire founded. But it had long been felt that India, in order to become an attached dependency of Great Britain, must, as Lord William Bentinck wrote, be governed for her own sake, and not for the sake of the 800 or 1,000 individuals who are sent from England to make their fortunes. They had been found totally incompetent to the charge; and, in their hands, administration in all its civil branches-revenue, judicial, and police-had been a failure. The Indian government, as compared with that of England, says Mr. Ludlow, has been, emphatically and admittedly, a middleclass government: often a stepping-stone to aristocratic rule at home. More peers' robes have been won in India than carried thither; and, accordingly, its faults have been, in great measure, middle-class faults-the grasping after wealth; the hastening to be rich; the narrowness of view; and not a little of the arrogance of the purse the vulgar assumption of superiority. A change was called for, and the mutiny accelerated it. And thus India passed under the sway of one who holds "A nobler office upon earth Than arns, or power of brain, or birth, Let us hope a bright future under the new rule. We have, in India, an immense garden of incalculable fertility, from which to draw all the raw produce that our manufactories can need: myriads of willing and industrious hands to bring it forth; and myriads of ready-found customers for all the handiwork of our operatives at home. The cause of the welfare of the people of India, is the cause of the welfare of the people of England. We suffer here for misgovernment there. English apathy and indifference in India produce want and discontent. The better we do our duty to India, the dearer and more valuable will India be to us. CHAPTER XI. HOW THE PALMERSTON MINISTRY FELL. WHEN parliament met, in 1858, it seemed as if Lord Palmerston would carry everything before him. It was not so: and why it was not so we will now proceed to tell. In a letter written, in 1835, to his friend Senior, the late Archbishop of Dublin wrote "By what I can learn, the measures not men' party, or fair trialites,' seem to gain ground; the principle of it being, I conceive, that the king may, now-a-days, please himself as to ministers, since it is no longer they, but the reformed parliament that governs the country. A minister will no longer go out as soon as he fails to carry any measure; but will act the part of a cook at an hotel, who proposes a dinner, but offers to send up any dishes the company like better. If this state of things be established, it will be the greatest practical result of a reformed parliament. One consequence will be, that men of the highest character will no longer take office. A minister used to be a stage-coachman, who drove, at a certain fixed hour, and a settled road, those who chose to go by his coach: now he will be a gentleman's coachman, who drives where and when his master bids him. They will only accept office for private pay and patronage. The evil resulting will be-no one responsible, unless a law is passed to make every M.P. responsible individually for every motion he makes. Another will be a sort of unsteady yawning course of the state ship. Mr. Ward will carry a measure to-night, and Sir Robert Peel another a week after; and Lord Stanley a different one afterwards: so that our legislature will be a more motley 'picnic' than ever." About this time the state ship pursued what Whately calls an unsteady yawning course. On the evening of the 14th of January, as the Emperor Napoleon and the empress had just arrived at the door of the opera in Paris, three explosions of shells were heard. Neither the emperor nor the empress were touched, though the hat of the former was broken to pieces, and the carriage in which they sat was much shattered. A great number of the crowd were wounded-some of them mortally so. Two persons were killed on the spot; six others died in consequence of their wounds; and 156 persons were, more or less, injured. Their majesties, on entering the opera, were received with the warmest enthusiasm; and, on leaving it at midnight, they found the boulevards illuminated in honour of their escape. Several arrests were made during the night; and amongst the persons taken were Felice Orsini, and another Italian named Pierri. On the person of the latter was found a six-shot revolver, a grenade, similar to those which were hurled at the carriage, and a poniard. The attempt was followed by an expression, on the part of a portion of the French people and press, of much ill-will towards this country, where it was said that the conspiracy against the life of the emperor had been projected. The president of the senate, in the course of his address of congratulation to the VOL. II. ૨ 217 emperor on his escape, observed "The revolutionary spirit having been driver from France, has settled down abroad, and become cosmopolite. It is from foreign strongholds, erected against France, situated in the centre of Europe, that fanatical, hired assassins are sent, with fire and steel, against the prince who bears on his powerful arm the buckler of European order-execrable conspirators, whose policy is assassination; and who even assault gentle women, unaware that some of them have the hearts of heroes! But how comes it that, as these implacable revolutionists trample all the duties of hospitality under foot, and are united in their mad plans of destruction, foreign governments and peoples do not take measures to give a legitimate support to the cause of order? The law of nations authorises it; justice and common sense make it a duty." Count de Morny said, that "the members of the legislative body, when they saw such abominable attempts prepared abroad, asked themselves how neighbouring and friendly governments were powerless to destroy those laboratories of assassination? and how the laws of hospitality could be applied to wild beasts?" M. Baroche hoped that "the community of danger would lead to a natural and extensive solidarity between all nations; and that those cowardly assassins who abused the hospitality they found in friendly nations, and the protection afforded by their laws, in order to organise conspiracies and construct infernal machines, would be at length, by mutual consent, driven out of civilised Europe, to which they were at the same time a danger and a disgrace." Further addresses, reflecting on the protection given by England to exiles, and on the freedom of the French and Belgian press, appeared in the official Moniteur. But the addresses presented to the emperor by the army, were remarkable for the unmitigated hostility to England, expressed in them all. Selections from them were published in the Moniteur, with an intimation that it might be useful for the country to be aware of the spirit that animated the army. We select a few passages. "In expressing our wishes that your majesty's life, so intimately connected with the repose and prosperity of France, may be for ever preserved from all parricidal attempts, it does not suffice the army to form a rampart round its sovereign; it is ready to shed its blood in all places, to reach and annihilate the partisans of regicide."-"The army is afflicted that powerful friends, whose brave armies so lately combated by our side, cover with their protection, under the name of hospitality, conspirators and assassins, who exceed those that have gone before them in all that is odious."-" This odious and cowardly attempt has filled our hearts with indignation and wrath against those who become the accomplices of these sanguinary conspirators, by giving them an asylum."-"Those wild beasts who, at periodical epochs, quit a foreign soil to inundate the streetsof your capital with blood, inspire us with no other feelings than those of disgust; and if your majesty wants soldiers to get at these men, even in the recesses of their den, we humbly beseech you to choose the 82nd regiment [the one from which this address emanated] as part of the advanced guard of that army." The national guard of the Seine protested "against the asylum accorded to vile scoundrels, whom all civilised nations ought to brand and drive from their territory." The 19th military division declared, that "the odious and cowardly attempt had filled their hearts with indignation and rage against those who, by giving an asylum to the sanguinary anarchists, made themselves their accomplices." The address of certain colonels of the line went still further: they expressed their readiness to march to England, and drag forth the criminals from their asylum, if the English government would not expel them. The emperor, apparently, showed no desire to join in the manifestations made by his officers and the people. He and the empress attended the ball given by Lord Cowley in honour of the marriage of the princess-royal, on the evening of her marriage-day, when her majesty wore a dress trimmed à l'Ecossais, especially in compliment to the royal bride; and the emperor wore the order of the Garter. The members of the imperial family, all the French ministers, the marshals of France, and the high, social, and legal functionaries, were present. About the same time, a brass field gun--one of the most perfect specimens produced, up to that time, in the royal gun-foundry at Woolwich arsenal, mounted on a suitable carriage-with ammunition waggon, and a couple of limbers, made of fine old English oak, were presented by the queen, as "a mark of her esteem to his imperial majesty, Napoleon III." Notwithstanding the reciprocal feelings of regard and friendship thus evinced by the sovereigns for each other, the passions of their subjects were very near causing a rupture between the two countries. The language of the French army and the French press produced violent retaliatory articles and speeches in England; and when, on the 27th of January, the Moniteur published the addresses from the French troops, containing the language we have quoted, Lord Palmerston evidently thought it was time to interfere. The Earl of Clarendon, accordingly, called the attention of Count Persigny to the subject, pointing out the effect which the addresses had on the English people, and the construction which would inevitably be placed upon the publication of such documents in the official paper of the French government. The count immediately communicated this conversation to M. Walewski, who, on the 6th of February, replied to the ambassador. He pointed out the opposition of the addresses to "the language which the emperor's government had not ceased to hold to that of her Britannic majesty; and, attributing the appearance of the objectionable words to inadvertence, caused by the number of the addresses, added-"The emperor enjoins you to say to Lord Clarendon how much he regrets it." This despatch, read in both Houses of parliament, and published in the papers, caused the feeling in England, roused by the military addresses, to subside. At the opening of the French legislative chamber, the emperor did not forget to allude to the attempt which had been made upon his life. After speaking of the internal affairs of France, he referred to its navy, which, he said, was acting in China with the English fleet, "to obtain redress for common grievances, and to avenge the blood of our missionaries, who have been cruelly massacred." Napoleon then declared that the relations of France with foreign powers were never on a better footing; and that he was convinced, at Osborne as well as at Stuttgardt, his desire to keep up the intimacy of old relations, as well as to form new ones, was equally shared by the chiefs of two great nations. In reviewing the position of France, he said it adopted the great and civilising principle of 1789; but that it was the enemy of every abstract theory. "Moreover, there is a truth inscribed. upon every page of the history of France and England-namely, that liberty without obstacles is impossible, as long as there exists in a country a faction which obstinately disowns the fundamental basis of the government; for then liberty, instead of enlightening, controlling, ameliorating, is nothing else, in the hands of factions, but a weapon of destruction. Therefore, as I did not accept the power of the nation with the view to acquire that ephemeral popularity-the paltry prize of concessions exacted from weakness-but with a view, one day, to deserve the approbation of posterity, by founding something lasting in France, I do not fear to declare to-day to you, that the danger, no matter what is said to the contrary, does not exist in the excessive prerogatives of power, but rather in the absence of repressive laws." Finally, the emperor observed, that the recent attempt on his life did not shake his security in the present, or his faith in the future. "If I live," he remarked, "the empire will live with me; and if I should fall, my very death would only tend to strengthen the empire; for the indignation of the people and of the army would be an additional support to the throne of my son. Let us attend calmly to our daily work, for the welfare and the greatness of our country." The emperor then, fortified by his subjects, and perhaps alarmed at the numerous attempts on his life, made a claim on this country, which led to no little unpleasantness. As we have shown, he extolled highly repressive laws; and he attempted still more in that direction. Foreign journals, especially those of England and Belgium, were excluded from France; and the Belgian government Q 2 219 was required to put down two papers published at Brussels. Nor was this all: the French government aimed at the destruction of that hospitality which the free states of Europe, especially England, were in the habit of extending to political exiles of all opinions. On the 22nd of January, Count Walewski sent a note to England, Belgium, Sardinia, and Switzerland, demanding, in the name of the government of France, certain measures respecting refugees, which might prevent the renewal of attempts at assassination. In the address to M. de Persigny, his attention was called to the circumstances connected with the attempt on the emperor's life; and the foreign minister reminded him, that that attempt, like those of Pianori, and the plot in which Mazzini, Ledru Rollin, and Campanelli directed the assassins whom they had furnished with arms, had been devised in England. At the same time, M. Walewski declared, that "the government of the emperor was persuaded of the sincerity of the sentiments of reprobation which they created in England. He was equally convinced, that with such proofs in their possession of the abuse of hospitality, the English government and people would understand at once to what extent France was justified in directing their attention to them. Appreciating the liberality with which England was disposed to exercise the right of asylum in regard to foreigners-the victims of political struggles-yet, when assassination was elevated to a doctrine, preached openly, and practised in repeated attempts, the French government felt it a duty to ask-'Ought the right of asylum to protect such a state of things? Was hospitality due to assassins? Ought English legislation to continue to favour their designs and plans? And could it continue to shelter persons who, by their flagrant acts, had placed themselves beyond the pale of common right, and under the ban of humanity?" In putting these questions, Count Walewski said he was only re-echoing the sentiments of France. He refrained in any way from indicating the measures which ought to be adopted; but as the repetition and the wickedness of the guilty enterprises exposed France to a danger, against which he and his colleagues were bound to provide, they asked her Britannic majesty's government to assist them by affording a guarantee of security, which no state could refuse to a neighbouring one, and which France was authorised to expect from an ally. About the same time, Count de Persigny, the French ambassador in England, took the opportunity afforded by an address from the corporation of London, congratulating the emperor on his escape from the recent attempt on his life, to explain to the English public the position which he took upon the subject. "Permit me,' said he, "to tell you what is the true question. It does not lie in the attempts at assassination in themselves, nor even in the crime of the 14th of January, which your government would have hastened to have warned us of, if it could have known it beforehand: the whole question is in the moral situation of France, which has become anxiously doubtful of the real sentiments of England. Reasoning in effect by analogy, popular opinion declares, that were there in France men sufficiently infamous to recommend, in their clubs, in their papers, in their writings of every kind, the assassination of a foreign sovereign, and actually to prepare its execution, a French administration would not wait to receive the demands of a foreign government, nor to see the enterprise set on foot. To act against such conspiracies, to anticipate such crimes, public notoriety would be sufficient to set our law in motion; and measures of security would be taken immediately. Well, then, France is astonished that nothing of a like nature should have taken place in England; and Frenchmen say, Either the English law is sufficient, as certain lawyers declare-and why, then, is it not applied?-or it is insufficient, which is the opinion of other lawyers; and, in this case, why does not a free country, which makes its own laws, remedy this omission ?" In one word, France does not understand, and cannot understand this state of things; and in that resides the harm; for she may mistake the sentiments of her ally, and no longer believe in her sincerity." In reality, Count Persigny held out a threat. |