CHAPTER XX.

THE WAR CLOUD.

Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled-An Era of War all over the World -The Russian War-The Queen's Visits to the Wounded Soldiers

- Presentation of the War Medals Crimean Heroes - The Volunteer Movement.

FAIR and peaceful to all seeming were the prospects of humanity and the world when the doors of the Hyde Park Exhibition were closed for the last time, and while its materials were being removed to be erected in more than their pristine beauty on the summit of one of the finest heights which environ the sloping basin on which the British metropolis is built. But a cloud, it might be no

bigger than a man's hand, but pregnant with ill, was on the horizon. The Exhibition closed a long era of peace in Europe and the world, an era which had been marred, so far as we were concerned, only by wars in our most distant Oriental dependencies; and, so far as the Continent was concerned, only by the aggressions of the potentates who constituted the Holy Alliance, by the revolutionary movements of 1848, and their sanguinary repression in the year following. Against the hopes of all, and the belief of most, good men and women, the Exhibition inaugurated one of the most martial terms of time which have formed a part of purely modern history. A year had hardly gone by ere Napoleon effected his coup

d'état, that fertile source of future evils-evils which are by no means yet exhausted. Then came the Russian

War, which cost us in England a hundred thousand lives and at least a hundred millions of pounds. We had hardly celebrated, and rejoiced over, and illuminated our dwellings and public buildings in celebration of, the Peace of Paris, ere in India we had to put forth the utmost might of our imperial power to vindicate our "Raj" over Moslem and Hindoo, and to avenge the foul deeds done at Cawnpore. When Prince Albert was, in the mystery of providential rule, stricken down in his prime, Italy and Austria were just beginning to recover from the effects of the contests waged between trained troops at the Voltorno and by the Garibaldian guerillas in the Valteline. The first message which was conveyed by the new-laid Atlantic cable was a message of good-will from the grand-daughter of George III. to him who sat in the seat of the rebel Washington. The first experimental cable had hardly been destroyed by the potency of old ocean, churlish and jealous of the invasion of his domain, ere that great contest broke out across the Atlantic, which brought about the abolition of slavery throughout the United States. Hardly had our young Prince brought home his bonny bride ere the subjects who owed her father allegiance were called upon to hold their own against the mighty force wielded by a power, of which the queenly diadem must ere long be worn by England's dear and best-beloved daughter. The Danish War was hardly concluded ere the aggressor, returning victorious from his northern confines, turned his face to the south, and inflicted a catastrophe quite as telling and decisive upon that ancient dynasty, which has been more fre

quently allied with England in the great martial embroglios of the past than any other power of Europe.

We have said that Napoleon's coup d'état of December, 1852, sounded the tocsin of that period of war which has lasted without sensible intermission from then until now. With that coup d'état Victoria found herself by an accident somewhat closely allied. Some time after the close of the parliamentary session of 1851, all England was startled by the sudden announcement of the resignation by Lord Palmerston of the seals of the Foreign Office, which he held in the first Administration of Lord John Russell. On the meeting of Parliament in 1852, questions were at once addressed to the Treasury Benches in both Houses soliciting explanations of the circumstances. In the Lower House the querist was Sir Benjamin Hawes. Lord John Russell declared his perfect readiness to answer the question which had been put to him by Sir Benjamin Hawes, though he said he could not do so without entering into some details. These "details" were in the main as follows:-He commenced with a full and frank acknowledgment of the energy, the ability, and the extensive knowledge of the interests of England in all parts of the world which preeminently distinguished Lord Palmerston, and said that he the more regretted, on that account, that circumstances had occurred which prevented his acting any longer with him as a colleague. He laid down at starting what he conceived to be the correct doctrine as to the position which a Secretary of State holds as regards the Crown in the administration of foreign affairs. He held that when the Crown, in consequence of a vote of the House of Commons, places its constitutional confidence in a

DISMISSAL OF LORD PALMERSTON.

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minister, that minister is, on the other hand, bound to afford the Crown its full liberty-a liberty which the Crown must possess-of saying that the minister no longer possesses its confidence. This was the general doctrine; but it so happened that with regard to Lord Palmerston individually, the precise terms were laid down, in 1850, in a communication on the part of Her Majesty with respect to the transaction of business between the Crown and the Foreign Secretary. Lord John said he had been the organ of that communication, and therefore assumed its responsibility. Its chief passage thus ran :—

The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her Royal sanction. Secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by` the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston.

Lord John went on to say that, in his view, Lord Palmerston had violated this explicit understanding, at least in two instances-one of a comparatively trifling, but the other of a most important character-since the conclusion of the session of the year previous (1851). The former had reference to some incautious remarks which were said to have fallen from the lips of the

Foreign Secretary on the occasion of receiving a deputation of sympathisers with Hungary. The other related to Napoleon's coup d'état of the 2nd of December previous. The instructions given to our Ambassador at Paris by the Queen's Government were to abstain from all interference with the internal affairs of France. Lord John had been informed of an alleged conversation between Lord Palmerston and the French Minister in London, the tenor of which was repugnant to those instructions. He had therefore at once written to him, but his communication had been treated with disdainful silence. Meanwhile Lord Palmerston, without the knowledge of his colleagues, wrote a despatch to Lord Normanby, our Minister at Paris, in which, however, he evaded the question whether he approved the act of the President. He considered altogether that Lord Palmerston had put himself in the place and assumed the prerogative of the Crown; that he had "passed by" the Crown, while he gave the moral approbation of England to the acts of Louis Napoleon, in direct opposition to the policy which the Government had hitherto pursued. Under these circumstances, he had no alternative but to declare that, while he was Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston could not hold the seals of office; for he had "forgotten and neglected what was due to the Crown and his colleagues."

On the 27th of March, 1854, the following message from the Crown was read to the Peers by the Lord Chancellor. It explains itself. Nor is it necessary for us to re-write here a single line of one of the brightest and freshest pages of the recent history of England. We had long been "drifting into war," to use Lord Clarendon's