Robert Wilson

“ Lord Clarendon, says Mr. Greville, “gave me an account of his conversations both with the King and Cavour. He thinks well of the King, and that he is intelligent, and he has a very high opinion indeed of Cavour, and was especially struck with his knowledge of England, and our institutions and constitutional history. I was much amused after all the praises that have been lavished on Sardinia for the noble part she has played, and for taking up arms in so unselfish a manner, that she has, after all, a keen view to her own interests, and wants some solid pudding as well as so much empty praise.” ”

“ It was a crafty device to avenge Waterloo with the blast of a herald’s trumpet, and to wipe out fifty years of French history, just as the Parliament of the Restoration tried to efface the Commonwealth by dating the statutes of 1660, as of the twelfth year of the Merry Monarch’s reign. The usurper might be recognised by England as Napoleon II., perhaps, but never, argued Lord Malmesbury, as Napoleon III., for that would have countenanced more than our recognition of the Second Empire was actually meant to convey. ”

“ At the same time, the Queen felt sure that the Prince would say the right thing, from her entire confidence in his great tact and judgment. The Queen, at the risk of not appearing sufficiently modest (and yet why should a wife ever be modest about her husband’s merits?) , must say that she thinks Lord John Russell will admit now that the Prince is possessed of very extraordinary powers of mind and heart. She feels so proud of being his wife, that she cannot refrain from herself paying a tribute to his noble character. ”

“ The Queen and Prince Albert accepted invitations, and when they started in their State carriage from Buckingham Palace, they drove through dense crowds of people, amidst shouts of congratulations delivered in all sorts of tongues. Nay, when they left the Guildhall on the morning of the 10th of July, at daybreak, they were amazed to find loyal crowds still waiting to cheer them, with no diminution of enthusiasm as they drove home. ”

“ Surely, then, Englishmen argued, France under this unscrupulous usurper must be forced into war, in order to divert her attention from the bondage in which she is held by her Autocrat and his army. But if France must needs make war so that the French people may get military glory in compensation for civil liberty, a war on England, whose Press teemed with insulting criticisms on the brutality of the coup d’état, was of all wars the one most likely to be popular with the French soldiery. ”

“ The christening of the Princess Beatrice took place in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on the 16th of June, and among the visitors and guests the Archduke Maximilian of Austria was one of the most prominent. He had become betrothed to the Princess Charlotte of Belgium, a young and beautiful princess, to whom the Queen was deeply attached. It was a love match, but the lives of the young people, radiant at the outset with sunshine, were darkened at the end by the gloom of an awful tragedy. ”

“ In England, it is a curious fact that political parties always exhaust their ingenuity in veiling the real issue between them. When a Government is punished by dismissal, it is not dismissed for the blunder it has committed, but because it has done, or refused to do, something else, which is hardly hinted at in public, but which has offended a powerful body of its supporters. Palmerston was a Minister whose ardent, impetuous temperament, and confidence in his own dexterity, rendered him prone to commit blunders. ”

“ If the alien does not like the law of the Foreign State, he has no business to call on his own countrymen to defend him by force of arms in refusing to obey it, seeing that it was not at their request or in their interest, but of his own free will, and in pursuit of his own fortune, he went to live or traffic abroad. In fact, to lay it down that England might levy war on any country, whose laws Englishmen residing in that country considered inequitable, was tantamount to proclaiming her hostis humani generis. ”

“ No Treaty conferred on the Company the shadow of a right to do more than secure for the people of Oudh good government. As it was quite possible to do that without destroying and degrading the dynasty, the seizure of Oudh was simply an act of rapine. [331] As the Kings of Oudh had been noted all over India for their staunch loyalty to the English in India, every Native prince regarded the annexation of Oudh as a menace to his throne. At every Native Court it was whispered that to be loyal to England was simply to invite ruin. ”

“ The evacuation of the Principalities, to bring about which England had gone to war, was thus achieved. The one blunder which was now left for England to commit was to ignore this fact and refrain from taking advantage of it. And this was precisely what England did. Yielding to the popular passion of the hour, [146] the Government found a new object to fight for, namely, the destruction of Russia as an enemy to Mankind. And yet, with this amazing fact on record, there are still people on the Continent who aver that England is a practical nation, which never fights for an idea! ”

“ All Napoleon’s subordinates could do the work of subordinates better than their Imperial master. Not one of Wellington’s subordinates, from the Marquis of Anglesey himself down to the humblest private, could do his individual work better than the Duke could do it for him. It was this easy mastery in handling all the machinery of war that enabled him to readjust his arrangements so much more quickly than his opponents could, when any part of a carefully-planned scheme miscarried. ”

“ Twenty-seven brawny watermen rowed the Queen’s Barge from Westminster Stairs to the City, and, strange to say, for once the fog and murky atmosphere of London in early winter cleared away, and the ceremony took place in the sunshine, under a sky of Italian brilliancy. The crowds covered every possible corner where human beings could cluster. The long lines of shipping on each bank of the Pool were bright with bunting, and black with swarming sightseers. ”

“ Next morning their bodies, some still quivering with life, were thrown into a well. When tidings of this ghastly crime reached Europe, the nation was for a moment horror-stricken, but only for a moment. A cry of rage broke forth from the British people, and the Government hastened to send avenging reinforcements to the East. They could not, however, arrive in time to save Cawnpore, and when it fell, the rebels closed round Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. ”

“ With the exception of the Sicilian Vespers, no revolt ever smote a great Empire so unexpectedly as the Indian Mutiny. Gaily was the centenary of Plassey celebrated at a banquet in London on the 23rd of June, though the sultry air of India was even then laden with rumours of a wide-spreading rebellion. A few casual allusions to these reports were made in both Houses of Parliament, but July brought with it the rush of rising waters in the dull ears of the nation, when news of the atrocities of Meerut and the rebel march on Delhi startled the country from its apathy. ”

“ Royalty can always beneficially direct the expenditure of Fashion, and after the Queen had by her example shown that there was no danger to be dreaded in visiting Ireland, rich English tourists began to go over there holiday-making, greatly to the advantage of the people. But when all this was apparent to the Queen’s advisers, it seems strange that they did not then deem it their duty to devise a plan for strengthening the golden link of the Crown between England and Ireland. If one brief Royal visit produced such an excellent effect, why did they not propose another? ”

“ The Queen here simply reflected public opinion. Never had a Cabinet of abler men, individually speaking, ruled England since the Ministry of “All the Talents” fell from power. But the Sovereign and her people both forgot that in our strange and anomalous constitution no Cabinet is, as a rule, so weak as a Cabinet of strong men. This Ministry, which started on its career on the flood-tide of Court and popular favour, was destined, by its vacillation in foreign policy, to lead the country into the terrible calamity of a European war. ”

“ On the other hand, it was obvious that England could not carry on a naval war for a year on the principle that free ships did not make free goods, without coming into collision with every neutral State in the world. But to all objections there was, of course, one answer. No better terms could be got unless England was prepared to carry on the war alone. Yet, as a matter of fact, Russia had suffered so severely during the winter, that it is probable she might have been more complaisant at Paris, had Lord Clarendon been firmer, and had Napoleon III. not perfidiously played into her hands. ”

“ It is a beautiful road from Perth to Balmoral, particularly from Blairgowrie to the Spittal of Glenshee, and thence to Braemar. Much as I dislike Courts and all that appertains to them, I am glad to have made this expedition, and to have seen the Queen and Prince in their Highland retreat, where they certainly appear to great advantage. The place is very pretty; the house very small. They live there without any state whatever; they live not merely like private gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks—small house, small rooms, small establishment. ”

“ It was that of Sir Colin Campbell, the only leader on whom even a shred of the mantle of Wellington or Moore had fallen. The soldiers had confidence in no other; in fact, he was the only divisional commander in the army who had a native genius for war. But he had no “interest,” and had he been appointed, his iron will and stubborn character would have soon asserted themselves over the foolish counsels of Pélissier. A strong, competent man without “interest” was in Lord Panmure’s eyes an objectionable person. So he looked elsewhere for a successor to General Simpson. ”

“ No man could be moved from his position till he was shot or cut down, and the indomitable courage of the Duke of Cambridge and his Guards—for his Royal Highness, though he lacked skill and knowledge, never lacked pluck—held the Russians in check so long, that the French had time to come to the rescue. Then the enemy beat a retreat. We retook the positions we had lost, and once again demonstrated that the English infantry were without a rival in the world. The Russian plans were so laid, that it was a mathematical certainty our army must be driven into the sea. ”

“ Russia was now at the mercy of the Western Powers, and had they simply remained passive, she would soon have been compelled to sue for peace on their terms. But the War Party in England, disappointed that this supreme advantage had been gained without gilding British arms with glory, scoffed at the idea of settling the original dispute between Russia and Turkey on these terms. The British Government accordingly resolved, not merely to bring Russia to reason, but to humiliate her and punish her in such a manner that her power in South-Eastern Europe would be utterly broken. ”

“ The long, virulent, and passionate harangue by which he endeavoured to excite the hatred of England against Russia, his indictment of her as an enemy of the human race, his appeals for her destruction in the sacred interests of liberty and civilisation, drew forth cheer after cheer even from that frigid Assembly of patricians. It produced a prodigious effect on the country, and forthwith Englishmen worked themselves up into a belief that unless a mortal blow were dealt at Russia, Europe would be overrun by Cossacks, and every honest man in England would be buried alive in Siberia. ”

“ Russia has no outlet to the sea except through the Baltic in the north, which is frozen in winter, and through the Bosphorus in the south, which is open all the year, but which is dominated by the Sultan so long as Constantinople is the capital of Turkey. Russia has, therefore, an obvious interest either in making Turkey her vassal, or in expelling the Turks from Europe, and establishing a Power at Constantinople in servitude to the Czar. It is almost a heresy to say that Russia has not aimed at seizing Constantinople herself. ”

“ Of course, Lord Beaconsfield before he died educated the Foreign Office up to the truth, which is, that “the key of India” is held in London—and that the defensible gates of India are those on our frontier which we can protect by our arms. But the amazing thing is that when the Foreign Office did believe that Herat was the “key of India,” they never would let it be held by a Power which, like Persia, was strong enough to keep it safe with British help. Persia was the natural ally of England against Russia. ”

“ When the gloom of winter began to spread over London, the loyal citizens were sadly distressed to learn that a projected Royal visit to the city would be robbed of more than half its éclat. The Queen had promised to come and open the New Coal Exchange on the 30th of October. But alas, her Majesty had sickened with the chicken-pox, and the ceremony was performed by Prince Albert alone. Yet the Londoners were not without compensation. This visit to the City was memorable because of the first public appearance in a pageant of State, of the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal. ”

“ If the example thus set by Prussia—that of making the interests of the Prussian people the supreme object of her policy—should find imitators, the Queen contended, “European civilisation is abandoned as a plaything to the winds; right will no longer find a champion, nor the oppressed an umpire to appeal to.”
Such was the reply which the Queen made to what Sir Theodore Martin calls “the amiable but most mischievous weakness” that pervaded the letter from the King of Prussia. ”

“ The country was now fully alive to the danger that lurked in such a monstrous extension of the Queen’s prerogative as would permit her to use the revenues of India, which the House of Commons could not control, for carrying on war outside the Indian Empire. The only real control which the people have over the Crown is their power to stop supplies for the army. The Persian War, however, proved that the Crown could draw supplies and troops from India, without any Parliamentary sanction whatever. ”

“ It was in introducing this great scheme that Lord John Russell said that, whilst reserving questions of military defence, the central idea of his Colonial policy was this: political freedom can be best promoted in the Colonies by acting on the general rule, that while the Imperial Government must be their representative in all foreign relations, it will interfere in their domestic affairs no further than may be manifestly necessary to prevent a conflict in the State itself. ”

“ Every person who accepts a high public office is in the habit, now and then, of drawing on his private income to enable him to discharge his public duties with greater efficiency—in fact, this liability is simply one of the incidents of great estate in every aristocratic country. But, unfortunately, the Queen had on her accession surrendered her Crown revenues to Parliament for a fixed annuity, on the more or less formal understanding that Parliament would provide for her children when they settled in life. ”

“ Yet such was the doctrine which the House of Commons, in spite of the protests of the Tories, of Radicals like Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, and Peelites like Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone, cheerfully accepted from the Whigs at this period. The only thing that can be said in its defence is that it is a doctrine which the House has never dared to apply to a stronger Power than Greece—never to a Power like Russia, which deports English Jews, nor like Germany, which deports English residents, personally obnoxious to Prince Bismarck, in the most arbitrary manner. ”