Note 1, p. 10.—The allusion is to the preliminary proceedings of the trial—in which some days were devoted to legal fencing about witnesses and challenged jurors.

Note 2, p. 12.—The gentleman thus elegantly arraigned was William Saurin (1757?-1839). Saurin was sprung from a French Huguenot family settled in Ireland. He was a lawyer of considerable ability, but one who had not risen rapidly. He seems to have been a fairly honest, bigoted Protestant; moreover, the duties he was called to perform during his long term (1807–1822) as Attorney-General were such as to bring him almost officially into sharp friction with the Catholic population. Consequently he was cordially hated by them. He was openly charged with using his position to repress Catholic agitation; and, later than this trial, it was publicly known that he had written to Lord Norbury, urging that as a Judge on circuit he should attempt to influence grand juries in favor of the Government. These are grounds palpable enough for a basis to O’Connell’s accusations; but these were the ethics of the time. After a perusal of this speech, it will not surprise the reader to learn that before the Magee trial was over O’Connell had gone so far as to threaten the Attorney-General with personal violence.

Note 3, p. 21.—The Catholic Committee of Dublin was an organization for the purpose, so to speak, of agitation by resolution. These resolutions were framed and passed at meetings. The influences thus set in motion O’Connell had tried to enlarge and make more national in their scope by adding to the Committee members from other parts of the country than Dublin. Now the Convention Act of 1793 had made representation by delegation, such as was here contemplated, illegal; and the Government was quick to avail itself of the statute. There was much trouble, and of course the question was had to the courts, where, in the test-case of Dr. Sheridan, O’Connell and the Committee lost. Chief-Justice Downes declared (1811) that the proposed reorganization of the Committee fell under the provisions of the Act. Thenceforward all agitation permissible was to be conducted by a non-delegated Catholic Board. In view of these facts O’Connell’s statement in the text cannot be accepted literally. Perhaps it may be called rhetorically true.

Note 4, p. 29.—His Grace the Duke of Richmond and Lennox—fourth of that title, and descendant of Charles II. by the French mistress, La Kerouaille—was a personage more picturesque than the majority of the great in name who fill the pages of “Burke’s Peerage.” Throughout, his life (1764–1819) was romantically different from that of the average nobleman. As a youth he was a notable duelist, and in 1789 had an encounter with the Duke of York wherein half-royal blood came near to shedding royal. So impetuous a temperament obviously led the Duke to the profession of arms, in which he attained some prominence. The Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland was his during the period 1807–1813; and in these years he had for chief secretary the then plain Colonel Wellesley. He left Ireland for the wars; and thus it was that on the eve of Waterloo the Duke and Duchess of Richmond gave at Brussels the historic ball before the battle—an event which has permanently linked the name of Richmond with history. For chance, doubly gracious, commemorated the occasion in the famous verses of Byron, and the enduring prose of “Vanity Fair.” The next day the Duke was glad to serve on the battlefield under his former secretary. The end of this nobleman was no less striking than his life. Removed to Canada, he died a pitiful death of hydrophobia, induced by a fox-bite.

Note 5, p. 65.—Here the speaker is at some pains to press first the charge of inconsistency against the Attorney-General: he then goes on to consider the cases of Walter Cox, a Protestant and publisher of the Irish Magazine, and of the author of a book called “The Statement of the Penal Laws,” both imprisoned for libel.

Note 6, p. 100.—A short excursus on the manner of selecting juries. The ingenious rhetorical device which follows in this selection, after the break, should be noted. The parallelism between Ireland and Portugal is carried as far as it could well go: and argument by persuasion has seldom been more effectively attempted.

Note 7, p. 106.—A Portuguese coin, of gold, and valued at eight dollars. So called from the medallion on it of King John.

Note 8, p. 116.—The note of O’Connell’s son and editor, so characteristic, is worth preserving: “And slaves, hypocrites, and bigots they proved themselves, by finding a verdict for the Crown.”

Note 9, p. 133.—In the short passage here omitted Lord Palmerston deprecates certain aspersions laid by a member of the Opposition upon the Queen’s Advocate, the legal adviser of the Foreign Office.

Note 10, p. 144.—References respectively to the grievances of Mr. Finlay—not born in Scotland, as the speaker asserts, but of Scotch descent—and of Don Pacifico, a Jew from Gibraltar, whose cases are soon to be discussed at length.

Note 11, p. 151.—George Finlay has titles to fame other than his connection with the rather sordid cause cÉlÈbre of Don Pacifico. As remarked above, he was not born in Scotland, but at Faversham, Kent, Dec. 21, 1799; and passed the greater part of his long life far from the north. While pursuing the study of Roman Jurisprudence at GÖttingen, about 1821, he met a Greek student from whose conversation he was led to set out for Greece, like many another young Englishman of the epoch, prepared to take part in the war for independence then bursting forth. Arrived in Greece, also like many other English Phil-Hellenes he had the usual encounter with Lord Byron (in his case at Cephalonia), who communicated to him the well-known failure of his illusions concerning the Greek character. More than the ordinary run of Phil-Hellenes Finlay seems to have impressed himself upon the poet; and they spent much time together at Athens and Mesolonghi. Finlay was soon in the thick of the insurrection, and accompanied the chieftain Odysseus on an expedition into the Morea, during which he saw much to confirm Lord Byron’s pessimistic views. Nevertheless, at the close of the war, his practical sympathy with Greece manifested itself in the purchase of an estate in Attica, from which he hoped to be of use to the country by the extension of economic and civil improvements. This hope he soon considered to be useless: but his money was locked up in his land purchases, and, as he himself said, there was nothing else to do but to study. With the exception of a few absences, the remainder of his life was spent in Greece, where he accomplished no small service to the country of his residence, and one of great importance to the world. The former lay in his severe, but justifiable, criticisms, in the form of pamphlets or newspaper correspondence, of palpable errors in Greek politics and administration. These censures, often translated into the Greek papers, after a time really bore fruit, and, strangely enough, did not arouse the touchy Greek character to resentment against the critic. His service to the world was the composition of a monumental history of Late, Byzantine, and Modern Greece, definitively published, in 1877, by the Clarendon Press. The work covers the least known and most confusing period of Greek history, known previously in English almost solely by the picturesque, but rather un-oriented pages of Gibbon. Of it Dr. Richard Garnett, in the “National Dictionary of Biography,” says: “Finlay is a great historian of the type of Polybius, Procopius, and Machiavelli, a man of affairs, who has qualified himself for treating of public transactions by sharing in them, a soldier, a statesman, and an economist.” In a word, the book is much more minute than Gibbon; and, due doubtless to Finlay’s thorough understanding of the Greek race, it is luminous on matters of social description, where Gibbon preserves a large silence. Compared with the other Phil-Hellenes Finlay was less the military adventurer, like Trelawney and Sir Richard Church, than the practical friend of Greece, like the American Dr. Howe. The camps of Europe could and did supply to the Greek cause an abundance, not always disinterested, of the former class; but it is probable that the wrecked and distracted country, when it began the task of civilizing itself, owed far more to men of Finlay’s stamp. He died at Athens, Jan. 26, 1875.

Note 12, p. 160.—“Against the hundred.” The reference is to a peculiarity of the English common law, by which a district, originally containing a literal hundred of families, was entitled a “Hundred.” For offences committed within these precincts the inhabitants, or “Hundredors,” as they were called, were held civilly responsible. The division was probably of Germanic origin, having been established among the Franks by Clotaire, among the English by King Alfred.

Note 13, p. 165.—Lazzaroni, originally the name of the beggars and idlers who sought refuge at the Hospital of S. Lazarus in Naples, came to be the generic term applied to that class of irresponsible and half-criminal riffraff in Italy who in France are called the canaille.

Note 14, p. 184.—The little Ionian republic, seven-isled, or Heptanesos, was formally taken under the protection of England in 1815. This protectorate endured until the accession (1863) of George, the present King of the Hellenes, when, at the request of the islanders, the republic was incorporated with Hellas proper, to which ethnically and geographically it belonged. During the period of the protectorate England was represented by a series of Lord High Commissioners, of whom the first, Sir Thomas Maitland, familiarly known in the Levant as “King Tom,” was in many respects a character. His palace, still a prominent feature of the town of Corfu, is of almost baronial splendor; to the south of the Esplanade the grateful Ionians erected in 1816 a small circular temple in his honor. Corfu, the island, is probably the most famous of the group, having been, as the ancient KÉrkura, a Corinthian colony, one of the inciting causes of the Peloponnesian War. Antiquity also somewhat fancifully identified it with the Homeric Scheria, the abode of Alkinoos and the matchless Nausikaa, naming its neighbor Ithaka—that other Odyssean isle. It is to be said that the latter identification is less fanciful than the former.

Note 15, p. 188.—This Baronet was Sir James Robert George Graham (1792–1861), long, although with some fluctuation, a prominent member of the Whig party. Although he held some high offices during the first half of the century, his fame was but evanescent. He was never a Whig at heart, it would seem. Haughty in manner and aristocrat to the bone, his high talents were neutralized by his personal unpopularity. Like Robert Lowe, but in a greater degree, he failed of the success which he might reasonably have expected. A prevalent artificiality of mind was also a bar to his ambitions.

Note 16, p. 194.—Ten years after Pitt’s death the Congress of Vienna had united the Belgian provinces, formerly under the rule of Austria, with Holland, in order that this new-made kingdom of the Netherlands might be a “buffer-state” against the encroachment of France on the north. To Belgium, prevailingly Catholic, and to Holland, as prevailingly Protestant, the alliance was alike distinctly distasteful. In particular, the Catholic bishops of the Belgians had objected at the outset to religious toleration under a Protestant king. In language and customs much of Belgium was essentially French: the Flemish element was in those days much subordinated. In Holland the Protestant House of Orange, and, in Belgium, the Church, were the figureheads that symbolized the real political incongruity between the Netherlands, North and South. The events of July, 1830, at Paris were followed by a sympathetic outbreak at Brussels, August 25th, which commenced a real insurrection that ended in the dissolution of the short-lived Kingdom. In the confusion of European politics that arose from this disturbance, England and France by close combination brought a kind of order out of chaos, averted a European war, and by a Conference at London in January, 1831, defined the frontiers of the now disjunct states of Belgium and Holland. But there had to be a King of Belgium. In his selection much difficulty arose. The Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe, was elected by the Gallicizing Belgians. This election was vetoed by the London Conference. The matter was finally settled by the choice of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, with the provision that he should make a daughter of Louis Philippe his Queen. Over the disposition of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg there was further trouble, and even the threat of war. Nominally, it belonged to Holland; sentimentally, it was Belgian—and French. While the Conference was debating the question the King of Holland led an army of fifty thousand men into Belgium. France responded to Leopold’s appeal with another army. Then both armies were recalled. Finally the Conference and Leopold agreed that the duchy should be divided between the countries. But the King of Holland still held out in the citadel of Antwerp, apparently caring little for either Prince or Conference. In doing so, he soon found himself arrayed against a French army corps on land, and in the river Scheldt a British fleet. Even then a bombardment of the citadel was necessary to dislodge him. This was in 1832. It was not until 1839 that the ensuing war of words resulted in the signing of a formal treaty of peace between Holland and Belgium.

Note 17, p. 194.—In the passage omitted Lord Palmerston defends the policy of England towards Portugal. The transactions here commented on are to be regarded as the second act of co-operation which sprung from the entente cordiale established between England and France at the time of the Belgian arrangement above referred to. A summary of the Portuguese matters follows. In 1826, by the influence of Canning, the dispute about the succession to the Crown of Portugal came to a temporary settlement by the acceptance by Don Miguel of the Constitution. This Don Miguel, a younger son of John, the former King, had been opposed to the liberal tendencies of the times. At the death of his father, Pedro, the Crown Prince, was already installed as Emperor of Brazil. So it was arranged that Miguel should marry, when she came of age, his niece, Maria, then with her father in Brazil; and meanwhile should act as Regent. He soon threw off the mask. In June, 1828, he dissolved the Cortes, summoned instead the medieval “Estates,” and deliberately proclaimed himself King. Then came a brutal campaign of proscription against the Constitutional party. Such as escaped these terrors took refuge in England, and in the Azores, which still held out for the Constitutionalists. But in England, now under the Duke of Wellington’s dominance, it was no longer on the cards to encourage the growth of liberalism on the continent. Indeed, an attitude of absolute neutrality was maintained, and the former intervention of Canning was deplored. So matters wagged until the events of 1830 brought a change over the Anglo-Portuguese relations. Don Miguel, in the exercise of his despotic powers, grew insolent enough to worry even English and French subjects at Lisbon. Their governments enforced satisfaction by naval squadrons despatched to the Tagus. For England, Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary of Earl Grey’s Ministry, obtained an indemnity and a public apology. For France, her admiral went so far as to appropriate the best vessels of Miguel’s navy. Shortly after, Pedro crossed from Brazil to contest the rights of his daughter to the throne. The attitude of England had so completely swerved that, on Pedro’s arrival in London (July, 1831), he was permitted to raise troops and to employ in his service various officers of the English navy. From the rendezvous of his forces at Terceira, in the Azores, he proceeded against Oporto, which at once yielded to him. On his part, Don Miguel marched against that city. After the destruction of Don Miguel’s navy by his fleet under the English Captain Napier, Pedro made decisive gains, and entered Lisbon, July 28, 1833. Don Miguel, however, was not yet beaten, for the continental governments favorable to absolutism were in the way of sending him assistance both in troops and money. At this moment the whole business was at first sight complicated, but in reality, so far as Portugal was concerned, brought to a speedy issue by the Carlist troubles of the neighboring kingdom of Spain. Don Carlos, the brother of King Ferdinand, based his claim to the throne on the theory that the Salic Law, recently repealed in favor of Isabella, child of the King’s old age, by the so-called Pragmatic Sanction, was illegally repealed, the Spanish Succession since 1713 having been faithful to that ordinance. Temporarily Don Carlos had gone into Portugal. Most naturally he had attached himself to Miguel, as a personage whose position was so comparable to his own. Meanwhile in Spain the Queen Regent, Maria Cristina, had allied herself with the Liberals; had called into office a Liberal Minister, Martinez de la Rosa; and had caused a constitution to be granted to the country (April 10, 1834). Her Government also opened negotiations not only with Portugal, but with England and France, as the next parties interested, with the view of an alliance which should rid, once and for all, the Peninsula of insurrections and leaders of insurrections. Thus on April 22, 1834, the above Powers signed, at London, a Quadruple Treaty, according to which Spain was to send an army into Portugal against Don Miguel; Portugal, if she could, to drive Don Carlos from her territory; England to aid with a fleet; and France to co-operate, if further co-operation were necessary, by any means agreeable to all concerned. And, with regard to Portugal, this programme was executed with precision. No later than May 22, 1834, Don Miguel threw up the game, accepted, instead of the Crown, a large pension, and promised to relieve the Peninsula forever of his presence. Not so with Don Carlos. He refused the conditions. At the time, however, he could do nothing but take a proffered passage to London, whither he conveyed his plottings and still undiscouraged dreams of the Spanish Crown. Of which, more hereafter. As for Portugal, there was another outbreak in 1847, concerning which Lord Palmerston found it necessary this time neither to support the Liberal faction nor to acquiesce in the Ministry of the Opposition leader, SeÑor Cabral, but to keep a balance between both. This apparent inconsistency the speaker explains by the statement that it was only by such conduct that England could preserve at all a Portuguese Liberal party.

Note 18, p. 197.—The question of the Spanish Succession and the quelling of the Carlist revolt here entered on demands further elucidation. It will be remembered that Don Carlos, after the Quadruple Treaty of 1834, had gone to England. Arrived there, he was really in an anomalous position. It has been said that he carried his dreams with him into exile. Now he had made no promises further to observe the stipulations of the treaty, and—rather curiously—he was not even held by the English authorities as a prisoner of war. What, then, was more natural than that after a short time he should quit England, run through France in disguise, and bob up at the Carlist headquarters in the Basque Province of Navarre? It was at once evident to the world that, so far as the suppression of the Spanish Pretender went, the Quadruple Treaty was nil. For various reasons, the Basque provinces had been from the outset the hotbed of Carlism; and from this centre a vigorous and, for a time, successful war was waged for Don Carlos. We say deliberately, “waged for” him: because, like another famous Pretender, Don Carlos was a figure singularly incapacitated for leadership or hero-worship. His political abilities were meagre; and of his personal courage there was more than a doubt. And yet, with the perverse good luck that also waited upon another Pretender, he was fortunate in his supporters. Chief among these was Zumalacarregui, a general of marked strategic talent, who made a pretty fight for his worthless master. Except for the advantages of a mountainous country for base and a devoted population about him, the Carlist leader had little to work with; but he made the throne of Cristina tremble. The struggle endured—a civil war that became notable for its peculiarly Spanish atrocities—until the Government was forced to appeal to France for aid. It should be stated that after the flight of Carlos from England an article had been added to the Quadruple Treaty to the effect that France should prevent troops and contraband of war from crossing the Pyrenees, and that England should cut off aid to the Carlists by sea. This was not enough to stifle the uprising. The appeal to France met with a certain hesitation on the part of that Government. Louis Philippe now feared to irritate those Powers who were more or less openly sympathetic with Carlism. England was sounded to see if she would stand for a joint responsibility with France in the matter of intervention. Lord Palmerston replied negatively. The hesitation of France then ceased. The answer was returned to Spain that no military assistance could be given. By this time the Queen Regent had become unpopular; and moderate men, as a relief from practical anarchy, were beginning to turn toward Don Carlos. His prospects looked decidedly bright. But the inspired fatuity that was seemingly the birthright of the Pretender did not allow him to profit by his golden moment. He would hear of nothing short of absolutism; instead of listening to compromise, he made a feint of marching on Madrid; and, after being soundly beaten by the Government General, Espartero, escaped into Portugal, Sept. 14, 1839, having racked Spain with a civil war of six years’ duration, with no gain even to himself. So the revolt collapsed. Cristina had been ousted from the Regency by the popular hero Espartero. Next Espartero was driven into exile by his own party. Cristina then came back to Madrid, where her daughter Isabella, made of age by a legal fiction, although only a girl of fourteen, was crowned (November, 1843) Queen of Spain, with a Ministry of the Moderado party, under General Narvaez.

Note 19, p. 208.—“While the Carlist War was still continuing, Lord Palmerston had convinced himself that Louis Philippe intended to marry the young Queen Isabella, if possible, to one of his sons. Some years later this project was officially mentioned by Guizot to the English statesman, who at once caused it to be understood that England would not permit the union.... Louis Philippe now suggested that his youngest son, the Duke of Montpensier, should wed the Infanta Fernanda, sister of the Queen of Spain. On the express understanding that this marriage should not take place until the Queen should herself have been married and have had children, the English Cabinet assented to the proposal. That the marriages should not be simultaneous was treated by both governments as the very heart and substance of the arrangement, inasmuch as the failure of children by the Queen’s marriage would make her sister, or her sister’s heir, inheritor of the throne. This was repeatedly acknowledged by Louis Philippe and his Minister, Guizot, in the course of communications which extended over some years. Nevertheless, in 1846, the French Ambassador at Madrid, in conjunction with the Queen’s mother, Maria Cristina, succeeded in carrying out a plan by which the conditions laid down at London, and accepted at Paris, were utterly frustrated. Of the Queen’s Spanish cousins, there was one, Don Francisco, who was known to be physically unfit for marriage. To this person it was determined by Maria Cristina and the French Ambassador that the young Isabella should be united, her sister being simultaneously married to the Duke of Montpensier.”—Fyffe, “Modern Europe,” vol. ii., pp. 504, 505, New York, 1877.

When the news of this astounding piece of bad faith was communicated to Louis Philippe, at the first blush he was inclined to repudiate it; but Guizot persuaded him to delay a while. And now Lord Palmerston had returned to office and suggested a Prince of Saxe-Coburg as a consort for the Spanish Queen—in which suggestion Guizot immediately detected a chance to indict England for disloyalty to the House of Bourbon. It may be said that this objection was puerile. But what happened was that on October 10, 1846, the poor Queen and her sister were simultaneously married at Madrid, as per programme of Maria Cristina and the French Ambassador.

Of this performance Fyffe says (p. 506): “Few intrigues have been more disgraceful than that of the Spanish marriages; none more futile. The course of history mocked its ulterior purposes; its immediate results were wholly to the injury of the House of Orleans. The cordial understanding between France and Great Britain, which had been revived after the differences of 1840, was now finally shattered. Louis Philippe stood convicted before his people of sacrificing a valuable alliance to dynastic ends; his Minister, the austere and sanctimonious Guizot, had to defend himself against charges which would have covered with shame the most hardened man of the world.”

All of which goes to affirm the familiar lesson taught by history that, in the long run, intrigue does not pay. As to the charge met in this speech that Great Britain led to the downfall of Louis Philippe, Lord Palmerston’s answer is easily adequate.

Note 20, p. 211.—Lord Palmerston here deals, categorically and at some length, with England’s actions with respect to Switzerland. There had arisen in that country a serious dispute about the expulsion of the Jesuits. The minority, composing the seven Catholic cantons, in order to oppose this expulsion had organized itself into a Sonderbund, or Separate League, an association that the majority contended was in itself contrary to the Acts of Confederation. The friction was so intense between the factions that there seemed no exit but civil war. At this juncture Lord Palmerston wrote to the British ChargÉ d’Affaires in Switzerland a despatch, the substance of which he was to communicate to the Swiss authorities. In this despatch Lord Palmerston entreats the majority to use moderation against the Catholic cantons, pointing out that a forcible suppression of the Sonderbund will mean civil war, with the strong probability of foreign interference. And that, he says, would end in “essentially impairing the political independence of the country.” The Swiss Minister replied that civil war was deemed inevitable. Then came a proposal from Paris that the five Powers—England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—should issue a joint declaration to put an end to civil war in Switzerland. The speaker shows, point by point, why England could not assent to this proposal. The main reason was that if the Swiss Government refused the conditions, it was to be compelled by force of arms. Coercion England would not agree to. Instead, she proposed that “the Jesuits should be withdrawn, either by an act of the Sonderbund cantons themselves or by a consent to be obtained from the Pope; that the Diet should then declare formally that it had no aggressive intention against the Sonderbund; and the Sonderbund, upon receiving this assurance, should dissolve their Separate League, which was at variance with the Federal Compact; that both parties should then disarm, and that peace should thus be permanently restored.”

This fair proposal came to naught, largely through the delays necessary for coming to an understanding with France, and the reluctance of Switzerland to take advice, however good. She was left to settle her own troubles.

Note 21, p. 213.—Here is omitted a minute elucidation of the British Government’s share in the tumultuous and confused Italian politics of Lord Palmerston’s time. The speaker mentions and defends the following cases of British influence: 1. After vainly trying to dissuade the King of Sardinia from taking up arms against Austria in the troubles of 1846–48, England did not feel obliged forcibly to prevent such action. She considered that, ethically wrong, his action was nevertheless practically forced upon him by the appeal of Lombardy and the overpowering sentiment of his own subjects. She also refused to propose to the people of Lombardy (acting for Austria) a compromise which she felt was less than Lombardy would accept. 2. The Earl of Minto was really summoned to Rome by the Pope. Although the English law did not then permit the sending of a regular Minister to the Papal Court, the Pope wished to have by him an adviser and quasi moral representative of England. In Palmerston’s words, he wished that this person “should be entirely in the confidence of Her Majesty’s Government; that he should be conversant with the conditions of this country; that he should be a man of rank; and, if possible, a person who could combine with these qualifications diplomatic experience.” Palmerston adds: “If a form of words had been devised which should exactly describe the Earl of Minto, it could not have been done more correctly.” He was accordingly requested by his Government to include Rome in a trip taken ostensibly for recreation. The Earl found plenty to busy himself with in distracted Italy. While he was at Rome, a civil war began between Sicily and the King of Naples; and the informal representative of England was asked by both parties to effect an arrangement of their differences. While the Earl was in Sicily, however, the news of the fall of Louis Philippe arrived, and after that the hotheaded Sicilians would listen to nothing short of independence. 3. The third case of English interference was the announcement made to the King of Sardinia that if the Duke of Genoa were chosen and actually enthroned as King of Sicily, the English Government would acknowledge him. This promise was based on the theory, then generally accepted, that the King of Naples would be unable to recover Sicily. The contrary happened; and the English proposal, actually made by the Sicilians to the Sardinian Government, was rejected by the latter.

These things being so, the speaker concludes: “I am justified in denying that the policy which we pursued in Italy was that of exciting revolutions, and then abandoning the victims we had deluded. On the contrary, I maintain that we gave advice calculated to prevent revolutions, by reconciling opposite parties and conflicting views. Ours was a policy of improvement and peace; and therefore the Government deserves not condemnation, but praise.”

Note 22, p. 214.—The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, so called from the palace in which it was signed (July, 1833), by Russia and Turkey, was in many respects an epoch-making document. Its influence was long felt in the world-forces that thrill with every new agitation of the Eastern Question. The causes that led to its signing were the revolt and highly successful campaigns waged against the Sultan by Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, and his son Ibrahim. After the fall of Acre, Ibrahim overcame the Turkish army sent against him in Syria, advanced to the north, overcame another army, and had the way clear for a march to the Bosphorus, when the terrified Sultan called in the aid of Russia. At his request a Russian squadron came to Constantinople. It is needless to say that this event was highly unwelcome both to England and France. France threatened to recall her ambassador, Admiral Roussin; but the Sultan only appealed to Russia for troops and more ships. Finally, through the agency of France, a peace was patched up between the Sultan and his Egyptian enemies. Although really relieved of his fears by France, it was to Russia that the Sultan showed the fullest gratitude. The outcome of this was the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, which arranged for nothing less than a defensive Russo-Turkish alliance. As for Russia, she had not only signed a treaty, but executed a coup of the most important nature. For, by a secret clause, which was soon made public, Turkey agreed to close the Dardanelles to the warships of the world when Russia was at war. And, by the very nature of the clause, Russia, in such a predicament, could use Turkish waters as her own. The gates of the Dardanelles were to be unlocked for her; for all others they continued closed. The Russian advantage is obvious. From this moment the English distrust of Russia increased daily; and England and France were single in their aim to diminish Russian influence with the Porte. And the feeling thus aroused had for its eventual outlet the Crimean War. But at first French indignation found expression in a marked display of friendly feeling towards the old rebel, Mehemet Ali. The Sultan had died; but against his successor the Egyptian now took up arms again. Some signal victories having been gained by him, the French and English fleets appeared in the Dardanelles, chiefly as a menace against Russia. The latter saw that she would have to abdicate from her singularly advantageous standpoint as the sole protector of Turkey. When negotiations were opened again between the new Sultan and Mehemet, the rebel refused to conclude a peace upon reasonable terms; but France was the only power that remained favorable to his pretensions. Thus, in the settlement of this matter, France and England were brought into decided opposition: the former proposing that to Mehemet and descendants all Syria and Egypt should be given, a yearly tribute to be paid to the Porte; the latter insisting that Mehemet should have Egypt alone, that he should evacuate Northern Syria, and that he should hold Palestine only as life-governor. Lord Palmerston not only held firm to this, but persuaded the other Powers to acquiesce in it. Accordingly, on July 15, 1840, a treaty was signed by the consenting Powers. France, thus left out in the cold, worked herself into a jealous frenzy, which, however, did not lead her into actual hostilities. The Allies now proceeded calmly to crush the bone over which all the dogs of war had been snarling. With expedition Ibrahim was expelled from Syria; and Mehemet, at Alexandria, was compelled to compound with Sir Charles Napier, the English Admiral, by formally submitting to the Sultan; by accepting merely the hereditary possession of Egypt; and by restoring to the Sultan the Turkish fleet, which, by the double-dealing of its captain, had gone over to him. To this arrangement France at last decided to yield. And now, about the crux of the Dardanelles, a modus vivendi was arrived at. Russia could not hope to retain the predominant privileges conferred at Unkiar Skelessi. Along with France, she joined in the general understanding of the Powers that no warship of any nation should be allowed to pass these mooted straits—save and only if Turkey were at war. Thus she had to give up her hope of sea-power in the Mediterranean; but at the same time her Euxine shores were safe from all but Turkish attack. And so the flags of Europe to-day float off Constantinople only from the so-called “guardships,” the small gunboats which each Power may maintain there as the moral emblem of its fleet.

The direct reference made to Turkish questions in this speech, delivered as events were gathering for the Crimean War, is to the incident of the Hungarian refugees. Following the insurrection in Hungary headed by Kossuth and others, the leaders had fled (1849) to Turkey. Kossuth himself was among these refugees; and his children were taken care of at the British embassy. Austria and Russia directly demanded of the Porte that it should give the refugees up. Strange to say, the Sultan, in a new rÔle for an Ottoman Emperor, refused. The public opinion of Western Europe rallied to a position of the Porte so sympathetic, and, as recounted in the text, fleets, English and French, were ordered to the Dardanelles. With these Powers behind the Sultan, there was only one thing for the two Emperors to do: they withdrew their demand. Thus closed another incident in that problem of problems, the Eastern Question.

Note 23, p. 233.—The “committing” of a Bill followed its second reading. The House constituted itself as a Committee to consider the details of a Bill: the Speaker temporarily abandoned the Chair to another member; and the Bill was then discussed clause by clause. The House failing to agree on any point, a Division, or poll of the members, was taken. The majority vote decided. Mr. Sheldon Amos (“Primer of the English Constitution and Government,” London, 1877, p. 46) conveniently summarizes the Parliamentary history of a successful Bill:

“1. Motion for leave to bring in the Bill. Order to bring it in.

“2. Motion to have Bill read a first time. Order that it be read a first time.

“3. Motion to have Bill read a second time. Order that it be read a second time.

“4. Motion to have the Bill committed. Order that it be committed.

“5. Committee on details of Bill. Report of Committee.

“6. Motion that Bill be read a third time. Motion that it be passed. Passing of a Bill and sending of it to House of Lords.”

Passed by the House of Lords, it then receives the assent of the Crown—the latter now a mere formality.

Note 24, p. 235.—How crying the need of reform had been before the great Reform Act of 1832, a glance at the previous state of England will show. It was only in name that England was ruled by a representative government. A majority of the House of Commons were actually the creatures of the peers, or of other personages high in power. Like Church livings, the great lords had seats in the Commons to dispense. Some seats were openly for sale. The value of the two seats of the town of Gatton, which had only seven electors, was commonly estimated at £100,000. At a time when such cities as Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham were actually without representation in Parliament, the paper borough of Old Sarum, which had no inhabitant at all, had two members accredited to it. Scotland was even worse off. One example of the conditions there will suffice. The county of Bute contained but one voter, who—irresistibly suggestive of Mr. Gilbert’s Pooh-Bah—at elections was at once chairman, proposer and seconder of his own return, recorder of the successful vote, and unanimously elected candidate! The criminal absurdity of these matters, so completely patent, long before 1832 had stirred the people and even some of the statesmen of England. Among those who had written or spoken for reform were the great Chatham, and the younger Pitt; so too had felt John Wilkes and Sir James Mackintosh. And then came the French Revolution, which England hailed as the harbinger of her own reforms. When the French had won so swiftly the battle for freedom, what could not the English do? All the world knows how, in the days of the guillotine and the Terror, these English illusions faded. Forthwith, and for nearly a generation of men, England’s whole energies were turned from her domestic troubles to crush the child of that Revolution in which she had thought to see the breaking of a new day. Napoleon at last conquered, all the old social unrest swept back. But against the reformers there were arrayed all the conservative elements of a most conservative country,—the classes and professions, and a Government confirmed in tenure by the victories of a Titanic war. It was a long struggle. Again did the example of France, in her expulsion of the Bourbons in 1830, give renewed heart across the Channel. As has so often happened, the people found their successful leader in the class which contained their natural opponents. Not even the prestige of the Duke of Wellington, still the national hero, and head of the anti-reformers, could avail against Earl Grey, the man of the hour, who at last won for his country real reform.

In his “Nineteenth Century” (p. 109, London, 1880), Mr. Mackenzie tells what the Act of 1832 had done: “The Reform Act bestowed the privilege of the franchise in towns upon occupants who paid a rental of ten pounds; in counties, upon those who paid a rental of forty pounds. In England, fifty-six burghs with a population under two thousand, and returning one hundred and eleven members, were disfranchised; thirty burghs with a population under four thousand, and returning each two members, were reduced to one member. Twenty new burghs received each one member; twenty-two received each two members; the county members were raised from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine. Scotland received an addition of eight burgh members.”

A great step had been taken. Briefly, there had been abolished the monopoly of government which the aristocracy and landed gentry had enjoyed; and the middle classes had been admitted to a share of things. But the right of the working people to representation was still ignored. It was not in reason that agitations to secure this representation should not continue. At intervals from the reform year until 1866, the unrest that had not yet been allayed found vent in many measures, of which the more notable are the Bills of 1852–54, introduced by Lord John Russell; that of 1859, a Conservative Bill, introduced by Disraeli; and that of 1860, again proposed by Lord John Russell. All were unsuccessful.

Note 25, p. 243.—The House of Commons draws its members from counties, boroughs (or burghs), and the universities. County members are understood to represent the country population and their interests; borough members, the cities and towns. The members from the universities are few. The Reform Act of 1867, passed the year after this speech, thus allotted the representation to the House of Commons (Amos, “Primer,” etc., p. 24):

Note 26, p. 245.—Lord John Russell.

Note 27, p. 265.—Dryden: “The Medal,” ll. 119–122.

Note 28, p. 268.—That is, the suffrage to be extended to all householders and heads of families. Under the Act of 1867, the suffrage was also extended, in boroughs, to the “resident occupier of lodgings of the yearly value of £10 at least if let unfurnished.”

Note 29, p. 270.—Lines 807–810 from Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel,” Part I. The first line is loosely quoted. The text is really—

Note 30, p. 272.—“We, the three hundred, have sworn the same.”

Note 31, p. 275.—Another futile attempt of Lord John Russell—this Reform Act of 1860. The county franchise was to be based on so low a rental as £10; the borough franchise went down to £6. Lord Palmerston opposed the Bill; and the country was apathetic. In the House, the measure dragged a serpentine length of dull speechmaking. Nobody—not even the Liberals—took it very seriously; and with the Tories the Bill got to be a joke. Finally, on June 11, 1860, its sponsor withdrew it.

Note 32, p. 276.—Shakespeare: “Henry IV.,” Part I., Act i., Scene iii., ll. 201–207.

Note 33, p. 278.—Samuel Butler: “Hudibras,” Part I., Canto 3, ll. 1047–1050.

Note 34, p. 278.—Shakespeare: “Henry IV.,” Part I., Act v., Scene i. An extract from ll. 128 et seq.

Note 35, p. 284.—A rough paraphrase of Isabella’s speech in “Measure for Measure,” Act ii., Scene ii., ll. 83, 84: “To-morrow! O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him! He’s not prepared for death,” etc.