THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).

The Queen's Visit to Ireland—The Royal Family at Balmoral—Movements of the Court—Illness and Death of the Prince Consort—The National Lamentation—The Laureate's Lines—The Address in Parliament—A peaceful Session—The Education Code—The American War in Parliament—The Nashville—The Blockade and the Cotton Famine—The Defences Vote—The Game Act—Palmerston and Cobden—Prorogation of Parliament—The Garotters—The Alabama—Mr. Adams and Earl Russell—Blunders and Delays—Russell's Excuses—The Alabama sails—Progress of the War in America—Greece and the Ionian Islands—The Society of Arts—The Exhibition of 1862—Jealousy of Prussia and France—The Colonial Exhibition—The Cotton Famine in 1863—Engagement and Marriage of the Prince of Wales—Mr. Gladstone's Budget—"Essays and Reviews"—Obituary of the Year—Russell and Gortschakoff—The Six Points—They are ignored by Russia—The Polish Revolution—Russell and Brazil—The Coercion of Japan—The American War in 1863—Mexican Affairs—Intervention of England, France, and Spain—The French Emperor's Designs—Withdrawal of the British and Spanish Expeditions—The Crown of Mexico offered to the Archduke Maximilian—Captain Speke in Central Africa.

THE year 1861, in the earlier months of which the Queen had been called to sustain a severe affliction through the death of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, was destined not to close without bringing her Majesty face to face with a still more terrible bereavement. But all looked bright and prosperous for a time. In the summer the Queen paid a visit to Ireland, the third since she ascended the Throne. In 1849 she made a voyage along the eastern coast, calling at Cork, Waterford, Dublin, and Belfast. In 1853 she visited the Dublin Exhibition, accompanied by the Prince Consort, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred. On the 21st of August the Royal party, including the Queen, the Prince Consort, the Princess Alice, the Princess Helena, and Prince Arthur, crossed from Holyhead to Kingstown in the Royal yacht, arriving in the night, and dropping anchor in the middle of the harbour. The Royal party proceeded to Dublin by train and took up their residence at the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park. During the day they drove about Dublin, visiting various public buildings. Afterwards the Royal party, including the Prince of Wales, started for the Lakes of Killarney. The Queen was hailed with enthusiasm along the whole line by the inhabitants, who thronged in multitudes to see her. The Queen took up her residence in Kenmare House at Killarney—the beautiful mansion of the Earl of Kenmare. It had been arranged that the Queen should divide her time equally between the two magnates who owned equally the wondrous Killarney Lakes—the Earl of Kenmare and Mr. Herbert, whose seat at Muckross was placed amid scenery surpassing even that about Kenmare House, and took in the interesting ruins of Muckross Abbey. After several days spent in this terrestrial paradise, the Queen left Killarney en route for Scotland, by way of Dublin and Holyhead.

The Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Royal Family proceeded at once to Balmoral on their return from Ireland. The time was spent there in the usual pursuits and exercises most conducive to health—in driving, riding, walking, sketching, fishing, deer-stalking, visiting, and rural sports of various kinds. It is not easy to conceive a picture of greater human felicity than the Queen and her family presented this year. Her eldest daughter had been married to the Prince of Prussia, and had given birth to an heir to the Throne of that country. The Prince of Wales, the Heir Apparent to the Throne of England, had, in his American tour and in his residence in Ireland, won the hearts of all with whom he came in contact. Prince Alfred had entered the naval service and was, if possible, a still greater favourite with the public. The Princess Alice had been engaged to his Royal Highness the Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was now on a visit to Balmoral. The rest of the Royal children were all that the fondest parents could desire. The Prince Consort was regarded as the best of husbands and fathers; and if any one could have pointed out an individual in her Majesty's dominions as singularly blessed in all the relations of life, and as likely for many years to enjoy his happy lot, he would have named the husband of the Queen. He enjoyed good health; he was in the prime of life, only forty-two years of age; and never perhaps had he enjoyed life with greater zest. But how soon was this bright prospect overcast! Who could have imagined that before the end of the year that home would be visited by death, and that the Queen, then so happy, should become a heartbroken widow—smitten down by a calamity the shadow of which was to rest upon her spirit throughout the whole of her future life?

The Queen left Balmoral on the 22nd of October, and slept that night in the palace of Holyrood. On the following day the Prince Consort laid the foundation-stone of the new General Post Office in Edinburgh, and afterwards performed the same ceremonial for the Industrial Museum of Scotland. On the same evening the Royal party resumed their journey to England, and arrived at Windsor Castle at half-past eight the following morning. On the 1st of November the Queen, as Sovereign of the most exalted Order of the Star of India, held her first investiture in great state. This Order had been instituted a few months before, to provide a means for adequately recognising and honouring services rendered to the British Crown in India, whether by native princes or by British subjects. It consisted of a Grand Master (who was the Viceroy of India for the time being), and twenty-five knights, together with such extra and honorary knights as her Majesty might from time to time see fit to appoint.

Nothing unusual was heard of the Royal Family till the middle of December; and the heavy toll of the great bell of St. Paul's gave the first intimation to many of the people of London that the Prince Consort had been suffering from any dangerous illness. On the previous Saturday the Court News had announced that the Queen had driven out in an open carriage, and that the Prince had been confined to his apartments during the week by a feverish cold, attended with pains in the limbs. On the following Wednesday a bulletin stated that he was suffering from fever not attended by unfavourable symptoms, but likely from its nature to continue for some time. On Saturday, however, rumours were abroad at the West-End that the Prince was dangerously ill and that he was sinking fast. Then it was reported that he had rallied and that even at the Castle no serious alarm existed. When, therefore, the bell of St. Paul's tolled at midnight over the hushed city, it inspired a feeling of apprehension which was too sadly realised next morning. The news of the death of the Prince on the 14th was then flashed along every wire throughout the United Kingdom and over the Continent of Europe. It being Sunday, it was not till the people went to church and noticed the omission of the Prince's name in the Liturgy, that the truth was realised. The grief was universal, pervading every household, as if each had lost some dear and honoured relative. The funeral took place on the 23rd of December. At the express desire of the departed Prince, it was of a private character; but all the chief men of the State attended the obsequies at the Royal Chapel. Nature seemed to sympathise with the national feeling of depression and gloom. The weather was cold and damp, the sky dull and heavy. There was a procession of State carriages to St. George's Chapel, at the door of which the Prince of Wales and the other Royal mourners were assembled to receive the corpse. The grief of the Royal children was very affecting; little Prince Arthur especially sobbed as if his heart were breaking. When all was over, and the last of the long, lingering train of mourners had departed, the attendants descended into the vault with lights, and moved the bier and coffin along the narrow passage to the royal vault. The day was observed throughout the realm as one of deep solemnity. The bells of all the churches were tolled, and in many churches special services were performed. In the towns the shops were closed, and the window blinds of private residences were drawn down. A large number of persons appeared in mourning, and in seaport towns the flags were hoisted half-mast high. The words of the Poet Laureate were scarcely too strong when he said—

Indeed, were it not that his character lacked variety, and from its German formalism was sometimes out of harmony with English sentiment, the Prince was an ideal Sovereign. The loss that the nation had sustained naturally occupied the attention of Parliament at the opening of the ensuing Session. In the Royal Speech, which was delivered by commission, the following allusion was made to this all-engrossing subject:—"We are commanded by her Majesty to assure you that her Majesty is persuaded that you will deeply participate in the affliction by which her Majesty has been overwhelmed, by the calamitous, untimely, and irreparable loss of her beloved Consort, who has been her comfort and support. It has been, however, soothing to her Majesty, while suffering most acutely under this awful dispensation of Providence, to receive from all classes of her subjects the most cordial assurances of their sympathy with her sorrow, as well as of their appreciation of the noble character of him, the greatness of whose loss to her Majesty and to the nation is so justly and so universally felt and lamented." In the Queen's answer to the Address we have the mournful key-note of many an utterance that afterwards came from her widowed heart. Her Majesty said:—"I return you most sincere thanks for your dutiful and affectionate Address, especially for the manner in which you have assured me of your feelings on the irreparable loss sustained by myself and the country, in the afflicting dispensation of Providence which bows me to the earth."

Parliament had met on the 6th of February. In the Royal Speech the death of the Prince Consort was naturally the prominent topic. Among other results of the deep and universal sympathy with the Queen in her sorrow, was a general determination, rather tacit than expressed, on the part of statesmen of all parties, that the Session should be a quiet one. The first question warmly debated this Session related to the new code of regulations, commonly called "the Revised Code," which had been promulgated by the Committee of Council for Education in the preceding summer. Two great defects had gradually become apparent in the working of the system by which State aid was extended to primary schools. The nature of the first will be apparent when it is stated that, till now, every teacher in a school receiving an annual grant, and every pupil teacher, had been separately recognised and dealt with by the Education Department; and since the number of such schools had been enormously increased since the Committee of Council commenced its operations, the strain on the organisation of the Department had by this time become nearly intolerable. The other defect of the system of annual grants Mr. Lowe (then Vice-President of the Council) considered to be this, that, notwithstanding the check of Government inspection, it did not provide sufficient security for the economical application of the public money. A large proportion of the teachers—such was his argument—concentrate their attention on their highest classes and their cleverest boys; the annual examination thus becomes an occasion for the display of carefully selected pupils, and ceases to be a careful scrutiny. It was on the strength of considerations such as these that Mr. Lowe drew up his Revised Code, which was at once to relieve the strain on the administrative machinery of the Department, and to introduce the principle of "payment by results." All recognition of, and all grants to, teachers and pupil teachers were to cease, and the Department was henceforward to have dealings with none but the managers of schools. Secondly, the establishment grants for fixed sums, which had been hitherto made to teachers and pupil teachers certified to be efficient by the Government inspector, were to be replaced by capitation grants, regulated in the following manner:—On the day of the annual examination, all pupils who during the previous twelve months had attended school at least one hundred times, might be presented by the teacher to be examined by the inspector in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Six "standards," varying in difficulty with the age of the pupils, were settled in each of these subjects; and a certain small grant was to be obtainable in respect of any pupil who might pass satisfactorily in any one of the three. The plan of the Government was severely criticised by many Conservative members, and met with little favour out of doors among those who had been most active in the establishment, and continued most zealous in the support, of primary schools. Especially the clergy of the Church of England complained of the suddenness of the change, of the utter disregard shown to the claims and services of the pupil teachers, of the pecuniary difficulties in which they themselves as managers would in many cases be involved by it. Mr. Walpole moved, on the 11th of March, a series of resolutions, declaring it to be inexpedient to adopt the principle of payment by results exclusively and censuring many other portions of the Code. The House, however, went into Committee; but shortly before the Easter recess the Government took into its serious consideration the objections that had been raised to their plan, and resolved to introduce such modifications as would disarm the opposition of the more influential and reasonable objectors. The chief concession was the re-introduction of a small establishment grant, having nothing to do with "payment by results," to the extent of 4s. per annum for each child in daily attendance; something also was done for the pupil teachers. The Opposition was satisfied and Mr. Walpole withdrew his resolutions; and the scheme for regulating the apportionment of the public grant in aid of primary schools received the sanction of Parliament.

The progress of the Civil War in America excited a restless feeling in Britain, which naturally found its expression within the walls of Parliament. An incident happened in January which brought forcibly home to the minds of Britons the difficulties and embarrassments of that neutrality in the American struggle which we had proclaimed, and were resolved honestly to maintain. An armed steamer, named the Nashville, ran up the Southampton Water and anchored near the town. It soon transpired that she was a Confederate cruiser, and that, having just captured at sea a large American merchant ship, the Harvey Birch, she had, after removing her crew and such plunder as was not too bulky, set fire to and destroyed her. This proceeding was an inevitable consequence of the British proclamation forbidding either belligerent to bring prizes into any British port. In a few days the United States steam frigate Tuscarora, her captain and crew boiling over with wrath and the desire for battle, came up the Southampton Water and anchored within a short distance of the Nashville. To avert a collision, the Admiralty immediately sent a man-of-war to Southampton. Greatly to his chagrin, the captain of the Tuscarora found himself compelled to conform to the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which enjoined the authorities of any port in which two vessels belonging to belligerent States might be present at the same time, to allow to the one that should leave first a clear interval of twenty-four hours before the other might pursue. Thanks to this provision, the Nashville (which was no match for the Tuscarora) made her escape; but her career was of no long continuance, as she was soon afterwards chased into Gibraltar and there sold.

The tidings of sanguinary conflicts occurring along the whole frontier territory, from the west of Missouri to the shores of Virginia, shook the mind of Britain to its inmost depths and, according to the preconceived sympathies of different characters and classes, were variously judged and interpreted. Merchants, impatient at the cotton famine, found spokesmen in Parliament to inveigh against the fitfulness and inefficiency of the blockade of the Southern ports and to urge the Government to interfere. But since, to say nothing of the strong evidence produced on the other side proving that the blockade was as effective as was possible in the circumstances, the very fact that there was a cotton famine established the point to any reasonable mind without more ado, the advocates of British interference on this ground gained nothing by their motion. Mr. Lindsay, the chief representative of that portion of the mercantile community of Britain which desired the recognition of the Confederacy as an independent State, proposed a resolution, in July, suggesting the propriety of offering mediation with a view of terminating the hostilities between the contending parties. The matter was warmly discussed, but in the end the counsels of prudence and caution prevailed and the resolution was rejected. In order to meet the distress in Lancashire occasioned by the cotton famine, a measure was passed, called the "Union Relief Aid Bill," for enabling the Unions in that county to borrow money, when the pressure and burden of pauperism had reached a certain point, upon the security of the rates. Alarmed by the formidable destructive efficacy which the Confederate ironclad the Merrimac (or Virginia) had exhibited in her attack upon the wooden ships of the Federals, the Government proposed, and the House readily sanctioned, a vote of £1,200,000 for the strengthening and reconstruction of our forts and arsenals.

Sir Baldwin Leighton's Act, the object of which was to enlist the services of the county police as assistant gamekeepers to the country gentlemen, had been originally introduced in the Upper House by Lord Berners, but failed to pass. The Bill was then adopted by Sir Baldwin Leighton in the Lower House, and by careful tactics, and arranging that a sufficient number of its friends should always be within call so as to ensure a superiority of force at the decisive moment, the country gentlemen carried it through all its stages and passed it. The Lords then had no scruple about accepting a Bill that naturally could not but command their sympathies and the Bill became law. This result was the more singular, inasmuch as the Government opposed the Bill at every stage. But, owing to the apathy of the borough members (an apathy proved by the smallness of the numbers on the division lists), the opposition failed. The Bill empowered a constable to search a person suspected of being in the possession of game, and imposed a penalty not exceeding five pounds.

Although in the debates of the Session there had been, according to that joint understanding with which it was begun, little exhibition of party heat or rancour, yet the spectacle of a large section of the Tory party almost openly avowing their sympathy with Lord Palmerston and his policy, and the evident congeniality between him and them, were not suffered to pass without observation. Towards the close of the Session, Mr. Cobden, in a carefully prepared and powerful speech, arraigned the policy of the Prime Minister as that of a man who was fighting, or pretending to fight, under a banner not his own, and whose acts were nicely calculated to gain the approval of his ostensible adversaries and carry discouragement into the ranks of his nominal adherents. He asked, What had been the professed principles of the Liberal party? They were economy, non-intervention, and reform. But the present was the most extravagant Government that had administered the affairs of the country in time of peace during the present generation. This assertion he supported by an elaborate comparison, and proceeded to ascribe the whole of this increased expenditure to Lord Palmerston, who himself represented a policy that had cost the country no less a sum than £100,000,000. After adverting to the wars with China, where Colonel Gordon, who was afterwards to die at Khartoum, was saving the empire from the anarchy of the Taeping rebellion, as instances of the departure of the Ministry from the policy of non-intervention, he turned to the state of great Liberal questions and of parties in the House, which, he said, was not an honest state. Lord Palmerston was not governing the country by his own party, but with the aid of his political opponents, who were then in power without the responsibility of office. He analysed Lord Palmerston's Liberalism by his acts. The Ballot, and other questions in which members on that side of the House took an interest, were going back under the noble lord's leadership. Rather than continue as they were, he would prefer being in opposition. Comparing Lord Palmerston with Mr. Disraeli, he thought the latter would be quite as desirable upon the Treasury bench. The veteran Premier defended himself against this vehement attack with the skill and adroitness which his thorough knowledge of Parliament, his tact, bonhomie, and cheerful elasticity of temper, rendered habitual and natural to him. He urged that if his zeal in the cause of Reform appeared to have grown somewhat cold, he was therein only reflecting faithfully the general feeling of the House, while the House no less faithfully reflected the general feeling in the country. As to economy, he could, of course, urge the continual rise in the costliness of national armaments, owing to the invention of new engines of destruction, and maintain that to spend money on fortifying the points where it was vulnerable to attack, was, in fact, a nation's best and truest economy. On the delicate question of the state of parties and Conservative support he said little, and that little was eminently judicious and discreet.

Parliament was prorogued on the 7th of August, and home affairs went on as quietly as usual for the remainder of the year. Pauperism increased, owing to the collapse of industry in Lancashire; nevertheless, the population was greater by a quarter of a million at the end of the year than it had been at the beginning of it. But a number of persons equivalent to about one half of this increase emigrated in the course of the year. In the autumn the honest and law-abiding citizens of London were alarmed by the outbreak and rapid increase of a new species of crime, the "garotte robbery." The villains who introduced it did not observe an absolutely uniform practice, but the usual modus operandi was this:—The victim who had been marked out for attack was seized from behind round the throat by one of the confederates; at the same instant another coming up in front dealt him a violent blow in the stomach; he was then thrown violently down on his back, thus being rendered insensible, and in this position his pockets were rifled, murderous blows and kicks being freely administered in case of any symptom of returning consciousness. After many cases of garotte robbery had occurred, in some of which the victims had died of the injuries received, while in all the constitution and health were permanently shaken, the garotting of a member of Parliament, Mr. Pilkington, drew the special attention of the Home Secretary to the condition of the streets. The police became suddenly active and arrested a number of known criminals on suspicion; these were tried en masse by Baron Bramwell, and all who were identified as having been implicated in garotte robberies were sentenced to heavy terms of penal servitude. The class of ferocious human wolves to which the condemned persons belonged was partly dispersed, partly cowed, by this judicious severity.

About this time the Alabama escaped from the Mersey through a want of vigilance on the part of the British authorities; and, inasmuch as her evasion led to such momentous consequences, we propose to narrate in some detail the circumstances connected with that event. There can be no doubt that, on the part of those who ordered and paid for her, the Alabama was intended from the first for a Confederate vessel of war. She was built in the yard of the Messrs. Laird, Birkenhead. Of course, her armament was not put into her till after she had left the Mersey. But that she was being built and fitted for a vessel of war no one who knew anything about naval architecture could doubt. Indeed, the matter was notorious at Liverpool, where the sympathies of the mercantile community ran strongly in favour of the Confederates. While she was building much correspondence passed between the Federal Consul at Liverpool and his Government and the American Minister in London; but Mr. Adams desired to wait until he could lay before Earl Russell sufficient evidence to justify him in attaching the vessel and prosecuting the builders under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Meanwhile, on the 15th of May, the vessel was launched under the name of the "290."

On the 23rd of June Mr. Adams thought that he had acquired sufficient proof. On that day he wrote to Earl Russell, saying that a new and powerful vessel was being fitted out at Liverpool "for the especial and manifest object of carrying on hostilities by sea," and soliciting such action as might "tend either to stop the projected expedition, or to establish the fact that its purpose is not inimical to the people of the United States." Before replying, Earl Russell obtained a report on the subject from the Customs department at Liverpool, which, on the 4th of July, he enclosed to Mr. Adams. The report stated that there had been no attempt on the part of the builders of the "290" "to disguise, what is most apparent, that she is intended for a ship of war." It proceeded to recommend that the American Consul at Liverpool should submit such evidence as he could obtain to the collector there, who would thereupon take such measures as the Foreign Enlistment Act would require, and concluded by saying that the officers at Liverpool would keep a strict watch on the vessel. Mr. Adams then instructed the consul to follow the course indicated in the Customs officials' report. The consul accordingly submitted a statement on the 9th of July, but the collector replied that the details given were not, in a legal point of view, sufficient to justify him in taking upon himself the responsibility of the detention of the ship. Mr. Dudley (the consul) then directed his utmost endeavours to obtaining direct legal proof, and in this he at last succeeded, laying it, in the form of affidavits, before the collector on the 21st of July. The affidavits were on the same day transmitted by the collector to the Board of Customs at London, with a request for instructions by telegraph, "as the ship appeared to be ready for sea and might leave any hour."

Up to this point, if the action of our authorities had not been all that the Federal Government might have desired, at any rate it had been neither unfriendly nor inefficient. The collector at Liverpool could not proceed to detain the vessel without legal evidence; but as soon as such evidence was supplied, he immediately sent it to the head of his department and, while requesting instructions, indicated the extreme urgency of the case. But now there unfortunately occurred an act of gross administrative laches, of which the American Government and people had just reason to complain. From the Board of Customs at London the affidavits and the collector's letter were sent to the Treasury. This must have been done—at any rate, ought to have been done—on the 22nd of July, and the Treasury, seeing the urgency of the case, should, if unwilling to act on its own responsibility, have laid the affidavits immediately before the law officers of the Crown and requested their opinion. Nor was it by this channel only that the affidavits showing the true character of the Alabama reached Government. Copies of the most material among them were sent by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell on the 22nd of July, together with the opinions of an eminent counsel, Mr. Robert Collier, and again on the 24th. One would have thought that here, again, either immediate action would have been taken or the opinion of the law officers obtained with all practicable expedition. But what happened? The affidavits were considered by the law officers of the Crown on the 28th of July, six days after the letter from Liverpool had reached London, stating that the vessel might leave any hour. They soon made up their minds and their report was in Earl Russell's hands on the morning of the 29th. Orders were then immediately sent to Liverpool to stop the vessel. But it would appear that in some mysterious manner intelligence of the intention of the Government to detain the vessel had reached the persons at Liverpool who had charge of her. The Customs department at Liverpool, on receiving the order for detention, telegraphed that "the vessel '290' came out of dock last night, and left the port this morning." Even then she might have been detained by the British authorities in other ports. Lord Russell advocated this proceeding in the Cabinet, but none of his colleagues, except the Duke of Argyll, supported him, and the project was most unfortunately dropped.

In a conversation with Mr. Adams, two days afterwards, at the Foreign Office, Earl Russell remarked that a delay in determining upon the case of the "290" "had most unexpectedly been caused by the sudden development of a malady in the Queen's advocate, Sir John D. Harding, totally incapacitating him for the transaction of business. This had made it necessary to call in other parties, whose opinion had at last been given for the detention of the gunboat, but before the order got down to Liverpool the vessel was gone." Such an excuse could not be expected to satisfy the American Government, but neither is it satisfactory from a British point of view. The matter being known to be urgent, if, on its being referred to Sir John Harding, that official was found to be incapacitated by ill health or any other cause, what was done ultimately should have been done at first—"other parties" should have been called in. This too easy-going, laissez aller mode of conducting public business on the part of Government departments in 1862 cost the United Kingdom three millions sterling in 1873.

The Alabama steamed down the Mersey and proceeded to Moelfra Bay, on the coast of Anglesey, where she lay two days. The American Government considered, and it is difficult to contravene their opinion, that there was culpable negligence somewhere in permitting a ship, the seizure of which had been ordered, to lie unmolested in British waters for two whole days. From Moelfra Bay the vessel proceeded to the Azores, and remained at Terceira till the arrival of a vessel from London, having on board six guns, ammunition, coals, etc., for the new cruiser. Two days afterwards the screw-steamer Bahama arrived, having on board Commander Raphael Semmes, of the Confederate navy, and other officers, besides two more guns. The transfer of the guns and stores having been completed without hindrance from any one, Captain Semmes hoisted his flag on the 24th of August, and the Alabama, now first known by that name, sailed from Terceira with twenty-six officers and eighty-five men.

The British Government was all the more unpopular with the North Americans because the operations of the war were by no means decisive. General Grant, after a severe battle at Pittsburg, cleared Tennessee of the Confederates and they slowly lost ground in Arkansas. On the other hand, the Federal general McLellan was driven out of Virginia by General Lee, who also routed with great loss the covering army under Pope, and, though Lee could make no impression upon Maryland, he carried off the honours of the campaign by driving Burnside from before Richmond. In Kentucky Bragg foiled the Northerners at every point. The capture of New Orleans in April by the gallant Farragut was undoubtedly a serious blow to the Confederates, but one that might have been retrieved had resources been equal to demands. As the world now knows, they were not; but to close observers at the time, for instance the Emperor Napoleon, the cause of the Southerners appeared to be still in the ascendant.

A revolution, more akin to the ridiculous than to the sublime, took place this year in Greece. In October, while King Otho and his queen were absent from Athens, the people rose, the troops mutinied, the Bavarian dynasty was declared to have ceased to reign, and a provisional Government installed itself in office, with Demetri Bulgari at its head. A plebiscite was decreed, in humble imitation of the Napoleonic prototype, for the election of a king of Greece; every Greek above twenty years of age was to have a vote. The result of the voting was, that Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, was chosen king by an overwhelming majority. But it had been previously agreed between the plenipotentiaries of the protecting Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, that all members of the reigning families of these nations should be excluded from the Greek succession. The election of Prince Alfred was thus nullified. The further progress of the Greek revolution belongs to a later year; nevertheless, it will be convenient to give at this place a connected view of the whole series of transactions, so that it will be unnecessary hereafter to return to the subject. At the end of December, 1862, Mr. Henry Elliot was commissioned by the British Government to inform the provisional Government at Athens that England was disposed to cede the Ionian Islands (over which she had exercised a protectorate since the Congress of Vienna) to Greece, provided that the form of government remained monarchical; that Greece abstained from aggression against neighbouring States; that the king selected were a prince "against whom no well-founded objection could be raised;" lastly, that the cession were shown to be in accordance with the unanimous, or nearly unanimous, wish of the Ionian population. The Greeks and Ionians accepted the proffered terms with enthusiasm. After long consideration and discussion, a suitable occupant for the throne was found in Prince George, son of the King of Denmark, and brother to the Princess of Wales. A Greek deputation, proceeding to Copenhagen in June, 1863, tendered the Crown to Prince George, who accepted it and soon afterwards went to Greece, where he was received with general enthusiasm. Britain, thoroughly satisfied with this selection, proceeded to carry out her promise. Sir Henry Storks, the Lord High Commissioner, dissolved the Ionian Parliament in August, and summoned a new one, on which the express mandate should devolve of taking into consideration the contemplated re-union of the islands to Greece. The new Parliament met, and unanimously ratified the cession. One difficulty, however, still remained. Greece was a weak State: Corfu possessed a capacious and important harbour and, by the care of the protecting State, had been converted into a formidable fortress: were the fortifications handed over intact, it might be apprehended that, in some future European war, a great Power allying itself to Greece would employ the fortifications of Corfu for the purpose of strengthening its own position in the Mediterranean. The British Government, therefore, in concert with the four other great Powers, decided that the Ionian Islands should, from the time of their cession to Greece, "enjoy the advantages of a perpetual neutrality," and that the fortifications that had been constructed in Corfu, as no longer required after the concession of such neutrality, should be demolished previously to the evacuation of the island by the British garrison. This was in November, 1863; the demolition was at once proceeded with; but it was not till far on in 1864 that the troops finally quitted the island, and the annexation to Greece was consummated.

The year 1862, during which the truce of politics continued, was marked by a second grand display, on a scale of colossal magnitude, of the products of the material and artistic civilisation of the age, contributed by the industry of all countries, but especially by that of Britain and her colonies. The Society of Arts, a body through whose exertions the Exhibition of 1851 in great measure originated, began, with the countenance of the Prince Consort, to take preliminary measures in 1858 and 1859 for the purpose of ascertaining whether a sufficiently strong feeling existed in the country in favour of decennial repetitions of that great experiment to justify the prosecution of the scheme. The Continental war of 1859 caused a temporary suspension of proceedings; but on peace being restored, the Society resumed the consideration of the question, although at a period too late to allow of the Exhibition being ready by the year 1861, which was their original desire. The Society obtained decisive proof of the existence of a general desire for a second Great Exhibition in the most satisfactory form—namely, the signatures of upwards of 1,100 individuals for various sums of from £100 to £10,000, and amounting in the whole to no less than £450,000, to a guarantee deed for raising the funds needed for the conduct of the Exhibition. The scheme having thus been started, the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, in the most liberal spirit, placed at the disposal of the managers of the new undertaking, free of all charge, a space of nearly seventeen acres on their Kensington Gore Estate, and afterwards, when the original area was found insufficient, an additional plot of eight acres, being all the land that could be made available for the purpose. In this way was the scheme originated, the cost of the necessary buildings provided for, and an eligible site obtained.

The contractors for the greater part of the work were Messrs. Kelk and Lucas, and it could not have been in abler hands. But for the eastern dome the contract was taken by the Thames Iron Company. This dome was begun long before that on the western side; but a "generous rivalry" sprang up between the builders, which resulted in something like a neck-and-neck race between them at last. The work was commenced in the latter part of 1861, and the contractors were bound to deliver the shell of the building, complete, to the Royal Commissioners on the 12th of February, 1862. The contract was kept, and the building handed over on the 12th of February. Applications for space from exhibitors were then invited, and the fitting up of the courts and galleries was proceeded with; but with such numerous and varied interests to adjust, the commissioners could not ensure the same rapid progress as that made in the erection of the building; and a large part of the edifice was still in confusion, heaped up with packing-cases and litter, when the Exhibition was opened on the 1st of May. Thirty thousand persons witnessed the spectacle. The procession of the Queen's Commissioners for opening the Exhibition was formed at Buckingham Palace, and proceeded, fortunately under a bright and sunny sky, to the entrance of the building in Cromwell Road. As was to be expected, neither the Queen nor any of her children was present; but the Royal Family was ably represented by the Duke of Cambridge, supported by the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other august personages. The Lord Mayor of London lent his historical presence to the ceremonial, coming in great state, with a suite of aldermen, common-councilmen, and City officers, in seventy carriages.

The Exhibition was like an enormous bazaar, containing everything that the fancy and the invention of all countries had at any time taxed themselves to produce for the use and the enjoyment of men. According to the ground-plan of the Exhibition building, there was an immense area, in the angle between the southern transept and the nave, reserved for the French department; and a curious circumstance occurred in connection with this, which, when one thinks of the later relations between France and Prussia, is not without interest. The French asked and obtained permission to enclose their court, and they accordingly erected high wooden partitions all round it, greatly to the disgust of Prussia, exhibiting in a more limited space west of the south transept. The French were appealed to to reduce the height of their partitions; but the representatives of "la grande nation" would not recede an inch: they agreed with their Emperor that "when France is satisfied, the world is at rest," at any rate, ought to be; and as the partitions perfectly answered the purpose of the French exhibitors, why should they put themselves out of the way for the sake of the semi-barbarous peoples beyond the Rhine?

A few words now as to the magnificent collection of pictures. England had an advantage here over foreign countries; for, whereas it was allowable to exhibit any English picture painted within the century previous to the opening of the Exhibition—and, in fact, the best part of the collection did date from the last century—the foreign collection included, with but trifling exceptions, none but works by living artists. Six thousand works of art, exclusive of sculpture, were displayed in these galleries. Such a gathering of the masterpieces of our best artists—Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hogarth—was never seen before. The Pre-Raphaelite school, and all the more eminent living or recently deceased artists, with the exception of J. M. W. Turner, were well represented. The productions of the British colonies occupied a considerable area near the eastern dome, and were exceedingly interesting, especially those from Australia and New Zealand, in the curiosities from which there was a large native element that gave a piquant and peculiar character to the display. The Exhibition was closed on the 1st of November, having been open for the period of six months. Yet vast as were the multitudes that daily thronged it, the concourse of visitors did not quite come up to the number in 1851. The total number was found to have been 6,117,450, about 50,000 under the gross number of visitors to the Exhibition of 1851.

The year 1863, on which this history now enters, was one which, so far as England was concerned, was unmarked by political agitation and unclouded by the anxieties of war. There was much distress in Lancashire, owing to the entire or partial stoppage of innumerable looms, till now dependent on American cotton. The world was hunted through by the agents of the great cotton industry, in order to find out new sources of supply, or, by introducing or fostering cotton culture in various suitable localities, to secure at least an increased supply in the future. In India, every road leading down the Western Ghauts was traversed by an unwonted string of country carts, conveying the precious commodity to some port of shipment; still, notwithstanding all that could be done, the supply of cotton remained exceedingly limited, and much of what came was of a very inferior quality. A general subscription, set on foot towards the end of 1862, produced in the first month of 1863 the sum of £750,000 for the relief of the distress, and in April £2,735,000. It was observed that the general trade and industry of the country continued to prosper, notwithstanding the collapse of this one branch of it. Especially in every branch of the hardware trade, particularly in the sale of arms and munitions of war, immense quantities of which were made in Great Britain to the order of both belligerents, an activity was apparent exceeding all former experience. The basis upon which, under the rÉgime of Free Trade, the industry of this country reposed, was proved by this experience to be far broader and more solid than the most destructive storm, so long as it affected only one portion of the field, could seriously impair.

Parliament was opened by commission in the first week of February. The first clause of the Royal Speech informed both Houses of what every one was aware of, that, since they last met, her Majesty had "declared her consent to a marriage between his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra, daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark." The marriage was celebrated in the following month, and the rejoicings which accompanied it were so genuine and so universal that it seems worth while to dwell at some length on the circumstances of the auspicious event. The preliminaries were settled during a visit paid by the Queen to the Continent in the autumn of 1862, and the Princess became a guest at Osborne in November. Her father, Prince Christian of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-GlÜcksburg, was then Heir-Presumptive to the Crown of Denmark, to which he succeeded in 1865. The yacht Albert and Victoria received the bride and her suite on board at Antwerp, and an escorting squadron, among which was the then formidable ironclad the Warrior, attended and welcomed her to the shores of her new country. The Princess, after a fine passage, landed at Gravesend on the 7th of March, and travelled to Windsor. Demonstrations of loyal and affectionate interest were not wanting along any part of the line of route. The marriage took place on the 10th of March, and the ceremonial employed on the occasion was brilliant and effective to a degree which public pageants in England seldom reach. Four processions or cortÈges left the castle in succession. The first, that of the Royal guests, among whom were the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, and a crowd of petty German princes not yet Bismarckised, set out an hour before the time fixed for the wedding. The second cortÈge, in eleven carriages, conveyed the Royal Family and the Queen's household. The third cortÈge was the procession of the bridegroom, and the fourth the procession of the bride. The marriage was performed in St. George's Chapel. The Archbishop of Canterbury, of course, officiated, and the Eton boys cheered lustily as the happy pair drove away, en route for Osborne. On the same night London and all the principal towns in England were illuminated. An immense and thoroughly good-humoured crowd filled all the streets, and admired the coloured transparencies, the Prince of Wales's feathers, the true love-knots, the A A's, and fifty other devices, which the inventive affection of the people had rapidly improvised. At Birmingham the outline and the chief structural lines of the tower and cupola of St. Philip's Church stood out in flame against a dark and starless sky. The city of Edinburgh, whose situation lends itself to effective displays of this sort, was strikingly illuminated. The noble castle was lined with small paraffin lamps, which clearly defined its contour, and fireworks blazed till a late hour from the Salisbury Craigs and Arthur's Seat. In London the illuminations were characterised by the utmost splendour, but untoward events cast a shadow over the popular rejoicing. Though nothing could be more orderly and well-disposed than the behaviour of the crowd, yet the pressure of the enormous multitudes that filled the City thoroughfares up to a late hour of the night was fatal to six women, crushed or trodden to death between the Mansion House and the foot of Ludgate Hill, and was the cause of more or less severe injuries to not less than a hundred persons. The Prince of Wales addressed a feeling letter to the Lord Mayor on the subject of these sad accidents, expressing his deep regret that what was meant for rejoicing should have become an occasion of mourning. The House of Commons, on the motion of Lord Palmerston, cheerfully granted to the Prince and Princess of Wales, in addition to and augmentation of, the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, amounting to about £60,000 per annum, a revenue of £50,000 a year from the Consolidated Fund, of which sum £10,000 was separately settled on the Princess. It was further proposed by the Premier, and assented to, that a jointure of £30,000 a year should be secured to the Princess in the event of her surviving her husband. Among the subsequent ceremonies at which the Royal pair assisted was the inauguration of the Albert Memorial at South Kensington.

The financial statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, was made on the 16th of April, and was universally considered to be a masterly and very satisfactory exposÉ of the monetary and commercial condition of the country. The estimates of revenue and expenditure for the coming financial year showed a large probable surplus; and this surplus Mr. Gladstone applied to the reduction of the tea duty and of the income tax. Certain minor features of the financial programme were not allowed to pass unchallenged. One such consisted in levying a licence duty on clubs, on the ground that, as wine and spirituous liquors were sold in them to the members, they ought not to be exempted from the burden which every hotel-keeper and licensed victualler was liable to. But as there were not wanting many to point out the obvious and essential differences between a club and a public-house, this portion of the financial scheme was abandoned. The other feature referred to was Mr. Gladstone's proposal for the taxation of charities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had conceived the notion that the exemption from income tax enjoyed by charitable institutions was equivalent to a burden of corresponding amount imposed on the general body of taxpayers. The sum lost to the revenue through the exemption from income tax of the property of charities was estimated by Mr. Gladstone to amount to at least £250,000. The great charitable institutions of the metropolis and elsewhere at once took the alarm, and a deputation, formidable in numbers, rank, and respectability, was soon organised to wait on the adventurous financier. In the end it became so evident to Government that the feeling of the House was opposed to the taxation of charities that the measure was withdrawn.

Towards the end of February there was great agitation among the well-wishers and ill-wishers of the Church of England, on account of a suit brought in the Chancellor's Court at Oxford by the Rev. Dr. Pusey against Professor Jowett, charging him with having maintained heresy in certain of his published writings, particularly in the publication so well known as "Essays and Reviews." The Assessor, Mr. Montague Bernard, after hearing the case fully argued, gave judgment. He first of all overruled the exception which the defendant had made to the jurisdiction of the Court; and then, after examining the statute under which he thought himself empowered to try the case, he decided that it was so vague in its terms as to leave him, in his opinion, a discretionary power whether to proceed to judgment or not; in the exercise of which power he declined to let the case go forward. Notice was given of appeal against this judgment, but the intention was afterwards abandoned.

Seldom has a year witnessed the disappearance from the scenes which their genius, valour, or virtue had adorned, of a greater number of illustrious men than the year 1863. Two of the heroes of the Indian Mutiny, Sir James Outram and Lord Clyde; four distinguished statesmen, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Elgin, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis; the veteran politician, Mr. Ellice, often called the Nestor of the Whig party; and two great authors, Archbishop Whately and Thackeray, were among those who within the twelvemonth paid the debt of nature.

The desperate effort made this year by the gallant and unfortunate Poles to shake off the despotic yoke of Russia, riveted the gaze and engaged the sympathy of nearly every nation in Europe. We say nearly, for Prussia, as represented by its Government, assisted, on grounds at the time little understood, the Muscovite gaoler to remanacle his victim. In January the Russian Government revived by an ukase the system of conscription. Lord Napier, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, described it as "a design to make a clean sweep of the revolutionary youth of Poland; to shut up the most energetic and dangerous spirits in the restraints of the Russian army: it was simply a plan to kidnap the opposition, and carry it off to Siberia or the Caucasus." At midnight on the 14th of January police agents and soldiers commenced the work in Warsaw and the revolution began. The misfortunes of Poland led to one of those diplomatic and didactic interventions of which Britain about this time was so liberal and of which the issue was so invariably and so notoriously unfortunate. Earl Russell wrote (March 2nd, 1863) in a somewhat curt style of remonstrance to Lord Napier at St. Petersburg, setting forth the view of the British Government concerning the rights of the Poles under the Treaty of Vienna, maintaining the right of Great Britain, as a party to that treaty, to interfere, with a view to the sincere execution and fulfilment of its stipulations, declaring that since the time of the Emperor Alexander I. Russia had broken faith with Poland in withholding the free institutions which had been promised, and concluding with the demand that a general amnesty should be proclaimed, and the just political reforms required by the Poles conceded. Prince Gortschakoff, "acting in a spirit of conciliation," declined to send a written reply to Earl Russell's despatch, but expressed to Lord Napier, in conversation, his adverse views upon its principal clauses. Nevertheless an amnesty was granted, but rejected by the insurgents.

Earl Russell had by this time formulated, in concert with Austria and with the knowledge of France, the plan for the regeneration of Poland which he had been long meditating, and was now prepared to propose for the acceptance of the Russian Government. The plan, as unfolded in his despatch of the 17th of June, comprised the following six points or articles:—

1. A complete and general amnesty.

2. National representation in a form resembling that which had been granted by Alexander I.

3. A distinct national administration carried on by Poles and possessing the confidence of the country.

4. Full and entire liberty of conscience, involving the repeal of the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship.

5. The Polish language to be recognised in the kingdom as the official language and used as such in the courts of law and in the schools.

6. The establishment of a regular and legal system of recruiting.

All these reforms were just and desirable per se; but to propose them was tantamount to an interference in the internal politics of a foreign State. "The Principal Secretary of State of her Britannic Majesty," said Prince Gortschakoff, writing in July, "will dispense us from giving an answer to the proposed arrangement for a suspension of hostilities. It would not resist a serious examination of the conditions necessary for carrying it into effect." Turning the tables on the remonstrating Powers, he said that the speedy re-establishment of order depended largely "upon the resolution of the Great Powers not to lend themselves to calculations on which the instigators of the Polish insurrection found their expectation of an active intervention in favour of their exaggerated aspirations." The end of the diplomatic comedy was not far off. The Emperor Napoleon, observing that the views of the three Powers—Britain, France, and Austria—as expressed in their communications to their representatives at St. Petersburg, were not precisely in accord, proposed to the other two Courts to take, in the form of a convention or protocol, an engagement to pursue in concert a regulation of Polish affairs, by diplomatic methods, or otherwise if necessary. The meaning of these words plainly was, that if diplomatic methods failed, the three Powers would not shrink from the arbitrament of war, in order to compel Russia to do justice to Poland. "Our proposition," the statement quoted from drily continues, "was not accepted." The Russian Government consequently assumed a defiant tone, and Prussia came to her assistance by drawing a military cordon against the fugitives round the frontier. The propositions of the three Powers were quietly ignored; Russia proceeded in her task of restoring order by the methods familiar to despotic Governments and the fate of Poland was sealed.

Pacific modes of obtaining redress were not invariably preferred by Earl Russell. When an act of vigour could be performed that did not risk involving the country in war, he was ready to perform it. Thus he justified the conduct of the British Envoy at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Christie, who had instructed (January 2, 1863) the British naval commander on the station to seize several Brazilian merchant vessels in reprisal for the pillage of the Prince of Wales, an English merchant ship. Much angry correspondence ensued; the Brazilian Government dismissed two of its officials for want of promptitude in the matter and prosecuted to conviction eleven other offenders; but the British Government still considered that more vigorous measures should have been taken, in order to prevent such outrages for the future, not less than to punish the actual offenders. A claim for compensation on account of the pillage of the cargo was advanced by the British Government; this claim seems to have been regarded in Brazil as excessive. Mr. Christie was then instructed to propose arbitration, but accompanied with conditions which the Brazilian Government thought it inconsistent with their honour to accept. Reprisals were then authorised to be made and were carried out as above mentioned. The Brazilian Government then paid the sum demanded under protest and a rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries ensued. Another matter that had caused ill feeling—the unwarrantable arrest of three officers belonging to a British frigate, the Forte, by a guard of Brazilian police—had been referred to the arbitration of the King of the Belgians, who pronounced his opinion (June 18, 1863), that in the mode in which the laws of Brazil had been applied towards the English officers, there was neither premeditation of offence nor offence given to the British navy.

The British squadron in Japan, under Admiral Kuper, was under the necessity, this year, of resorting to measures of coercion against one of the Daimios, or half independent princes, of Japan, which involved the loss of many lives. The Prince of Satsuma was the ruler of a large and fertile territory in Kiusiu, the southernmost of the islands of Japan, and it was at a place within his jurisdiction that an Englishman, Mr Richardson, was murdered, and a murderous assault committed on an English lady and two gentlemen who were riding with him, in September, 1862. The British Government, when the news of this outrage was received, directed Colonel Neale, the British chargÉ d'affaires in Japan, to demand ample compensation for the murder, from the Tycoon, the temporal sovereign of Japan, and from the Prince of Satsuma. The former was required to pay £100,000 as an indemnity, the latter £25,000. After much parleying, the Tycoon agreed to pay the sum demanded, which was accordingly brought to Yokohama, in June, 1863, and counted out in the presence of Colonel Neale. But the Prince of Satsuma could in no way be brought to reason, for which contumacy his ships were taken, his town was burnt, and his palace destroyed by the British squadron from Yokohama. The Prince had certainly suffered reprisals to an extent exceeding many times the amount of the indemnity demanded. Yet these very injuries—so strange is the working of the Asiatic mind—appear to have induced him to make overtures for peace. These were signs of overwhelming power, and power is almost the only thing that the Asiatic truly reverences. As a matter of fact, before the close of the year the Prince offered to pay, and actually paid, to the British chargÉ d'affaires at Yokohama, the £25,000 which had been originally demanded from him as compensation money for the murder of Mr. Richardson!

The civil war continued, meanwhile, to rage in America, where at the beginning of the year General Lee found himself confronted by Hooker at the head of a powerful force. The latter's attempt to force the position of Fredericksburg was a complete failure, though the victory of Chancellorsville was dearly purchased by the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, most daring of the Confederate soldiers. Lee thereupon advanced upon Gettysburg, where a series of battles resulted in his decisive defeat and he was again forced to retire into Virginia. Elsewhere the cause of the Confederates was gravely affected by the constant successes of General Grant in Mississippi. They were forced to retire from Jackson and on the 3rd of July the important fortress of Vicksburg surrendered. Bragg held his own in Tennessee until Grant, fresh from his victories, was sent to supersede Rosecrans. Ably seconded by Hooker, he forced Bragg into Georgia; and the fortunes of the Federals were obviously in the ascendant, when Meade followed Lee into Virginia and harassed him during another campaign. Upon the coast-line the naval superiority of the Northerners caused itself to be powerfully felt; and after a preliminary attempt on Fort Wagner had failed, the siege of Charleston began on August the 21st and continued until the end of the year. Fort Wagner was abandoned by the Southerners on the 7th of September, but then the operations declined into a languid bombardment. Nevertheless the inevitable end of the struggle could now be foreseen.

While the United States were thus distracted by civil war, and not in a position to assert, much less to enforce, what is called the Monroe doctrine, that is, the claim of the United States to prevent European States from intervening in the internal affairs of American States, the French Emperor was playing a singular game in Mexico. The enterprise had sprung out of the unpretending joint expedition agreed to by Britain, France, and Spain at the close of 1861. Mexico had so vexatiously and so long evaded its pecuniary obligations to its British and Spanish creditors, and had left so many outrages on individual Britons and Spaniards unredressed, that the Governments of the two countries were at last compelled to resort to coercive measures. France also desired to be a party to the convention, nor was it at first understood that the aims of the French Emperor differed materially from those of his confederates. The expedition sailed in December, 1861, having on board 6,000 Spanish soldiers; the British military contingent was only a force of 700 marines; the French contingent was at first weaker than that of Spain, but it was soon increased. A landing was effected, without resistance, at Vera Cruz. On the 10th of January, 1862, the allied Commissioners published a manifesto, addressed to the Mexican people, couched in somewhat ambiguous language, yet declaring that neither conquest nor political dictation was the object of the allied Powers, which had long beheld with grief a noble people "wasting their forces and extinguishing their vitality through the violent power of civil war and perpetual convulsions," and had now landed on their shores to give them an opportunity of constituting themselves in a permanent and stable manner. Yet all this time the views of the French Emperor were extended to ulterior aims of which his allies never dreamed. A pamphlet, well known to be "inspired," from the facile pen of M. de la GuerroniÈre, appeared in Paris, clearly pointing to the regeneration of Mexico by CÆsarism—to an Emperor and a plebiscite.

When, then, after the issuing of the manifesto, the commissioners of the allied Powers began to exchange ideas, the divergence of view between the French and the other two commissioners soon became apparent. The object of Britain and Spain was simply, by occupying a portion of the Mexican seaboard, to obtain a material guarantee for the redress of the wrongs of which their subjects had to complain. Whether this was done by the Government of Juarez (who was then President) or by any other Government, was a matter of perfect indifference to Britain and Spain. But the French Commissioner—with an eye to the eventual introduction of an imperial rÉgime—refused, on the plea of perverseness, renewed outrages, and general impracticability, to hold any communication with the Juarez Government. However, the British and Spanish Commissioners, Sir Charles Wyke and General Prim, opened negotiations with the Government of Juarez. But there was a certain General Almonte in the French camp, who was well known as a promoter of the scheme for substituting imperial for republican institutions. The Mexican Government required that Almonte should be sent away; but to this the French Commissioner refused to consent. A conference between the commissioners of the allied Powers and others to be deputed by the Mexican Government, to meet at Orizaba, in April, 1862, was agreed to by Prim and Sir Charles Wyke, but rejected by the French Commissioner, who insisted that, instead of negotiating with Juarez, the proper course for the Allies was to march at once upon Mexico. Hereupon Prim and Sir Charles Wyke, finding that their views and those of their colleague were irreconcilable, withdrew on the part of their respective Governments from the expedition. Nevertheless the French forces, increased by 2,500 troops under the command of General Forey, appeared entirely successful. Puebla was captured in May, 1862; Mexico, the capital, occupied in June, and Juarez, though breathing defiance, was forced to retire into the interior. An assembly of notables resolved that Mexico should adopt monarchical institutions and the Crown was offered in 1863 to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria.

From the mysterious central lands of Africa information of the most interesting character came this year to England, being communicated by the enterprising travellers Captain Speke and Captain Grant, who landed at Southampton on the 17th of June, and five days afterwards received a public welcome at a special meeting of the Royal Geographical Society. Starting from Zanzibar, and penetrating the country in a north-westerly direction, Captain Speke had, though with incredible difficulty, and through the exertion of wonderful patience and adroitness in bribing, coaxing, mystifying, or browbeating the native rulers whose kingdoms he traversed, reached the shores of a vast lake, to which he gave the name of Victoria Nyanza, and seen the White Nile flowing out, at its northern end, in the direction of Gondokoro. Captain Speke too hastily assumed that he had found the true source of the Nile in the Victoria Nyanza, just as, nearly a hundred years earlier, Bruce was convinced that he stood at the fountain head of the great river when he had merely traced up the lesser current of the Blue Nile. The brave explorer's career came to a premature and tragic end. A day had been fixed, in the autumn of 1864, for a discussion between him and Captain Burton on the question of the Nile sources, before a meeting of the British Association at Bath, when a sudden and lamentable accident put a period to Speke's life. He was shooting in Neston Park, in Wiltshire; and from the posture in which the body was found, he appeared to have been getting over a low stone wall, when by some mischance his gun exploded while the muzzle was pointed at his breast. Death ensued in a few minutes.