On the 4th of February, 1858, the business of parliament began. The life of the French emperor having been attempted by an assassin, who had resided as a refugee in England (as recorded under the head of our relations with France), the government brought in a bill to bring refugees more stringently under the cognizance of the executive. The spirit of the measure was to conciliate France, and gratify the French emperor. This was distasteful to the nation; for the French press, and the French army, with the connivance, and even at the instigation of the French government, abused and menaced England, in a manner such as no great nation before had endured from another in time of peace. The bill of Lord Palmerston was supported by the whole strength of the tory opposition. The independent Liberals, however, made so determined an opposition to the measure, and to the whole policy of the government in truckling to France, that the tory party resolved to make that hostility available to overthrow the government. It appeared that an insulting despatch had been sent by Count Walewski, the French minister, to the English minister for foreign affairs. To this despatch no reply was returned, whereas the house of commons and the country considered that a reply, prompt and indignant, should have been given. Mr. Milner Gibson, then especially hostile to the Palmerston government, moved what was tantamount to a vote of censure, on the ground of the silence of the cabinet under the singularly offensive despatch of the French minister. The combination of independent Liberals and Tories, upon this motion, threw out the government.

Lord Derby was sent for by her majesty, and empowered to form a ministry. The new cabinet was thus composed:—

The members not in the cabinet were selected from the other leading members of the late tory opposition in both houses.

So unpopular had the ministry of Lord Palmerston become, by its subserviency to the French emperor, and its neglect of the honour of England, in the instance of the two English engineers, captured on board the Sardinian ship, Oagliari, by a Neapolitan frigate, that there was a very general disposition, among all parties, to give Lord Derby’s government “a fair trial.”

The course of this ministry did not, however, run smooth, and they, soon lost popularity and power, by their prejudices, incapacity for the crisis, and a disposition to increase their power by petty trick and indirect artifice. This last feature of their ministerial character was most especially exemplified in the commons by Mr. Disraeli.

The Earl of Derby abandoned the foreign refugee bill, which he and his followers had, when out of office, supported.

During the discussion which arose concerning India, and the transaction of business with that empire resulting from the mutiny, the Earl of Ellenborough acted with a partizanship so flagrant and unjust, that in order to save the cabinet it was necessary that he should retire from it, go strong was the indignation against him both in the commons and the country. Lord Stanley, who had filled the office of colonial secretary with great ability, assumed the office vacated by Lord Ellenborough, and was afterwards made “secretary of state for India,” an office created by “the government of India act.” Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton became secretary for the colonies in the room of Lord Stanley. The chief work of the new tory ministry was to carry a bill for the government of India. Almost every other measure introduced by them was unpopular, yet the feeling against the late Palmerston ministry was so strong, that there was no desire to expel the cabinet.

Lord Lucan, in spite of the public opposition, and still more intense private opposition of Lord Derby, carried a measure for the parliamentary emancipation of the Jews, which was admirably devised, and ably brought forward and supported by the noble earl.

The grand failure of the Derby ministry was a reform bill, which was an indirect and sly scheme to increase the power of the landed interest. The bill was ignominiously spurned by the people and the popular branch of the legislature. From that hour the Derby ministry was doomed, although another question was that upon which its defeat was destined to take place. A very important measure was carried by Mr. Locke King,—the abolition of the property qualification for members of parliament. The same honourable member carried a bill for enfranchising ten pound householders in counties, over a second reading in the commons, signally defeating the government. The lateness of the session at the time when this was achieved prevented the further progress of the bill.

On the 3rd of August the session of 1858 terminated.

The session of 1859 opened at the usual period. Rumours of war between France and Austria gave an extraordinary interest to the occasion. That war broke out, after strenuous efforts by Lord Derby’s government to prevent it. The animus of Lord Malmesbury’s diplomacy was evidently in favour of Austria, and without any sympathy for Italy, while it was decidedly hostile to France. By this policy the cabinet was overthrown, and Lord Palmerston formed a ministry. Public opinion in England was hostile to the Emperor of the French, but still more so to the kasir, while an intense desire for Italian freedom existed in the United Kingdom. The general sentiment of the nation was therefore adverse to the foreign policy of the Derby government, and, before a motion in the commons condemnatory of that policy, the cabinet fell. Lord Derby was not disposed to yield to an adverse vote without taking “the sense of the country;” but the country showed him no favour, and he resigned. Lord Palmerston had the honour of forming the new cabinet. He became first lord of the treasury; Lord John Russell, minister for foreign affairs; Sir G. Grey, home secretary; Mr. Gladstone, chancellor of the exchequer; Sir Charles Wood, secretary for India; the Duke of Newcastle, for the colonies; Lord Granville, president of the council, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, minister of war. This was a strong government. The elections were decisively in their favour. The party conflicts of the year impeded legislation. Mr. Gladstone startled the house by a bold and comprehensive system of finance, and when in August the session terminated, Lord Palmerston held the reins of power with a firm hand, and the country felt that after all his faults, and the vicissitudes of his career, he was the great statesman of the age, to whom the government of England could be most safely entrusted, whenever a great emergency demanded that a great man should hold the helm of affairs.

THE END.