[Sidenote: Early automobile vehicles]

In England the first successful experiments with steam-propelled stage coaches were made by Sir Goldsworth Gurney. These machines were the precursors of the latter-day automobile vehicle. This account of a ride in the Gurney stage coach was published by the "United Service Journal":

[Sidenote: A contemporary description]

"We numbered four in a coach attached to the steam carriage, and we had travelled without difficulty or mishap as far as Longford, where they were repairing the bridge over the Cambria. On this was a large pile of bricks, so high as to conceal what was happening on the other side. Precisely at the moment we began to cross the bridge the mail-coach from Bath arrived on the other end. As soon as we perceived it we shouted to the driver to take care; but, as he was not aware of the extraordinary vehicle he was going to meet, he did not slacken speed. To avoid a collision, Mr. Gurney guided our steam carriage into the pile of bricks. Some damage to our apparatus resulted, but was repaired in less than a quarter of an hour. As to the horses of the coach, they had taken the bit between their teeth and had to be cut loose.

"Upon our arrival at Melksham, we found that there was a fair in progress, and the streets were full of people. Mr. Gurney made the carriages travel as slowly as possible, in order to injure no one. Unfortunately, in that town the lower classes are strongly opposed to the new method of transportation. Excited by the postilions, who imagined that the adoption of Mr. Gurney's steam carriage would compromise their means of livelihood, the multitude that encumbered the streets arose against us, heaped us with insults, and attacked us with stones. The chief engineer and another man were seriously injured. Mr. Gurney feared we could not pursue our journey, as two of his best mechanics had need of surgical aid. He turned the carriage into the court of a brewer named Ales, and during the night it was guarded by constables."

[Sidenote: Jobard]

[Sidenote: Jobard's impressions]

To have assisted at the experiment of Gurney's steam carriage was, in those days, almost a title to glory. These carriages became speedily one of the curiosities of London. Foreign travellers who printed accounts of their journeys, did not fail to devote a chapter to the new means of locomotion. Jobard, the Belgian savant and economist, was of the number, and so were Cuchette, St. Germain Leduc and C.G. Simon, three prominent scientific writers of that time. Jobard's impressions noted down at the time are worthy of record: "My first visit in England was to the starting station of Sir Goldsworth Gurney's steam omnibus, running between London and Bath. This carriage does not differ materially from other stage-coaches, nor has it had any serious mishap as yet. For my benefit it manoeuvred back and forth over the street pavement and later on the smooth macadam of the highway, without any apparent difficulties of guiding. The drivers of other stage-coaches are agreed that the thing is a success, and that before long it will do them much harm."

[Sidenote: Lamarck]

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, a forerunner of Charles Darwin died in this year. As early as 1801 Lamarck had outlined his ideas of the transmutation of species and attempted to explain the manner in which that transmutation had been brought about. There is no such thing as a "species," he held; there are only individuals descended from a common stock and modified in structure to suit their environment. Lamarck was scoffed at in his own time; he was respected as a naturalist, but unrecognized as a prophet.



1830

[Sidenote: First sewing machine]

Early in the year, Bartholemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, took out a patent for his invention of a sewing machine. It was an invention destined to revolutionize the manufacture of clothing and the matter of dress in all civilized countries. Thimonnier's device was a chain stitch sewing machine worked with a treadle. It had taken the inventor, ignorant as he was of mechanics, four years of painful application to perfect it. The first to recognize the real value of the invention was M. Beunier, supervisor of mines at Paris. He took Thimonnier to Paris and installed him as a partner and manager of a large clothing firm that manufactured army uniforms. They set up eighty machines and did so well with them that the workmen of Paris, profiting by the revolutionary disturbances of the times, wreaked their vengeance on the new labor-saving device by wrecking the establishment. The inventor was compelled to flee for life. During the same year, another Frenchman, Charles Barbier, invented the system of raised printing for the blind.

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Lawrence]

Sir Thomas Lawrence, the celebrated English portrait painter, died at the outset of the year. In his early youth at Bristol and Oxford, this artist showed marked talent for portraiture, and became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds at the Royal Academy. His delicate pastel portraits obtained great vogue in the most aristocratic circles of London. On the death of his master, Lawrence was appointed painter to the King. He became the fashionable portrait painter of the age. As such, Lawrence was summoned to Aix-la-Chapelle during the International Congress of 1818 to paint the various dignitaries of the Holy Alliance. While at Vienna he painted the famous pastel of Napoleon's son, the little King of Rome—by all odds the most charming of all the many likenesses of that unfortunate eaglet. Lawrence returned to England a few days after the death of Benjamin West, and was immediately elected to succeed him as President of the Royal Academy. He held this office for ten years, until his death. Among the most noted works of Lawrence, executed during this time, were the portraits of Master Lambton and of the Duke of Wellington. Lawrence's ambitious essays beyond the limits of portrait painting, such as his once celebrated "Satan," obtained no lasting success. After the artist's death a number of his best known canvases were collected for permanent exhibition in the Waterloo Gallery of Windsor.

[Sidenote: Lister's microscope]

In this year Joseph Jackson Lister, an English amateur optician, contributed to the Royal Society the famous paper detailing his recent experiments with the compound microscope. Aided by Tully, a celebrated optician, Lister succeeded in making of the microscope a practical scientific implement rather than a toy. With the help of his own instrument Lister was able to settle the long mooted question as to the true form of the red corpuscles of the human blood.

[Sidenote: Conquest of Algiers]

[Sidenote: England's vain protest]

In the face of the menacing attitude of the liberal elements of France, which had been rendered more acute by the King's increase of the Chamber of Peers to the detriment of the Deputies, the French Government launched forth upon the conquest of Algiers. It was believed to be an auspicious moment. The Sultan's reluctant acknowledgment of the independence of Greece, April 25, showed how powerless he was. The Dey of Algiers had insulted France by his discourteous treatment of a French consul. He refused the satisfaction demanded by France. On the failure of a blockade to reduce the city of Algiers, an expedition commanded by Bourmont set out for Africa in spring. A landing was successfully effected by the middle of June. Early in July, Algiers was taken. Immense spoils, valued at 48,000,000 francs, were seized by the French. England grew apprehensive. George IV. had just died (June 26), and the Duke of Wellington, who was retained in power by the new king, William IV., demanded from the French Government an engagement to retain none of its new conquests. "Never," said Lord Alverdon to Lavel, the French Ambassador, "never did France, under the Republic or under the Empire, give England such serious ground of complaint as she has been giving us for the last year." It was in vain. The seething spirit of the people in France seemed to demand an outlet. The victories of French arms in Africa were cast before the French people as a sop. The permanent annexation of Algiers was announced. It was too late.

[Sidenote: "Hernani"]

[Sidenote: Theophile Gautier]

[Sidenote: Honore de Balzac]

[Sidenote: French Government outvoted]

[Sidenote: Charles Xth's Coup d'Etat]

The heated spirit of the rising generation had already been revealed in the hysterical demonstrations that occurred on the occasion of the first performance of Victor Hugo's "Hernani" on February 25. Conspicuous among the leaders of the literary tumult was Theophile Gautier, then a youth of eighteen, but already an author and an Hugolatre intransigeant, who led the claque on this first night resplendent in a rose-colored doublet and streaming long hair. With him was young Balzac, who had just won renown and notoriety by his "Physiologie du Mariage," and the first of his "Contes Drolatiques." In March, the Liberals in the Chambers declared their want of confidence in the government by a majority of forty votes. Charles X., staking all on the success of his Algerian campaign, dissolved the Chambers. "No compromise, no surrender," was the motto of the Royalists as they appealed to the people. The result was an overwhelming majority against the government. No less than 202 deputies pledged to opposition were elected. The whole of France was now waiting for the coup d'etat, and Europe waited with France. "Your two weakest points are the electoral law and the liberty of the press," said Metternich to the French Ambassador in Vienna, "but you cannot touch them except through the Chambers. A coup d'etat would ruin the dynasty." The Czar, in St. Petersburg, spoke in a like strain to the Duc de Mortemart. Charles X. could not be restrained. "There are only Lafayette and I who have not changed since 1789," said the King. On July 24, a Sunday, after attending mass, Charles X. signed the orders that were to rid him of his Chambers. All his Ministers signed with him. "For life and for death, gentlemen," said the King. "Count upon me as I count upon you."

[Sidenote: Thiers]

[Sidenote: Marmont]

[Sidenote: The July revolution]

The Orders in Council appeared in the "Moniteur" the next day. It was said that Sauvo, the editor of the "Moniteur," as he gave the order to go to press, exclaimed: "God protect the King." The publication of the edict caused an instant extraordinary fall in stocks. Thiers thundered against it in the "Journal des Debats." Government troops seized the printing presses of the leading journals. Murmuring crowds gathered on the streets. The King appointed Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. It was the last stroke, for Marmont was popularly execrated as the betrayer of Napoleon. The National Guards brought forth their old tricolor cockades of the Revolution and the Empire. Though military patrols tramped the streets, the night passed quietly. Next morning all work stopped, and the people fell to building barricades. Whole streets were torn up. The pupils of the Polytechnic School broke open the gates and the tricolor flag floated on the towers of Notre Dame. Marshal Marmont reported to the King: "Sire, it is no longer a riot, but a revolution. There is urgent need for your Majesty to take means of pacification. Thus the honor of the Crown may yet be saved. To-morrow it will be too late." The King's answer was to declare Paris under a state of siege. The so-called "Great Week," or "three days' revolution," had begun. The bourgeoisie or middle class and all the students joined the revolt. Before nightfall 600 barricades blocked the streets of Paris. Every house became a fortress. "Where do the rebels get their powder?" asked the King in astonishment. "From the soldiers," was the curt reply of the Procureur-General.

[Sidenote: Charles X. obstinate]

[Sidenote: Fall of Ministry]

[Sidenote: An interim republic]

[Sidenote: Duke of Orleans summoned]

In the evening the Hotel de Ville was captured. That evening the Ministers tried to enlighten the King, but he only replied: "Let the insurgents lay down their arms." While the discharges of artillery shook the windows of the palace the King played whist. Next day two line regiments openly joined the revolt. The Louvre was stormed. Still the King at St. Cloud would not yield. "They exaggerate the danger," said he. "I know what concessions would lead to. I have no wish to ride like my brother on a cart." Instead of concessions he vested the command in the Dauphin, having grown suspicious of Marmont. The mob sacked the Tuileries and hoisted the tricolor flag on the clock tower. At the Hotel de Ville a municipal commission was installed, composed of Lafayette, Casimir Perier, General Lobau and Audry de Puyraveau. At last, when it was too late, the King countermanded his obnoxious orders and dismissed Polignac with his Ministry. The people no longer paid attention to the King's acts. He was declared deposed. A republic was proclaimed and its presidency offered to Lafayette. But the old hero declined the honor. With Thiers he threw his influence in favor of the Duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans, the son of Philip Egalite, of Revolutionary fame, was invited to Paris to exercise the functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The deposed King at St. Cloud hastened to confirm the appointment. The Duke of Orleans respectfully declined the royal appointment. "You cannot receive things from everybody," said Dupont. General Lafayette soon came to pay his respects. "You know," said he, "that I am a republican, and consider the Constitution of the United States as the most perfect that has been devised." "So do I," replied the Duke; "but do you think that in the present condition of France it would be advisable for us to adopt it?" "No," answered Lafayette; "what the French people must now have is a popular throne, surrounded by republican institutions." "That is just my opinion," said Prince Louis Philippe.

[Sidenote: Charles X. abdicates]

Lafayette's conversation with the prince led to the so-called programme of the Hotel de Ville. "I shall not take the crown," said the Duke of Orleans, "I shall receive it from the people on the conditions it suits them to impose. A charter will henceforth be a reality." At last Charles X. abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux. The Duke of Orleans refused to recognize the claims of Henri V., and France and Europe were with him. Charles X. relinquished further hopes.

[Sidenote: Louis Philippe, King of France]

The Dauphin, formerly Duke of Angouleme, in like manner resigned his rights to his nephew. The act was signed on the 2d of August. Charles X. now set out for Normandy with his guards, commanded by Marmont, and, on August 16, embarked at Cherbourg in two American vessels, with the Dauphin and Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, the Duke of Bordeaux, and a numerous suite of attendants. The ships sailed for England, and, anchoring at Spithead, the royal fugitives took up their residence at Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire, but eventually removed to Holyrood Castle at Edinburgh, which was placed at their disposal by the British Government. On August 9, Louis Philippe, on the formal request of the two Chambers, accepted the crown of France with a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution.

[Sidenote: Louis Philippe's previous career]

[Sidenote: Sojourn in America]

[Sidenote: "Le Roi Citoyen"]

[Sidenote: A new power in France]

The overthrow of the Bourbons was not a revolution in the sense of the great French Revolution of the previous century. It resulted chiefly in the transfer of government from one political faction to another. Louis Philippe, raised to the throne by reason of his supposed democratic principles, rather than for his royal lineage, was a Republican only in name. His early education, together with that of his brothers, was directed by the Countess of Genlis. On the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, the young Prince, then Duke of Chartres, fought with distinction by the side of Kellermann and Dumouriez at Valmy and Jemmapes. He accompanied the latter when he took refuge in the camp of the imperialists in April, 1793. After the death of his father, Philippe Egalite, refusing to bear arms against France, he joined his sister and Madame de Genlis in Switzerland, where they lived for some time under an assumed name. In 1795 he travelled into the north of Germany, Sweden and Norway, and in the following year sailed from Hamburg for the United States of America. Here he was joined by his two brothers, and after some years in America, during which they were often in distress, the three princes went to England in 1800. The Duke of Orleans now obtained a reconciliation with the heads of his family, Louis XVIII. and the Count of Artois. Subsequently he became a guest at the court of Ferdinand IV., the dispossessed King of Naples, at Palermo; and here was celebrated, in November, 1809, his marriage with the Princess Marie Amelie, daughter of that monarch. Upon the restoration of Louis XVIII. he re-entered France, and took his seat in the Chamber of Peers; but having fallen under suspicion of disaffection, he once more retired to England and did not reappear in France till 1817. During the remainder of the reign of Louis he took no part in public affairs and lived in tranquillity at his favorite villa of Neuilly. He was a "citizen king," only in so far as he sent his children to the public schools and walked about the streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm. The most lasting effect in France of the July revolution was the obliteration of clerical influences in the administration and public education. The Royalist nobility likewise lost what political ascendency they had regained during the Restoration. Henceforth the party in power was that of the bourgeoisie or great middle class of France, of which Louis Philippe himself was the self-constituted representative.

[Sidenote: Revolution in Belgium]

[Sidenote: Bombardment of Antwerp]

[Sidenote: Talleyrand's last mission]

[Sidenote: Belgian Independence recognized]

Outside of France, on the contrary, the effects of the short revolution were far-reaching. In the Netherlands ever increasing friction between the Dutch-speaking Protestants of Holland and the French Catholics of Belgium had excited the country to the point of revolution. Recent repressive measures on the part of the Dutch Government made matters worse. On August 25, the performance, at the Brussels Opera House, of Auber's "La Muette di Portici," with its representation of a revolutionary rising in Naples, gave the signal for revolt. From the capital the insurrection spread throughout Belgium. The King summoned the States-General to The Hague and agreed to an administrative separation of Belgium and Holland; but the storm was not quelled. On the appearance of Dutch troops in Brussels, barricades were erected and the insurgents drove the soldiers out of the city. For several days fighting continued in the outskirts. A provisional government declared the independence of Belgium. Mediation by a conference in Holland was frustrated by the bombardment of Antwerp by its Dutch garrison. The French Liberals were burning to give assistance. Austria and Russia stood ready to prevent their intervention by force of arms. Louis Philippe, while holding the French war party in check, felt constrained to look about him for an ally. In this extremity Prince Talleyrand, the old-time diplomat of the Bourbons, the Republic, the Empire and the Restoration, now in his eightieth year, was sent to London. He approached Wellington and the new King with such consummate address that an understanding was soon reached with England, which set at naught all projects of European armed intervention on behalf of the Prince of Orange. Such intervention could not have failed to drag the French into war. Now it was agreed that the regulation of Belgian affairs should be submitted to a conference at London. In the interim Belgian independence was accepted in effect and hostilities ended.

[Sidenote: Leopold of Coburg declines Greek crown]

In Greece, the government of Capodistrias was beset with such difficulties that it was decided to invite some European prince to set up a constitutional monarchy. The throne was offered to Prince Leopold of Coburg, the husband of the late Princess Charlotte of England. Leopold accepted, but when he learned that the Powers would not grant complete independence to Greece, without restoring AEtolia, Thessaly and the fertile islands of Samos and Candia to the Sultan, he withdrew his acceptance.

[Sidenote: Revolution in Poland]

[Sidenote: War declared on Russia]

Peace had scarcely been restored in the Netherlands when the spirit of revolt, travelling northward, seized the ardent people of Poland. Alexander's recognition of home rule in Poland had given the Poles a parliament and army of their own. After the Polish conspiracies at the outset of Nicholas's reign, Alexander's successor would no longer invoke the Polish Diet, and Russian troops and officers were sent into Poland. Of course this was bitterly resented. Plans for an uprising had already been made in 1828 during the Turkish war. The example of the successful risings in Paris and Brussels now brought matters to a head. On November 29, the revolt broke out in Warsaw. The Polish regiments of the garrison joined the insurgents. The Russian troops, finding the odds against them, withdrew. Grandduke Constantine narrowly escaped with his life. A provisional Polish Diet was convoked. Prince Czartoryski was elected President. The Poles, in remembrance of the late Czar's kindly attitude toward them, flattered themselves that the fruits of their revolution might be left to them. Lubecki, the former chief of the Imperial Council in Poland, with two associates, set out for St. Petersburg to voice the Polish demands for constitutional government before the Czar. It was even proposed that constitutional government should be conceded to those Russian provinces that had formerly belonged to Poland. On the way to St. Petersburg the eyes of the envoys were opened as they met the formidable columns of Russian troops marching to the Polish frontier. Forthwith, Lubecki forsook the cause of Poland. His colleagues found difficulty in obtaining a hearing from the Czar. When they were finally admitted to the imperial palace, Nicholas gave them clearly to understand that Poland had but two alternatives, unconditional submission or complete subjugation. When this answer reached Warsaw it was too late to swing the outside Polish provinces and Lithuania into the movement. Yet the Polish Diet, in a spirit of patriotic frenzy amounting to national suicide, passed a resolution declaring that the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown. Feverish preparations were made for a life and death struggle with Russia.

[Sidenote: Revolt in Spain]

The fall of the Bourbons in France had once more raised the hope of the Spanish Liberals. On the other hand, King Ferdinand's abolition of the Salic law of succession in Spain, so as to assure the throne to his new wife, raised up a party of absolutists against him. His brothers, Don Carlos and Francisco, became the heads of this movement and rallied their supporters around them, in the Basque provinces. In Portugal kindred dissensions rent the land in twain. Dom Miguel's claims to the crown were disputed on behalf of the constitutional government by the Duke of Palermo. Across the seas, Dom Pedro of Brazil proclaimed himself the legitimate heir to the throne of Braganza.

[Sidenote: Death of Bolivar]

Like other South American States, Brazil was itself a prey to internal dissensions and civil strife. To put an end to the recurrent revolutions of South America, Simon Bolivar conceived a scheme for a Pan-American Congress to weld together all the quasi-republican governments of the Southern Hemisphere and Central America. Unfortunately for this project, Bolivar's own aspirations to dictatorial rule told against him. His chief opponents were those who were striving for a disruption of the Colombian Union. His own States, Peru and Bolivia, had already declared against him. The Congress finally voted to give Bolivar a pension of $3,000 a year on condition that he should leave America forever. Bolivar's pride was stung to the quick. He resigned all public offices and honors, and went to Caracas to sail for England. He died at Santa Marta, on the sea-shore, on December 17. His last words were: "The people send me to the tomb, but I forgive them."

[Sidenote: Bolivar's career]

In Bolivar, South America lost the most fiery of her liberators. Born at Caracas, in 1783, he was pre-eminently a child of the modern spirit engendered by the French Revolution of 1792. He saw Spain in the days of its quasi-medieval darkness, and was in Paris at the close of the great revolution. Later he was a witness of Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy, and saw for himself the benefits of republican institutions in North America. The turning-point in his career was the loss of his young wife after two years of domestic happiness. As he said himself: "I loved my wife so much that at her death I made a vow never again to marry. I have kept my oath. Perhaps, had I not lost her, my career would have been different. I might not, then, have been General of the Liberators. My second visit to Europe would never have been made. The ideas which I imbibed during my travels would not have come to me, and the experience I have had, the study of the world that I have made, and of men and things—all this, which has so well served me, would never have been. Politics would never have attracted me. But the death of my wife caused the love of my country to burn in my heart, and I have followed the chariot of Mars rather than Ceres' plow."

[Sidenote: Van Diemen's Land]

[Sidenote: Extermination of natives]

In the new English penal colony of Van Diemen's Land in Australia, the Tasmania of latter days, the self-assertive and domineering traits of the Anglo-Saxon race were no less apparent among the convicts than among the few free settlers. A few years before this the colonists had proclaimed themselves independent of New South Wales and established a separate government. The Van Diemen's Land Company received a grant of twenty-five thousand acres; white population increased; religious, educational and commercial institutions were founded. The natives were all but exterminated. During this year Governor Arthur made an extraordinary attempt to settle the native problem. His idea was to catch all the aborigines of the island and pen them up on the narrow neck of land known as Tasman's Peninsula. Upward of three thousand five hundred white persons, including three hundred soldiers, turned out for the exciting operation of clearing Van Diemen's Land by means of a cordon across the island. All seemed to be going well until the line of beaters contracted, when it was found that the natives were in the rear, instead of in the front. The attempt proved a total failure; only two natives were captured. The total cost of the expedition amounted to L35,000. The individual measures of the settlers against the despised natives proved more efficacious. Within a few years, when the last of the Tasmanian aborigines were transferred from the mainland to Flinder's Island, by the instrumentality of George Augustus Robinson, it was found that but three hundred were left. The white population—largely of convict antecedents—by this time numbered more than 15,000 persons.

[Sidenote: North American dissensions]

[Sidenote: Nullification debate]

[Sidenote: Webster's declaration]

In North America the doctrine of nullification, newly put forth, emphasized the growing differences between the Northern and Southern States. The great debate between Hayne and Webster came about casually in the course of a discussion of the sale of public lands. The topic of nullification was dragged in by Southern speakers. Webster felt called upon to uphold the cause of the Northern States. Smarting under some of his animadversions of Southern sloth, Hayne made a two-day speech in which he inveighed against the spirit of the New Englanders. His own State, South Carolina, and her sister States in the South, he declared, would defend their sovereign rights, or "perish in the last ditch." Webster's reply to those prophetic words was the grandest oratorical effort of his life. He declared for the continued union of all the States in all their strength: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Jackson's progressive foreign policy poured oil on the troubled waters. His repeal of the shipping acts of 1818 and 1823 brought about a resumption of direct trade with the West Indies. On October 5, Jackson was able to issue a proclamation announcing the opening of permanent trade with all ports of the West Indies, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Gulf of Mexico and South America.

[Sidenote: Anglo-American treaty]

[Sidenote: O'Connell's State trial]

[Sidenote: Anti-reform utterances]

[Sidenote: Wellington unpopular]

[Sidenote: Fall of Ministry]

[Sidenote: Earl Grey, Prime Minister]

This friendly treaty with America was the last satisfactory measure passed by Wellington's Ministry in England. As elsewhere in Europe the success of the sudden revolution in Paris created a great stir, and was brought home to Englishmen all the more forcibly by the deposed king's flight to English shores. In Ireland, matters were stirred up by Daniel O'Connell, who now commenced an agitation for the repeal of the union with England. His prosecution for treason became a State trial. O'Connell's ultimate conviction once more alienated the powerful Catholic Association of Ireland. The Duke of Wellington became so prejudiced against reform that he declared in Parliament: "I am not only averse to bringing forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once declare, so far as I am concerned, so long as I hold any station in the government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to resist such a measure when proposed by others." After this declaration the fall of the Ministry was assured. Stocks fell in London from 84 to 77 points. Abuse and obloquy were heaped upon the Ministers from every quarter. Caricatures of them were stamped even on handkerchiefs and calico aprons. The Duke was mostly represented in the livery of an old hackney coachman, while Sir Robert Peel figured as a rat catcher. The King no longer concealed his dislike of Wellington, who in former days had mortally offended him by his support of Admiral Cockburn, resulting in the resignation of the Prince as Lord High Admiral of England. As soon as Parliament was reopened late in the year, a significant rebuff was administered to the Ministry by the Crown. The King preferred to deliver his speech in person. In the face of the Prime Minister's declaration against reform, Sir Harry Parnell, even before the delivery of the King's speech, announced a bill for the revision of the civil list. Parnell's motion was carried. Brougham followed this up with a motion for a reform of the rotten borough system. Rather than submit to another inevitable defeat Wellington's Ministry resigned. Earl Grey, leader of the Whig opposition, was made Prime Minister. Brougham was raised to the peerage, and accepted the post of Lord Chancellor. Palmerston was reappointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Lord Grey's appointment of six or seven of his relatives to administrative posts weakened his Ministry from the outset.



1831

[Sidenote: Belgian conference]

[Sidenote: Leopold, King of Belgium]

[Sidenote: Luxemburg question]

[Sidenote: Dutch invasion of Belgium]

[Sidenote: French counter-invasion]

[Sidenote: Foreign intervention]

Under the leadership of Lord Palmerston, the Belgian Conference in London was conducted to a successful issue. Early in January the representatives of the Powers signed a protocol defining the limits of Belgium and Holland and apportioning to each country its share in the national debt. The problem of providing an acceptable government for Belgium still remained. The Belgians themselves would have welcomed incorporation into France. With this object in view they elected for their sovereign the Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe. When a proclamation to this effect was made on February 3, Louis Philippe, acting under Talleyrand's advice, withheld official sanction. Privately he had encouraged his son's candidacy, the more so as a Bonapartist rival, the son of Eugene Beauharnais, was in the field. The conference at London determined not to permit Belgium thus to become a dependency of France. The British Government decided that it would no longer discountenance armed intervention in Belgium against French schemes of aggrandizement. Talleyrand obtained the best terms open to his sovereign by insisting on the withdrawal of the Bonapartist pretender. The selection of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had just been disappointed in his aspirations for the empty throne of Greece, was encouraged by France on the understanding that Leopold, if elected King of Belgium, should marry a daughter of Louis Philippe. Leopold was elected on June 4, and accepted the crown only on the condition that the London Conference should modify its territorial arrangements of January. This brought up the Luxemburg question. Since the Paris treaty of 1814, the formidable stronghold of Luxemburg, though under the sovereignty of the King of Holland, was maintained as the strongest border fortress of the German Confederation. Now, the Luxemburgers had made common cause with the Belgians. Leopold accordingly insisted that Luxemburg should be treated as an integral part of Belgium. The powers at London yielded to this demand sufficiently to annul the declarations of January, with the promise of a future settlement of the status of Luxemburg. On this repudiation of the recent international declaration in favor of the Netherlands, the King of Holland took up arms. A Dutch army of 50,000 advanced into Belgium. Leopold at once appealed to France for assistance. A French army marched into Belgium from the other side. The powers at London made haste to intervene. A British fleet made a demonstration before Antwerp. Under pressure Leopold signed an agreement to raze the fortifications on the Belgian frontier. Reluctantly the King of Holland recalled his army. Under the threat of another armed coalition against France, Louis Philippe withdrew his forces. Outward tranquillity was once more restored. No immediate settlement, however, was reached in regard to Luxemburg. The union of the Luxemburgers with the Belgians remained in effect, while on the other hand strong German garrisons continued to hold the fortifications. For years to come this remained a vexatious problem.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in Greece]

[Sidenote: Holocaust of Greek fleet]

[Sidenote: Mavromichalis imprisoned]

[Sidenote: Assassination of Capodistrias]

After the restriction of the Greek frontiers by the Powers, Capodistrias' government was appreciably weakened. As difficulties thickened about him, he resorted to the restrictive measures he had become accustomed to while Prime Minister of Russia. He felt that the cause of Greece would be jeopardized unless order was maintained at any cost. When the old revolutionary leaders became turbulent, Capodistrias only put his government on a firmer basis. Mavrocordato, Konduriottes and Miaulis at this juncture waited upon the President as a committee from the opposition and demanded the withdrawal of the obnoxious measures. Capodistrias would not yield, and the popular leaders betook themselves to Hydra. Preparations for civil war were begun. The President sent out an expedition to suppress them. To prevent the fleet from falling into his hands at Paros, Miaulis set fire to the "Hellas," the American-built frigate, and that ship and twenty-eight others were burned to the water's edge. Among those that were imprisoned by Capodistrias was Petro Mavromichalis, the hero of the Morea. The Russian admiral sailed to Nauplia to intercede in his behalf, but in vain. Mavromichalis' brother and son, Constantine and George, appealed to the President in person, but were put under arrest themselves. On October 9, Constantine and George Mavromichalis fell upon Capodistrias as he was going to church and shot him dead. One of the assassins was killed on the spot while the other was executed later. Capodistrias' brother, Augustine, assumed charge. His government was short-lived. After a few months he sailed away with his brother's body to Corfu.

[Sidenote: Revolt in Bologna]

[Sidenote: Menotti]

[Sidenote: Mazzini]

[Sidenote: Papal legate repudiated]

In the meantime another blow for national unity was struck in Italy. On the death of Pius VIII., late in 1830, Gregory XVI. was elected. He had scarcely been installed in the chair of St. Peter, when a report reached him that Bologna had revolted against papal rule. On February 3, Menotti raised the signal of revolt at Modena. He was lured into the power of the Grandduke of Modena, but the insurrection spread so rapidly throughout the north of Italy that the Grandduke had to fly to Austria. Menotti was carried to Austria and there put to death. It was about this time that Mazzini made his first public appearance as a revolutionist and was imprisoned. Pope Gregory sent Cardinal Benvenuti to Bologna as a legate to treat with the rebels, but the legate was made a captive and the revolt spread southward to the papal dominions. In his extremity the Pope called upon Austria for help.

[Sidenote: Austrian intervention invoked]

[Sidenote: Attitude of France]

Austria, whose own dominions in Italy were threatened, had every reason to grant this request. The only obstacle was the threatening attitude of France. Before sending out his troops, Metternich took pains to ascertain the immediate intentions of France. The official answer given to the inquiries of the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, was that Austrian intervention in favor of the sovereigns of Parma and Modena, who were related to the House of Hapsburg, might be tolerated. An extension of such intervention to the Papal States or to Piedmont would certainly constitute a casus belli. In token of this declaration, the French Ambassador at Constantinople was instructed to make overtures for an offensive and defensive alliance to the Sultan.

[Sidenote: Metternich diplomacy]

[Sidenote: Papal dominions invaded]

[Sidenote: Casimir Perier's French policy]

In this crisis Metternich put forth all the powers of statesmanship at his command. He declared that it was better for Austria, if necessary, to perish by war than by revolution. On the instant he assured to Russia the support of Austria against the Poles, while he worked upon the fears of Louis Philippe by pointing to the presence of young Louis Bonaparte and his brother with the Italian insurgents. As a last resort he could always let loose upon France Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, now growing to manhood at Vienna. In defiance of the French declaration, Austria advanced a strong army through northern Italy into the papal dominion. The insurrection was ruthlessly stamped out. Louis Philippe did nothing. Lafayette resigned his Ministry in chagrin. He was succeeded by Casimir Perier, a constitutional statesman of modern mold. On behalf of France he put forward a double-edged demand that the Austrians should evacuate the papal dominions as soon as the papal government should reform its abuses. For the first time in their history, Austria and the Papacy were made to declare for constitutional reforms. A conference at Rome agreed upon the schemes of reforms to be instituted by the Pope. Further pretext for revolution was thus removed. In July, the last Austrian forces were withdrawn from the Papal States.

[Sidenote: War in Poland]

[Sidenote: Early successes]

[Sidenote: Polish disasters]

[Sidenote: Ostrolenka]

[Sidenote: Ravages of cholera]

[Sidenote: Death of Diebitsch]

[Sidenote: Civil war in Poland]

[Sidenote: Paskievitch, Russian commander]

[Sidenote: Fall of Warsaw]

The Polish struggle, during the earlier part of this year, had assumed the proportions of a national war. In February, the Russians took the offensive. General Diebitsch at the head of a column of 120,000 men marched into Poland. In the first encounters against the Polish forces, who were led by officers who had served under Napoleon, the Russians sustained such losses at Stoczek, Grochov and Bialolenska that Diebitsch had to call for reinforcements. The main body of the Russian army had to abandon the bank of the Vistula. Three detached corps remained stationed there. The Polish general, Skrzynecki, who had succeeded Prince Radzivil in the command, then took the offensive. He defeated the Russians under Geismas at Waver, and General Rosen at Dembevilkie and Igknie, but then stopped short. In the meanwhile a Polish expedition into Volhynia failed completely. Dvernicki was driven back into Gallicia. Another Polish expedition sent into Lithuania under Vilna likewise ended in disaster. The main body of the Poles had to cross the Prussian frontier. Only one division under Dembinski recovered the road to Warsaw. In the interval, the Polish army under Skrzynecki fought a pitched battle on May 26 with the right wing of the Russian main army at Ostrolenka. After a severe fight the Poles had to fall back over the Narev. Cholera now broke out in both camps. General Diebitsch and Grandduke Constantine on the Russian side succumbed to the disease. During this breathing space for the Poles, a revolution against the provisional government broke out in Warsaw. The streets ran with blood. Czartoryski fled in disguise. General Krukoviecki was made dictator. He shot a number of the mutineers and replaced Skrzynecki by Dembinski. Prussia and Austria turned against the Poles. The Prussian arsenals and military stores at Dantzig and Koenigsberg were placed at the disposal of Diebitsch's successor, General Paskievitch. He crossed the Vistula at Warsaw and marched on the capital along the left bank. On September 6, the Russians attacked Warsaw from the side of Vola and Czyste. On the Polish side Wysocki, who had begun the revolution, and General Suvenski, who had lost a leg at Borodino, were killed. Krukoviecki offered to capitulate. The Russians demanded unconditional surrender. The Polish Diet deposed Krukoviecki and put Niemoievski in command. Paskievitch ordered a general attack on the city. The Russians stormed the ramparts and Warsaw capitulated. "Sire, Poland lies at your feet," wrote Paskievitch to the Czar. It was the truth. At Plock 20,000 Poles laid down their arms. Ramarino took 15,000 into Gallicia.

[Sidenote: Poland's aspirations crushed]

[Sidenote: Polish patriots scatter]

Emperor Nicholas made an example of Poland. All those who had borne a prominent part in the insurrection were banished to Siberia. The constitution granted by Alexander was annulled. No more Polish Diets were tolerated. Poles in public office were superseded by Russians. The Polish soldiers and officers were mustered into Russian ranks and distributed over widely different points of the empire. The country was divided into Russian provinces, and Russian systems of taxation, coinage and of administration of justice were imposed upon Poland. In Lithuania, the Polish language was banished from the schools. The University of Vilna was suppressed. Henceforth the ancient spirit of Poland lived only in those foreign exiles who fomented revolutionary risings in Italy, France, Austria and Germany.

[Sidenote: Spirit of revolt in Germany]

[Sidenote: Liberal leaders lost]

Until the subjugation of Poland, the German governments, apprehensive of the course that events might take, had shown moderation in meeting the liberal movements incited by the French and Polish revolution. Trouble first broke out in Brunswick and Hesse, the two worst-governed States of Germany. The despotic princes of Brunswick and Hesse had to resign, and reforms were instituted by their successors. In Hanover and Saxony, too, the people had to be appeased by parliamentary concessions and an extension of the liberty of the press. In the Bavarian Palatinate, where French institutions and ideas prevailed, the tricolor of France and the flag of Poland were saluted side by side with the red, black and gold banner of ancient Germany. After the fall of Warsaw the governments of Prussia and Austria insisted on new reactionary measures. The Diet of the German Confederation began a campaign against all liberal tendencies. German liberalism during this dark period lost some of its foremost leaders by the deaths of Stein the statesman, Arnim the poet, Niebuhr the historian, and Hegel the philosopher.

[Sidenote: Death of Hegel]

[Sidenote: German emigration to America]

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in 1770 at Stuttgart. He held chairs successively at the Universities of Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin. His works reached an aggregate of eighteen volumes. As a philosopher he was one of the most brilliant exponents of modern rationalism. He reached this standpoint by pushing to their extreme logical conclusions the philosophical doctrines enunciated by Kant. Hegel's most lasting works proved to be his "Phenomenology of the Mind," "History of Philosophy," and "Philosophy of Religion." At the time of Hegel's death there was a general exodus of German liberals to Switzerland, France and America.

Despite a small but influential class of Americans who copied foreign manners, the United States of America had gained something of a national character in European estimation. In the New World alone, labor was deemed compatible with gentility. The increasing facilities of traffic and manufacture gave a tremendous impulse to the development of the country. Thus a surprising number of railroads were opened in the States of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Improvements connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburg were completed at a cost of twelve million dollars. Several thousand miles were covered by canals.

[Sidenote: Development of the United States]

[Sidenote: Chicago founded]

[Sidenote: Black Hawk war]

The American census of 1831 showed nearly 13,000,000 inhabitants, a doubling of the population since the beginning of the century. An area of 725,406 square miles of territory was contained in thirty-four States and three Territories. The population spread westward, no longer in large groups, but in small bodies of pioneers, travelling along the chief rivers. West of the Missouri River all was still virgin soil. During this year Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi. The settlement of Chicago was laid out and the first sale of lots there was held. A boundary and commercial treaty was concluded with Mexico in the spring. Later in the year President Jackson obtained from the French Government a promise of 25,000,000 francs indemnity for the spoliations on American commerce made under Napoleon. On April 21, the so-called Black Hawk war broke out with the Indian tribes of the Sacs and Foxes. Some 6,500 soldiers were despatched to subdue them. In this war it so happened that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis served as captain and lieutenant.

[Sidenote: Abolitionist movement]

[Sidenote: William Garrison]

[Sidenote: Nat Turner's revolt]

The issue of slavery was brought to the front early in the year. On the first day of January, Garrison's "Liberator" appeared in Boston. Garrison advocated immediate and unconditional emancipation of the black slaves. In his first issue he said: "I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." It was not long before Garrison made himself heard, and gathered about him a few men and women as determined as himself. Among them was the young poet Whittier, Louis Tappan, and Lucretia Mott, the Quaker. A storm of obloquy and persecution was raised against Garrison. Social and public ostracism was visited upon him and his fellow abolitionists. Garrison's efforts to free the negroes were made especially unwelcome in the South by an insurrection of blacks led by Nat Turner of South Hampton. The revolt was speedily suppressed, and Turner with seventeen of his followers suffered death by hanging. Turner's attempt called forth a debate of several weeks in the Virginia Legislature, remarkable throughout for its exposure of the evils of slavery and their bad effect on national prosperity.

[Sidenote: Death of Monroe]

[Sidenote: Monroe's career]

One of the foremost statesman of the day was lost to America by the death of James Monroe. He expired on July 4, the third President to die on Independence Day. Monroe was born in Virginia in 1758. He was educated at William and Mary College, studied law under Jefferson, and became a member of the Continental Congress at twenty-five. He saw his first military service in the War of the Revolution. Appointed Minister to France in 1794 he was recalled in 1796, and was Governor of Virginia from 1799 to 1802. He then returned to France as envoy extraordinary and helped to accomplish the purchase of Louisiana. In 1811 he was again made Governor of Virginia. He served as Secretary of State under Madison from 1811 to 1817 and also as Secretary of War from 1814 to 1815. When the War of 1812 emptied the national treasury he pledged his personal credit for the defence of New Orleans. In 1816 he was elected President of the United States. While serving his second term as President, Monroe sent to Congress the famous message against European intervention in South America, which has permanently linked his name with the doctrine of "America for the Americans." His name has been preserved likewise in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, the negro free state in Africa, which was founded under his auspices.

[Sidenote: The Reform Bill]

Throughout this year in England raged the great debate over the government's proposed reform of the rotten borough system. A bill to this effect was introduced by Lord Russell on March 1, immediately after the opening of Parliament. In the seven days' debate that followed the best speakers of England took part, among them Lord Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, Daniel O'Connell, and young Macaulay, who had only just entered Parliament. By the opponents of the bill reform was denounced as revolution. The government of the United States of North America was cited as a deterrent example. Thus Sir Robert Peel said:

[Sidenote: Robert Peel's speech]

[Sidenote: America a "Deterrent Example"]

"Many experiments have been tried to engraft democratical on monarchical institutions, but how have they succeeded? In France, in Spain, in Portugal, in the Netherlands, in every country on the face of the earth, with the exception of the United States, has the experiment of forming a popular government, and of uniting it with monarchy, been tried; and how, I will again ask, has it succeeded? In America, the House has been told that the most beneficent effects of a representative form of government are plainly visible. But I beg to remind the House that there is a wide difference indeed between the circumstances of this country and of America. In the United States the Constitution has not been in existence more than forty years. I will not say it has been deteriorating, for I wish to avoid all invidious phrases; but it has been rapidly undergoing a change from a republic to a mere democracy. The influence of the executive—the influence of the government—has been daily becoming less, and more power has consequently been vested in the hands of the people. And yet, in that country, there is land uncultivated to an extent almost incalculable—there is no established church, no privileged orders—property exists on a very different tenure from that on which it is held in this country; therefore let not the people of England be deceived, let them not imagine, from the example of the United States, that because democracy has succeeded and triumphed there, it will also succeed and triumph here."

[Sidenote: Reform Bill debate]

[Sidenote: Exciting elections]

[Sidenote: Tories defeated]

[Sidenote: Cobbett's state trial]

Altogether seventy-one speakers joined in the debate. In the end the government obtained a second reading of the bill by a bare majority of one. The opposition had made a motion to withdraw the bill. After another prolonged debate this was carried against the government by a majority of eight. Parliament was dissolved as both Houses were on the point of carrying a motion asking the King not to consent to a dissolution. The elections which followed were turbulent in the extreme. Throughout England the reformers raised the cry: "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." It was then that the custom of electioneering by means of processions and bands of music came into vogue. When the results of the elections were announced it was found that the Tories had lost more than a hundred seats. On the other hand a few of the most prominent supporters of the government suffered signal defeat, notably Lord Palmerston and Cavendish. On the Tory side, young Gladstone, then still a student at Oxford, came into notice by his warm speech against the proposed reform. Parliament was reopened with another hot debate on the all-engrossing bill. It was passed to a second reading by a strong majority of 135 votes. Scarcely had this been accomplished when the government was embarrassed by William Cobbett's state trial for sedition. Throughout the trial the Attorney-General treated Cobbett with marked courtesy, speaking of him as "one of the greatest masters of the English language who had ever composed in it."

[Sidenote: Macaulay]

[Sidenote: Commons pass Reform Bill]

[Sidenote: Rejected by the Lords]

In truth Cobbett's pure, virile, racy, Saxon style, while it delighted men of taste, was also intelligible to the humblest commoner, and accounted in some measure for the tremendous popularity of his journal, the "Political Register." The government was unable to secure Cobbett's conviction and he was suffered to escape punishment by a disagreement of the jury. After this interlude the debate on the Reform Bill went on. On the second night of the debate Thomas Babington Macaulay delivered his first reform speech. When he sat down he had taken rank among the best Parliamentary orators. "Portions of the speech," said Sir Robert Peel, "were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read. It reminded me of old times. The names of Burke, Fox and Canning during the evening were linked with that of Mr. Macaulay." The "Spectator" computed the number of speeches which were delivered in committee between the middle and end of July at more than two hundred. Sir Robert Peel alone spoke forty-eight times, while Wetherell, the Tory wag of the House, spoke fifty-eight times. Finally the Opposition was caught unawares late one night on September 19, when they could muster but fifty-eight votes before the doors closed for division, and the bill was thus passed to its third reading. The Tories took pains to be present in force a few days afterward, when the final passage of the bill was moved. After a last passionate debate lasting through three days and nights the Commons passed the bill by a majority of 106 votes. That same night Earl Grey proposed the bill before the Lords. Addressing himself to the bishops he said significantly: "I specially beg the spiritual portion of your lordships to pause and reflect. If this bill shall be thrown out by a narrow majority and the scale should be turned by the votes of the prelates, what would be their situation? Let them set their houses in order!" These menacing words gave great offence to the clergy. The Duke of Wellington spoke strongly against the measure. The bill was thrown out by the Lords after an all-night debate.

[Sidenote: Riots in England]

The immediate effect was a sharp decline in stocks. A few hours after the House of Peers adjourned at six o'clock in the morning, a run for gold began on the Bank of England. The simultaneous effort of the French to abolish their hereditary peerage was hailed as an omen of what was coming in England. Riots broke out all over England. The return to Bristol of Sir C. Wetherell, one of the chief opponents of the bill, was made the occasion of ominous demonstrations. A riotous mob burned the mansion house over his head. Next, the Bishop of Bristol was driven from his episcopal seat. The mob fired the mansion house, the bishop's palace, the excise office, the custom house, three prisons, four toll houses, and forty-two private houses of prominent Tories.

No one was injured until the troops were called in to disperse the mob. Then a number of rioters were sabred and shot. About the same time riots broke out at Bath, Worcester, Coventry, Warwick, Lichfield, Nottingham and Canterbury. With difficulty Archbishop Howley of Canterbury was rescued from the hands of an infuriated mob. The Bishops of Winchester and Exeter were burned in effigy before their very palaces. The Bishop of London did not dare to hold services at Westminster. The news from France served to increase the alarm. Disturbances of a far more serious character were reported from Lyons.

[Sidenote: Reform Bill up again]

Late in the year, after another rejection of the Reform Bill by the Lords, the bill was triumphantly reintroduced in the Commons. The question now was no longer, "What will the Lords do?" but, "What will be done with the Lords?" Rather than risk the threatening downfall of the House of Peers, the Ministers reluctantly determined to pack the Upper House by the creation of a sufficient number of new peers pledged to vote for the Reform Bill. A verse attributed to Macaulay ran:

What though now opposed I be, Twenty peers shall carry me, If twenty won't, thirty will, For I'm his Majesty's bouncing Bill.

"Thus," as Molesworth, the historian of the Reform Bill, has put it, "amid the anxieties of the reformers on one hand, and the dread of revolution on the other, amid incendiary fires and Asiatic cholera spreading throughout the country, amid distress of trade and dread of coming bankruptcy, the year 1831 went gloomily out."



1832

[Sidenote: English sedition trials]

[Sidenote: Fall of Grey's Cabinet]

[Sidenote: Wellington impotent]

[Sidenote: The King humiliated]

[Sidenote: Passage of Reform Bill]

[Sidenote: Changes effected]

The new year opened in England with a series of trials arising out of the disturbances which followed the rejection of the Reform Bill in the House of Lords. A great number of rioters were convicted. Altogether, seven men were put to death at Bristol and Nottingham. The officers who commanded the troops during the riots were court-martialed. When Parliament reassembled, the Commons once more passed the Reform Bill and carried it up to the Lords. In the course of the renewed debate on the Reform Bill in the House of Peers the Duke of Wellington announced that he had reason to believe that the King did not approve of the bill. The statement was confirmed by the King's refusal to create new peers wherewith to pass the bill through the Upper House. Thereupon Lord Grey and his colleagues resigned from the Ministry. The King accepted their resignation. Monster petitions were immediately sent in to the Commons from Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and other great centres of population, urging the Commons to refuse the supplies until reform should have been secured. Once more stocks fell sharply. For the express purpose of embarrassing the King's chosen successors for the Cabinet, runs were made on the Bank of England, and on the savings banks at Birmingham and Manchester. The streets of London were covered with placards: "Go for gold and stop the Duke!" In the face of this agitation the Duke of Wellington declined the King's offer to form a Ministry. Sir Robert Peel likewise declined. As a last resort Wellington consented to form a Ministry, but could not get together a Cabinet strong enough to stem the storm. The Iron Duke's popularity as well as the King's was at an end. When the King came up to London, accompanied by his sons, they were received with hoots and insults. Missiles were thrown at the royal carriage, and the Life Guards had to fight a way through the mob with their swords. The King was driven to the humiliating expedient of recalling his dismissed Ministers. William IV. now consented to create the required number of new peers. Lord Brougham gave mortal offence to the King by a request that he should put his promise in writing. With the King's written pledge in their hands the Ministers obtained an agreement from their opponents to pass the bill without further coercion. Early in June, at length, the Reform Bill passed through the House of Lords after a third reading. One hundred and six peers voted for it and only twenty-two against it. On this occasion Sir Robert Peel made a remark to which his subsequent change of front gave peculiar significance: "Whenever the government comes to deal with the corn laws, the precedent formed by the present occasion will be appealed to." The reform measure, as at last adopted, swept away 142 seats in the Commons. It gave to the counties sixty-five additional representatives and conferred the right of sending members to Parliament on Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and thirty-nine other large towns hitherto unrepresented. The King showed his disapproval of the reform by peremptorily declining to give his assent to the bill in person. The Crown's sanction was given by commission. This ended all agitation for the time being.

[Sidenote: Otto, King of Greece]

It was in May that the great Powers, in response to another appeal from Greece, suggested Prince Otto of Wittelsbach, the second son of the Philhellene King of Bavaria, for the vacant throne. This choice was ratified in October amid general rejoicings by the population of Greece.

[Sidenote: Foreign intervention in Italy]

In Italy, early in the year, the Pope's failure to carry out his promise of reform created new troubles. An amnesty, which had been granted by the legate Benvenuti, was disregarded and the papal soldiery practiced all manner of repression. Another revolt broke out and once more the Austrians, at the Pope's request, crossed the frontier. They restored order so well that they were actually welcomed as protectors against the ruthless condottieri of the papal troops. Austria's intervention was resented by France as a breach of the peace. Casimir Perier, now on his deathbed, despatched a French force to Ancona. The town was seized before the Austrians could approach it. Austria accepted the situation, and both powers in Italy remained face to face jealously watching each other. Had Casimir Perier lived he might have made Ancona a lever for effecting the desired reforms at Rome. As it was, the French garrison at Ancona remained merely as a balancing point between the contending parties in Italy.

[Sidenote: Death of Cuvier]

[Sidenote: Cuvier's Works]

France in the same year lost one of its distinguished men of science, by the death of Baron Cuvier, the great naturalist. Georges Leopold Cuvier was born in 1769 at Montbeliard. After studying at Stuttgart he became private tutor in the family of Count D'Hericy in Normandy, where he was at liberty to devote his leisure to natural science and in particular to zoology. A natural classification of the Vermae or worms was his first achievement. The ability and knowledge shown in this work procured him the friendship of the greatest naturalists of France. He was invited to Paris, took a chair at the Ecole Centrale, and was received by the Institute as a member of the first class. His lectures on natural history, distinguished not less for the elegance of their style than for profound knowledge and daring speculation, were attended by some of the most accomplished persons of Paris. In January, 1800, Cuvier was appointed to the College de France. Under Napoleon, who fully recognized his merits, Cuvier held important offices in the department of public instruction. Under the Restoration he was made one of the forty members of the French Academy. In 1831, a year prior to his death, he was appointed a Peer of France. Among the numerous works by which Cuvier greatly expanded the study of natural history may be mentioned as foremost "Researches into Fossil Bones," "Discourse of the Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe," "A Course of Comparative Anatomy," "Natural History of Fishes," and his great work, "The Animal Kingdom," with its subdivisions into the four great classes—vertebrates, mollusks, articulates and radiates.

[Sidenote: Death of Goethe]

On March 22, Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's foremost man of letters, expired at Weimar. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the son of a councillor under the old German empire. His best traits were inherited from his mother. As he himself sang in later years:

Vom Vater hab ich die Statur, Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren, Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zum Fabuliren.[A]

[Footnote A: From my father I have my stature And serious view of life; From dear little mother my glad heart And fondness for telling stories.]

[Sidenote: Goethe's career]

[Sidenote: "Goetz von Berlichingen"]

[Sidenote: "The Sorrows of Werther"]

[Sidenote: Goethe at Weimar]

[Sidenote: "Hermann und Dorothea"]

His father had him educated for the study of law. In his sixteenth year he was sent to the University at Leipzig. Later he went to Strasburg, where he became acquainted with the poet Herder, and had his first love affair with Friederike Brion of Sesenheim, whose charm has been kept alive in Goethe's autobiography, "Dichtung und Wahrheit." In 1772 he returned to Frankfort and practiced law. While thus engaged he wrote his first romantic-historical play, "Goetz von Berlichingen." In the following year he published his sentimental romance, "The Sorrows of Werther," based in a measure on one of his own unfortunate love affairs at Wetzlar. Both of these early works achieved instant success. "The Sorrows of Werther" inaugurated in German literature what is known as the period of storm and stress. Disenchantment of life, or "Weltschmerz," became a fashionable malady. The romantic suicide of Goethe's sentimental hero Werther was aped by a number of over-susceptible young persons. Wieland drew the attention of the Duke of Weimar to Goethe, and the young poet was invited to Weimar. He remained under the patronage of this enlightened prince until the end of his days. At Weimar, Goethe was the centre of a court comprising some of the foremost spirits of Germany. The little capital became a Mecca for poets, scholars, artists and musicians from all over the world. Goethe's only rival poet in Germany, Schiller, was drawn into the circle and the two became life-long friends. Most of Goethe's lyric poems were written during the first ten years at Weimar. At the outbreak of the French Revolution he accompanied the Duke of Weimar in one of the campaigns against France. The thrilling atmosphere of the Revolution furnished him with a literary background for his epic idyl, "Hermann und Dorothea." Goethe's subsequent journey to Italy, which was a turning-point in the poet's career, was commemorated in his "Letters from Italy"—a classic among German books of travel. Another eminently successful creation was the epic of "Reynard, the Fox," modelled after the famous bestiary poems of early Flemish and French literature.



[Sidenote: Goethe's dramas]

[Sidenote: "Wilhelm Meister"]

[Sidenote: "Dichtung und Wahrheit"]

[Sidenote: "Faust"]

During the same period Goethe wrote four of his greatest dramas, "Iphigenie in Tauris," "Torquato Tasso," "Egmont," and the first part of "Faust." Later he wrote his great prose work, "Die Wahlverwandtschaften," a quasi-physiological romance; "Wilhelm Meister's Lehr und Wander Jahre," a narrative interspersed with some of Goethe's finest lyrics, such as the songs of Mignon and of the old harper, as well as the famous critique of Hamlet. The height of Goethe's superb prose style was reached in "Dichtung und Wahrheit," which stands as one of the most charming autobiographies of all times. Goethe's versatility as a writer and man was shown not only by his free use of all literary forms, but also by his essays on such abstruse subjects as astrology, optics, the theory of color, comparative anatomy and botany. Shortly before his death, the poet finished the greatest of his works, the tragedy "Faust." He died in the eighty-third year of his life, uttering the words "More Light." Goethe was entombed in the ducal vault at Weimar, by the side of his friends, Friedrich Schiller and Carl August of Weimar.

[Sidenote: Goethe's genius]

Like Heine, Goethe offended his fellow Germans by his apparent lack of purely national and patriotic sentiments. To the present day his outspoken admiration of Napoleon and his cold abstention from the ardent enthusiasm of the Prussian war of Liberation have not been forgiven by certain Germans. As a man, Goethe has been denounced as an egotist, for the apparently selfish character of his relations with women, ending with his marriage to a woman far below him. On the other hand, Goethe must be regarded as the most universal literary genius produced by Germany. He stands in line with those master spirits of all ages, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Moliere.

[Sidenote: Death of Scott]

[Sidenote: Walter Scott's poems]

[Sidenote: "The Waverley Novels"]

[Sidenote: Scott a bankrupt]

[Sidenote: Literary drudgery]

A few months after the death of Goethe, in September, Sir Walter Scott died in England. Goethe was accustomed to speak of Scott as "the greatest writer of his time." Shortly before his death Goethe said: "All is great in Scott's 'Waverley Novels'—material, effect, characters and execution." Scott himself derived much of his inspiration from Goethe's writings. One of his earliest works was a translation of "Goetz von Berlichingen." The creation of Mignon, in "Wilhelm Meister," furnished Scott with the character of Fenella in his "Peveril of the Peak." Scott began his career as a writer with a translation of Buerger's "Ballads." His most successful metrical pieces, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," for the most part appeared during the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. Then came the great series of the "Waverley Novels," named after the romance of "Waverley," published anonymously in 1814. The series comprised such classics as "Guy Mannering," "The Heart of Midlothian," "Kenilworth," "Quentin Durward," and "Ivanhoe." Scott's historical romances, based as they were on painstaking researches into old chronicles, revived in Englishmen an interest in their own past. The romance of the Middle Ages was recognized for the first time, if in an exaggerated degree, throughout the civilized world. The romantic movement in French literature, now in full swing, was directly inspired by Scott. Notwithstanding his great success as a writer, Scott's later career was clouded by difficulties and debt. Through his friendship with Canning early in his career he obtained the post of court clerk in Edinburgh. This left him leisure to edit a number of literary works, such as the editions of Swift, Dryden and Sir Tristan. The great popular success of his novels soon made him rich. His hospitality at Abbotsford grew so lavish that in order to defray his expenses he joined in a financial partnership with his publishers. The failure of the Bank of Constable, in 1826, and the consequent failure of the house of Ballantyne, ruined Scott. His debts amounted to L117,000. In his efforts to earn enough money wherewith to pay this enormous sum, Scott became a literary drudge. It was at this time that he wrote his seven-volume history of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, "Tales of a Grandfather," and a two-volume "History of Scotland." His work as a historian was by no means equal to that of his purely literary creations. In 1830, as the result of overwork, Sir Walter Scott suffered from a stroke of paralysis. A journey to Italy brought no relief. Two years later he died. He was buried at Dryburgh Abbey. For several generations after his death Scott remained one of the most popular authors of England.

[Sidenote: Advances in Medicine]

A remarkable instance of good resulting from evil was afforded this year by the revolting murders committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh. These two men deliberately killed a number of persons to sell their bodies to medical dissecters. The discovery of their crimes led to a Parliamentary investigation in the course of which Sir Astley Cooper boldly stated that any man's body could be obtained in the United Kingdom if enough money were offered. The scandal resulted in the passage of an Anatomy Act licensing the traffic in human bodies within strict limitations. Before this reform surgeons experimenting in human anatomy had to rely on body-snatchers for their material. The repeal of the old laws on this subject removed much of the odium hitherto attached to the science of dissection, while the increase of experimental material gave a fresh impetus to the study of anatomy.

[Sidenote: Death of Napoleon II.]

A menace to the royal crown of France was removed by the death of Napoleon's son, the young Duke of Reichstadt, erstwhile King of Rome. He expired at Schoenbrunn, after an empty life spent under Metternich's tutelage in Vienna, and was buried there. His death at the time was commemorated in the famous German ballad, beginning with the lines:

In the gardens of Schoenbrunn Lies buried the King of Rome.

The French playwright Rostand made the life and death of this unfortunate Prince the subject of a romantic tragedy "The Eaglet," in which Sarah Bernhardt achieved so striking a success at the close of the Nineteenth Century.

[Sidenote: Attempted revolts in France]

[Sidenote: Repressive measures]

The removal of another menace to Louis Philippe's throne was accompanied by circumstances less tragic. In April, the Duchesse de Berry, wearying of her exile, crossed over to Marseilles and travelled thence in disguise to Chateau Plassac, in the Vendee, where she summoned the Royalists to arms. She was betrayed into the hands of constables sent to arrest her, and was placed in safe keeping at Chateau Blaye on an island in the Gironde. The affair took an awkward turn for the cause of the Orleanists in France, when the Duchess gave birth to an infant daughter, whose parentage she found it difficult to explain. Next, the death of General Lamarque, a popular soldier of France, started an insurrection at Paris in the summer. An attempt was made to build barricades, and conflicts occurred in the streets, but the National Guard remained true to the army and the King, and the revolt was soon put down. The government of Louis Philippe resorted to severe repressive measures, and trials for sedition were common. In Germany a revolutionary appeal to arms, made at a popular festival at the Castle of Homburg, near Zweibruecken, resulted in renewed reactionary measures. The German Diet, at the instance of Metternich, declared that the refusal of taxes by any legislature would be treated as an act of rebellion. All political meetings and associations were forbidden and the public press was gagged.

[Sidenote: Naval demonstration at Lisbon]

[Sidenote: Civil war in Portugal]

The excesses of Dom Miguel's followers in Portugal were followed by more serious international results. A series of wanton attacks upon foreign subjects in Lisbon called for outside intervention. English and French squadrons appeared in the Tagus. Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, declared himself satisfied after Portugal had apologized and paid an indemnity to the British sufferers. The French admiral, unable to obtain quick redress, carried off the best ships of the Portuguese navy. The worst result for Dom Miguel was the foreign encouragement given to his brother, Emperor Pedro of Brazil, who was preparing an expedition against him in the Azores. Some of the best British naval officers and veterans of the Peninsular War were permitted to enlist under Dom Pedro's banner. Captain Charles Napier took charge of Dom Pedro's navy. In July a landing was made near Oporto, and that important city was captured by Dom Pedro's forces. Dom Miguel was constrained to lay siege to Oporto. Thus the civil war in Portugal dragged on.

The most formidable revolt of the year was that of Mehemet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, against his suzerain, Sultan Mahmoud of Turkey. The disappointing results of Egypt's participation in Turkey's war in Greece left Mehemet Ali dissatisfied. He considered the acquisition of Crete by Egypt but a poor recompense for the loss of his fleet at Navarino.

[Sidenote: Mehemet Ali's revolt]

[Sidenote: Siege of Acre]

[Sidenote: Turkish reverses]

[Sidenote: Russian intervention]

A quarrel with the Pasha of Acre, Abdallah, gave Mehemet Ali a chance for Egyptian aggrandizement in that direction. Egyptian forces under the command of Mehemet Ali's adopted son Ibrahim marched into Palestine and laid siege to Acre. That stronghold resisted with the same stubbornness that Bonaparte had encountered years before. The protracted struggle there gave the Sultan time to prepare an expedition wherewith to intervene between his warring vassals. He took the part of the Pasha of Acre. A proclamation was issued declaring Mehemet Ali and his son rebels. A Turkish army under Hussain Pasha entered Syria. The fall of Acre, while the relieving army was still near Antioch, enabled Ibrahim to throw his full force against the Turks. In the valley of the Orontes the two forces met. The Turkish vanguard was routed and the Turkish main column fell back on Aleppo, leaving Antioch and all the surrounding country to the Egyptians. The Pasha of Aleppo, won over by Mehemet Ali, closed the gates of his city against Hussain's disordered forces. The Turks retreated into the mountains between Syria and Cilicia. The Egyptians pursued. At the pass of Beilan a stand was made by Hussain. The fierce mountain tribes turned against him, and with their help Ibrahim won a signal victory over the Turks, on July 29. The retreat continued through Cilicia far into Asia Minor. After several months a new Turkish army under Reshid Pasha, Ibrahim's colleague in the siege of Missolonghi, advanced from the north. A pitched battle was fought at Konieh on the 21st of December. The Turks were utterly routed. The army was dispersed and Reshid himself was made a prisoner. The road to Constantinople now lay open to Mehemet Ali. Sultan Mahmoud was so alarmed that he turned to his old adversary, Russia, for help. General Muravieff was summoned to Constantinople and was empowered to make terms for Turkey with Mehemet Ali.

[Sidenote: Affair of Quallah Buteau]

In America, likewise, President Jackson had found it necessary to assert the rights of the United States by means of a punitive expedition. This grew out of the affair of Quallah Buteau on the Island of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies. The American ship "Friendship" had put in there during the previous year to load with pepper. The captain, whose men were on shore, permitted the crew of a Malay boat to come on board. There was not a sign of danger, when suddenly the Malays attacked the Americans, killing the first officer and two sailors and plundering the vessel. They then tried to beach the vessel, but two other American ships compelled the Malays to flee. The Rajah of Quallah Buteau appropriated the plunder and refused to return it. Commodore Downs, with the frigate "Potomac," was ordered to Sumatra. He reached there early in February. Finding that nothing could be accomplished by peaceful means he landed two hundred and fifty of his sailors under command of Lieutenant Shubrick. The Malays refused to give or receive quarter. Their palisades were torn down and turned into a bridge, and the fort was stormed. The Stars and Stripes were hoisted. Another fort with its magazines was blown up. The town was occupied. In all one hundred and fifty Malays were killed and wounded, among them the Rajah. The total loss of the Americans was two men. The offending town was razed.

[Sidenote: Struggle over United States Bank]

Jackson's domestic policy during this year brought him into conflict with two powerful factors. One was the United States Bank at Philadelphia. Jackson disapproved of the Bank on the ground that it failed to establish a sound and new form of currency. A financial panic had been caused by worthless paper currency issued by so-called "wildcat" banking institutions. A petition for the renewal of the National Bank's charter, which was to expire in 1836, was laid before the Senate. Both Houses passed a bill to that effect. Jackson vetoed it, and a two-thirds vote wherewith to override his veto could not be obtained for the measure. Jackson then ordered the Bank's deposits removed. He read to the Cabinet a long paper, in which he accused the officers of the Bank of mismanagement and corruption, and stated that he would assume the entire responsibility for the removal of the deposits. The Bank made a stubborn fight and spent over $50,000 in defending itself. In the Senate, Benton was the chief opponent of the Bank, and Webster was its principal defender. In December, the President sent a message to Congress recommending the removal of the public funds from the National Bank to certain State banks. Congress refused to remove the funds.

[Sidenote: American tariff legislation]

[Sidenote: South Carolina nullification]

[Sidenote: Jackson's vigorous measures]

The passage of a new tariff law, on July 14, which was considered harmful to Southern interests, brought the Federal Government into armed conflict with the South. On November 19, a State Convention met at Columbus, South Carolina, in response to a call of the Legislature, and on the 24th a nullification ordinance was adopted. The tariff laws were declared unconstitutional, and therefore "null and void and no law, nor binding upon the State." On December 10, President Jackson issued a proclamation against nullifiers, threatening them with trial for treason. Governor Hamilton of South Carolina in reply warned citizens not to be diverted from their allegiance to their State by this Federal proclamation. Jackson summoned General Scott to Washington and sent a part of the army to Charleston with a ship of war to collect the revenues. On December 28, J.C. Calhoun resigned the office of Vice-President on account of Jackson's proclamation. He was forthwith elected Senator from South Carolina.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Payne's Landing]

[Sidenote: Troubles with Indians]

[Sidenote: Black Hawk War]

It was during this year that renewed troubles with the Seminoles in Florida resulted in one of the most serious Indian wars of the century. By the treaty of Fort Muller, in 1823, the Indians were to be confined to a reservation on the eastern peninsula, but the Territorial Legislature petitioned Congress for their removal. Finally, in 1832, the treaty of Payne's Landing stipulated that seven Seminole chiefs should examine the country assigned to the Creeks west of the Mississippi, and that if they could live amiably with the Creeks, the Seminoles were to be removed within three years, surrendering their lands in Florida, and receiving an annuity of $15,000 and certain supplies. President Jackson sent a commission to the West to convince the seven chiefs that the country was eminently desirable, and a supplementary treaty from these seven was obtained without consulting the rest of the Seminoles. Many Seminoles were opposed to moving West through fear of the Creeks. The Sacs and Foxes and Winnebago Indians of Wisconsin by treaty, in 1830, had ceded their lands to the United States, but they still refused to leave their territory. Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, called out troops to compel them to go to the lands set apart for them, west of the Mississippi. Black Hawk returned, but was again driven off. In 1832 he came back with a thousand warriors and Indian warfare broke out. Generals Scott and Atkinson were sent with troops to Rock Island. It was the first time that a steamboat was used as a military transport. The force was there divided. General Scott could effect nothing, but General Atkinson pushed on, and in August defeated the Indians and took Black Hawk and his two sons prisoners.

[Sidenote: Cholera reaches America]

[Sidenote: Death of Charles Carroll]

In many other ways public attention was engrossed in America. On June 21, the Asiatic cholera appeared in New York with appalling results. The epidemic spread to Philadelphia, Albany, Rochester, and westward. A number of new railroads were opened in New York and Pennsylvania. The first horse-drawn street cars began running in New York. On July 2, the Agricultural Society of New York was founded, and the first public trial was held of Obett Hussy's new reaping machine, which Cyrus MacCormick also claimed as his invention. The device was destined to give a tremendous impetus to agriculture in the development of the western prairies. About the same time the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Maryland, died at the age of ninety-six. In American letters, this year is noted for the appearance of Smith's national anthem, "My Country, 'tis of Thee." Among the books that attracted attention were Whittier's "Moll Pitcher," Sparks's "Gouverneur Morris," and Irving's "Alhambra." James Gordon Bennett began the publication of the "New York Globe."



1833

[Sidenote: American abolition movement]

At the very outset of this year in America the slavery question burst into flame. The abolition movement inaugurated by Garrison and Whittier in the North was in full sway. In the slave-holding States large rewards were offered for the apprehension of Garrison, Whittier and others connected with the publication of the Boston "Liberator," Philadelphia "Freeman" and New York "Emancipator." The legislatures of Northern States were called upon to suppress anti-slavery societies by penal enactments. Governor Edward Everett of Massachusetts and Governor Marcy of New York commended such legislation. Prominent Northern citizens travelling in the South were arrested, imprisoned and flogged for flimsy reasons. At New York, Montpelier, Utica, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Alton, meetings were broken up, houses sacked, newspapers destroyed and public halls burned. Berry's "Philanthropist" at Cincinnati and Lovejoy's "Observer" at Alton were destroyed and Pennsylvania Hall at Philadelphia, a costly building intended for anti-slavery discussion, was burned on the day after its dedication, at which a poem by Whittier had been read. The firemen refused to extinguish the flames. In Boston, Garrison was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck. Whittier and Thompson tried to lecture against slavery in Boston, but their meeting could not be held in the face of the following placard posted in all parts of Boston:

[Sidenote: A typical manifesto]

"That infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson, will hold forth this afternoon at 46 Washington Street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson out. It will be a contest between the Abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A purse of one hundred dollars has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant!"

[Sidenote: Wendell Phillips]

These events inspired Wendell Phillips, who was present at a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, called to approve these outrages, to take an open stand in favor of the rights of the people, which were threatened, and gave to the cause for thirty years his active brain and eloquent tongue.

[Sidenote: Compromise tariff]

As a counterpart to the popular excesses in behalf of slavery, the Catholics of New England had to suffer persecution. At Charlestown, in Massachusetts, a mob burned the Ursuline Convent. Another indignation meeting was held at Faneuil Hall in Boston to denounce this outrage. As a concession to the Southern agitators, the American Congress, on February 26, adopted a so-called "Compromise tariff." The new bill cut down all duties of over twenty per cent by one-tenth of the surplus of each year, so as to bring about a uniform rate of twenty per cent within a decade. On the other hand, Congress passed a "force bill," which empowered the President to execute the revenue laws in South Carolina by force of arms. A State Convention in South Carolina for its part repealed the ordinance of nullification, but proceeded to declare the new Federal force bill null and void.

[Sidenote: Death of Randolph]

On May 24, John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, a descendant of Pocahontas, died at the age of sixty. He commenced public life in 1799, and served thirty years in Congress. There he became distinguished for his eccentric conduct, his sharpness of wit, and his galling sarcasm, which made him feared by all parties. He had to resign from the Cabinet under odious charges. In 1830, Jackson appointed him Minister to Russia. Randolph's speeches are still widely read.

[Sidenote: Texas filibusters]

In the extreme South the American settlers of Texas, aided by Davy Crockett's filibusters from the United States, began a war for independence against Mexico.

[Sidenote: English abolition movement]

[Sidenote: Gladstone's first speech in Parliament]

[Sidenote: Misgovernment in Ireland]

[Sidenote: Irish resentment]

The abolition of slavery was likewise the most absorbing topic that came up during this year in the Parliament of England. Young Gladstone, the newly elected member from Newark, taunted with his father's slave-holding methods at Demerara, made his maiden speech in Parliament on this subject. One who heard the rising orator recorded: "Burke himself could not be more sympathetic, more earnest, and more strong." Another engrossing topic was that of Ireland. The state of Ireland at this period, as conceded by a Tory historian of modern England, was a disgrace to the history of the Nineteenth Century. So wretched was the government of this unhappy dependency that during the year 1832 alone nearly 1,500 people were murdered and robbed in Ireland. Instead of giving to Ireland a better administration, Parliament passed another coercion bill. Tithes for the Protestant clergy were collected at the point of the bayonet. The cause of Ireland, as heretofore, was pleaded most eloquently by Daniel O'Connell. He denounced the Irish Church bill as "the basest act which a national assembly could sanction." The people became so enraged that when an Englishman was killed in a riot the coroner's jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. The Court of King's Bench quashed the verdict and tried the murderer before a jury. He was acquitted in the face of the clearest proofs against him and in direct contravention of the instructions of the judge. The spirit of the English aristocracy was indicated by the fact that a bill for relieving Jews from their civil disabilities was thrown out by the House of Lords.