A.D. 1861.]

66

matter was of no great consequence, yet, when it came to be debated in the House of Commons, it nearly upset the Government. Sir John Hay moved a resolution of censure, and, while acquitting the inferior authorities of blame, endeavoured to fix it all on the Cabinet. The actual responsibility," he said, "lay on the Cabinet-the men who had betrayed Denmark and truckled to Germany; who had convulsed China and devastated Japan; who, ten years ago, sent a British army to perish of want and cold in a Crimean winter; and who had now sent out some hundreds of British troops to perish of hunger, thirst, fever, and want of shelter, on the burning plains and in the fetid swamps of Central Africa." Sir John Hay's resolution, in a rather full House, was rejected by the narrow majority of seven.

In New Zealand, where a native war had existed since 1860, some decided advantages were gained this year by General Cameron, and certain native tribes gave in their unconditional submission. The war arose out of a quarrel respecting what was known in the colony as "the Waitara purchase." An individual Maori, named Teira, belonging to the tribe of Wiremu Kingi (Anglice, William King), offered to the Government for sale, in 1859, a block of land on the river Waitara, near Taranaki. The Government, believing that no other rights over the land existed except those of the vendor, agreed to purchase it; but this decision was vehemently protested against by Wiremu Kingi, who maintained that Teira could not of his own authority sell the land. Troops were sent to Taranaki in 1860, by the aid of whom the block of land was occupied; and thus commenced a harassing and inglorious Maori war, in the course of which the town of Taranaki was seized and plundered, and the entire settlement ravaged, by the native insurgents. To Major-General Pratt, who did little more than hold his ground against the Maories, succeeded Major-General Cameron, an officer of great vigour and ability; but still the resistance of the Maories, favoured by the wooded nature of the country, and the sparseness of the European population, continued. In 1861, the Duke of Newcastle summoned Sir George Grey (formerly Governor of New Zealand for several years at a most critical period) from the Cape colony, and intrusted him with the government of New Zealand. After a careful investigationwhich, from his intimate knowledge of the native customs, no man living was more capable of conducting-into the original cause of quarrel, Sir George Grey wrote to the Duke of Newcastle (April, 1863) that it was his settled conviction, "that the natives are, in the main, right in their allegations regarding the Waitara purchase, and that it ought not to be gone on with." Proclamation was accordingly made to the natives that the purchase was abandoned, and all claim to it on the part of the Government renounced. But the passions of the Maories had been roused by the long continuance of a state of war, and their cupidity whetted by the plunder which they had amassed; the proclamation, therefore, produced little effect. On the part of the natives, the war chiefly consisted in the surprise and murder of scattered settlers, or in a guerrilla warfare against outposts and small de

tachments of the troops; on our part, it consisted in a series of attacks on their fortified pahs, or stockades, and, as a parallel operation with the former, in the securing of our flanks and rear, as the troops gradually penetrated into the interior, by the construction of good military roads. In some cases pahs were stormed with little loss; but the troops were not always so fortunate. The Maori position of Orakau (April, 1864) cost us a loss of sixteen killed and fifty-two wounded to storm; and in an attack on a strong pah at Tauranga, on the north coast, the troops were actually repulsed, with a loss of ten officers and twentyfive rank and file killed, and four officers and seventytwo rank and file wounded. The heavy loss in officers is thus explained in General Cameron's despatch:-" Tho assaulting column, protected by the nature of the ground, gained the breach with little loss, and effected an entrance into the main body of the work, when a fierce conflict ensued, in which the natives fought with the greatest desperation. Lieutenant-Colonel Booth and Commander Hay, who led into the work, fell mortally wounded; Captain Hamilton was shot dead on the top of the parapet while in the act of encouraging his men to advance, and in a few minutes almost every officer of the column was either killed or wounded. Up to this moment the men, so nobly led by their officers, fought gallantly, and appeared to have carried the position, when they suddenly gave way, and fell back from the work to the nearest covert. This repulse I am at a loss to explain otherwise than by attributing it to the confusion caused among the men by the intricate nature of the interior defences, and the sudden fall of so many of their officers." The pah was evacuated by the Maories on the following night, and they were soon after routed with heavy loss while endeavouring to intrench themselves near Tauranga. The Maories of this district soon after (August, 1864) submitted themselves unconditionally to the Governor, who expressed his intention of dealing leniently with them, and not in any case depriving them of more than one-fourth of the lands to which they should be ultimately proved to be entitled. The war was thus at an end on the north coast, but lingered on for some time longer in the Waikato country and around Taranaki.

In China, the rebellion of the Taepings was this year almost entirely suppressed, chiefly through the aid of British officers; but the suppression was attended with circumstances which called forth loud reclamations in Parliament against the policy of the Government. An Order in Council had been passed authorising British subjects to enter into the service of the Emperor of China; and a Colonel Gordon, taking advantage of the order, assisted by other English and American officers, drilled and disciplined a body of Chinese soldiers in the European fashion, and employed them in driving the Taepings and other disorderly characters beyond the thirty-five mile radius which had been stipulated for on behalf of the treaty ports. Following up his advantage, and co-operating with the military mandarins, Gordon, in the summer of 1864, aided them to reduce the town of Soochow, the last stronghold of the Taepings, of whom 30,000, including women and children, were cruelly mas

sacred by the mandarins after the surrender. When the news of the massacre reached the British Government, the Order in Council authorising British subjects to enter the Chinese service was immediately revoked. This, however, did not avert a severe arraignment of their policy in Parliament, in which the Opposition were joined by several non-intervention Radicals. Mr. Cobden, who at this time was bitterly opposed to Lord Palmerston, and lost no opportunity of attacking him, had the hardihood to declare that if we had never interfered in the affairs of China at all, our trade with that country would have been in a sounder and more thriving condition than it then was. Lord Palmerston's reply was cogent and unanswerable. He pointed out that the general policy of this country towards China was guided by the principle of the extension of commerce, and all the interferences of the Government had been rendered necessary by circumstances connected with the protection of the mercantile interests of Englishmen. As to the cruelty and perfidy of the imperialists, however that might be, the Taepings were infinitely the worse of the two, each of them possessing the normal characteristics of the Chinese. The object of the Government, in assisting the Chinese Government in the collection of its revenue, and in allowing the services of British subjects to be placed at its disposal, was the restoration of order in the empire, the existence of which would be most advantageous to the commercial operations of this country in China. That permission, however, had been withdrawn, and would not be renewed. It was not difficult to prove against Mr. Cobden that, contemporaneously with the execution of the policy which he condemned, an immense development of our trade with China had taken place.

In Japan, several more horrid murders of Englishmen were committed by fanatical natives during the year; and an attempt was made, which was only partially successful, to destroy the batteries of Simonosaki. These batteries commanded the entrance into the inland sea of Japan, and the ruler of the place was in the habit of trying their range on any foreign vessel, of whatever nationality, that attempted to pass. An expedition, consisting of English, French, and Dutch ships-of-war, was organised at Yokohama, and, sailing to Simonosaki, subjected the batteries to a heavy cannonade (September 5), which was, however, vigorously returned, and with considerable loss to the expedition. Parties of sailors and marines landed, spiked the guns in some of the batteries, and brought others, to the number of sixty, with three mortars, on board the ships. On the 10th September, a minister from the ruler of the country, the Prince of Nagato, came off, armed with full powers to conclude & convention, which was ultimately arranged on the following terms: (1) That the Strait of Simonosaki should be opened to the vessels of all nations; (2) that the shore batteries should neither be armed nor repaired; (3) that the Allied Powers should receive an indemnity, the amount of which was to be fixed by their representatives

at Jeddo.

In Ireland, the unhappy consequences which result from the secular oppression of ono race or religion by

another were painfully illustrated this year by the riots at Belfast. Earlier in the year, a significant event had occurred in Dublin, which first disclosed the strength and wide extension of the Fenian conspiracy. A Fenian convention had met the year before in America, but that the society numbered thousands and tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters in Ireland itself was not generally known before the Rotunda meeting, on the 23rd February, 1864. This meeting, having been called by the O'Donoghue, Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and other leaders of what was called the National party, to testify their indig. nation at the proposal to erect a monument in Dublin to the memory of the Prince Consort, was mobbed, soon after the proceedings began, by a preconcerted attack of Fenians, and after a good deal of fighting vanquished and dispersed.

But the desperate riots which took place at Belfast, in the autumn, threw all minor scuffles into the shade. Ever since the time when, in the early years of James I.'s reign, after the self-imposed exile of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the greater part of the province of Ulster was forcibly taken away from the original possessors of the soil, and parcelled out in grants of 1,000 or 2,000 acres among English Protestants and Scotch Presbyterians, the north of Ireland has been the scene of perpetual conflict, more or less undisguised, between native and colonist, Protes tant and Catholic, Celt and Saxon. And this has been especially the case of late years, since the growth of the larger manufacturing towns, such as Belfast and Londonderry, has forced within narrower limits, and brought into closer contact, these two parties, as opposed in politics as they are irreconcilable in religion. In the country districts, the animosity between them, though always there, and ready to burst forth on provocation, shows itself rarely in overt acts of violence-or rather, its outbreaks are periodical, and can be calculated on. An Orange festival, or the death and burial of some country champion of either side, is well known to fan the smouldering flame. The procession of Orangemen can hardly hope to bear its flags and drums to their destination without some affront on the road, and hostile crowds may be expected at the Burial Service; or, unless the friends and relations of the dead are both strong and watchful, some midnight outrage may very probably be wrought upon the grave. in the great towns, the state of things is far worse, and party relationships take a keener edge. In Belfast espe cially, the great seat of the linen manufacture, where thon sands of men and women of both parties are employed in the factories, party spirit has always run extraordinarily high, and collisions between Catholics and Protestants have been frequent and bitter. In the August of this year, disastrous riots broke out in the town, under the fol lowing circumstances. There had been a great demonstration at Dublin, on the 8th, in honour of the famous Daniel O'Connell, and a monument had been inaugurated to his memory, as the champion of Catholic Emancipation and of the Repeal of the Union. The demonstration itself went off quietly. There was no disturbance in the streets, and members of both religions seem to have taken part in the procession. The Lord Mayor presided at the dinner

But

given afterwards in the Rotunda; the Pope was omitted from the list of toasts; and the speeches, though delivered mostly by Roman Catholics, were both loyal and peaceable. It was a gathering creditable alike to the strong feeling and good sense of Irishmen. But the Protestants of Belfast, always keenly alive to the position of affairs in the capital, as is natural to a party which although in the ascendant knows itself to be insecure, felt, when the accounts of the Dublin proceedings reached them through the newspapers, extremely annoyed. They seem to have taken the affair not only as a triumph, but as a challenge, on the part of the Catholics. Accordingly, they eagerly prepared a counter-demonstration. An insulting effigy of O'Connell was made and carried through the streets, attended by thousands of mill-workers.; and in the evening it was publicly burnt, amid the exulting cheers and laughter of the assembled crowds. Nor was this all. Next day, the Protestants announced that having burnt O'Connell, they must now proceed to bury him. A coffin was prepared, and borne solemnly to the gate of the Friar's Bush Cemetery, where it was, of course, refused admittance; after which it suffered the same fate as the effigy, and the ashes were thrown into the river running through the town. The bonfire, however, was still blazing, and the crowds around it were still engaged in hooting the "Liberator," when it became known that the Catholics were out in the Protestant quarters of the town, smashing windows and breaking furniture-a more serious and practical method of retaliation than that resorted to by the Orangemen.

Night put an end to the disturbance for the time, but on the following day matters became serious. Between five and six o'clock in the morning, affrays occurred between various bodies of mill-workers going to work. The day passed off quietly, but in the evening an encounter took place between the Catholics and the inhabitants of Brown Square. The Catholics were for the time beaten off; but returning, armed with brickbats and other missiles, they fell upon the constabulary, who had by this time arrived upon the scene, leaving five or six severely wounded. All through the night the fray continued. The Catholics watched their opportunities, and as soon as the apparently restored quiet of the town had deceived the police into retiring, they made rushes through the respectable quarters, smashing windows and destroying property as they went. The police made some captures, but nothing damped the spirit of the Catholic mob, and the rioting continued unabated during the whole of the following day, and throughout Friday and Saturday. Sunday was quiet, but Monday brought with it fresh scenes of disorder, accompanied with worse injuries to life and limb than had been the case hitherto. A body of Roman Catholic navvies attacked the Protestant houses in Brown Street and the national school, wrecking both the buildings and their contents. While thus engaged, they were set upon by a party of exasperated Orangemen, and a regular fight ensued. The police at length, after many fruitless attempts, succeeded in separating the struggling crowds, but not before many on both sides had been badly hurt. The wuthorities saw that it was high time extreme measures

were taken. The police, so far, had been able to do little or nothing towards the suppression of the riots; it was a question of force to be met by force, and the military were called out, under Mr. Lyons, J.P., and posted in the Protestant districts. But the Irish blood was up, and the sight of the soldiers produced none of the hoped-for effect upon the reckless mob, armed with bludgeons and pitchforks, which seemed bent upon wrecking the prosperous and wealthy town. Next day, both soldiers and police fired upon the people. Two were shot dead in the melée, and between fifty and sixty seriously injured. There was a fearful rumour in the course of the day, that the ship-carpenters, mostly Orangemen, had seized upon the gunpowder stores, besides confiscating the contents of two gunsmiths' shops. The gunpowder, however, was saved by the prompt action of the authorities. On the 17th, the ship-carpenters vowed vengeance upon the navvies, who had wrought such havoc at the outset of the riots, and having forced their enemies into the mudbanks in the harbour, they fired upon them from the shore, killing one and wounding nine or ten. All Ireland, however, by this time was roused and indignant; the excitement in Dublin was great, and, it being quite evident that the Belfast authorities had no adequate force at hand to cope with the disturbances, large reinforcements were sent from the capital and other parts to the number of about 4,000 men. These troops, encamped in the city, succeeded in preventing any further violence on a large scale; while the clergy, whose remonstrances till now had been treated with contempt, taking advantage of the enforced quiet produced by their presence, went in and out among the combatants preaching peace and moderation. At length, on the 24th, Belfast was reported tranquil, though an unfortunate occurrence on that day had well-nigh renewed the hostility between those formidable adversaries the ship-carpenters and the navvies; and the bruised and sobered rioters began to look forward uneasily to the reckoning to come.

The town looked as Paris looked after the Commune. Whole streets stood windowless and doorless; here and there houses lay in ruins; while the debris of property of all kinds blocked up the roadway. In the hospitals deaths were occurring daily. The price of provisions went up, and the poorer classes suffered severely. Depression settled upon the town. Even an Irishman and partisan could hardly consider the unbridled license of the preceding fortnight worth the misery and privation it had brought. Unfortunately, the mischief did not end with Belfast; other parts of Ireland caught the spirit of the rioters. But the authorities had been put on their guard, and the prompt dispatch of troops to Dundalk and Newry nipped the disturbances there in the bud.

At the spring assizes in the following year, 1865, many persons concerned in the riots were brought up for trial. The judge, the Right Hon. Baron Deasy, in his speech to the grand jury, dwelt on the serious nature of the disturbances. According to the report of Dr. Murney, surgeon to the General Hospital, 316 persons had received more or less severe injuries, 219 had recovered,

11 died; while at the time the report was presented (November 6, 1864) there were 98 cases of gun-shot wounds still under treatment. "This," said Baron Deasy, "reads more like the Gazette, after a very serious military or naval engagement, than the return presented to a judge of assize at the assizes in this country. Important military events, perhaps decisive of a campaign-the occupation of a city, the surrender of a commanding position-have been achieved with less effusion of human blood, and a smaller sacrifice of human life." At the conclusion of the Baron's long and eloquent speech, the trials came on in order, Mr. Butt, Mr. Hamill, and Mr. MacMahon appearing for the Roman Catholic prisoners. In most cases a verdict of guilty was returned, and the sentences varied from two years' imprisonment with hard labour to three months.

We cannot do better than conclude our account of these miserable scenes of party passion and violence by another quotation from the Judge's speech:-"I trust, gentlemen, that Belfast, which has so long been an example to the rest of Ireland for its manufactures and commercial industry, will in a short time be a model of peace and propriety. The inhabitants, by so demeaning themselves, will not only conduce to their own welfare and that of the community of which they are members; they will thereby hasten the advent of that time, which, I trust, is not far distant, when antagonism of race and religion will have ceased-when Irishmen, from whatever race they may have sprung, whatever religion they may profess, or whatever party they may belong to, will yet remember that they are children of one common country, which has need of the exertions of all her sons; and while exercising to the fullest extent their legal rights and constitutional privileges, while giving the fullest, freest expression within the wide limits of the law to their religious and political opinions, they will respect each other's feelings and each other's opinions, however little they may sympathise with the one, or however widely differ from the other, and will be content to dwell and work together on this fair land."

Vain hope! It does Baron Deasy credit; but the troubles of Ireland lie deeper down than perorations can reach. The sense of personal and social duty is temporarily dead in the lowest class of Irishmen. With them, everything else has for years been swallowed up in the sense-however unwarranted, however unjust-of political injury. To a Roman Catholic, an Orangeman is the sign and symbol of a state of things against which Fenianism was a protest. The sight of his processions and his flags revives in the Catholic the memory of Cromwellian settlements, of penal laws, of the wholesale corruption which led to the Repeal of the Union, and the withdrawal of the right of selfgovernment from the country-bygone mistakes and crimes of England, about which the information of the uneducated Irishman is of the most meagre and confused description, but the thought of which, nevertheless, guides his opinion and shapes his action at all critical points. The religions difficulty is real enough and serious enough, but it is the political situation which

lends it its sting, and destroys all chance of that peaceful and gradual solution which the contact of years often brings with it.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Schleswig-Holstein Question: Its Complexity: Statis al Details:

Languages in Schleswig: History of its Connection with Denmark: Its Union with Holstein Ratified in 1386: Events of 1460: Schleswig Partitioned: Lex Regia of 1665: Law of Succession in Schleswig and in Holstein: Ducal Schleswig Annexed to Denmark in 1713: Treaty of 1720: Cession of 1773: Patent of 1846: Relations of Hol stein to Denmark: Doubtful Nature of the German Claim that Schleswig and Holstein are of right Indivisible: Summary of Conclusions: War in the Duchies in 1818: Battle of Idsted: Peace in 1850: Arrangements of 1851-2: Treaty of London to Settle the Succession; Its inherent Defects: Denmark Governs the Duchies Harshly: Eider Dane Party: Grievance as to Language: Common Constitution for the Danish Monarchy: Differences between Denmark and the German Diet: Proclamation of March 30, 1863: Excitement in Germany: Ordinance of November 18, 1863: The Diet Decrees Federal Execution: Federal Troops Enter Altona; Occupy Holstein: English Diplomacy in regard to the Duchies to the end of 1863: Death of the King of Denmark: The Prince of Augustenburg: Action of Prussia and Austria: Denmark counts on receiving Aid from the Western Powers: Austro-Prussian Army Enters Schleswig: The Dannewerke Abandoned: Prussians Storm the Lines of Duppel: Diplomatic Exertions of Earl Russell; He is Reminded of the Treaty of 1720: General Aversion to War in England: Great Meeting at Manchester: Attitude of France: England might have interfered with effect: Reflections: Naval Action off Heligoland: Conference held in London: Armistice: The Conference Fails: Renewal of Hostilities: Prussians Take Alsen: End of the War: Denmark Cedes the Duchies to Austria and Prussia: They are Governed by Commissioners: Symptoms of Disunion between the Two Powers-Convention of September between France and Italy: Removal of the Capital to Florence.

This

THE series of transactions on which we have now to enter is one in regard to which few Englishmen, even of those most wedded to the principle of non-intervention, can look back to the part played by their country without pain and some degree of misgiving. In 1864, Schleswig and Holstein, provinces which had been dependent on the crown of Denmark (though under different titles), the first since 1027, the second since 1386, were invaded and overrun by the armed hosts of Austria and Prussia, and forcibly severed from the Danish crown. was done in disregard of the remonstrances and in defi ance of the menaces of England, and in spite of the known disapproval of France. Yet England and France were both bound by a treaty passed when the Stanhope Ministry was in power in 1720, after the termination of the wars and disturbances caused by the ambition of Charles XII., by which they guaranteed to the King of Denmark, his heirs and successors, the peaceable posses sion of ducal Schleswig, promising to maintain them therein contra quoscunque. How came it that, when the critical moment came, neither power redeemed the solemn pledge given by the representatives of the two nations in a former generation? In the case of France, then under a "personal Government," the causes may, perhaps, be found not difficult of discovery; but why England deserted Denmark is a complex and embarrassing inquiry. We shall endeavour to place the facts before the reader in as plain and intelligible a shape as possible, and leavo him to form his own judgment on them.