BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

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No. CCCCXVI.     JUNE, 1850.      Vol. LXVII.
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CONTENTS.

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXVI.      JUNE, 1850.      Vol. LXVII.

LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS.[1]

It is nothing unusual, in this wayward world of ours, to find men denouncing, with apparent sincerity, that very fault which is most conspicuous in themselves. How often do we detect the most quarrelsome fellow of our acquaintance, the Hotspur of his immediate circle, uttering a grave homily against intemperance of speech, and rebuking for some casual testiness a friend, whose general demeanour and bearing give token of a lily-liver? What more common than to hear the habitual drunkard railing at the sin of inebriety, and delivering affecting testimony against the crying iniquity of the ginshop? We have listened to discourses on the comeliness of honesty, and the degrading tendencies of mammon-worship, from gentlemen who, a few hours before, had given private instructions to their brokers to rig the market, and who looked upon George Hudson as the greatest ornament of the age. Cobden mounts the platform to propose a motion in favour of universal peace and brotherhood, and, by way of argument, suggests the propriety of crumpling up the empire of the Russias, like the sheet of white paper which trembles in his omnipotent hand. He is seconded by a Quaker.

Mr Thomas Carlyle has, of late years, devoted a good deal of his leisure time to the denunciation of shams. The term, in his mouth, has a most extended significance indeed—he uses it with Catholic application. Loyalty, sovereignty, nobility, the church, the constitution, kings, nobles, priests, the House of Commons, ministers, Courts of Justice, laws, and lawgivers, are all alike, in the eyes of Mr Carlyle, shams. Nor does he consider the system as of purely modern growth. England, he thinks, has been shamming Isaac for several hundred years. Before the Commonwealth it was overridden by the frightful Incubus of Flunkeyism; since then, it has been suffering under Horsehair and Redtapism, two awful monsters that present themselves to Mr Carlyle's diseased imagination, chained at the entrances of Westminster Hall and Downing Street. Cromwell, perhaps, was not a sham, for in the burly regicide brewer Mr Carlyle discerns certain grand inarticulate strivings, which elevate him to the heroic rank. The gentlemen of the present age, however, are all either shams or shamming. The honourable Felix Parvulus, and the right honourable Felicissimus Zero, mounted respectively upon "desperate Sleswick[Pg 642] thunder-horses"—M'Crowdy the political economist—Bobus—Flimnap, Sec. Foreign Department—the Right Honourable Minimus, and various other allegorical personages, intended, we presume, to typify carnal realities, are condemned as Solemn Shams, Supreme Quacks, Phantasm Captains, the Elixir of the Infatuated, and Able-Editor's Nobles.

It is natural to suppose that an individual who habitually deals in such wholesale denunciation, and whose avowed wish is to regenerate and reform society upon some entirely novel principle, must be a man of immense practical ability. The exposer of shams and quackeries should be, in his own person, very far indeed above suspicion of resembling those whom he describes, or tries to describe, in language more or less intelligible. If otherwise, he stands in imminent danger of being treated by the rest of the world as an impertinent and egregious impostor. Now, Mr Thomas Carlyle is anything but a man of practical ability. Setting aside his style for the present, let us see whether he has ever, in the course of his life, thrown out a single hint which could be useful to his own generation, or profitable to those who may come after. If he could originate any such hint, he does not possess the power of embodying it in distinct language. He has written a history of the French Revolution, a pamphlet on Chartism, a work on Heroes and Hero-worship, and a sort of political treatise entitled Past and Present. Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these volumes? If not, what is the real value of Mr Carlyle's writings? What is Mr Carlyle himself but a Phantasm of the species which he is pleased to denounce?

We have known, ere now, in England, political writers who, single-handed, have waged war with Ministers, and denounced the methods of government. But they were men of strong masculine understanding, capable of comprehending principles, and of exhibiting them in detail. They never attempted to write upon subjects which they did not understand: consequently, what they did write was well worthy of perusal, more especially as their sentiments were conveyed in clear idiomatic English. Perhaps the most remarkable man of this class was the late William Cobbett. Shrewd and practical, a master of figures, and an utter scorner of generalisation, he went at once in whatever he undertook to the root of the matter, and, right or wrong, demonstrated what he thought to be the evil, and what he conceived to be the remedy. There was no slip-slop, burlesque, or indistinctness about William Cobbett. Mr Carlyle, on the other hand, can never stir one inch beyond the merest vague generality. If he were a doctor, and you came to him with a cut finger, he would regale you with a lecture on the heroical qualities of Avicenna, or commence proving that Dr Abernethy was simply a Phantasm-Leech, instead of whipping out his pocket-book, and applying a plaster to the wound. Put him into the House of Commons, and ask him to make a speech on the budget. No baby ever possessed a more indefinite idea of the difference between pounds, shillings, and pence. He would go on maundering about Teufelsdrökh, Sauerteig, and Dryasdust, Sir Jabez Windbag, Fire-horses, Marsh-jötuns, and vulturous Choctaws, until he was coughed down as remorselessly as ever was Sir Joshua Walmsley. And yet this is the gentleman who has the temerity to volunteer his services as a public instructor, and who is now issuing a series of monthly tracts, for the purpose of shedding a new light upon the most intricate and knotty points of the general policy of Great Britain!

Something of this kind we have already witnessed in a neighbouring country, but never in the like degree. France has had her Flocons and her Louis Blancs, small, pert, presumptuous animals, chalking out schemes of social regeneration, organised labour, industrial regiments, and the like. We do not intend to insinuate that either of these scribes is entitled to be ranked, for parity of intellect, with Mr Carlyle, because by doing so we might involve ourselves in a squabble with some of his benighted admirers. But we say, with perfect sincerity, that so far as regards[Pg 643] political attainments and information, clear views, and we shall even add common sense, (distant as that attribute is from any of the parties above named,) MM. Flocon and Blanc are at least as capable guides as Mr Carlyle can pretend to be. Something tangible there is, however pernicious to society, in the propositions of the former—the latter does not favour us with propositions at all; he contents himself with abusing men and matters in a barbarous, conceited, uncouth, and mystical dialect.

One peculiarity there is about the Latterday Pamphlets, as contradistinguished from their author's previous lucubrations, which has amused us not a little. Mr Carlyle has hitherto been understood to favour the cause of self-styled Liberalism. His mania, or rather his maunderings, on the subject of the Protector gained him the applause of many who are little less than theoretical republicans, and who regard as a glorious deed the regicide of the unfortunate Charles. Moreover, certain passages in his History of the French Revolution tended to strengthen this idea; he had a kindly side for Danton, and saw evident marks of heroism in the loathsome miscreant whom, in his usual absurd jargon, he styles "the pale sea-green Incorruptible," Robespierre. On this ground, his works were received with approbation by a section of the public press; and we used to hear him lauded and commended as a writer of the profoundest stamp, as a deep original thinker, a thorough-paced philanthropist, the champion of genuine greatness, and the unflinching enemy of delusions. Now, however, things are altered. Mr Carlyle has got a new crochet into his head, and to the utter discomfiture of his former admirers, he manifests a truculent and ultra-tyrannical spirit, abuses the political economists, wants to have a strong coercive government, indicates a decided leaning to the whip and the musket as effectual modes of reasoning, and, in short, abjures democracy! The sensation caused by this extraordinary change of sentiment has been as great as if Joe Hume had declared himself a spendthrift. Only think of such a document as the following, addressed to the sovereign people!

"Speech of the British Prime Minister to the floods of Irish and other Beggars, the able-bodied Lackalls, nomadic or stationary, and the general assembly, outdoor and indoor, of the Pauper Populations of these Realms.

"Vagrant Lackalls! foolish most of you, criminal many of you, miserable all; the sight of you fills me with astonishment and despair. What to do with you I know not; long have I been meditating, and it is hard to tell. Here are some three millions of you, as I count; so many of you fallen sheer over into the abysses of open Beggary; and, fearful to think, every new unit that falls is loading so much more the chain that drags the other over. On the edge of the precipice hang uncounted millions; increasing, I am told, at the rate of 1200 a-day. They hang there on the giddy edge, poor souls, crumping themselves down, holding on with all their strength, but falling, falling one after another; and the chain is getting heavy, so that ever more fall; and who at last will stand! What to do with you? The question, what to do with you? especially since the potato died, is like to break my heart!

"One thing, after much meditating, I have at last discovered, and now know for some time back: That you cannot be left to roam abroad in this unguided manner, stumbling over the precipices, and loading ever heavier the fatal chain upon those who might be able to stand; that this of locking you up in temporary Idle Workhouses, when you stumble, and subsisting you on Indian meal, till you can sally forth again on fresh roamings, and fresh stumblings, and ultimate descent to the devil;—that this is not the plan; and that it never was, or could out of England have been supposed to be, much as I have prided myself upon it!

"Vagrant Lackalls! I at last perceive, all this that has been sung and spoken, for a long while, about enfranchisement, emancipation, freedom, suffrage, civil and religious liberty over the world, is little other than sad temporary jargon, brought upon us by a stern necessity,—but now ordered by a sterner to take itself away again a little. Sad temporary jargon, I say; made up of sense and nonsense,—sense in small quantities, and nonsense in very large;—and, if taken for the whole or permanent truth of human things, it is no better than fatal infinite nonsense eternally untrue. All men, I think, will soon have to quit this, to consider this as a thing pretty well achieved; and to look out towards another thing much more needing achievement at the time that now is."

[Pg 644]

Flat burglary as ever was committed! O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this—so say the political Dogberrys to the gentleman whom they used to applaud. We are not surprised at their wrath. It is rather hard to be told at this time of day that ballot-boxes and extension of the suffrage are included in Mr Carlyle's catalogue of Shams, and that Messrs Thompson, Fox, and Co., must even submit to the charge of talking unveracities and owlism. Surely there is some mistake here. Not a whit of it. Mr Carlyle is in grim earnest, and lays about him like a man. He has not studied the records of the French Revolution for nothing; and he is not able to discern in the late Continental revolts any ground for general congratulation on the improved prospects of mankind. Such language as the following must sound as a strange rebuke in the ears of divers organs of the public press, who, not long ago, were flinging up their caps in ecstasies at the fall of constitutions, backing up Garibaldi against the Pope, Charles Albert against Radetsky, the Sicilian insurgents against their Sovereign of Naples, Kossuth against the Emperor, Von Gagern against Federalism, Ledru Rollin against Civilisation, and Lamartine against Common-sense.

"Certainly it is a drama full of action, event fast following event; in which curiosity finds endless scope, and there are interests at stake, enough to arrest the attention of all men simple and wise. Whereat the idle multitude lift up their voices, gratulating, celebrating sky-high; in rhyme and prose announcement, more than plentiful, that now the New Era, and long-expected Year One of Perfect Human Felicity has come. Glorious and immortal people, sublime French citizens, heroic barricades; triumph of civil and religious liberty—O Heaven! one of the inevitablest private miseries, to an earnest man in such circumstances, is this multitudinous efflux of oratory and psalmody from the universal human throat; drowning for the moment all reflection whatsoever, except the sorrowful one that you are fallen in an evil, heavy-laden, long-eared age, and must resignedly bear your part in the same. The front-wall of your wretched old crazy dwelling, long denounced by you to no purpose, having at last fairly folded itself over, and fallen prostrate into the street, the floors, as may happen, will still hang on by the mere beam-ends and coherency of old carpentry, though in a sloping direction, and depend there till certain poor rusty nails and wormeaten dovetailings give way:—but is it cheering, in such circumstances, that the whole household burst forth into celebrating the new joys of light and ventilation, liberty and picturesqueness of position, and thank God that now they have got a house to their mind?"

Sham-kings may and do exist, thinks Mr Carlyle, but the greatest unveracity of all is this same Democracy, which people were lately so very willing to applaud. It must be admitted that our author is perfectly impartial in the distribution of his strokes. He has no love for Kings, or Metternichs, or Redtape, or any other fiction or figure of speech whereby he typifies existing governments: he disposes of them in a wholesale manner of Impostors and Impostures. But no more does he regard with affection Chartist Parliament, Force of Public Opinion, or "M'Crowdy the Seraphic Doctor with his last evangel of Political Economy." M'Culloch is, in his eyes, as odious as the First Lord in Waiting, whoever that functionary may be. Clenching both his fists, he delivers a facer to the Trojan on the right, and to the Tyrian on the left. Big with the conviction that all Governments are wrong, as presently or lately constituted, he can see no merit, but the reverse, in any of the schemes of progress, or reform, or financial change, which have yet been devised. Here follow some of his notions with regard to the most popularly prescribed remedies:—

"A divine message, or eternal regulation of the Universe, there verily is, in regard to every conceivable procedure and affair of man: faithfully following this, said procedure or affair will prosper, and have the whole universe to second it, and carry it, across the fluctuating contradictions, towards a victorious goal; not following this, mistaking this, disregarding this, destruction and wreck are certain for every affair. How find it? All the world answers me, 'Count heads'; ask Universal Suffrage by the ballot-boxes, and that will tell! Universal Suffrage, ballot-boxes, count of heads? Well,—I perceive we have got into strange spiritual latitudes indeed. Within the last half century or so, either the Universe[Pg 645] or else the heads of men must have altered very much. Half a century ago, and down from Father Adam's time till then, the Universe, wherever I could hear tell of it, was wont to be of somewhat abstruse nature; by no means carrying its secret written on its face, legible to every passer-by; on the contrary, obstinately hiding its secret from all foolish, slavish, wicked, insincere persons, and partially disclosing it to the wise and noble-minded alone, whose number was not the majority in my time!—Or perhaps the chief end of man being now, in these improved epochs, to make money and spend it, his interests in the Universe have become amazingly simplified of late; capable of being voted on with effect by almost anybody? 'To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest:' truly if that is the summary of his social duties, and the final divine message he has to follow, we may trust him extensively to vote upon that. But if it is not, and never was, or can be? If the Universe will not carry on its divine bosom any commonwealth of mortals that have no higher aim,—being still 'a Temple and Hall of Doom! not a mere Weaving-shop and Cattle-pen? If the unfathomable Universe has decided to reject Human Beavers pretending to be Men; and will abolish, pretty rapidly perhaps, in hideous mud-deluges, their 'markets' and them, unless they think of it?—In that case, it were better to think of it; and the Democracies and Universal Suffrages, I can observe, will require to modify themselves a good deal!"

Now, reader, what do you think of all this? We doubt not you are a good deal puzzled: and an admission to that effect would be no impeachment of your intellect. Well then, let us try to extract from these pamphlets of Mr Carlyle some tendency, if not distinct meaning, which may at least indicate the current of his hopes and aspirations. Putting foreign governments altogether out of the question, we gather that Mr Carlyle considers this realm of Britain as most scandalously misgoverned; that he looks upon Downing Street as an absolute sewer; that he decidedly yields to Mr Hawes in reverence for Lord John Russell; that he regards the Protectionists as humbugs; that he laughs at ballot-boxes, despises extension of the suffrage, and repudiates, as a rule of conduct, the maxim about the markets, which indeed, by this time, stinks in every British nostril as yet unplugged with calico; that he detests the modern brood of political economists with a cordiality which does him credit; and that he is firmly convinced that democracy is a thing forever impossible. This is a tolerably extensive creed, though as yet entirely a negative one—is there no one point upon which Mr Carlyle will condescend to be positive?

Yes, one there is; not apparent perhaps to the casual reader, but detectible by him who studies closely those pages of oracular thought—a point very important at the present moment, for this it is—that there is ONE MAN existing in her Majesty's dominions who could put everything to rights, if he were only allowed to do so. Who that man is we may possibly discover hereafter. At present we are hardly entitled to venture beyond the boundaries of dim conjecture. Nor is it very clear in what way the Unknown, or rather the Undeveloped, is to set about his exalted mission. Is he to be minister—or something more? Perhaps Mr Carlyle did not like to be altogether explicit on such a topic as this; but we may possibly gain a little light from indirect and suggestive passages. Take this for example:

"Alas, it is sad enough that anarchy is here; that we are not permitted to regret its being here,—for who that had, for this divine Universe, an eye which was human at all, could wish that shams of any kind, especially that Sham Kings should continue? No: at all costs, it is to be prayed by all men that Shams may cease. Good Heavens, to what depths have we got, when this to many a man seems strange! Yet strange to many a man it does seem; and to many a solid Englishman, wholesomely digesting his pudding among what are called the cultivated classes, it seems strange exceedingly, a mad ignorant notion, quite heterodox, and big with mere ruin. He has been used to decent forms long since empty of meaning, to plausible modes, solemnities grown ceremonial,—what you in your iconoclast humour call shams,—all his life long; never heard that there was any harm in them, that there was any getting on without them. Did not cotton spin itself, beef grow, and groceries and spiceries come in from the East and the West, quite comfortably by the side[Pg 646] of shams? Kings reigned, what they were pleased to call reigning; lawyers pleaded, bishops preached, and honourable members perorated; and to crown the whole, as if it were all real and no sham there, did not scrip continue saleable, and the banker pay in bullion, or paper with a metallic basis? 'The greatest sham, I have always thought, is he that would destroy shams.'

"Even so. To such depth have I, the poor knowing person of this epoch, got;—almost below the level of lowest humanity, and down towards the state of apehood and oxhood! For never till in quite recent generations was such a scandalous blasphemy quietly set forth among the sons of Adam; never before did the creature called man believe generally in his heart that this was the rule in this Earth; that in deliberate long-established lying could there be help or salvation for him, could there be at length other than hindrance and destruction for him."

We have been sorely tempted to mark with italics certain portions of the above extract, but on second thoughts we shall leave it intact. After applying ourselves most diligently to the text, with the view of eliciting its meaning, we have arrived at the conclusion, that it is either downright nonsense, or something a great deal worse. Observe what he says. It is to be prayed for by all men that Shams may cease—more especially Sham Kings. But certain solid Englishmen are not prepared for this. They have been "used to decent forms long since fallen empty of meaning, to plausible modes, solemnities grown ceremonial,—what you in your iconoclast humour call shams." They thought no harm of them. "Kings reigned, what they were pleased to call reigning; lawyers pleaded, bishops preached, and honourable members perorated," &c. And those who differ in their estimate of these things from Mr Carlyle are "almost below the level of lowest humanity, and down towards the state of apehood and oxhood:"—and their belief is a "scandalous blasphemy." So then, the Monarchy is a sham, and so are the laws, the Church, and the Constitution! They are all lies, and in deliberate long-established lying there can be no help or salvation for the subject! This may not be Mr Carlyle's meaning, and we are very willing to suppose so; but he has no title to be angry, were we to accept his words according to their evident sense. If men, through conceit or affectation, will write in this absurd and reckless fashion, they must be prepared to stand the consequences. The first impression on the mind of every one who peruses the above passage must be, that the author is opposed to the form of government which is unalterably established in these kingdoms. If this be so, we should like to know in what respect such doctrines differ from the pestilential revolutionary trash which has inundated France and Germany? What kind of overturn does Mr Carlyle contemplate, for overturn there must be, and that of the most extensive kind, if his views are ever destined to be realised? Is it not, perhaps, as melancholy a spectacle as may be, to find a man of some genius, and considerable learning, attempting to unsettle the minds of the young and enthusiastic, upon points distinctly identified with all that is great and glorious in our past history; and insinuating doctrines which are all the more dangerous on account of the oblique and uncertain language in which they are conveyed? Fear God and honour the King, are precepts not acknowledged by Mr Carlyle as the rudiment and foundation of his faith. He does not recognise them as inseparably linked together. He would set up instead some wretched phantom of his own imagination, framed out of the materials which he fondly supposes to be the attributes of the heroic character, and he would exalt that above all other authority, human and divine. He is, if we do not entirely misconstrue the tenor of these pamphlets, possessed at this moment with the notion of the advent of another Cromwell, the sole event which, as he thinks, can save England from being swallowed up by the evils which now beset her. What these evils are, we shall shortly endeavour to ascertain; in the mean time, let us keep our attention fixed on this primary matter of authority.

Cromwellism, then, if we may use the term, is Mr Carlyle's secret and theory. Cromwellism, is, we know, but another phrase for despotism; and[Pg 647] we shall not put so harsh a construction on the term as to suppose that it necessarily involves extinguishment of the royal function. The example of Richelieu is sufficient to save us from such a violent interpretation, and therefore we may fairly assume that our author contemplates nothing more than the lodgment of the executive power in the hands of some stern and inexorable minister. To this the whole of his multitudinous political ravings, when melted into intelligible speech, would seem to tend. He has little regard for Kings, despises Lords, contemns Bishops, scouts the House of Commons, sneers at Chartists, repudiates the political economists, spurns the mob, and laughs at the Ten-pounders. There is here a tolerably extensive range of scorn—we doubt whether it could have been equalled by the reflective philosopher of the tub. Now, lest we should be thought harsh in our judgment of Mr Carlyle, or uncharitable in our method of construing him, let us hear what he has to say with regard to popular representation. Let us suppose that monarchy is cleared away as a Sham, or at all events placed in respectable abeyance, and that there is no farther debate as to hereditary right or even constitutional sovereignty. Also that we have got rid of Peers and Bishops. Now, then, as to Congress:—

"To examine this recipe of a Parliament, how fit it is for governing Nations, nay, how fit it may now be, in these new times, for governing England itself where we are used to it so long: this, too, is an alarming inquiry, to which all thinking men, and good citizens of their country, who have an ear for the small still voices and eternal intimations, across the temporary clamours and loud blaring proclamations, are now solemnly invited. Invited by the rigorous fact itself; which will one day, and that perhaps soon, demand practical decision, or redecision of it from us,—with enormous penalty if we decide it wrong. I think we shall all have to consider this question, one day; better perhaps now than later, when the leisure may be less. If a Parliament, with suffrages and universal or any conceivable kind of suffrages, is the method, then certainly let us set about discovering the kind of suffrages, and rest no moment till we have got them. But it is possible a Parliament may not be the method! Not the whole method; nor the method at all, if taken as the whole? If a Parliament with never such suffrages is not the method settled by this latter authority, then it will urgently behove us to become aware of that fact, and to quit such method;—we may depend upon it, however unanimous we be, every step taken in that direction will, by the Eternal Law of things, be a step from improvement, not towards it."

Was there ever so tantalising a fellow? We only know of one parallel instance. Sancho, after a judicial hearing at Barrataria, sits down to dinner, but every dish upon which he sets his fancy is whisked away at the command of a gaunt personage stationed on one side of his chair, having a wholesome rod in his hand. Fruit, meat, partridges, stewed rabbits, veal, and olla-podrida, vanish in succession, and for the removal of each some learned reason is assigned by the representative of Esculapius. We give the remainder of the anecdote in the words of Cervantes. "Sancho, hearing this, threw himself backward in his chair, and, looking at the doctor from head to foot, very seriously, asked him his name, and where he had studied. To which he answered: 'My Lord Governor, my name is Doctor Pedro Rezio de Aguero; I am a native of a place called Tirteafuera, lying between Caraquel and Almoddobar del Campo on the right hand, and I have taken my doctor's degree in the University of Ossuna.' 'Then hark you,' said Sancho in a rage, 'Signor Doctor Pedro Rezio de Aguero, native of Tirteafuera, lying on the right hand as we go from Caraquel to Almoddobar del Campo, graduate in Ossuna, get out of my sight this instant—or, by the light of heaven! I will take a cudgel, and, beginning with your carcase, will so belabour all the physic-mongers in the island, that not one of the tribe shall be left!—I mean of those like yourself, who are ignorant quacks; for those who are learned and wise I shall make much of, and honour, as so many angels. I say again, Signor Pedro Rezio, begone! or I shall take the chair I sat on, and comb your head with it, to some tune, and, if I am called to an account for it, when I give up my office, I will prove that[Pg 648] I have done a good service, in ridding the world of a bad physician, who is a public executioner.'"

Mr Carlyle, though he may not be aware of it, is even such a political doctor. He despises De Lolme on the British Constitution, and peremptorily forbids his patient to have anything to do with that exploded system. "I should like to have," says the pupil placed under his charge, "in the first place, a well-regulated constituted monarchy." "'Tis a sham!" cries Signor Doctor Thomas Carlyle—"Are solemnly constituted Impostors the proper kings of men? Do you think the life of man is a grimacing dance of apes? To be led always by the squeak of a paltry fiddle? Away with it!" The wand is waved, and constitutional monarchy disappears. "Well then," quoth the tyro, "suppose we have an established Church and a House of Peers?" "Avaunt, ye Unveracities—ye Unwisdoms," shrieks the infuriated graduate. "What are ye but iniquities of Horsehair? O my brother! above all, when thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity, Brute-mindedness,—yes, there, with or without Church-tithes and Shovelhat, or were it with mere dungeons, and gibbets, and crosses, attack it, I say; smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and it lives! Instead of heavenly or earthly Guidance for the souls of men, you have Black or White Surplice Controversies, stuffed Hair-and-leather Popes;—terrestrial Law-words, Lords, and Lawbringers organising Labour in these years, by passing Corn Laws. Take them away!" "What say you to the House of Commons, doctor?" "Owldom! off with it." "A Democracy?" "On this side of the Atlantic and on that, Democracy, we apprehend, is for ever impossible." "And why will none of these things do?" "Because," quoth the graduate with a solemn aspect, "you perceive we have actually got into the New Era there has been such prophesying of: here we all are, arrived at last;—and it is by no means the land flowing with milk and honey we were led to expect! very much the reverse. A terrible new country this: no neighbours in it yet, that I can see, but irrational flabby monsters (philanthropic and other) of the giant species; hyænas, laughing hyænas, predatory wolves; probably devils, blue (or perhaps blue-and-yellow) devils, as St Guthlac found in Croyland long ago. A huge untrodden haggard country, the chaotic battlefield of Frost and Fire, a country of savage glaciers, granite-mountains, of foul jungles, unhewed forests, quaking bogs;—which we shall have our own ados to make arable and habitable, I think!" What wonder if the pupil, hearing this pitiable tirade, should bethink him of certain modes of treatment prescribed by the faculty, in cases of evident delirium, as extremely suitable to the symptoms exhibited by his beloved preceptor?

Let us now see what sort of government Mr Carlyle would propose for our adoption, guidance, and regeneration. Some kind of shapes are traceable even in fog-banks, and the analogy encourages us to persevere in our Latter-day researches.

Mr Carlyle is decidedly of opinion that it is our business to find out the very Noblest possible man to undertake the whole job. What he means by Noblest is explicitly stated. "It is the Noblest, not the Sham-Noblest; it is God Almighty's Noble, not the Court-Tailor's Noble, nor the Able-Editor's Noble, that must in some approximate degree be raised to the supreme place; he and not a counterfeit—under penalties." This Noblest, it seems, is to have a select series or staff of Noblers, to whom shall be confided the divine everlasting duty of directing and controlling the Ignoble. The mysterious process by means of which "the Noblest" is to be elevated—when he is discovered—is not indicated, but the intervention of ballot-boxes is indignantly disclaimed. "The Real Captain, unless it be some Captain of mechanical Industry hired by Mammon, where is he in these days? Most likely, in silence, in sad isolation somewhere, in remote obscurity; trying if, in an evil ungoverned time, he cannot at least govern himself." There are limits to human endurance, and we maintain that we have a right to call upon Mr Carlyle either to produce[Pg 649] this remarkable Captain, or to indicate his whereabouts. He tells us that time is pressing—that we are moving in the midst of goblins, and that everything is going to the mischief for want of this Noblest of his. Well, then, we say, where is this Captain of yours? Let us have a look at him—give us at least a guess as to his outward marks and locality—does he live in Chelsea or Whitehall Gardens; or has he been, since the general emigration of the Stags, trying to govern himself in sad isolation and remote obscurity at Boulogne? If you know anything about him, out with it—if not, why pester the public with these sheets of intolerable twaddle?

As to the Nobler gentry, who are to surround the Noblest, whenever that Cromwell Redivivus shall appear, there is, in Mr Carlyle's opinion, no such pitiable uncertainty. They may not, perhaps, be altogether as plentiful as blackberries on an autumnal hedge, yet nevertheless they are to be found. "Who are available to your offices in Downing Street?" quoth he. "All the gifted souls, of every rank, who are born to you in this generation. These are appointed, by the true eternal 'divine right' which will never become obsolete, to be your governors and administrators; and precisely as you employ them, or neglect to employ them, will your State be favoured of Heaven or disfavoured. This noble young soul, you can have him on either of two conditions; and on one of them, since he is here in the world, you must have him. As your ally and coadjutor; or failing that, as your natural enemy: which shall it be?" Now, this we call speaking to the point. We are acquainted, more or less intimately, with some couple of dozen "noble young souls," all very clever fellows in their way, who have not the slightest objections to take permanent quarters in Downing Street, if anybody will make it worth their while; and we undertake to show that the dullest of them is infinitely superior, in point of intellect and education, to the present Secretary of the Board of Control. But are all the noble young souls, without exception, to be provided for at the public expense? Really, in these economical times, such a proposal sounds rather preposterous; yet even Mr Carlyle does not insinuate that the noble young souls will do any work without a respectable modicum of pay. On the contrary, he seems to admit that, without pay, they are likely to be found in the opposition. Various considerations crowd upon us. Would it have been a correct or a creditable thing for M. Guizot to have placed in office all the noble young souls of the National, simply by way of keeping them out of mischief? The young nobility connected with that creditable print certainly did contrive to scramble into office along the ridges of the barricades, and a very nice business they made of it when they came to try their hands at legislation. But perhaps Mr Carlyle would only secure talent of the very highest description. Well, then, what kind of talent? Are we to look out for the best poets, and make them Secretaries of State? The best Secretaries of State we have known in our day, were about as poor poets as could be imagined; and we are rather apprehensive that the converse of the proposition might likewise be found to hold good.

"How sweet an Ovid was in Melbourne lost!"

sighed a Whig critic, commenting with rapture on some of that nobleman's early lucubrations; and yet, after all, we have no reason to think that the roll of British bards has been impoverished by the accidental exclusion. Flesh and blood could not have endured a second tragedy from Lord John Russell, and yet the present Premier, despite of Don Carlos, is thought by some partial friends to cut a tolerably decent figure as a politician. As to that, we shall venture no opinion. Mr Carlyle, however, is clear for the poets. Listen to his instance.

"From the lowest and broadest stratum of Society, where the births are by the million, there was born, almost in our own memory, a Robert Burns; son of one who 'had not capital for his poor moor-farm of twenty pounds a-year.' Robert Burns never had the smallest chance to get into Parliament, much as Robert Burns deserved, for all our sakes, to have been found there. For the man,—it was not known to men purblind,[Pg 650] sunk in their poor dim vulgar element, but might have been known to men of insight who had any loyalty, or any royalty of their own,—was a born-king of men: full of valour, of intelligence and heroic nobleness; fit for far other work than to break his heart among poor mean mortals, gauging beer. Him no ten-pound Constituency chose, nor did any Reforming Premier."

Of course they did not, and why should they? If Burns was alive at the present moment, in the full glory of his intellect and strength, would any sensible constituency think of sending him to Parliament? Of all the trash that Mr Carlyle has ever written—and there is a good deal of it,—this about Robert Burns, whom he calls the "new Norse Thor," not being selected as a statesman, is perhaps the most insufferable. The vocation of a poet is, we presume, to sing; to pour forth his heart in noble, animating, or touching strains; not to discuss questions of policy, or to muddle his brains over Blue Books, or the interminable compilations of Mr Porter. Not so thinks Carlyle. He would have shut up Burns in Downing Street, debarred him from the indulgence of verse, and clapped him at the head of a Board of Poor-law Commissioners. "And the meagre Pitt, and his Dundasses, and red-tape Phantasms (growing very ghastly now to think of) did not in the least know or understand, the impious god-forgetting mortals, that Heroic Intellects, if Heaven were pleased to send such, were the one salvation for the world and for them and all of us." Mr Carlyle seems to have most original notions on the subject of nature's gifts. It would be as reasonable to say that, because a nightingale sings more sweetly than its compeers, it ought to be taken to the house and trained as a regular falcon.

We are very far indeed from wishing to maintain that literary men may not be possessed of every quality which is most desirable in a statesman. But instances of this combination are rare, and on the whole we think that our "Heroic Intellects," and "noble young souls," will acquit themselves most creditably by following out the peculiar bent of their own genius. If they have any political tendency, it will develop itself in due season; but we protest, most strenuously, against a Parliament of men of genius, or a cabinet of literateurs. We have seen quite enough of that in other countries. A more laughable spectacle, if it had not also been painful, than the Frankfort chamber, composed very much of suchlike materials, was never given to public gaze. Old Ludwig Uhland, for all the appearance he made, had better have stuck to his ballads. In France, Victor Hugo, whose name is second in literature to none, cuts a most sorry figure. Even Lamartine is sadly out of his place, though a longer experience of the Chamber saves him from incurring that constant ridicule which is the reward of his dramatic brother. Eugene Sue, we observe, is another noble young soul, who is panting for political renown. Far be it from us to anticipate his final destiny: as to his deservings, there can be little difference of opinion.

It cannot be denied that exceptions, and very plausible ones, might be taken to the very best ministry ever formed, on the score of talent. Nay, even that ministry known by the distinguishing title of "all the Talents," could hardly have borne a searching scrutiny. But, upon the whole, we are by no means convinced that a Cabinet of uniform brilliancy is a thing to be desired. One light would be apt to burn emulously beside another. Moreover talent, though an excellent and admirable quality, is not the only requisite for a statesman. Barrington was one of the cleverest fellows of his day; yet it might have been somewhat hazardous to trust him with the keys of the Treasury. There have been in our own time in the House of Commons divers noble young souls, of great and undoubted talent, whose accession to office would by no means have increased the confidence of the public in Ministers. And there are men now in the House of Commons who, to a certain extent, agree with Mr Carlyle, and complain very bitterly that talent is not allowed to occupy its proper place. At a meeting of the National Reform Association held on 23d April last, Mr W. J. Fox, M.P.[Pg 651] for Oldham, is reported to have said—"That the great object they had in view was a social revolution, not gained by blood, or disturbing the constitution, but raising the aristocracy of intelligence and morality to a place beside the cliques which had ruled the country merely by the influence of property and wealth.... An open career to talent was a favourite maxim of Napoleon, who, so far as he had acted on it, gave the signal for a great change in the public mind. He hoped that responsibility would assume the place now held by the interests and privileges of family cliques, and that talent would thus be made true to its duties and instincts." Here is another Heroic Intellect quite ready to take office if he can get it, and ready, moreover, to put the ballot-box and all manner of extended suffrage into motion, in order that he may attain his object. We have no doubt that Mr Fox is a very clever person, and also that he is fully imbued with the same gratifying impression; nevertheless, we are free to confess that we would rather see him on the outside, than in the interior of the hen-roost of Downing Street. There may be persons within it who might as well, on public considerations, be out; but there are also many without, who, notwithstanding their vaunted breadth of intellect, should be kept from getting in. Will Mr Fox venture to aver that, in Britain, there is not an open career for talent? Now, as ever, talent will not fail in its aim, provided its possessor is endowed with other qualities and virtues which are requisite to command success by securing confidence and esteem.

Let us now suppose that Mr Carlyle has succeeded in his quest after capable men—that he has fairly bolted his Noblest, like an overgrown badger, from the hole in which he lies presently concealed, and has surrounded him with a staff of the Nobler, including, we presume, the author of the Latter-day Pamphlets. Noblest and Nobler must now go to work in serious earnest, taking some order with the flabby monsters, laughing hyænas, predatory wolves, and blue, or blue and yellow devils, which abound in this New Era. What is the first step to be adopted? We find it in No. I.

We have transcribed already the commencement of the speech to be made by the new British Minister to the assembled paupers—let us hear a few sentences—

"But as for you, my indigent incompetent friends, I have to repeat, with sorrow but with perfect clearness, what is plainly undeniable, and is even clamorous to get itself admitted, that you are of the nature of slaves,—or if you prefer the word of nomadic, and now even vagrant and vagabond servants that can find no master on those terms; which seems to me a much uglier word. Emancipation? You have been emancipated with a vengeance! Foolish souls! I say the whole world cannot emancipate you. Fealty to ignorant unruliness, to gluttonous sluggish Improvidence, to the Beerpot and the Devil, who is there that can emancipate a man in that predicament? Not a whole Reform Bill, a whole French Revolution executed for his behoof alone."

In this style, Noblest proceeds for a page or two, haranguing the unlucky paupers upon the principle that poverty is crime; taunting them with previous doles of Indian meal and money, and informing them that the Workhouses are thenceforward inexorably shut. Finally, he announces that they are to be embodied into industrial regiments, with proper officers; and marched off "to the Irish Bogs, to the vacant desolations of Connaught now falling into Cannibalism, to mis-tilled Connaught, to ditto Munster, Leinster, Ulster, I will lead you; to the English fox covers, furze-grown Commons, New Forests, Salisbury Plains; likewise to the Scotch Hillsides, and bare rushy slopes which as yet feed only sheep." All these are to be tilled by the slave regiments under the following penalties for recusancy. "Refuse to strike into it; shirk the heavy labour, disobey the rules—I will admonish and endeavour to incite you; if in vain, I will flog you; if still in vain, I will at last shoot you,—and make God's Earth, and the forlorn-hope in God's Battle, free of you. Understand it, I advise you!" O rare Thomas Carlyle!

The language in which this significant and notable plan is conveyed, is more original than the plan itself. Other Liberals than Mr Carlyle have propounded the doctrine that the pauper is a slave of the state. A century[Pg 652] and a half ago, Fletcher of Saltoun wrote a treatise to that effect, and probably a more determined republican than Fletcher never stepped in upper leathers. But somehow or other, although Scotland was then less scrupulous in matters of personal freedom than the sister kingdom, the scheme was by no means received with acclamation. Heritable jurisdictions were all very well in their way, but the idea of reducing the peasantry to the state of Russian serfdom, was rather more than the free parliament of the Scots Estates could contrive to stomach. It has been very shrewdly remarked that there is a wide circle in politics, whereof the connecting link lies between ultra-liberalism and absolute tyranny. Mr Carlyle, without meaning it, gives us a fair exemplification of this in the present pamphlets. Messrs Cobden and Bright afford us an unmistakeable exemplification of it, in their endeavours to frustrate the operation of the Ten Hours' Bill. M. Ledru Rollin demonstrated it in his circulars, on the occasion of the first French republican election. Liberty is a beautiful term, but its true signification is unknown to the thorough-paced demagogue.

According to the spirit of the British laws, labour can only be enforced as the penalty of crime. Mr Carlyle would change this, and would place the pauper upon precisely the same level as the convict. We are not prepared to say that some important improvements might not be made in the practical operation of the poor-laws. We have read various pamphlets, published in this city and elsewhere, which strenuously recommend the employment of the able-bodied poor in the reclaiming of waste lands, and their immediate removal from the towns. There is, however, much more philanthropy than philosophy in these schemes. In order to discover a proper remedy, we ought in every case to direct our primary attention to the nature and origin of the disease; and this is precisely what our modern philanthropists neglect to do. People do not crowd into towns of their own choice. Give them their free will, and the means of subsistence, and one and all of them will prefer the fresh air, and the sights and sounds of nature, to the stifling atmosphere, the reeking filth, and the discordant cries of the city lanes and courts. But no such free will exists: the balance has not been kept between the country and the towns. No encouragement has been given to the small manufactures, which in former times were the support of villages now rapidly falling into decay. The gigantic power of machinery, set in motion by large capital, has nearly abolished the hand-loom. Worsted knitting, yarn-spinning, straw-plaiting, are now rendered almost profitless occupations. In order to live, the villagers have been forced to migrate to the towns. We need hardly refer to the earliest of the Free-trade measures, which, by substituting Spanish barilla for kelp, threw whole districts of the West Highlands at once into a state of pauperism. At this moment, a new cause is aggravating the evil. The stagnation of agricultural employment occasioned by the abolition of the corn duties, has given a new impetus to rural emigration; and those who cannot afford their passage to foreign parts naturally seek refuge in the towns. In another year—if the experiment should be continued so long—the effects of this last change will become more evident than they are now. The able-bodied ploughman is the last of the agricultural class who will suffer. Those who have already been compelled to change their homes, or to go upon the parish-list, are the cottars, who derived their subsistence from the employment given them by resident proprietors. So long as encouragement to agricultural improvement existed, these poor people never wanted work; but now the calamitous fall in the price of produce, and the prospect of a great diminution of rents, have compelled the landlords to discontinue their improvements, and to reduce the expenses of their establishments to the lowest possible limit. In this way, country labour is lessened, and town labour, by the increasing competition of hands, is cheapened. This is the true secret of all those startling revelations as to the misery, want, and positive oppression of the working classes which have lately appeared in the public journals, and which have[Pg 653] engendered in the minds of many a natural despair as to the destiny of a state in which such things are suffered to exist. The remedy undoubtedly is neither an easy nor a speedy one; still, it is by no means to be included in the category of impossibilities. Machinery, which is the first great cause of British pauperism, cannot indeed be checked, but it may very easily be taxed. "An acre of land," says a late eminent writer, "if cultivated, must pay a tithe of its productions to support the religion of the state, and an equal contribution with any other property in respect of the poor, county, and church rates; but mechanical power may exercise its productive faculty ad infinitum, with but a trifling reference or liability to either the one or the other. The building may be rated at £200, £500, or £1000 a-year, but it has a power within it which, as compared with landed property rated at the same amount, will produce a hundredfold as great a return—a principle in legislation as deteriorating in its operation on the masses as it is unjust to individuals." That machinery, which has changed the whole character of our population, and which, in fact, has been the means of creating this stern reality of pauperism, is not taxed upon the principle of its productive power. That it should be so, seems evident upon the smallest reflection. Land is not taxed on the principle of acreage, but on that of value, which again depends entirely on production. Why should not the manufactory be rated in the same manner? It is true that, by such a measure as this, pauperism could not be removed, but it would be materially checked, for the fair proportion of the burden would thus be thrown on the shoulders of those who occasioned it. But nothing effectual can be done until the nation has finally determined what policy it is to pursue for the future, and in all time coming, with respect to native industry. If Free Trade is to go on, pauperism must continue like a Upas tree to spread and overshadow the land. It is not within the range of possibility that this can be otherwise. No church-extension, education, cheap literature, ventilation, sewerage, public baths, or model lodging-houses, can avail to mitigate the evil. It is town competition—made triply worse by the operation of low tariffs—which is driving the working classes to the verge of the pit of despair; and that town competition is increasing, and will increase, so long as a fresh daily supply of hands is driven from country labour. The scheme of the philanthropists to whom we have referred, is to take the surplusage from the towns and to send them to the country. This, in the present state of matters, is about as feasible an undertaking as if we were to try to make a stream of water run up-hill. Why, the misery and indigence which they seek to relieve, is not the result of mere idleness, dissipation, or profligacy—it arises from over-competition in one department of industry, occasioned by the utter want of profitable employment in another. There would be no need of industrial regiments to cultivate the soil, if its cultivation were allowed to be remunerative. But to set our pauper population at work upon anything which will not repay private enterprise is mere delusion. We have said this much upon a topic of the greatest interest, and the utmost importance, because we are convinced that many persons, who are fully impressed with the magnitude of the evil, have mistaken the remedy from the want of a due consideration of the causes from whence that evil has arisen. It is, however, a subject too large for incidental discussion, and we shall probably return to it on a future occasion, when we can state our views without reference to the whimsical vagaries of Mr Carlyle.

So then, the Noblest having made his speech, and wound up with a significant hint of flogging and pistoling every one of the unfortunate serfs who shall fail to wield the hoe with becoming alacrity, what next? Nothing more, in so far as the interests of the working classes are concerned; at least nothing tangible. Perhaps it would be absurd to expect anything more. The man who can propound a scheme to rid us of pauperism, with all its concomitant misery, would be a greater benefactor to the commonwealth, and to the human race, than a thousand Howards in one. Mr Carlyle is perhaps the most strenuous[Pg 654] advocate for work that we ever encountered. He would have made a first-rate taskmaster under the old Egyptian economy. He is, with great reason, indignant at the state to which our West Indian Colonies have been reduced by means of Exeter Hall emancipation, and he scouts emancipation itself as a gross delusion of the fiend. It is to be regretted that his views have been so late of ripening. Time was, when a fair and common-sense protest, advanced by a Liberal philosopher, against the absurdity of attempting to change the hue of the Ethiopian by a single momentary scrubbing, might have been of some actual use: now, it is in vain to recommend a protracted application of the tub. The Noblest, when Mr Carlyle has discovered him and put him forward, will hardly achieve his ends by using the following language, even supposing that he wielded the lightning, and were able to put his threats into execution.

"Beautiful Black Peasantry, who have fallen idle, and have got the Devil at your elbow; interesting White Felonry, who are not idle, but have enlisted into the Devil's regiments of the line,—know that my benevolence for you is comparatively trifling! What I have of that divine feeling is due to others, not to you. A universal Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society is not the one I mean to institute in these times, where so much wants protection, and is sinking to sad issues for want of it! The scoundrel needs no protection. The scoundrel that will hasten to the gallows, why not rather clear the way for him? Better he reach his goal and outgate by the natural proclivity, than be so expensively dammed up and detained, poisoning everything as he stagnates and meanders along, to arrive at last a hundred times fouler, and swollen a hundred times bigger! Benevolent men should reflect on this.—And you Quashee, my pumpkin,—(not a bad fellow either, this poor Quashee, when tolerably guided!)—idle Quashee, I say you must get the Devil sent away from your elbow, my poor dark friend! In this world there will be no existence for you otherwise. No, not as the brother of your folly will I live beside you. Please to withdraw out of my way, if I am not to contradict your folly and amend it, and put it in the stocks if it will not amend. By the Eternal Maker! it is on that footing alone that you and I can live together. And if you had respectable traditions dated from beyond Magna Charta, or from beyond the Deluge, to the contrary, and written sheepskins that would thatch the face of the world,—behold I, for one individual, do not believe said respectable traditions, nor regard said written sheepskins, except as things which you, till you grow wiser, will believe. Adieu, Quashee; I will wish you better guidance than you have had of late."

The meaning of this passage is, that the black population of our colonies ought no longer to be permitted to dwell in perfect idleness in their provision grounds, rearing pumpkins for their own consumption, without regard to the cultivation of the sugar-cane. As we have already remarked, this view is somewhat of the latest; nevertheless truth, like repentance, can never come too late to be received. Divorced from the folly of his speech, Mr Carlyle's sentiment is sound. Twenty millions of British money, wrung from the hard-taxed labour of our people, were given—for what? Not only to emancipate the Negroes, but to place them in such a position that they could effectually control their former masters—our own colonists and countrymen, to whom our faith was solemnly plighted for the maintenance of their privileges and commerce. Let it be granted that slavery was a gross sin, was it incumbent upon us to elevate the emancipated Blacks so high, that they could control the labour market—to give them the status of untaxed yoemen, without any security for the slightest manifestation of their gratitude? It was more than preposterous that those whose freedom was purchased should be placed in a better position, and invested with more immunity from labour and want, than the great bulk of the people who made the sacrifice in order to secure that freedom; and the result has amply demonstrated the gross folly of the scheme. There are thousands, nay millions of men in Britain and Ireland, whose lot, compared with that of the emancipated Blacks of Jamaica, is one of speechless misery—and yet their cry to be relieved from a competition which is crushing them down to the dust, is unheard and uncared for amidst the[Pg 655] din of contending politicians, and the perpetual hum of the busy proselytes of Mammon.

Here we cannot forbear from quoting a characteristic passage from Mr Carlyle's tracts. The idea is not original, but the handling is worthy of Astley's humourist; and we commend it to the special attention of all free-trading philanthropists.

"Certainly Emancipation proceeds with rapid strides among us, this good while; and has got to such a length as might give rise to reflections in men of a serious turn. West Indian Blacks are emancipated, and it appears refuse to work. Irish Whites have long been entirely emancipated; and nobody asks them to work, or on condition of finding them potatoes (which, of course, is indispensable) permits them to work. Among speculative persons, a question has sometimes risen. In the progress of Emancipation, are we to look for a time when all the Horses also are to be emancipated, and brought to the supply-and-demand principle? Horses too have 'motives;' are acted on by hunger, fear, hope, love of oats, terror of platted leather; nay they have vanity, ambition, emulation, thankfulness, vindictiveness; some rude outline of all our human spiritualities,—a rude resemblance to us in mind and intelligence, even as they have in bodily frame. The Horse, poor dumb four-footed fellow, he too has his private feelings, his affections, gratitudes; and deserves good usage; no human master, without crime, shall treat him unjustly either, or recklessly lay on the whip where it is not needed:—I am sure if I could make him 'happy,' I should be willing to grant a small vote (in addition to the late twenty millions) for that object!

"Him, too, you occasionally tyrannise over; and with bad result to yourselves among others; using the leather in a tyrannous, unnecessary manner; withholding, or scantily furnishing, the oats and ventilated stabling that are due. Rugged horse-subduers, one fears they are a little tyrannous at times. 'Am I not a horse, and half-brother?' To remedy which, so far as remediable, fancy—the horses all 'emancipated;' restored to their primeval right of property in the grass of this Globe; turned out to graze in an independent supply-and-demand manner! So long as grass lasts, I daresay they are very happy, or think themselves so. And Farmer Hodge sallying forth, on a dry spring morning, with a sieve of oats in his hand, and agony of eager expectation in his heart, is he happy? Help me to plough this day, Black Dobbin; oats in full measure if thou wilt. 'Hlunh! No—thank!' snorts Black Dobbin; he prefers glorious liberty and the grass. Bay Darby, wilt not thou perhaps? 'Hlunh!' Gray Joan, then, my beautiful broad-bottomed mare,—O Heaven! she too answers Hlunh! Not a quadruped of them will plough a stroke for me. Corn-crops are ended in this world!—For the sake, if not of Hodge, then of Hodge's horses, one prays this benevolent practice might now cease, and a new and a better one try to begin. Small kindness to Hodge's horses to emancipate them! The fate of all emancipated horses is, sooner or later, inevitable. To have in this habitable earth no grass to eat,—in black Jamaica gradually none, as in White Connemara already none;—to roam aimless, wasting the seed-fields of the world; and be hunted home to Chaos, by the dire watch-dogs and dire hell-dogs, with such horrors of forsaken wretchedness as were never seen before! These things are not sport; they are terribly true, in this country at this hour."

One other sham, perhaps the greatest which our age has witnessed, Mr Carlyle accidentally denounces—we mean the late Colonial policy. If the Whigs have an official aptitude for anything, it is the coopering up of Constitutions. Is one colony indignant at some outrage or insult proceeding from headquarters—is another dissatisfied with the conduct of the Governor, and urgent for his recall—is a third aggrieved by the commercial vacillation and fiscal measures of a Parliament in which it has neither voice nor power—the universal panacea is, Give them a Constitution! We hope the present Ministry will profit by the following criticism—not volunteered by us, who neither look upon them with affection, nor entertain any sanguine hope of their conversion to a patriotic policy,—but penned by a writer who, not long ago, was considered by their organs as one of the deepest thinkers of the age.

"Constitutions for the Colonies," says Mr Carlyle, "are now on the anvil; the discontented Colonies are all to be cured of their miseries by Constitutions. Whether that will cure their miseries, or only operate as a Godfrey's Cordial to stop their whimpering, and in the end worsen all their miseries, may be a sad doubt to us. One thing strikes a remote spectator[Pg 656] in these Colonial questions: the singular placidity with which the British Statesman at this time, backed by M'Crowdy and the British moneyed classes, is prepared to surrender whatsoever interest Britain, as foundress of those establishments, might pretend to have in the decision. 'If you want to go from us, go; we by no means want you to stay: you cost us money yearly, which is scarce; desperate quantities of trouble too: why not go, if you wish it?' Such is the humour of the British Statesman at this time.—Men clear for rebellion, 'annexation' as they call it, walk openly abroad in our American Colonies; found newspapers, hold platform palaverings. From Canada there comes duly by each mail a regular statistic of Annexationism: increasing fast in this quarter, diminishing in that;—Majesty's Chief Governor seeming to take it as a perfectly open question; Majesty's Chief Governor, in fact, seldom appearing on the scene at all, except to receive the impact of a few rotten eggs on occasion, and then duck in again to his private contemplations. And yet one would think the Majesty's Chief Governor ought to have a kind of interest in the thing? Public liberty is carried to a great length in some portion of her Majesty's dominions. But the question, 'Are we to continue subjects of her Majesty, or start rebelling against her? So many as are here for rebelling, hold up your hands!' Here is a public discussion of a very extraordinary nature to be going on under the nose of a Governor of Canada? How the Governor of Canada, being a British piece of flesh and blood, and not a Canadian lumber-log of mere pine and rosin, can stand it, is not very conceivable at first view. He does it, seemingly, with the stoicism of a Zeno. It is a constitutional sight like few."

With Earl Grey at the head of the Colonial Department, backed and assisted by that pattern of candour, Mr Hawes—with Lord Elgin in Canada, and Lord Torrington in Ceylon—the integrity of the British empire is certainly exposed to peril. But a more dangerous symptom is the spirit which of late years has prevailed in the councils of the nation, and owes its origin to the false views and perverse unpatriotic doctrines of the political economists. They refuse to admit into their calculations any element which may not be reduced to the standard of money-value, and they consider that the worth of a colony is to be measured solely by the returns of its traffic. This is a leading dogma of Free Trade; and no doubt, were Free Trade capable of entire realisation, if the nations of the earth had no other ambition than to buy and sell, after the manner recommended by Mr Cobden, and if reciprocity were a thing universal, a good deal might be urged in its favour. If we apply the same test to Ireland, we shall find that it is greatly for the advantage of the people of Great Britain to pronounce in favour of Repeal, and to allow the young patriots of the Emerald Isle to enter into any kind of relationship which they may choose with the sympathising republicans of France. This is Free Trade in its plain, undisguised form; and to some such consummation as this we must come at last, by virtue of the grand experiment, should that, like Sir Robert Peel's temporary Income Tax, be extended to a limitless perpetuity. At present, in so far as regards the welfare of a great portion of the inhabitants of the country, it is difficult to perceive what advantage they derive from the boasted character of Britons, except the privilege of contributing to the heaviest load of taxation that was ever laid upon the industry of a people. We acknowledge that the Free-traders have planned their scheme with consummate adroitness and dexterity. If their object was, as we believe it was, to sap those principles of high morality, rectitude, honour, and patriotism, which carried Great Britain successfully through the dangers of wild European revolution, anarchy, and war, they could not have hit upon a better or a surer method. Many a disheartened agriculturist has lately asked himself, what is the nature of the ties which bind him imperatively to Britain, when a richer soil and a fairer climate can be found elsewhere, a home not daily harassed by the knock of the tax-gatherer, and the London market ever ready to receive the product of his industry? It is not good that these questions should arise in the minds of our yeomen, for they are calculated to engender a train of thoughts very hostile to the maintenance of that credit which England dare not lose, without forfeiting her reputation, her fame, her honour, and[Pg 657] her sway. The thoughts of the colonies have long been bent in a similar direction; and we doubt not that many of them have been amazed to find that, so far from being checked in their preliminary mutterings of revolt, they have the hearty good wishes of the Manchester men in dissolving their connection with the mother country, whenever they may choose to do so. Thus do we stand at present in our home and colonial relations, the clank of the constitution hammer resounding from the cooperage, and dull-eyed Imbecility sitting lazily at the helm.

We must now take our leave of Mr Carlyle, sincerely regretting that we cannot, with any degree of truth, congratulate him either on the tone or the character of his late lucubrations. These pamphlets, take them altogether, are about the silliest productions of the day; and we could well wish, for his sake, that they had never been compiled. Very few people, we imagine, will be disposed to wait with confidence for the avatar of his Noblest and Noblers, such as he has depicted them. Our faith and hopes lie in a different direction; nor have we any wish to see a Cromwell at the head of affairs, supported by a staff of noble young souls, poetical or otherwise, who require to be bought over for the purpose. Towards the close of his fourth pamphlet, our author lets drop a hint from which we gather that it is not impossible that his Noblest may hereafter appear embodied in the person of Sir Robert Peel. All we shall say on that score is, that Sir Robert has already had sufficient opportunity vouchsafed him to exhibit the extent of his qualifications. It is not likely that the Statesman who, in the eve of life, and enjoying the undiminished confidence of his Sovereign, finds himself in the House of Commons without the semblance of a party to support him, can ever make another desperate rally. It would be difficult to find in the annals of history any instance of a leading politician who has been so often trusted, and impossible to find one who has so often abused that trust. Even Mr Carlyle cannot deny the Unveracities of which Sir Robert stands convicted; and although he appears to think that lapses from truth are of so common occurrence as to be venial, we beg to assure him that his opinion is not the general one, nor is it altogether creditable to the morality of the man who ventures to express it. We are sorry to observe that, in the conclusion of this latter tract, Mr Carlyle has condescended to borrow some hints from that most eminent master of modern scurrility, the late Daniel O'Connell. This is, in every respect, to be deplored. Wit is not Mr Carlyle's forte, and this kind of wit, if wit it be, is, when served up at second hand, both nauseous and revolting. At a calmer moment, and on more mature reflection, we feel convinced that Mr Carlyle will blush for the terms which he has allowed himself to apply to so eminent a genius as Mr Disraeli; and that he will in future abstain from testifying his gratitude for a humiliating invitation to dinner in a shape so abject as that of casting personal and low abuse upon the political adversaries of his entertainer.

If Mr Carlyle feels that his vocation is political—if the true spirit of the prophet is stirring within him—he ought to endeavour in the first place to think clearly, and, in the second, to amend his style. At present his thoughts are anything but clear. The primary duty of an author is to have a distinct understanding of the matter which he proposes to enunciate, for unless he can arrive at that, his words must necessarily be mystical and undefined. If men are to be taught at all, let the teaching be simple, and level to the common capacity; and let the teacher be thoroughly conversant with the whole particulars of the lesson. We have a strong suspicion that Cassandra must have been a prophetess reared in the same school as Mr Carlyle. Her predictions seem to have been shrouded in such thorough mysticism, that no one gave her credit for inspiration; and in consequence the warnings which might have saved Troy, were spoken to the empty winds. Here, perhaps, we ought to guard ourselves against a similar charge of indistinctness. We by no means intend to certify that Mr Carlyle is a prophet, or that there is any peculiar Revelation in these[Pg 658] Latter-day Pamphlets which can avert the fall of Britain, should that sad catastrophe be foredoomed. We simply wish to express our regret that Mr Carlyle, who may lay claim to the possession of some natural genius and ability, will not allow us the privilege of understanding the true nature of his thoughts, and therefore exposes himself to a suspicion that the indistinctness lies quite as much in the original conception of the ideas, as in the language by means of which they are conveyed.

As to his style, it can be defended on no principle whatever. Richter, who used to be his model, was in reality a first-rate master of language and of verbal music; and although in some of his works, he thought fit to adopt a quaint and abrupt manner of writing, in others he exhibited not only great power, but a harmony which is perhaps the rarest accomplishment of the rhetorical artist. His "Meditation on a Field of Battle," for example, is as perfect a strain of music as the best composition of Beethoven. But in Mr Carlyle's sentences and periods, there is no touch or sound of harmony. They are harsh, cramped, and often ungrammatical; totally devoid of all pretension to ease, delicacy, or grace. In short, we pass from the Latter-day Pamphlets with the sincere conviction that the author as a politician is shallow and unsound, obscure and fantastic in his philosophy, and very much to be reprehended for his obstinate attempt to inculcate a bad style, and to deteriorate the simple beauty and pure significancy of our language.

THE HUNGARIAN JOSEPH.

The following poem is intended to commemorate a very interesting episode, which lately enlivened the deliberations of the National Reform Association. The usual knot of Parliamentary orators having somewhat cavalierly left the delegates to their own rhetorical resources, on the third day of conference, and the conversation having taken a doleful turn, owing to the paucity of subscriptions, the Chairman, Sir Joshua Walmsley, thought fit to enliven the spirits of the meeting by the introduction of an illustrious visitor. The following extract from the morning papers will explain the incident, as well as the commemorative verses:—

"The Chairman (Sir J. Walmsley) here left the platform, and shortly afterwards returned, leading a short, stout, elderly, intelligent-looking gentleman, with a very formidable mustache and bushy beard of snowy whiteness, whose appearance created considerable excitement in the audience, and gave rise to great satisfaction in the minds of several delegates, who were under the impression that they beheld Mr Muntz, the hon. member for Birmingham, whose beard is so well known by report to the Liberal party.

"The Chairman.—Gentlemen, you observed that I left the platform for a short time, and returned with a gentleman who is now near me. It is no other than the Joseph Hume of the Hungarians. (Loud cheers, followed by cries of 'Name, name.')

"The chairman did not appear able to afford the desired information, and the venerable Hungarian financier wrote his name on a slip of paper, from which Sir Joshua Walmsley read aloud what sounded like 'Eugene Rioschy.' (Cheers; and voices, 'We don't know it now,' 'I can't tell my wife;' and laughter.)

[Pg 659]

[Pg 660]

[Pg 661]

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.

BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART VII.—CHAPTER XVII.

Although I have not specified every place at which we halted, or through which we passed, it may be proper to state that we arrived in due course at St Sever, which was distant only one day's march from the actual headquarters of the British army, Aire on the Adour. Here Pledget interposed his professional authority, and decided that neither Mr Chesterfield nor Jones must proceed farther. They both remained, therefore, under surgical treatment at St Sever. Pledget and Gingham, deeming the road now safe, pushed forward to Aire, leaving the cart to follow with the convoy. At the same time, our numbers experienced a still more considerable diminution. Our cavalry escort, also, received orders to push forward, and started before us in high spirits, with the prospect of immediate operations. The convoy was, accordingly, left with only the infantry as a guard, under Corporal Fraser.

Before starting for this our last day's march I saw both our wounded men, neither of them well pleased at being left behind. As to Jones, I was getting used to him, and could have better spared a better man. I found him confined to his bed, in a house full of sick and wounded; very much down in the mouth, fractious, a little feverish, and not at all satisfied with hospital diet. "Please, sir, the doctor don't not allow me a drop of sperrits, sir; no, nor wine nayther, sir; nothing whatsomdever to drink, only powders, sir."

"Powders to drink, Jones? What d'ye mean, man?"

"Please, sir, what I means is powders, sir. Hope no offence, sir. Doctor calls 'em everfizzing powders, sir."

From the Hon. Mr Chesterfield I parted with unfeigned regret. I believe he had won the respect of the whole party. His manner was a little stiff and aristocratical at first. But he mended on acquaintance; and, in everything connected with duty, he was both highly competent, and pleasant to act with. We got off in good time, and proceeded on our march as on former days, our road carrying us through two or three villages.

In passing one of these, I pulled up to make some trifling purchase; and, when I came out of the shop, found our whole convoy and escort halted. "How's this, Fraser? Why are we not getting on?"

"Orders for the whole party to halt have just arrived from headquarters, sir."

"Indeed! Who brought them?"

"A gentleman belonging to your department, sir."

I rode forward to the head of the column; and there, sure enough, at the entrance of the village inn, saw a uniform resembling my own. In fact, I recognised not only the coat, but the wearer of it, though he did not recognise me. He was a foreigner—Westphalian, Saxon, Bohemian, High Dutch, Low Dutch, or something of that sort; had served at Lisbon as clerk in a civil department attached to the British army; and, in some situation of trust and responsibility, had incurred suspicions of an awkward kind. He had in consequence been suspended. The matter was referred to the home authorities, and the result was his dismissal. This was what I knew of him. As to his having subsequently obtained employment in our department, of this I knew nothing. And it did appear rather curious that a person "disadvantageously known," as he was, should have gained a footing where trustiness was so indispensable. Yet there he stood in full fig, enormous staff-hat, and all the departmental toggery. He addressed me in French, with a tone of authority.

"Why have you come this road?[Pg 662] You have followed the wrong route. Your way was by the left bank of the river."

"I came by the high road, of course. The maps show no route by the other side. All the troops take this way, and of course I followed their example."

"Nothing of the kind. They all take the other, which is shorter by nearly a league. Besides, you should not have come by St Sever at all. I am sent from headquarters, to show you the right direction."

"Very good. Of course, then, you bring written orders."

"No written orders are requisite. My directions are, to turn you into the other route. This, in fact, is not safe. You will therefore cross at the ford, and proceed to headquarters along the other bank of the river."

"If, as you say, the other is the usual route, of course they must suppose at headquarters that I have taken it. Very droll they should have sent you to turn me back from this, then."

"Such were my orders. You will proceed by the other road."

"Allow me to inquire," said I, "were your orders from our own department, or from the Quartermaster-General's?" That was a poser; for, if they came from our own, the question would at once arise, Could any such authority enjoin departure from a regular route, given in writing? If, on the other hand, it had been deemed expedient, from circumstances grave and unforeseen, to send me fresh instructions from the higher authority, the bearer of them would probably come direct from the same quarter. He hesitated—looked rather at a loss.

"The directions," said he at length, "come from your own department, of course. I was ordered to ride off, make you come by the other road, and accompany you to the end of the march."

"I had much rather march by the present route. Rather doubt whether I should be justified in leaving it."

"Oblige me," said he, in an altered tone, "by just stepping into the house with me. I am charged with a communication of some importance."

Leaving Sancho in care of an attendant, I followed him into the Auberge. "Have the goodness," said he, "to step into that apartment. Excuse me for one moment. I must just speak to the landlord."

I entered. It was an apartment on the ground floor, with a table laid for two—by no means a disagreeable surprise on a march. On the table were already placed the bread, and the bottle of wine uncorked—sure signs, in a French inn, that dinner will soon make its appearance. "Really, he seems a very good sort of a fellow, after all. This is just the way with the lads of our department. Suspicion be hanged! my first impressions were unjust."

He entered; and the garçon followed with the soup. "Ah," said my new acquaintance, "now be quick with the other things. Come, Mons. d'Y—, this is your longest day's march; you must be hungry, no doubt. Come, sit down; take some soup. We shall soon be better acquainted. Excuse this little ruse."

"Readily," said I; "and you must excuse my quitting you this instant."

A glance from the window had effected a second revolution in my sentiments. Looking out before I sat down, I discovered that the convoy and escort were off! Far down the street, I perceived the last of them disappearing along the road!—walked straight towards the door. He was too quick for me; locked it, and placed himself with his back to it, pocketing the key. "No, no, Mons. d'Y—," said he; "you are my guest. You really must not depart till after dinner. It's absurd. For you I ordered it. Would you hurry away without taking a mouthful?"

Had I removed him by force, I must still have forced the door; and that might have brought upon me the whole establishment, and caused further delay. I therefore took three steps from the door to the window, threw it open, and soon found myself on the pavé, which was higher than the floor of the apartment. To my surprise, Sancho also had disappeared![Pg 663] My first impression was, that he had gone on with the convoy, and I was about to follow on foot;—thought it best, though, to look in the stables first. There he was, sure enough. The attendant had already taken off his saddle, and was about to remove his bridle. "What are you about there, my friend? I requested you to hold him at the door."

"Monsieur, the other English officer came out after you had entered, and desired me to bring him here, take off his saddle and bridle, and give him some orge."

I whipped on the saddle again in no time, mounted, and soon overtook the escort. "Corporal Fraser, why did you go on?"

"I understood that we went on by your orders, sir."

"My orders? Nothing of the sort."

"I am very sorry if I have done wrong, sir. The gentleman who joined just now came out from the inn, and directed us to proceed. Said you would follow immediately. As he wears the same uniform, I supposed a command from him was the same as one from yourself, sir. Indeed, he said it was your order."

"He received no order from me; and he had no business to send you on without."

"Shall I halt the party, sir?"

"No, no; keep on. It was a mistake our stopping at all."

As we passed out of the village, I began to ruminate upon what had just occurred. First of all, there was the character of this gentleman, well known at Lisbon, and, I supposed, at headquarters. Then there was the improbability of his story, to say nothing of one or two little contradictions. Then, it was clear, he had attempted to separate me from the convoy, and to prevent my following it. Then, too, his conduct was doubly incorrect; in taking upon himself, first, to halt the party, secondly, to send it on. Item, in the course of our short interview, he had, it appeared to me, told as many fibs as could well be got into the given time. Moreover, he had attempted to divert us from our route, which was just what Hookey did; and, what made it very remarkable, Hookey and he both wished us to turn aside in the same direction, namely, by the left bank of the river, when the regular route was by the right. Something was evidently not straight. For all that, though, the manner of this intelligent individual was so very easy and impudent, and he seemed so bent upon accomplishing his purpose, whatever it might be, that I felt a strong impression we had not seen the last of him, especially as he appeared utterly unconscious that I knew his previous history.—"Corporal Fraser!"

"What's your pleasure, sir?"

"If that person comes up, I wish you to keep near me. Take no notice; but be prepared, if I direct, to arrest him."

The corporal looked a little queer. "Very good, sir," said he; "upon receiving your orders," (he intoned the word orders,) "I shall be ready to do so."

"In case of my giving you an order to that effect, I, of course, am responsible, not you. If I turn round, give you a look, and say, 'Fraser,' you will consider that you have got your directions."

"Very good, sir; it shall be done."

My anticipations proved correct. Mounted on what had very much the appearance of a French post-horse, my would-be entertainer presently came up at a laborious canter. The moment he got alongside, he began to expostulate. Was profoundly grieved that I had declined his hospitality. It was a long day's march, the longest from Passages to headquarters. "A little refreshment would have recruited your forces, Mons. d'Y—."

"I cannot separate from the convoy and escort. As you thought fit to send them on, I had no choice but to follow."

"Well, pardon me, if I have done wrong," said he. "My intentions were pure, at any rate. Positively, though, you must not follow this road. The way to the ford is now close at hand. Come, let me be your conductor."

"Were you not at Lisbon last autumn?" said I.

"Were you?" said he, in a tone of alarm.

[Pg 664]

"I was. And though you do not know me, I know you."

"Nothing to my prejudice, I feel convinced." (Still more uneasy.)

"Very well. All will be cleared up at headquarters. Of course, you will accompany us."

"At any rate," replied he, anxious to back out, "I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you there."

"No, no," said I; "you go with us."

By this time he was decidedly in a fidget, and began to hang behind. Just then we came suddenly to a lane, branching off to the right. This was probably the very direction he had wished me to take; though whether it really led to a ford over the Adour, or to what it led, was a different question. Before I was aware of his design, he turned sharp in that direction; and, when I looked after him, he was already some distance down the lane, digging his heels into the old poster's sides. This operation had put the gay old stager into something as much like a gallop as you can hope to get out of a French post-horse. He was off! Ah! our cavalry had left us too soon. I looked round, and shouted "Fraser!"

Fraser, prepared for my order, and anxious to have all ready for executing it, had three men marching at hand, with loaded firelocks. Three balls whistled down the lane. But it was a waste of his Majesty's powder and shot; the fugitive escaped unhurt. Not so, though, the lively old post-horse. His screwed tail, his stradding hind-legs, and his action—for a moment prancing, not progressive—gave evident indications that the luckless beast had not got off so easily as his rider. Then, in an agony of apprehension lest his scutcheon should receive a second totem, he plunged forward again at his previous rate, and soon disappeared down the lane. Pursuit was out of the question, for Sancho's best pace was an up-and-down; even a French horse was too fast for a French pony: so both horse and horseman got off.

My first care, on reaching headquarters, was to make inquiry respecting this new member of our department. You will hardly need to be informed, that there was no such person belonging to us. The only question was, how did he get the uniform coat? It certainly was not that of the corresponding department of the French service, which not only rejoiced in the appropriate embellishment of a key embroidered on the collar, but differed in other respects from ours. Some said he must have procured the coat at Lisbon. Some said he had got it made for the occasion. A gentleman of the Commissariat suggested that he had picked up a coat at headquarters, cast off when some of us had been promoted. But the worst of it was, our department couldn't recollect when any such cheering event had taken place.

As both Hookey, and this more recent adviser, strenuously insisted on our proceeding to headquarters by the country to the south-east of the Adour, and as Hookey particularly inculcated the duty and necessity of our passing through Hagetmau, which lies a few miles to the south of St Sever, it is curious to discover, at this interval of time, that the very neighbourhood indicated by these two talented individuals as offering us the best route, was precisely the most unsafe. I reached headquarters on the 17th of March. The next day the Commander-in-Chief (vide Gurwood) writes to Sir J. Hope,—"I use the cipher, because I understand the enemy were at Hagetmau yesterday." That's just where we should have been on the same day, had I followed Hookey's advice; so that we should have walked right into them; and that, no doubt, was what Hookey intended. But further, by a letter from the Commander-in-Chief to the Mayor of Hagetmau, dated 21st March, we learn that, on the 18th, there was in that place an affair of partisans. It was, therefore, a very eligible neighbourhood to which our two friends wished to introduce us.

When I reached headquarters at Aire with the convoy and escort, a forward movement of the troops appeared to have already commenced. Firing was heard at hand; and the operation was attended with rather more noise than those in which we were engaged the day before. A great army advancing upon the enemy, like the chariot of Jove, cannot[Pg 665] move without thunder. I know not how far the arrival of the treasure which we brought up contributed to this movement. Suffice it to say, I find our Commander-in-Chief writing to Sir J. Hope, March 18—"I waited quietly till all my means coming up were arrived, and I am now moving upon them in earnest." Ah, Hookey! you played great stakes, and a deep game, too. But it wouldn't do.

The hour of my arrival, though, was signalised by that event, of all others, which men chronicle as the most important of their lives—an interview with a great man. In my case, it was a very great man. To be sure, he didn't speak to me. But what does that signify? I spoke to him. On arriving with the treasure at the office of our own department, I was directed to go forthwith and report myself at the office of the Quartermaster-General. I went, and found it in a very humble mansion. On entering the passage, found a door to the right, where I was desired to go in. Saw a long table by the window, with two or three officers writing. Before the fire stood ANOTHER. He was drenched with rain; all in a steam, like a hot potato; lost in thought; looked awful; a middle-aged and remarkably well-built man, with a striking—nay, more than striking—with a particular expression of countenance; such a face as I had never seen before; a very keen eye—the eagle's, that can look at the sun, would have quailed before his; and oh, what a beak! I felt rather at a loss. No one did me the honour to notice my entrée. No one took any notice; no one vouchsafed me a look! I stood, for a moment, in silence. As all the others were hard at work, and one was doing nothing, I of course concluded that he was the Head of the Department; and, with crude atrocity, addressed him—though with a queer kind of feeling, which I myself didn't exactly understand—"Are you the Quartermaster-General, sir?"

No reply on his part—no look, no movement of the head, no change of countenance! He merely raised his arm, and pointed to the table. By that act alone he indicated a consciousness of being spoken to; and had he, the next moment, been called upon to describe the speaker, why, I firmly believe he couldn't have done it. I then turned towards the table. One of the writers rose from his seat in silence, walked me out into the passage, made an inquiry or two, and walked in again.

The next day I was once more on the march, riding side by side with a brother clerk. "There he is!" said he. I now beheld, on horseback—a regular centaur, part of his horse—that same distinguished individual whom, the day before, I had so unceremoniously addressed, as he stood reeking before the fire, while great guns were banging right and left, the troops advancing, and he at the best of all possible points to direct and control the vast machinery that he had set in motion.

Life at headquarters proved to be much what I had anticipated. In attending the movements of the army, we officials had sometimes very little work; sometimes, especially when the troops remained a few days stationary, a great deal. While they moved from day to day, we seldom had much to do but to follow them, and make ourselves as comfortable as we could at the end of the day's march. The military movements from Aire to Toulouse were curious. From Aire we went right down to the south, as far as Tarbes and Vic Bigorre—a course which almost brought us back again to the Spanish frontier and the foot of the Pyrenees; then up again to the Garonne and Toulouse. A sailor would have called it tacking. Of course, one could not follow even an advancing and victorious army without undergoing some hardships. On one occasion, after much previous fatigue, in passing a wild and mountainous district, we were suddenly overtaken by a snow-storm. While nodding on Sancho's back from sheer exhaustion, I was caked on the left, from head to foot, with snow, which first began to melt with the warmth of the body, then froze hard with the keenness of the wind. The next moment the sun blazed forth, to the right, with scorching heat. Thus roasted on one side, and frozen on the other, I dozed and nodded on, with just sufficient consciousness to form virtuous resolutions of knocking off[Pg 666] the snow, but without sufficient energy to carry them into effect. After all, though, a civilian following the army, supplied pretty regularly with rations for himself, pony, and servant—tolerably sure, too, of a good billet at night, and generally provided with a few dollars, easily convertible into francs—has no business to talk of hardships. The real hardships of a campaign fall on the marching officers and privates. What they endure is past conception. Gingham and I were much together, and carried out our plan of campaigning in company as far as circumstances would allow. At headquarters, also, I fell in again with my old acquaintance and fellow-voyager, Mr Commissary Capsicum, who gloried in giving good dinners. He was never better pleased than when I accepted his invitations, but always gave me a good blowing-up if I dined with Gingham in preference.

Amongst all my reminiscences of campaigning, none are more vividly impressed upon my mind, than the reminiscence of a campaigning appetite, which I am persuaded is altogether extraordinary, and a thing per se. Did you ever visit Cintra? Now there's the Cintra appetite, and a very good one it is, too. This, also, has its distinguishing feature—namely, that on the one hand, while you are riding about (or, if a sensible person, going on foot, exploring, climbing, scrambling) amongst rocks, and peaks, and splendid scenery, the pleasing idea of the dinner that will be ready for you, on returning to your hotel, blends itself, by a gentle amalgamation, with every discovery, with every prospect; and while, on the other hand, the said dinner is actually on the table before you, and under discussion, the splendid scenes you have been witnessing, like dissolving views, pass in procession before your mind. Thus your dinners are romantic, while your rambles are appetising.

Then, again, there's the nautical appetite, which comes on you like a giant, when you have mastered the qualms of the first few days at sea. The nautical appetite, also, has its peculiar feature, which is this—that the intervals of time between one meal and another appear so awfully long. That's because you've nothing to do. But—

The campaigning appetite, I say, differing from both these, has also its characteristic proper to itself—namely, that there never is a moment when you are unprepared to eat; the instant you have done, you are ready to begin again. You sit down, at headquarters, to a breakfast where the table groans with various and abundant provender—tea, coffee, chocolate, bread, eggs, cold meat, ham, tongue, sausages sublimed with garlic, enormous rashers of bacon, beefsteaks, not to name knick-knackeries innumerable, and something short as a calker. You do ample justice—oh, haven't you made a famous breakfast? and in half-an-hour you are ready for another! If, having stowed away breakfast for two, you happen to pop in upon a friend who is taking his, you join him as a matter of course. And, my dear madam, what makes it so peculiar in my case is, I was always such a very small eater. The only exception to this perpetuity of a campaigning appetite, is when something extraordinary is going on in front—a battle, or what looks just like it, a skirmish. Then, for a while, you forget that you are hungry. The stomach is still equally in a state of preparation to receive and digest food. But, for the nonce, you ignore the fact; the wolf lies dormant. Oh, how savage he wakes up, though, when the fighting is over, and you all at once remember that you haven't dined. In short, with plenty always at command, with no real want unsupplied, I never suffered so much from hunger as when campaigning, and I never ate so often. Your only plan is this: Whenever the opportunity presents itself, take in stock. Breakfast, as if you had no prospect of a dinner; dine, as if you had not breakfasted.

Generally, then, at headquarters, I fared as Gingham fared; and to say that is to say enough. But it was not always so. His engagements, or my duties, sometimes made a separation; and then I learned my loss. Once, when I was so circumstanced, my servant came home with disconsolate looks and a melancholy report: "To day, no beefy, senhor." At that[Pg 667] moment, I could have eaten my gloves! Went with him myself; was politely received by a gentleman in a blue apron with a steel dangling in front. "What, no beef to-day?"

"Oh yes, bless your heart. Plenty, sir."

"Well, here's the order. Let's have some, then. Where is it?"

"There it is, sir."

"Don't see any. Where?"

"Why, it's in that 'ere pen, sir. Only you jest look in through the gateway. Wherry find beastesses, I calls 'em. In two hours we shall begin to kill."

He pointed to a large stone enclosure, in which stood a captive herd of horned cattle. An anxious bullock rested his chin upon the wall, and, breathing a misty sigh, with melancholy countenance looked full in mine!

At another time I had been riding on in front, and was coming home at a rambling pace through lanes and by-paths, when suddenly the wolf returned—I was appallingly hungry—must eat or faint. Contrived to ride on to a lone cottage—tapped at the door. It was opened by a very respectable quiet-looking man; old gentleman, I ought to say, for such he was, both in aspect and manners. His garb, indeed, was homely; but his air was superior, his address manly and simple with a certain finish, and his carriage perfectly upright. He courteously invited me to enter; the door led at once into a large room, which was in fact the whole ground-floor of the cottage. A little preliminary chat sufficed to inform him what I was, and me what he was—namely, an old soldier, who had got his discharge, and was living in retirement. No one came to attend on him; a regular old campaigner, he did for himself. I soon came to the point—was in a state of inanition—would pay with alacrity for anything eatable, even bread. "No, no," said he, "wait a while, mon enfant, I shall soon have the pleasure of setting before you a superb repast. It will diversify my existence! Ah! I shall experience an emotion!" He immediately unhooked from the wall an old iron frying-pan, as black inside as out—the only cooking utensil that graced his menage; poured in water, and set it on the fire to simmer. He then took down from the shelf a large brown bowl, and brought out from under the table a goodly loaf of coarse but excellent bread, part of which he cut into the bowl, and sprinkled with a little salt. Then, walking out into his garden, he pulled a leek, and collected two or three kinds of herbs, all which he added to the water, with something that resembled the fat of bacon, though not so solid. When all was scalding hot, he doused it into the bowl upon the bread, then handed me a pewter spoon, and begged me to use no ceremony. Hunger is indeed the best sauce; and, homely as was the fare, I never made a heartier meal.

Somewhat recruited in strength, I rose to take leave, having first requested my brave old entertainer to accept payment, which he declared impossible. However, I had now been long enough on Gallic ground to understand the idiom, so laid my "legal tender" on the table, and said farewell, with many thanks. He tottled with me to the door; then, suddenly stopped me, and looked earnestly in my face, as if he had something very particular to communicate. What was he going to say? He begged to assure me I had laid him under an infinite obligation. Again he arrested my progress, with the door in his hand. Hoped I would honour his menage with a second visit. Admired the brave English, and lamented that he had never had the pleasure of meeting them professionally. "Peut-être encore! Mais hélas! nous sommes les f—s!" Halted me a third time outside. "His cottage was mine, with all that it contained." He had marched through half Europe, and was a simple-hearted, civil, old Frenchman.

There was one circumstance, though, not a little to the advantage of those who dined with Gingham or Capsicum; and this was, that there arose between these two worthies an amicable rivalry on this very affair of giving dinners. The contest, in fact, had its origin a year before, on our voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon, when Capsicum brewed a bowl of punch, and Gingham brewed a better. Capsicum could not brook the idea[Pg 668] that any man should brew punch, or give dinners, equal to his. The style of the two entertainers was different. Capsicum's dinners were more profuse, Gingham's more recherchés. Gingham, in fact, had all the appliances of the table in greater perfection. He had plate enough for a handsome dinner—mind, I don't mean to say a state dinner—of eight or ten. His whole dinner-service, too, was handsome, elegant; wines, the choicest that money could command; all the little etceteras excellent—coffee, for instance; such coffee as you could not get elsewhere in France, where they are too apt to make a mess of it. I don't think much of French coffee, except such as you get here and there at private houses. Gingham's coffee was a pure, genial, high-flavoured decoction. Ah! you tasted the berry. As summer came on, Gingham intended ices. And good fish, till we arrived at Bordeaux, being next to unattainable, he had organised a plan for procuring salmon in ice from England. Capsicum, on the other hand, had resources which Gingham had not. He could always command the best cut of the best commissariat beef; and this advantage told with stunning effect when he gave a spread. He had other advantages in foraging, and he knew how to turn them to account. In short, the characteristic of his dinners was abundance; and, with the guests who partook of them on actual service, this would generally secure the preference.

Many dinners might I describe—and, oh! describe con amore—both Capsicum's and Gingham's. But I select one in particular, which was signalised by a hoax. I abstain from entering into the general subject of hoaxes, as hoaxes were practised at headquarters. He that would do justice to it must also treat of shaves. Let us confine ourselves, for the present, to a particular branch of the subject—namely, the dinner hoax. The dinner hoax was twofold. Was it a time of scarcity, when ration beef was all that could be got? Then the hoax was, to create a persuasion in the mind of the unfortunate hoaxee that something else was coming. "Major, a little more bouillie?" "No, I thank you. I'm keeping a corner for the turkey." Hoaxee hears that. He also will keep a corner for the turkey—plays with the beef. Next entrée is—the cheese! Was it, on the other hand, a season of abundance? Then the hoax, equally unfeeling, assumed an opposite character. "Sorry, gentlemen, we're so badly off now," says the host, with a wink seen by all at table, hoaxee excepted; "hope you'll contrive, for once, to make a dinner on soldier's fare." Hoaxee pitches into the beef—stows away a double ration—is pressed and helped, pressed and helped, till he positively declines another mouthful—then enter the roast pig. Unhappy hoaxee! He has dined!

The object of the hoax at Capsicum's was an individual of a particular class. You must know, the home authorities had got a notion, that, amongst the departments attached to the Peninsular army, abuses of all kinds were rife, and required to be looked after. For this purpose, they occasionally sent out some intelligent individual, whose business was to see and report. Sometimes he came for the avowed purpose. It was to a talented character of this kind that the greatest man amongst us—who was as good at a joke as he was at polishing the French—gave the name of "Argus." Sometimes the individual's object was merely suspected; partly betrayed, perhaps, by his own homebred simplicity, which was no proof against the penetration of old campaigners. In either case, as will easily be understood, such a person was no favourite, and was deemed a fair subject for a hoax.

I was walking down a lane towards Capsicum's quarters, when I was overtaken by a gentleman on horseback, who was evidently a fresh arrival from England. Everything about him looked new, a regular London outfit. You'd have said he came direct from Piccadilly in a bandbox. His manner, moreover, announced him to be somebody; he was evidently a very great man. "Pray, sir," said he, "can you inform me the way to Mr Capsicum's?"

"I am going that way myself, sir. I shall be happy to show you the road, as it has one or two turnings."

[Pg 669]

"Much obleeged, sir. I am going there by invitation to dinner."

"So am I, sir."

"Understand his dinners are capital, sir," said the newly-arrived, somewhat softening.

"Few equal to them at headquarters, sir. He is very great in that line; takes a pleasure in it."

"Really, sir, I'm not sorry to hear it," said he, still more mollified; "for, to tell you the truth, I'm not yet quite at home here; no more is my servant. I've been forced to rough it; and have sometimes come off with short commons."

Other conversation followed, and led to the mention of my own official rank, in the humble capacity of a departmental clerk. A great change took place when the gentleman heard this. He became dignified, absent, and monosyllabic. When we arrived at Capsicum's, as there was no one in attendance, I thought it devolved on me to perform the rites of hospitality, and stepped up to take charge of his horse. He handed me the bridle, and walked at once into the house, without waiting to look, or say, "Much obleeged to you."

The guests, including Pledget, Gingham, the new comer, and myself, amounted to seven. I saw at once that the recent arrival was not very affectionately viewed by Capsicum, who betrayed his feelings by his manner. This, amongst his particulars, was off-hand, easy, and jocular. But towards his newly arrived guest, he was all courtesy and high etiquette. In fact, that gentleman came out professedly to serve, but unfortunately was regarded as a spy. His Christian name was William; a surname was found to fit it; and, ere he left Capsicum's premises, he was dubbed "William Tell." Delighted with the prospect of a dinner such as he had not seen since he disembarked at Santander, with red face and red hair, large in form, and coarse-featured, a burly, bull-necked, bullet-headed man with goggling eyes, his air more confident than genteel; in manners, laboriously free and easy; ostentatiously dressed, and smiling with agreeable anticipations, at one time he twiddled with his forefinger an enormous bunch of seals, at another he complacently boxed his right fist into his open left. The hands then amalgamated, and the punch subsided in a bland and complacent rub.

The cloth was already laid—at headquarters you must manage as you can—in the room where the company met. Mr Barnacles glanced approvingly at the preparations. Ever see a man's eye glisten, when you told him of some generous deed? So glistened the eye of Barnacles, while it glanced at the plates, glasses, bottles, knives and forks, spoons, tumblers, and saltcellars, which in goodly order graced Capsicum's hospitable board.

We sat down; I, under a mandate growled by Capsicum, at the lower end of the table as Vice. Proposed mischief twinkled in the corner of Capsicum's eye. First, as a matter of course, came the soup and bouillie.

"Mr Capsicum," said a brother commissary, "I know it's not genteel to be helped twice to soup; but I'll trouble you for a little more." This was move the first, in the game of hoax.

"Quite right, quite right," said Capsicum. "No market in these country places. Sorry, gentlemen, there's so little variety just now." The speakers exchanged winks. The game was now fairly opened; a hoax had already commenced, and Barnacles was the destined victim.

"Well," said another commissary, "I can always make a good dinner off beef."

Barnacles, it was clear, had now received the desired impression. Beef, he fully understood, was to be the staple of our dinner; and he accordingly stowed with beef. In fact, he did wonders; cleared plate after plate of boiled beef. At length, having stowed till he could stow no more, he sat back in his chair pompously and complacently. A mild perspiration bedewed his forehead; and the damask of his cheeks had given place to a rosy suffusion of the whole countenance. The fingers of his two hands were interlaced over his stomach, while his thumbs stood erect, meeting in a point.

"Mr Barnacles, I beg ten thousand pardons. Pray give me leave to send you a little more beef."

[Pg 670]

"Much obleeged, sir; not a morsel more. Never made a better dinner in my life."

"Sure you won't, Mr Barnacles? Just a shave from this end, with a morsel of fat."

"Thank you, sir, kindly—I couldn't. Must beg you to excuse me. Much obleeged. Not a morsel more."—Table cleared.

Fresh plates! more knives and forks! Now it was, in reality, that the dinner began;—enormous sirloin, spitting with volcanic heat; roast fowls, that would have softened the hardest heart; elegant hind-quarter of mutton; pretty little fillet of veal; tongue, ham, boiled turkey, &c.

Behold, a new feature in the game! Barnacles wasn't beat yet. In the attempt to hoax Barnacles, allowance had not been made for his gastronomic powers, and previous privations. Never mind. The more sport.

"Mr Barnacles, a slice of the sirloin. Upper cut, or under cut?"

Barnacles, at the sight of the good things before him, contrary to all calculation sat up with renewed vigour, and paused ere he replied.

"Why, if I do take anything more, I think it must be a small slice of this mutton."

Barnacles helped himself. A small slice! Why, if he didn't cut away into the hind quarter, slice after slice, till he had sunk a regular well. Then spooned out the gravy.

"Give Mr Barnacles the currant jelly. Mr Gingham, we owe that to you."

"Plenty more at your service, sir," said Gingham; "got three or four dozen jars. Always bring some when I visit headquarters. Got it in Berkley Square."

Barnacles now sets to again, fresh as when he began. What powers! what capacity! what deglutition! In fact, it was not only the stomach of Barnacles that needed filling. And that's why you see carnivorous cadaverous men perform such extraordinary feats with knife and fork. Not their stomach merely, their system is hungry. So it was now with Barnacles; and his meal was on a commensurate scale. He was redressing the balance of his constitution—compensating previous inanition. When a man, accustomed to full feeding, has been a few days without it, it isn't the mere filling of his stomach that will satisfy his appetite.

Gingham caught the eye of one of the guests—slightly raised his glass—bowed.

"Oh yace," replied a squeaking voice; "now sall I trink you go t'hell!"

I started. When, when, had I heard that voice before? My eye, for the first time, took a particular view of the speaker. He was a diminutive personage, his complexion a sodden white, with unwholesome patches of red; forehead enormous and mis-shapen; bumps prominent and misplaced; large spectacles, no eyes, upper part of nose wanting, a notch where there should have been a bridge; lower limb of nose broad and sunken, as if squashed down between two puffy cheeks, which bagged on each side; between nose and mouth a space incredible; in fact, a huge upper lip was the most prominent feature of the face; for mustaches, a few detached and very coarse black bristles, pointing opposite ways like a cat's whiskers—each particular bristle standing alone, and individually discernible from its insertion to its extremity; mouth, long and sinuous; lips, viciously twisted out; chin, emaciated. Again he spoke, as Gingham drank to him: "You go t' hell!" Where could I have heard that voice? Why, wasn't it at the ferry, among the Frenchmen that opposed our passage? No, no, that can't be; it's impossible.—"Who's that?" I whispered Gingham.

"A man of science, sir; a Russian—Mr Wowski, an ardent botanist. Wished to examine the flora of the South of France; brought out letters of recommendation; joined the army, and follows its movements. You'll like his acquaintance vastly." Then louder—"Mr Wowski, my friend, Mr Y—; your junior, but a promising naturalist. Hope at an early day you'll meet him to dinner at my quarters."

"Mr Barnacles, shall I have the pleasure?—some turkey, sir?"

By this time Mr Barnacles seemed again to feel that he had dined.

"The least possible shave," said[Pg 671] Mr Barnacles. "I really have made a most capital dinner."

I helped him to a good plateful, which he cleared off.—All removed.

Next followed a few made dishes, light articles; and one real delicacy, which was first introduced to our acquaintance by Gingham. This was no other than a kid, baked whole. I take the liberty, my dear sir, of very particularly and pointedly calling your attention to the dish in question. I have, on previous occasions, ventured to offer gastronomic hints. But a kid thus dressed is a real delicacy, worthy of a place on any table. N. B.—If you bake, envelop in paste. Should you prefer roasting, cover with paper. Let the roasting be gentle, but complete. Of course you don't stretch out the legs. Double them up, and skewer to the sides. For sauce, chop up the pluck. Sauce should be piquant, with lots of cayenne, subacid. Or make a separate dish, with the pluck and heart.

Pensive regret was mingled, in the face of Barnacles, with intense curiosity, while he viewed this novel entrée, as it made its appearance in a case of dough. Capsicum asked no question; sent him a plateful; a great part of which he was forced to send away. It was clear Mr Barnacles was now beat to a standstill.

The dish, though, was rather rich; and what he had eaten took effect. His countenance changed. Suddenly he became pallid, with an effort to look degagé. This lasted about a minute, in which time he swallowed two successive bumpers of madeira. The dose so far kept him right, that Barnacles didn't leave the table: but he was evidently hors de combat.

Mr B. being now brought to a standstill, the joke was so far successful. Yet was not the hoax complete, unless there appeared something on table that he liked, and yet something of which he could not partake.

The sweets now made their appearance, and were viewed by Mr Barnacles with indifference. But when the table was wellnigh covered, and space remained for only a single dish—

Enter a splendid plum-pudding—yes, a regular English plum-pudding—its summit hoary with pounded sugar, its sides distilling brandy sauce.

The eyes of Barnacles lit up again—sparkled. He was alive in a moment. Once more his fist went bang into his hand; once more his hands embraced and rubbed, as in mutual congratulation. Forgetting all his previous performances, he accepted a substantial slice of the plum-pudding. Alas! he had kept no corner!

"You don't seem," said Capsicum, "to like your pudding, Mr Barnacles."

"Oh yes! Oh yes!" said Barnacles, with emotion. "Indeed I do, sir. It's what I never, never expected to see again till my return—till my return to the British metropolis. But"——It ended in a watering-pot scene—a regular boo-hoo. He put his handkerchief to his face. It was too much for his feelings. Plum-pudding before him as good as could be got in London, and he not able to eat a mouthful! The poor man cried.

He made up after dinner, though, by copious potations. After coffee, sat down to a rubber. One of the party proposed guinea points. But Capsicum saw how matters stood with Barnacles, and wouldn't stand it. "No, no, gentlemen," said he; "no stakes; no stakes." In the course of the evening Mr Barnacles disappeared. Alarmed by his prolonged absence, Capsicum sent a servant, who came back with the report that he was not very well. He returned—took a stiff glass of whisky-punch—again disappeared. I, by Capsicum's request, went this time in search. Found him at length in the stable. He was trying to saddle his horse;—couldn't. He wanted to steal away. I reported to Capsicum, who at once decided. "Mr Barnacles must not go home to-night. We must find him a shake-down on the premises." In one way only could this arrangement be effected. Mr Wowski consented to turn out, and accompanied me to my billet.

Amidst the din of war and the monotony of headquarters society, I was really glad to meet with a naturalist and man of science, and cultivated the acquaintance of Mr Wowski accordingly. When, however, I came to try him, he appeared to know about[Pg 672] as much of botany as I did myself. Neither, I remarked, in search of specimens, did he visit the most out-of-the-way and likely places. He generally sought those points, in preference, where the troops were moving in masses; and apparently looked much more sharply after the movements of the army than after bulbs. Once, when we had halted at a village, which stood in a wide-spread plain, he invited me to ascend the turret of the church. We reached the summit just in time to behold a comical spectacle. From the church top we looked down vertically on the Place, or open area of the village, which was full, at the moment, of soldiers—British, Portuguese, and Spanish; muleteers, camp-followers—men, women, children—a motley multitude. Just at that moment a fellow rushed into the midst, shouting at the top of his voice, and bearing something aloft in his two hands. It was a bullock's bladder. The multitude gathered round him, eager for a promiscuous game of football, which he soon commenced by a kick that sent the bladder sky-high. Football, probably, you have seen played, or have played at. But did you ever see it played by four or five hundred persons at once, of four or five different nations, and you looking right down upon them from the top of a church? Each was eager to get a kick at the bladder; but a far greater number than succeeded got kicks on their shins. It was a stormy sea of heads. The shout came up to us. No one was more conspicuous in the throng than my Spanish Capataz, whose activity was equal to his bulk. Being stumpy as well as stout, he cut a droll figure viewed from above, as, with sprawling arms and legs, he flung himself forward with a flying leap, and a kick that, if it missed the bladder, was seldom expended on the air. At length the bladder was driven down a street; the rush followed it, shouting; the market-place again became quiet; and I turned to address Mr Wowski, who, like myself, I supposed, had been engaged in surveying the tumultuous scene beneath. Not he. Ensconced behind the parapet, where no one could see him from below, he was quietly looking in advance with a pocket-telescope, as if surveying the movements of the troops. On my approach he started, slapped together the joints of his glass, and hastily restored it to his pocket, where, till that moment, I never knew he carried one.

Mr Wowski, highly recommended by letters, received a good deal of attention. To Gingham he brought a letter from Warsaw. For my own part, I saw reason to doubt whether he was really what he professed himself. Two or three things about him struck me as strange; and, when he spoke, never could I forget the voice at the river.[2]

[Pg 673]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Mr Wowski, during his short sojourn at headquarters, was one day placed in an awkward position. In the south of France, we often met with large fierce dogs, which in country places we sometimes found ugly customers; though, in reality, not one in ten of them possessed the pluck of an English pug. Early one morning, I had to ride a little distance on duty. It was a cross country road, and Gingham favoured me with his company. While ambling along, we overtook Mr Wowski, who had started for one of his peregrinations on foot; and slackened our pace, to secure the pleasure of his society. Presently we came to a hamlet of some ten or a dozen houses, in passing which we were savagely attacked by a gang of formidable-looking dogs. Had Gingham and I been by ourselves, we should soon have been rid of the annoyance, by the mere act of passing on. But the real danger was our pedestrian companion's, whom the whole barking angry pack seemed determined to assail. One shaggy, powerful ruffian led the van; he might have sat to Schneider. His mouth, yawning like a sepulchre, reuttered a deep, sonorous yow—yow; his fangs stood out, ready for action; his eyes flashed fire; while, in size somewhere between a wolf and a jackass, he rushed right up to the unfortunate Wowski, whose only defence was a walking-stick. Wowski cut one, two—one, two—with just sufficient energy to keep off the foe, who contrived to maintain his nose in position, just an inch beyond the range of the sapling. He was backed up by the rest of the curs, who, barking and snarling, formed a semicircle, that threatened to hem in the hapless Wowski. Gingham and I could do nothing. I had only a switch; Gingham hadn't even that. Still the chief assailant, his back bristling like a wild boar's, and his tail swollen and ruffled like an angry cat's, pressed the attack; it was yow—yow on one side, and cut—cut on the other. He jumped, he circled, he ramped, he flew up in the air, spun round, and flew up again;—every moment I expected to see him fly at Wowski's throat. I noticed a woman looking out from the door of one of the cottages—called to her, and made signs—on which she thought fit to disappear. Wowski was now becoming pale and exhausted. "Shorten your stick," said I. He did so. The foe came nearer. "Now give him the full length." Wowski took the hint, and the big beast of a cur caught a crack on his muzzle—a regular smasher; instantly turned tail, and cut away with dismal yowlings. The whole pack, like so many humans, turned against him, and pursued; the great powerful brute was half-a-dozen times knocked over and worried, ere he found refuge in an outhouse. The woman now reappeared, armed with a broomstick; and followed into the shed, where a fresh succession of howls and yells announced a needful though tardy process of castigation. Wowski walked along with us, flourishing his stick; only wished it had been a lion! There may be really courageous dogs among the big-limbed monsters of this part of France; but, from my own observation, I should say the most part are a pluckless race. Indeed, an officer of the Guards, who had got out dogs from England, complained to me that they lost their courage on a foreign soil.

Gingham himself, a few days after, had a much more serious adventure.

We were on the march together, after a wet and stormy night. The morning was unsettled, but soon became sultry. Then followed a shower of hail. Gingham began to philosophise; thought he could explain the phenomenon of hail better than any one else. "It has been remarked," said I, "that hail is never formed, except where there are two strata of clouds, one over the other."

"True," said Gingham; "and some meteorologists have imagined that the hail is generated by the alternate action of the two strata, which action they suppose to be electrical."

[Pg 674]

"Curious, if true."

"Yes," said Gingham; "but I question the theory altogether. According to the best views of the subject which I have been able to form, the hail is produced simply by a current of very cold air, passing rapidly through hot air charged with vapour. Were the current less rapid, or less cold, the effect would be merely condensation, and we should have rain; but, being both cold and rapid in a high degree, the effect is congelation, and we have hail. The noise which so often accompanies hail-storms is the rush of this current of cold air. Currents of air, I admit, in the higher regions of the atmosphere, are usually mute. But, in this instance, the rush is rendered vocal by the hailstones. As to the two strata of clouds, they merely mark the superior and inferior limit of the intrusive current; and they are due to the action of the cold, there more modified, on the vapour. And as to electricity—"

Gingham's lecture was here interrupted by our reaching a river. The bridge having been destroyed by the enemy, we could cross only by fording; and just as we reached the ford, we saw some persons passing on mules and horses. Half way over appeared a small island, which was in fact only a bank of shingle, thrown up by some previous flood. We perceived, by those who preceded us, that the depth was sufficient to wet our boots, if we rode, as they did; and therefore it was resolved to pass in the cart. The river, though not at the moment swollen, was dark and rapid. It rushed sullenly on, with small whirlpools, but without a ripple; and murmurs were heard at intervals, hoarse and deep, which came not from its surface, but boomed up from the gloomiest and most profound recesses of its vexed channel and hollow banks. By the side, waiting for a passage, we found some slightly wounded soldiers, a party of four. These Gingham mounted at once into the cart; and I, calculating that with Joaquim the driver, Mr Wowski, and Gingham himself, there were now quite passengers enough by that conveyance, turned Sancho's head, and followed Coosey—who led the way across the stream, mounted on one horse, and leading another, while the cart brought up the rear. The cart, it appears, on reaching the island, stuck fast. Its wheels cut into the loose gravel; and there was no remedy, except for the passengers to alight. The wheels were then lifted by main force; and, time having been given for the whole party to remount, Joaquim drove on, and the remainder of the passage was effected. All those who had started from the opposite bank then got out, with one exception. Where was Gingham? My attention was first attracted by an angry shout from Coosey:

"You Joe King, you precious willain, vhy, if you han't a-been and left your master a-standin on the highland!"

To a geologist like Gingham, the loose stones of the bank of gravel, shoved up by the force of the water from the depths of the stream, presented an attraction which banished every other thought from his mind. He had commenced picking up specimens the moment he alighted from the cart; and was so intent upon this pursuit, that he suffered the party to proceed without him. How they came to leave him behind can only be explained by supposing that each, as soon as he remounted, was occupied by the portion of the passage—it was ticklish work—that remained to be effected, and therefore began looking out ahead.

The moment Coosey spoke, I looked toward the island, and there, sure enough, was Gingham, still intent on stone-picking, and, to all appearance, utterly unconscious that the cart had left. The river, meanwhile, had risen considerably. Its course was more turbid and violent, its murmur louder and more continuous, and the island already smaller. We shouted to Gingham—there was need to shout. He looked up, and at once became aware of his position, which was evidently far from eligible. He appeared perfectly cool, but hesitated.

Suddenly, the water came down, in a sort of bank. It was less than a foot high; but the rise left Gingham with much less ground to stand upon, in the midst of the boiling flood. Large trunks of trees, plunging and careering, were now brought rapidly[Pg 675] down the current; while the rush of the waters was like the roar of receding billows on a storm-vexed strand. Coosey was about to dash into the flood, which swept by the bank, boiling like a mill-stream. Had I not stopped him, the plucky little Londoner would soon have been carried away, prone and struggling on the angry torrent. He then sprang into the cart; but Gingham made signs to prohibit the attempt, or both cart and Coosey would probably have been lost. In our agony we tore off the cords from the boxes, tied them together, and fastened the end to a large stone, which Coosey attempted to pitch towards Gingham. It fell near him; but out of his reach, in deep water. While we were cautiously hauling it in, down came another freshet. The island was now in great part submerged; and Gingham stood on a mere strip of shingle, with the flood roaring down on each side. The stone was pitched again; and this time went truer than before, but was at once carried off into the deep water below. I again began to haul the line home. It had caught, and wouldn't come in. What could be done? Gingham, I really feared, was a lost man!

Down came another bank of water. Gingham had now scarcely standing-room. The water rushed rapidly by him, and I began to fear he might not long have a footing. At this critical moment, the trunk of a tree, with most of its branches broken off, but here and there a small bough still remaining, came right down towards Gingham, shearing, surging on the tumultuous waters, hung for a moment on the shallow, and then began moving on again with the current. Gingham stooped forward to seize it—he did well, it was his only hope—but lost his feet. He threw himself astride the timber, like Waterton on the crocodile's back, and was borne off from the island, still retaining his hold, though turned over and over by the violence of the current. I saw no hope. What could prevent his being carried away? Yet there was still a possibility of escape, though unforeseen. The trunk, carried a few yards down, was caught by an eddy, and swung round into the slack water below, where the current was broken by the bank on which Gingham had just been standing. There the huge log began slowly moving round in a circle, first ascending in a direction opposite to the stream, then descending again. On reaching the lowest point of the circle, the trunk, with Gingham upon it, was again caught by an eddy, and twirled round like a spindle; then, with solemn movement, began gradually to ascend again, describing the same circle as before. This second time, though, in going down, it reached a lower point ere it was again caught and twirled, by which law, it was clear, the third time it would go with the current. Manfully did Gingham still hold on, though so often under water; and now, for the third time, he and his log began slowly to move in an ascending orbit. A third time he reached the highest point; and a third time, to all appearance the last, he began—I often dream of it—to go down with the stream! We had given up all hope. Joaquim stood wringing his hands; Coosey was like a man distracted; even the crippled soldiers would gladly have given their aid, had any devisable expedient presented itself. There was no visible alternative; this time he must be carried away!—What's that? Something stirred at my feet! I looked down. There was again a little movement. The rope twitched, as if beginning to run out! My foot was on it, in an instant. The next, I and Coosey held it fast. The tree, in moving round and round, had fished hold, and disengaged it from the catch. "Pull away, pull away!" shouted the soldiers.—"Now run him up to the bank."—"Now's your time."—"Make haste!"

"Steady, Coosey, steady," said I. "Take time, or we shall loosen the hitch, perhaps break the rope."

We did not pull. We merely held on. The log and Gingham swung to the bank.

He was silent, almost exhausted. It was well there were hands to drag him ashore; for he was too far spent to land himself. Awhile he sat motionless on the bank. With eyes uplifted, and lips moving inaudibly, he was apparently returning fervent[Pg 676] and heartfelt thanks to heaven, for his all but miraculous deliverance. Coosey, meanwhile, had rushed for some brandy, which he administered with great apparent benefit.

"Hadn't we better take you to the nearest cottage?" said I. "Here's one at hand."

"No, no," replied Gingham, gasping. "Get me into the cart."

We lifted him in. Coosey then let down the tarpaulin, and assisted his master in a thorough change of garments from head to foot. Presently, with solemn look, and an air of authority, Coosey got down from the cart.

"It's master's vishes," said he, "to be left, jist for a few minits, alone by his-self."

Gingham ere long made his appearance, shifted and dry; and, though still looking shakey and exhausted, remounted his horse. When I once saw him fairly across the saddle, and just as we were about to proceed, I turned with vindictive, with savage exultation, to take a parting view of the angry torrent. The island had disappeared. Where Gingham had stood there was now a small race of swift-following rollers, which subsided, below the ledge, in tumultuous undulations and foaming eddies, around a dark, deep fissure in the flood, which gaped like a grave. Ha! Is it so? The hungry waters yawn for their rescued prey, and brawl forth their disappointment in a lengthened moan! We continued our march.

"And as to electricity," said Gingham, resuming where he broke off, "it may, when hail is generated, be disengaged by the process, I admit. But that it is in any way the medium of producing the hail, I strenuously deny. Hail is sufficiently accounted for by the supposition of a current of cold air passing rapidly through warm air charged with vapour; and the same theory will solve all the phenomena."

To which theory I, not being so deep in the subject as Gingham, urged no objections. I remarked, however, that Mr Wowski, professedly a man of science, manifested not the least interest in the question; did not appear to have even an idea on the subject, let alone an opinion. In the late critical scene at the ford, though, he was eminently conspicuous; and, as far as skipping about, shrieking, and getting in the way, his assistance was invaluable.

We lost the little botanist sooner than we expected. A mail—joyful event!—arrived from England; and I was sent to the "Post Office" for our departmental letters. This was not part of my regular duty; but on the occasion in question I received express directions, and went accordingly. Found the post office, a cottage with a front garden. I could but admire the diligent and active exertions to meet the general anxiety of the army, by sorting and delivering the contents of the mail with the least possible delay. The whole lot, say three or four bushels, had been shot out in the middle of the room on the earthen floor. Newspapers, love letters, officers' letters, soldiers' letters, there they lay, and there they were left to lie. In the apartment were two persons, perhaps I ought to say personages. One sat on each side of the hearth; each had torn open a newspaper; and both were conning the news from England. I never saw two people more comfortable in my life. When I entered, neither of them raised his eyes, or took the least notice. They read on. I waited. Still they read. I so far presumed as to announce my mission—had come for the departmental letters. Paused for a reply—stood expectant. At length one of the illustrious two favoured me with an utterance, in a tone somewhat querulous though, and without looking off from his reading—"Three o'clock."

"What, gentlemen!" thought I, "only four hours hence? Why, at this rate, hadn't you better say three o'clock to-morrow?"

So thinking, (not saying,) I walked off. Just as I was going, the one who had not spoken rose. He followed me out, and came on walking by my side down the path toward the garden gate. I really was green enough to fancy he was doing the polite—seeing me to the entrance; felt quite overwhelmed. Any approach, at headquarters to "the sweet courtesies of life"—it was something new! I began to deprecate—hoped he wouldn't. "Pray, sir, don't come a[Pg 677] step farther. I can mount without assistance—can open the gate for myself." Without vouchsafing a reply, he began questioning.

"Know Mr Wowski?"

"Have known him for the last few days."

"What is he?"

"He professes himself a botanist, a man of science."

"What does he want at headquarters?"

"He states his object to be botanical research."

"States, you say; professes. Isn't he really a botanist?"

This was an awkward question, for I was beginning to have my doubts. I remained silent.

"You must answer."

"For the last two or three days I have felt it a question, I confess."

"Why?"

"He collects specimens, but doesn't preserve or arrange them. At dinner time he brings home a bundle of common herbs or grasses, which, next morning, he throws away. Then goes out again, and brings home another bundle like it. Don't think he knows much about botany."

"What's your opinion of him?"

"Have hardly known him long enough to form one. He seems decidedly, though, to have a military taste; takes great interest in the movements of the troops."

"Fond of going up steeples?"

"When we enter a place, I believe he makes that his first object; at least, whenever there is a steeple to the church."

"Ever see him making signals?"

"Never noticed anything of the kind."

"Know anything more about him?"

"He brought letters of introduction"—

"Oh, yes; I know all about that. Ever met him before you joined?"

"Can't say. First time we met at headquarters, thought I had heard his voice."

"Where?"

"On our way up with treasure, we were opposed by the peasantry in passing the ferry at—"

"Yes, yes; I know. See him with them?"

"No; I heard a voice, though, which I afterwards thought was very like his."

"Then you didn't see him with them next day, I suppose, when they wounded the officer of your escort?"

"I saw nothing of him then; wasn't near enough to distinguish individuals."

"Oh, I suppose you don't use spectacles. Very well. Say nothing about this."

My questioner then returned to the cottage. He didn't say good morning; and, till I missed him from my side, I wasn't aware of his departure. Then, looking round, I saw him quietly opening the door and going in. Mr Wowski didn't come back to dinner, and we saw him no more. Whether he was arrested, or merely advised to botanise elsewhere, I never knew.

Following the movements of the army from place to place, we approached at length the banks of the Garonne, and the neighbourhood of Toulouse. We now halted for some days at the village of Seysses, where, better off than many of my fellow-campaigners, I enjoyed the luxury of a most enviable bed. On the earthen floor of my apartment was arranged a small stack of faggots. This was the bedstead. On the faggots was spread a lot of worn-out sacking, old clothes, and equally ancient blankets, which, with a very clean pair of sheets, constituted my bed. The first night, I was settling off for a snooze, when a commotion, like a small earthquake, disturbed my prima quies. Something was stirring, immediately under me! What can it be? Why, I can feel it! It's in the bed! What's that again? A mixture of squeaking and scrambling! Oh, rats. They had burrowed through the floor, had established themselves in the faggots, had eaten into the bedding, and there held their midnight revels. There they lived and bred, squeaked and grunted, wriggled and fought, scurried and cuddled, close under the sheet, undulating the whole surface of the bed. Presuming that they would let me alone if I let them alone, I again composed myself to sleep; and, so well was the truce kept on both sides,[Pg 678] I had them every night for my bed-fellows. If the tumblification became intolerable, I had only to move, and in a moment all was hushed. When I was still, they stirred; but when I stirred, they were still.

Our last halting place, before we fought the battle of Toulouse, was Grenade, a small town, or large village, a few leagues below the scene of combat, on the left bank of the Garonne. Come, I'll just give you a short account of my entertainment in one more billet, and then we'll rush into the thick of the fight. Approaching Grenade, with the mingled multitude that follow an army, I was met by a French gentleman, who immediately addressed me, and entered into conversation like an old acquaintance. That's the best of the French. In five minutes we were intimate. He was a tall, hearty fellow, in age about five-and-twenty, with rosy cheeks, curly hair, broad shoulders, and prodigious development of the poitrine. Begged to know who and what I was—my age, name, rank, and family. Were my parents living? Had I brothers? A sister? Was I married or unmarried? Had I any intentions? Ever felt the tender passion? What was my pay par mois? Vilinton or Bonaparte, which did I consider the greater general? Ever fought a duel? Were the English merry or tristes? How did I like the French? But the French ladies? Which excelled in female beauty, France or England? Been in many battles? Was I Torrie or Ouigge? Would I accept of a billet in his ménage? By this time my inquisitive friend had turned, and we were walking on together towards Grenade. On our arrival there, he knocked at the door of a great stack of a house in the market-place. In five minutes Sancho was nuzzling a feed of oats in the stable, I was stropping and lathering in an elegant bedroom, and my servant was making love to Cookey in the kitchen. The fact is, when the news arrived that the English were walking in, my new friend had walked out, to secure an inmate to his mind, and I was the fortunate individual. The Parisians ridicule provincials, and so do the Cockneys. But let me tell both Cockneys and Parisians, they have nothing to boast above the rural gentry whom they respectively despise, in good breeding, in refinement, in cultivation, in bonhomie, in gentility, in anything that constitutes a dignified, simple, and likeable character. Happy family! Here, in one house, living together, and happy together, kind, hospitable, loving, and beloved, resided an aged father, a venerable mother, a charming daughter, three strapping sons—one married, with his lively little titbit of a wife, the pet of the household—two single, of whom my friend was the senior. There they dwelt together, in domestic harmony and peace. Yet there too, in that tranquil domicile, sorrow had found an entrance. A son was missing. It was the old story; you couldn't travel through France in those days, without hearing it a hundred times repeated. He had entered the army—entered Spain—and no one knew what had become of him. The family supper—what a meeting of friends, what a cheerful reunion! Each treated the other with marked attention and kindness, as though they were then first met after a long separation. The lady of the house, "madame," advanced in years, but sharp, quick, cheerful, and conversable, demanded from me a reply to the oft-repeated interrogatory, which were fairer, the English fair or the French. I tried to evade it. "No, no," said every voice at table; "Madame has asked. Monsieur must reply."—"Most willingly would I obey," said I, bowing till my nose touched the tablecloth; "but in your presence, madame, how can I decide without prepossession?" (prévention?) This compliment addressed to a dame of sixty-five, with gray hairs, and nothing of beauty but its vestiges, you will of course say was absurd, extravagant, and perfectly out of place. In England, I grant, it would be. But there, in France, where a compliment paid is a benefit conferred, and where civility, like a gift amongst ourselves, is always accepted as a token of goodwill, it was viewed with favour, and received with gratitude. The company, tickled, but delighted, raised a shout of applause; and madame herself, smirking and twinkling, made her acknowledgments[Pg 679] with courtly elegance, as though I had conferred an obligation; while her lovely daughter, exclaiming, "Ah, maman!" flung her arms about her neck, with eyes full of tenderness and delight. In short, I was one of the family. In a week I quitted them with regret. The old gentleman made me a parting present of cigars; a small token of gratitude, he was kind enough to say, for the pleasure of my company; and that after I had been hospitably lodged, handsomely entertained, and fèted from first to last as if every day had been a jubilee.

Those cigars! Oh, those cigars! I never smoked the like of those cigars! They beat General Thouvenot's out of the field. They were at least three years old—nearer two pounds of them than one. You may have smoked a good cigar. You may have smoked an old cigar. But these united the two qualities; they were both old and good. The military son had brought them with him from Spain, and left them on his return to the army. The gift of them to me, then, implied a melancholy sentiment; he could not want them. This was expressed by the father, in making the present. It was touching—it was perfectly French. They had one fault, only one; a fault from which no old cigars are free. They were gone too soon; they burned out like tinder. But oh! while they were burning, how shall I describe the sensation! Sensation? It was more than that; it was mental elevation; a vision, a trance, a transfer to the regions of hope, imagination, and enchantment. Every-day nature became prismatic. Matter-of-fact sparkled with variegated lamps. Pledget might have smoked, and fancied himself a poet. Each cigar a tranquillising stimulant, a volatile anodyne, excited, and while it excited soothed, every faculty of the soul; fancy, sentiment, recollection, anticipation, and stern resolve. But ah, my cigar is out! A few puffs have sufficed! Too soon, too soon, it begins to burn my nose! Its last, its dying odours are hurried away by the envious breeze; and the visions which they inspired are gone like a beautiful dream!

A MONTH AT CONSTANTINOPLE.[3]

Books of travel in the region which modern tourists particularly designate as "the East," and which may be considered to comprise Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, do not, as a class, very forcibly challenge our sympathy and criticism. The best horse may be ridden to death; and no country, however rich in associations and peculiar in its characteristics, however remarkable in configuration and interesting by its traditions, can yield continual fresh pastures to literary travellers, when they descend upon it like a swarm of locusts instead of dropping in at reasonable intervals. Time must be allowed for change and reproduction, or repetition and exhaustion will be the inevitable result. The East, moreover, as a theme for book-wrights, has not only been overdone, but, in many instances, very badly done. People have gone thither with the preconceived idea of publishing, on the strain for the marvellous, the romantic, and the picturesque; and, disdaining the common-sense course of setting down what they saw and giving their real and natural impressions, they have gilt and embellished, like a coach-painter at a sheriff's carriage, till they forced upon us the conviction that they cared more for glitter than for truth. Some, piquing themselves on diplomatic acumen, have filled their volumes with politics, and settled all manner of Eastern questions much to their own satisfaction, and greatly to the weariness of their readers; and these form perhaps the most intolerable of the many classes into which Oriental travellers are subdivisible, but which we shall not here further enumerate, preferring to turn to the examination[Pg 680] of the latest Eastern tour that has issued from the English press and found its way to our critical sanctum.

Mr Albert Smith's name, well known within sound of Bow-bells, is far from unfamiliar to a large circle of dwellers without that populous circumference. We cannot affirm that we have read all his numerous works, but with some of them we are acquainted, and we are disposed to think him one of the most amiable and praiseworthy of the school of popular humorists to which he belongs. His jokes are invariably good-humoured and inoffensive—without being on that account deficient in point. He does not wrap radicalism up in fun, as cunning grandmothers envelop sickly drugs with marmalade; nor has his flow of gaiety a sour and mischievous under-current. Neither does he belong to the gang of facetious philanthropists whose sympathies are so exclusively granted to the indigent and miserable, that they have nothing left but gall and bitterness for those of their fellow-creatures who wear a decent coat, and have the price of a dinner in its pocket. A gentleman of most versatile ability, he is by turns dramatist, journalist, essayist, naturalist, novelist, correspondent of a London paper, critic of the ballet, a writer of songs and a manufacturer of burlesque. Such a host of occupations naturally entails the necessity of a little relaxation; and accordingly, in the summer of last year, Mr Smith laid down his pen, shook the sawdust from his buskins, and started for the Mediterranean. As far as Malta we have not ascertained how it fared with him, but of his subsequent proceedings he has informed us in a volume which we had little idea of reviewing when first we learned its expected appearance, but whose perusal has convinced us that it deserves such brief notice as the crowded state of our pages in these busy days will permit us to bestow upon it. We have already implied our opinion that it takes a skilful hand to write an amusing book on so hackneyed a text as a visit to Constantinople. Mr Smith has surmounted the difficulty in an easy and natural manner; and, whilst telling things just as they appeared to him, without affectation or adornment, he has contrived to give an agreeable freshness and originality to a subject which we really deemed threadbare and exhausted.

It was on board the Scamandre, French Mediterranean mail-steamer, that Mr Albert Smith left Malta on an August evening of the year 1849, bound for Constantinople. The weather was fine and the sea smooth as a lake, and there could be no reasonable apprehension of shipwreck even for the crazy French vessel, whose last voyage, save on rivers or along coast, this was intended to be. But although somewhat rickety, of very moderate speed, and not particularly clean externally, the interior accommodations of the Scamandre were by no means bad. And the cabin passengers presented an amusing medley of nations and characters. There were French milliners, striving to pass themselves off as governesses, an elderly French actress from the St James's theatre, a brace of Marseilles bagmen, an enterprising Englishman bent upon smuggling muskets into Hungary, a young Irish officer who had thrown up his commission in the British service to campaign with Bem and Kossuth, and who must have arrived at his destination just as the war reached its end. There was also Mr Sophocles, an intelligent Greek professor from an American university, on his way home after twenty years' absence, and sundry persons unnamed, making about twenty in all, and Mr Smith himself, who, we venture to say, was not the least active and efficient in beguiling the tedium of a week's voyage in a slow steamboat, and who gives us an extremely amusing account of his fellow-passengers and their proceedings. Travelling quite as a citizen of the world, without pretension or care for luxuries, now footing it across the Alps with knapsack on shoulder, then a deck passenger from Genoa to Naples, availing himself of the smooth when it offered, but taking the rough readily when it came, sleeping sometimes on boards for want of a bed, with the knapsack aforesaid for a pillow—Mr Smith seems to have carried through the whole of his ramble those best of travelling companions, imperturbable good humour, and a determination to[Pg 681] be pleased with everything and everybody. It is accordingly with all possible indulgence that he views the little foibles of his fellow-passengers per Scamandre, and there is not an atom of acid in the dry humour with which he parades them for the entertainment of his readers. Indeed, before the week's voyage is over, we begin to feel quite intimate with the motley company—to view with indulgence Mademoiselle Virginie's barefaced flirtations with the French commissary, and to sympathise with the good-tempered American, who, having had the misfortune to engage his berth in the first-class cabin—a sort of extra-magnificent place, whose chief distinction from the second class consists, as on German railways, in a heavy additional charge—preferred now and then dining with the less aristocratic inmates of the second cabin, "to know what was going on." There is no place like shipboard for betraying people's habits and peculiarities: everybody is more or less in deshabille; and such a group as that on the Scamandre is a mine to a shrewd observer. Mr Smith kept his eyes and ears wide open, as is his wont, and little escaped him. We select the following specimen of his strictures on foreign habits.

"I should be very sorry to class foreigners, generally, as a dirty set of people when left to themselves; but I fear there is too much reason to suppose that (in how many cases out of ten I will refrain from saying) a disrelish for a good honest plunging wash is one of their chief attributes. It requires but very little experience, in even their best hotels, to come to this conclusion. I do not mean in those houses where an influx of English has imposed the necessity of providing large jugs, baths, and basins; but in the equally leading establishments patronised chiefly by themselves. In these, one still perceives the little pie-dish and milk-jug, the scanty doily-looking towel, and the absence of a soap dish; whilst it would be perfectly futile to ask for anything further. So, on board the Scamandre, this opinion was not weakened. They dipped a corner of a little towel, not in the basin, but in the stream that trickled from the cistern as slowly as vinegar from any oyster-shop cruet, and dabbed their face about with it. Then they messed about a little with their hands; and then, having given a long time to brushing their hair, they had a cigarette instead of a tooth brush, and their toilet was complete. This description does not only apply to the Scamandre passengers, but to the majority of their race, whom I afterwards encountered about the Mediterranean."

We have a vivid recollection of the consternation of an amiable and numerous French family, in whose house a friend of ours once was domiciled, on finding that he each morning required, for his personal use, more fresh water than sufficed for their entire daily consumption, internal and external. Doubtless the worthy people indulged, every eight days or so, in a warm bath; but they had no notion of such a thing as diurnal ablutions above the waist or below the chin, and they shrugged and grinned monstrously at the eccentricity of the Englishman who commenced the day by a general sluice, whereas they rarely thought of washing even their fingers till they dressed for their ante-prandial promenade. And when our friend was laid up, some time later, with a smart twinge of gout, provoked by too liberal use of a very different liquid from water, the entire family, from the elderly father down to the youngest of the precocious juveniles, gave it as their unqualified opinion, that the ailment proceeded from their inmate's rash and obstinate indulgence in the ungenial and, in their opinion, extremely superfluous element.

"Athens in six hours," Mr Smith observes, is rather quick work; but he nevertheless found he could see in that time nearly as much of it as he wished. The Scamandre allowed but a day, and certainly he made good use of the brief halt. At Athens, as in Switzerland and on the Rhine, he found the ubiquitous Murray's Handbook the great authority and certificate of the native competitors for custom. A skirmish with clubs and boat-hooks—the former brought evidently in anticipation of the contest—took place amongst the fancy-ball-looking boatmen, in white petticoats and scarlet leggings, who crowded in light skiffs round the foot of the steamer's ladder. In the intervals of the fight a dialogue was carried on in English, more or less broken.

[Pg 682]

"'I say, sir! here, sir! Hotel d'Orient is the best. Here's the card, sir—old palace—Murray says ver good,' cried one of the costumes.

"'Hi!' screamed another; 'don't go with him, master—too dear! Come with me?'

"The parties were immediately engaged in single combat.

"'Hotel d'Angleterre à Athènes, tenu par Elias Polichronopulos et Yani Adamopulos,' shouted another, all in a breath. I copy the names from the card he gave me, for they were such as no one could remember.

"'Yes, sir; good hotel,' said his companion. 'Look in Murray, sir—page 24—there, sir; here, sir; look, sir!'

"'Who believes Murray?' asked a fellow in plain clothes, with a strong Irish accent.

"'You would, if he put your house in the Handbook,' replied another."

By considerable display of mental and physical energy, a few of the passengers at last got into a boat and gained the quay of the Piræus. Grog's-shop was written on the shutter of a petty coffee-house, and a smart-looking Albanian stepped up, and proffered his services in excellent English. He had lived in London, he said: was a subject of Queen Victoria, and had the honour of being set down in Murray, page 25. With such recommendations, who could refuse the guidance of Demetri Pomorn? Not Mr Smith and his party, evidently, for they immediately engaged him for the day, hired a shabby vehicle from an adjacent cab-stand, and started on their hot and dusty road to Athens, thence about five miles distant. There they killed the lions, ate quince ices, bought Latakia tobacco, dined at the Hotel d'Orient à l'Anglaise, with Harvey sauce and pale ale, off English plates and dishes, and pulled on board again at night, to the tune of Jim Crow, played by an Anglified violin in one of the "grog's-shops" aforesaid. At five in the morning sleep was at an end, thanks to the clanking, stamping, and bawling upon the steamer's deck, and Mr Smith left the cabin, to reconnoitre and breathe fresh air. Some deck passengers had come on board at Athens; amongst others, a poor Albanian family, bound to Smyrna to pack figs. They were miserable, broken-spirited looking people, but picturesque in spite of their poverty; a melon or two and some coarse bread composed their entire stores for the voyage. This, however, was of no great duration, for at daybreak the next morning the passengers per Scamandre were told they were off Smyrna.

"It was very pleasant to hear this—to be told that the land I saw close to us was Asia, and that the distant slender spires that rose from the thickly clustered houses were minarets—that I should have twelve hours to go on shore, and see real camels, fig-trees, scheiks, and veiled women! And yet I could scarcely persuade myself that such was the case—that the distant Smyrna—of which I had only heard, in the Levant mail, as a remote place, burnt down once a-year, where figs came from—was actually within a good stone's throw of the steamer."

The travellers' expectations were more than realised. "I do not believe," says Mr Smith, "that throughout the future journey any impressions were conveyed more vivid than those we experienced during our first half hour in the bazaars of the sunny, bustling, beauty-teeming Smyrna." The appearance of a party of foreigners, and of the well-known face of the valet-de-place, caused a stir amongst the dealers, one of whom accosted Mr Smith in good English.

"'How d'ye do, sir; very well? that's right. Look here, sir; beautiful musk purse; very fine smell. Ten piastres.'

"A piastre is worth twopence and a fraction.

"'How did you learn to speak English so well?' I asked.

"'All English gentlemen come to me, sir,' he said, 'and I learn it from the ships, and from the Americans. Shake hands, sir; that's right. Buy the purse, sir?

"'How much is it?' asked one of our party.

"'Six piastres,' replied the brother of the merchant, who also spoke English, but had not heard the first price.

"'And you asked me ten!' I said to the other.

"'So I did, sir,' he replied with a laugh; 'then, if I get the other four, that's my profit—eh? But what's four piastres to an English gentleman?—nothing. It's too little for him to know about. Come—buy the purse. What will you give?'

"'Five piastres,' I answered.

"'It is yours,' he added directly, with a hearty laugh, throwing it to me.

[Pg 683]

"'What a merry fellow you are!' I observed.

"'Yes, sir; I laugh always; very good to laugh. English gentlemen like to laugh, I know; laugh very well. Look at his turban—laugh at that.'

"He directed our attention to an old Turk, who was going by with a most ludicrous and towering head-dress. It was diverting to find him making fun of his compatriot."

The mode of dealing, which in Christian Europe is stigmatised as Jewish—the system, namely, of asking thrice the value and twice what the seller means to take—is received, and by no means discreditable, in Turkish bazaars. The only way to purchase in such places, without being imposed upon, is at once to offer half the price demanded. This is met with a refusal; you walk away, the merchant calls you back, and you then offer him twenty per cent less than before. This plan Mr Smith, having picked up experience at Smyrna, put in practice at Constantinople, and generally found to answer.

Fig-packing, camels, and the slave-market are the three things which at Smyrna first attract the curiosity of the traveller from the West. Of the first-named, Mr Smith gives us a picturesque account. In the shade of a long alley of acacia and fig trees the packers were seated—Greeks by nation, and the women very handsome. "They first brought the figs from the warehouses, on the floor of which I saw hundreds of bushels, brought in on camels from the country. They were then pulled into shape, this task being confided to females; and after that sent on to the men who packed them. They gathered six or seven, one after the other, in their hand, and then wedged them into the drum, putting a few superior ones on the top, as we have seen done with strawberries." We have already mentioned that our sharp-sighted and lively traveller is somewhat of a naturalist, and here he favours us with the result of his observations upon the camel. That uncouth, but useful hunchback has been belauded and vaunted in prose and verse to such an exaggerated extent that we are quite tired of hearing of his virtues, and feel much indebted to the author of A Month at Constantinople for exhibiting his failings after the following fashion:—

"Your camel is a great obtainer of pity, under false pretence. He can be as self-willed and vicious as you please; and his bite is particularly severe: when once his powerful teeth have fastened, it is with the greatest difficulty that he is made to relinquish his hold. The pitiful noise too, which he makes, as small natural historians remark, upon being overladen, is all sham. It proceeds from sheer idleness, rather than a sense of oppression. With many camels, if you make pretence to put a small object on their back—a tile or a stone, for instance—whilst they are kneeling down, they begin mechanically to bellow, and blink their eyes, and assume such a dismal appearance of suffering and anguish, that it is perfectly painful for susceptible natures to regard them. And yet, when their load is well distributed and packed, they can move along under seven hundredweight."

But we must get on to Constantinople. Often as the magnificent spectacle has been described that bursts upon the view as you round Seraglio Point and glide into the Golden Horn, it yet would seem affected or eccentric of a traveller who writes about Constantinople were he to neglect recording the impression made upon him by that singularly lovely panorama. Mr Albert Smith's description is to the purpose, and we like it the better for the complete absence of that magniloquence in which so many tourists have indulged when discoursing upon the beauties of Stamboul. Probably no city in the world presents so great a contrast as Constantinople, when seen from a short distance and when examined in detail. Floating on the blue waters of the Bosphorus, the wondering stranger gazes upon a fairy spectacle of domes, and minarets, and cypress groves, of graceful palaces and stately mosques, gilded wherries and gaily-attired crowds. A few minutes elapse: the grave custom-house officials in their handsome barge have received the sixpenny bribe which exempts his luggage from examination; he lands at the Tophanné Stairs, and enters the steep lane that leads up to Pera, and in an instant the illusion is dissipated:—

"I felt," says Mr Smith, who readily avails himself, and in this instance very[Pg 684] happily, of a theatrical comparison, "that I had been taken behind the scenes of a great 'effect.' The Constantinople of Vauxhall Gardens, a few years ago, did not differ more, when viewed in front from the gallery and behind from the dirty little alleys bordering the river. The miserable, narrow, ill-paved thoroughfare did not present one redeeming feature—even of picturesque dreariness. The roadway was paved with all sorts of ragged stones, jammed down together without any regard to level surface; and encumbered with dead rats, melon-rinds, dogs, rags, brickbats, and rubbish, that had fallen through the mules' baskets, as they toiled along it. The houses were of wood—old and rotten; and bearing traces of having been once painted red. There was, evidently, never any attempt made to clean them, or their windows or doorways. Here and there, where a building had been burnt, or had tumbled down, all the ruins remained as they had fallen. Even the better class of houses had an uncared-for, mouldy, plague-imbued, decaying look about them; with grimy lattices instead of windows, on the upper stories, and dilapidated shutters and doors on the ground-floors."

It will have occurred to many, acquainted with the scenes portrayed, to exclaim, when gazing upon the bright pictures of a David Roberts, a Leopold Robert, or a Villamil, "What a deal of dirt is hidden under all that gay colouring!" It will not do for the artist to look too closely into the details of southern cleanliness and domestic economy; he must elevate his subject and wash off the dirt, or at least paint over it. Constantinople must be viewed as a panorama, not investigated as if for sale. If he would preserve the enchantment unbroken, the spectator must keep his distance, as from a picture painted for distant effect. If he will not do this, if curiosity impels him onwards, let him make up his eyes and olfactories to a cruel disappointment. A minute ago, fairyland was spread before him; he lands, and stumbles over a dead dog. Touching dogs, by the bye, we have a word to say. Mr Smith has numerous passages relating to that quadruped, esteemed in Christendom, abominable in Constantinople. Having once, he informs us, been severely bitten by a hound, and having, moreover, seen several persons die of hydrophobia, he entertains a very justifiable mistrust of the canine race, or at least of such of its specimens as present themselves with slavering mouths, inflamed eyes, guttural yells, and hides ragged and bloody. Now, this being the habitual appearance and bearing of the eighty-thousand pugnacious and starving curs that infest the streets of the Turkish capital, Mr Smith, had he been a nervous person, would have passed rather an agreeable "month in Constantinople." With a paper lantern in one hand, however, and a jagged stone in the other—the usual weapons of defence—he prosecuted his wanderings most courageously, at almost any hour of the night, through the filth-strewn and dog-haunted streets. His first introduction to these pleasant animals was auricular; and truly, compared to their uproar, a German frog-swamp or a strong party of Christmas waits, jangling a negro melody in defiance of time and tune, must be considered a delightful réveil-matin.

"To say that if all the sheep-dogs going to Smithfield on a market-day had been kept on the constant bark, and pitted against the yelping curs upon all the carts in London, they could have given any idea of the canine uproar that now first astonished me, would be to make the feeblest of images. The whole city rung with one vast riot. Down below me at Tophanné—over at Stamboul—far away at Scutari—the whole eighty thousand dogs that are said to overrun Constantinople appeared engaged in the most active extermination of each other, without a moment's cessation. The yelping, howling, barking, growling, and snarling, were all merged into one uniform and continuous even sound, as the noise of frogs becomes when heard at a distance. For hours there was no lull. I went to sleep, and woke again; and still, with my windows open, I heard the same tumult going on; nor was it until daybreak that anything like tranquillity was restored."

The traces of these nocturnal combats are plainly discernible the next morning. There is not a whole skin in the entire canine legion; some have lost eyes, others ears, some a collop of the little flesh that remains on their unfortunate bones, and all bear the scars of desperate conflicts. They keep an active look-out for dead horses and camels, and are even said[Pg 685] to devour their defunct comrades; but there is no authenticated account of their making a meal of a human being, although a story is current in Galata of their having one night torn down a tipsy English sailor, and left nothing but his bones to tell the tale in the morning. Drunkards, however, must expect to go to the dogs. Mr Smith kept sober, and carried a lantern. Solely to these two precautions, perhaps, are we to-day indebted for the pleasure of reading his book, instead of mourning his interment in the ravenous stomachs of Mahomedan mongrels.

It can hardly have escaped the observation of any one who has travelled at all, that the presence of even a very few English settlers in a town or district, speedily entails the establishment of "the English shop." The keeper of this is not necessarily an Englishman; he may be of any nation—Pole, Jew, Frenchman, German; the essential is, that he should have a smattering of English and a trader's knowledge of the heterogeneous articles which, in foreign estimation, are indispensable to the existence of Englishmen. Foremost amongst these are beer and pickles, mustard and cayenne, Warren's blacking and Windsor soap, the pills of Professor Holloway, the kalydor of the world-renowned Rowland. Thanks to the extraordinary power of puffing, we dare to say that the paletot of Sheriff Nicoll by this time finds its nook in "the English shop." The growth of these philanthropical depots for the consolation of exiled Britons is often miraculously mushroom-like. Land an English regiment to occupy a menaced point on some distant foreign shore, and within the week "the shop" appears, though it be but a booth with a hamper of porter and a dozen pickle pots for sole stock in trade. In Constantinople, where English abound, either as residents or birds of passage, Stampa is a celebrity. The admirable establishment of Galignani is not more famed for books and newspapers—and especially for that far-famed Messenger, which reaches to the uttermost ends of the earth—than is the shop of Stampa as a rendezvous and receptacle for men and things English. There you may buy everything, from a Stilton to a cake of soap, from a solar lamp to a steel pen; and there obtain all manner of information, from the address of a Galata[4] merchant to the sailing hour of a steamer. Nay, should you be weary of kebobs and craving for a beefsteak, Stampa will provide it you. He did so at least for Mr Smith; but perhaps that gentleman was a favoured customer, as he seems indeed to have found means of rendering himself at more than one place during his ramble.

At Constantinople, as at Smyrna, Mr Smith visited the slave market. There is a volume in the word, and we all know the sort of phantasmagoria it summons up for the benefit of English ladies and gentlemen, as they sit at home at ease, dandling their fancies by the chimney corner. Exeter Hall and the picture shops have made slave-markets of their own, compared to which the reality is a tame and spiritless affair. We are all familiar, at a proper distance, with that group of young ladies, more or[Pg 686] less nude, and of every tint—from the pale Georgian to the sable Ethiop—huddled together in great alarm and the most graceful attitudes, whilst a shawled and jewelled Turk scans their perfections with licentious eye, and counts gold into the palm of a truculent dealer in human flesh. None of us but have been painfully affected by representations, both printed and pictorial, of whips and manacles, fettered hands and striped shoulders, kneeling negroes and barbarous taskmasters, whereby tender-hearted gentlemen are moved to unbutton their pockets, and philanthropical ladies of excitable nerve, overlooking the misery that is often close to their doors, are set sewing flannels for remote blacks. We have all seen this sort of thing, and have been interested and touched accordingly. But Mr Smith, in the most unfeeling manner, robs us of our illusions, so far, at least, as Smyrna or Constantinople are concerned. In the slave-market at the latter place—where blacks only are exposed, the Circassian and Georgian beauties being secluded in the dealers' houses—he arrived at the conclusion that the creatures he saw wrapped in their blankets and crouching in corners, and in whom sense and feeling were evidently at the very lowest ebb, had much better chance of such happiness as they were capable of enjoying, if sold as slaves than if left to their own savage resources.

"I should be very sorry," he says, "to run against any proper feelings on the subject, but I do honestly believe that if any person of average propriety and right-mindedness were shown these creatures, and told that their lot was to become the property of others, and work in return for food and lodging, he would come to the conclusion it was all they were fit for.... The truth is, that the 'virtuous indignation' side of the question holds out grander opportunities to an author for fine writing than the practical fact. But this style of composition should not always be implicitly relied upon. I knew a man who was said, by certain reviews and literary cliques, to be 'a creature of large sympathies for the poor and oppressed,' because he wrote touching things about them; but who would abuse his wife, and brutally treat his children, and harass his family, and then go and drink until his large heart was sufficiently full to take up the 'man-and-brother' line of literary business, and suggest that a tipsy Chartist was as good as quiet gentleman."

Mr Albert Smith is evidently a hard-hearted person, and we begin to repent of noticing his book. In the same pitiless matter-of-fact manner he continues to tilt at the several articles of our Eastern creed, pressing into his service as a witness Demetri the Second, (not him of Athens, but a Constantinople cicerone,) a terrible fellow for rubbing the romantic lacquer off Turkish manners and customs. After the slaves, the sack and scimitar are disposed of. "Not many executions now," quoth Demetri,—"only English subjects. Here's where they cut the heads off; just here, where these two streets meet, and the body is left here a day or two, and sometimes the dogs get at it." This was rather startling intelligence, until explained. The "English subjects" proved to be emigrants from Malta and the Ionian islands—the greatest scamps in Pera—which is saying no little, for Pera abounds with scamps. At that time, however, there had not been an execution for a whole year past.

"All English gentlemen," continued Demetri, "think they cut off heads every day in Stamboul, and put them, all of a row, on plates at the Seraglio gate. And they think people are always being drowned in the Bosphorus. Not true. I know a fellow who is a dragoman, and shows that wooden shoot which comes from the wall of the Seraglio Point, as the place they slide them down. It is only to get rid of the garden rubbish. Same with lots of other things."

Nothing like travel to dispel prejudice and romance. People are too apt to adopt Byron's notions of the East. To those who would have their eyes opened we recommend the Mediterranean steamers, or, if these would take them too far, they may stay at home and read Mr Smith.

"Travel," such is his advice to the seeker after truth, "with a determination to be only affected by things as they strike you. Swiss girls, St Bernard dogs, Portici fishermen, the Rhine, Nile travelling, and other objects of popular rhapsodies, fearfully deteriorate upon practical acquaintance. Few tourists[Pg 687] have the courage to say that they have been 'bored,' or at least disappointed by some conventional lion. They find that Guide-books, Diaries, Notes, Journals, &c. &c., all copy one from the other in their enthusiasm about the same things; and they shrink from the charge of vulgarity, or lack of mind, did they dare to differ. Artists and writers will study effect rather than graphic truth. The florid description of some modern book of travel is as different to the actual impressions of ninety-nine people out of a hundred—allowing all these to possess average education, perception, and intellect—when painting in their minds the same subject, as the artfully tinted lithograph, or picturesque engraving of the portfolio or annual, is to the faithful photograph."

Mr Smith's concluding chapter, including his lazaretto experiences and departure for Egypt, is very amusing, and he shows up the abuses of the quarantine system, his own annoyances when in sickly durance, and the eccentricities of his Mahometan and Christian fellow-travellers, with spirit and humour. We have good will, but no space, to accompany him further in his peregrinations. An appendix, including estimates of expenses, and various remarks suggested by his recent travelling experience, will be found useful by persons contemplating a similar trip. The general texture of his book is certainly of the slightest; but, as already implied, it pretends not to solidity or to the discussion of grave topics. It is just such a volume as might be composed by the amalgamation of a series of epistles from a lively and fluent letter-writer to friends at home, during a few weeks' ramble and abode in Turkey. If it occasionally reminds us of Cockaigne, its author, we are sure, is too patriotic to be ashamed of his native village, and we have no mind to quarrel with him for the almost exclusively metropolitan character of his tropes and similes, for his frequent reminiscences of London streets and Surrey hills, or for his preference of the sunset seen from "The Cricketers" at Chertsey Bridge, to the same sight from "The little Burial-ground" at Pera. A good result—probably the one he aimed at—of the selection, as points of comparison, of localities more particularly familiar to Londoners, is that he thereby conveys, to those who will doubtless form a very large proportion of his readers, a clear idea of the places he visited and would describe. And his little volume affords evidence of good temper and feeling sufficient to cover a multitude of Cockneyisms.

When reviewing, about two years ago, a volume of rambles[5] in a very different region, we stated our opinion as to the style of illustration appropriate to books of this kind, in which cuts or engravings are most acceptable when they explain scenes and objects that written description, even at great length, would less accurately and clearly place before the reader. Mr Smith is evidently of the same way of thinking. "I have given," he says, "only those illustrations which appeared to be the most characteristic rather than the most imposing." In so doing he has shown judgment, and used to the best advantage the pencils and colour-box, which formed part of the heterogeneous contents of his well-stuffed knapsack. The reader will be more obliged to him for the appropriate and useful little sketches that thickly stud his pages, than for any drawings of greater pretensions, whose introduction the size and price of the volume would have permitted.

[Pg 688]

MADAME SONTAG AND THE OPERA.

It is now between three and four years since the town was startled by intelligence that the Opera House was divided against itself, and that melody and grace were about to take flight from the bottom of the Hay-market to the top of the Garden. In our quality of determined foes to unnecessary changes and theoretical reforms, we received the intelligence regretfully, and so, we have reason to believe, did that very considerable section of the London and provincial public into whose annual calculations of refined enjoyments the Italian Opera largely enters. Without going into the merits of the dispute, which up to this hour we have never heard clearly elucidated, we plainly discerned one thing—namely, that there was discord in the operatic camp; that harmony had abandoned its favourite abode; that managers, musicians, singers, and dancers, were drawing different ways: in short, that the Opera, taking the lead in a fashion that soon afterwards became disagreeably prevalent throughout Europe, was in a state of revolution. With whom the fault lay we knew not, and little cared: all that concerned us was the unpleasant fact that the pleasures of the music-loving multitude, quorum pars sumus, were seriously endangered. It is pretty notorious that, with very rare exceptions, professional votaries of the Muses are capricious, and difficult to deal with. Painters are accused of unpunctuality and improvidence; composers are often idle dogs, fretting impresarios into fevers, as Rossini did Barbaja, and fulfilling their engagements only at the last minute of the eleventh hour, with the polenta smoking on the table;[6] even authors we have heard declared, upon no mean authority, to be queer cattle to guide; but, of all classes whose occupation derives from art[Pg 689] and poetry, none, assuredly, are harder to manage and to please than actors and musicians. From those early days of Opera, when a Lully shivered Cremonas upon the heads of a refractory orchestra, to the recent ones when a Lumley in vain essayed to appease the petulance of a prima donna, and calm the choler of a conductor, the tribulations of managers have been countless as the pebbles on the shore. To judge, indeed, from their own account, few of the penalties so picturesquely set forth in Fox's martyr-book, but would be preferable to ten years' management of a large lyric theatre. Consult the comedians, and we are presented with the reverse of the medal. A manager, we shall be told, is a covetous and Heliogabalian tyrant, fattening upon the toil and talents of the artist; a sort of vampire in a black coat, sucking the blood of genius, faring sumptuously on the proceeds of a tenor, squeezing the cost of his stud out of a soprano, and making large annual investments on the strength of an underpaid barytone. These things may be true, but we shall more readily credit them when we less frequently see managers in the Gazette, and when we hear of singers putting down their carriages, retrenching their suburban villas, and contenting themselves with salaries less enormous than those they now unblushingly exact. Upon such matters, however, it is not our purpose to expatiate. Theatrical quarrels rarely excite much general interest in this country, except inasmuch as they may exercise an unfavourable influence on the pleasures of the public—which has not been the case, we are happy to say, in the most recent and important instance of disagreement between the lessee of the first London theatre and certain members of his company.

At no period, probably, since London has possessed an Italian Opera, was there more room and a better chance of success for two establishments of that description than just now. Indeed, even if the particular circumstances that have caused a second establishment to be formed had not occurred, it might not improbably have arisen out of the want of remunerative patronage for high musical talent upon the Continent, entailed by the revolutionary convulsions of the last two years. Another circumstance favourable to the Italians is to be found in the depressed state of the native stage—a depression which we maintain is to be attributed to bad management and bad acting, more than to any decline in the public taste for the drama. Second-rate talent, such as now occupies the high places on our principal theatres, will no more permanently attract full houses, than will the burlesque and tinsel that has monopolised the minor stage. It is our conviction that high tragedy and good comedy will still draw together discriminating and desirable audiences; but they must be well acted. Could you bring back Kemble and Siddons, Kean and Young, rely upon it that the taste for the theatre would revive, and Drury Lane might be opened with better than a bare chance of success. And although those masters of their art have disappeared from the scene, there still are actors who, if they would condescend to pull together, might do much to prop the declining national drama. In the provincial towns the Charles Keans, Miss Faucit, or Macready, always draw full houses; and it is our belief they would do so the year through at Drury Lane, if they all belonged to its company, under a judicious management. It is idle to say that the public has lost its taste for theatres, because it will not encourage mediocrity and bad taste; and the best proof of the contrary is, that anything really good in theatricals, no matter in what style, at once draws. We need not go far for examples. About three years ago, the little French theatre in St James's had a good working company, besides a constant flow of still better actors, succeeding each other by twos and threes from Paris. The consequence was, that the house was nightly crowded; not only, be it observed, in its more fashionable divisions, but in those cheaper regions of gallery, pit, and boxes, more accessible to moderate purses and to the general public. In short, the theatre was popular, because the performances were good; although it is,[Pg 690] assuredly, but a very limited portion of the English middle classes that can fully enter into and enjoy the spirit of French plays. When the management injudiciously changed the system, which, one would think, must surely have answered its purpose as well as that of the public, and gave indifferently sung comic operas instead of well-acted vaudevilles, dramas, and petites comédies, popularity and audience dwindled. It was no longer good of its kind. People will not be persuaded, for any length of time, that a star and a bundle of sticks compose a theatrical company worth listening to. We may take another instance, still nearer home. Under the management of Vestris and Mathews, and in spite of a deplorable absence of ventilation, the Lyceum Theatre has for many months past been nightly full to the roof, whilst nearly every other London manager has been wofully grumbling at the state of his benches and treasury. It is not that the performances at the Lyceum have been of a very high class; but of their kind they have been good, the company pulls well together, and there is a certain spirit and originality in the conduct of the theatre. And here, whilst avoiding comparisons with any particular theatre to which they might be unfavourable, we are yet led to remark, that an utter want of originality is one of the chief and most lamentable present characteristics of the London stage. Such a monotonous set of imitators was surely never beheld. They all follow each other in a string, like the boors after Dummling's precious goose. Unfortunately the golden feathers become dross in their grasp. If one makes a hit, forthwith the others copy; without pausing to reflect whether the novelty was not the principal charm, which will evaporate on repetition. Thus, last Christmas, at the theatre already referred to, a fairy spectacle of extraordinary beauty was brought out, and "ran," as the phrase is, an unusual number of nights, long outliving most of the very middling pantomimes and holiday entertainments elsewhere produced. Easter came, and behold! half-a-dozen other theatres, taking their cue from the lucky Lyceum, came out in the same line. Ambitious scenery, gorgeous decoration, wholesale glitter, and many-coloured fires, dazzled the eye in all directions. "If your voice were as fine as your feathers," said the crafty fox to the cheese-bearing crow, "what a bird you would be!" Were your taste equal to your tinsel, managers of the London theatres, what an improvement there would be in your receipts! Your dress-boxes and your cash-boxes would alike be replenished; and you would no longer have a pretext to indulge in undignified wailings about want of encouragement to native talent, preference given to foreigners, and the other querulous commonplaces with which the public is periodically bored.

To return, however, to the Opera. As we have already observed, about four years ago its prospects were bad. Discord, the forerunner of dissolution, had squatted itself in the Green-room. With one or two exceptions, the artists who for some years had been the chief pillars of that stage abandoned it for a rival establishment. With the few hands who stuck by the old ship, it seemed scarcely possible to make a fight. But at the most gloomy moment, when all seemed desperate, a good genius came to the rescue. One Swede proved more than an equivalent for half-a-dozen Italians, and impending ruin was replaced by triumphant success. London presented the singular spectacle—unprecedented, we believe, in any capital—of two enormous theatres simultaneously open for the representation of Italian operas. How it fares with the more modern establishment, we have no positive knowledge. Not too well, we fear, judging from the balance-sheet of a recent lessee. Should the experiment succeed, the public will doubtless be the gainers. We shall be glad to learn that all thrive and flourish; but meanwhile we are particularly pleased to find that the more ancient temple of music and dance, endeared to us by long habit, old associations, and much enjoyment, has risen, at the very moment when ill-omened prophets predicted its fall, to as high a pitch of excellence as, within our recollection, it ever attained;[Pg 691] and has escaped conversion to an equestrian circus, a shilling concert room, a Radical debating hall, or any other of the profane and degrading purposes to which of late years it has been too much the fashion to apply the large London theatres. When the enthusiasm excited by Jenny Lind, which at one time approached infatuation, began to subside, and that amiable and charitable, but—if rumour lie not—somewhat capricious lady, fluctuating between matrimony and fame, at last took a middle course, and decided to cross the Atlantic, Her Majesty's Theatre had another stroke of good fortune. The Swede disappeared, but Germany came to the rescue. A singer whose name recalls the most glorious days of the Opera, and who, for nearly twenty years, had exchanged the artist's laurel wreath for the coronet of a countess—the plaudits of Europe for the ease and elegance of a court—was induced to return to the profession of which, during the short time she in her youth had exercised it, she had been one of the brightest ornaments.

The double interest excited by her brilliant talent as a vocalist, and by the peculiar circumstances under which she has again sought the scene of her former triumphs, has been so strong, that by this time few can be unacquainted with the leading incidents of the Countess Rossi's career. A humble origin, the precocious development of an exquisite voice and of extraordinary aptitude for music, the conquest with almost unexampled rapidity of a place beside the first singers of the day, a few short years of theatrical triumphs, an advantageous marriage, loss of fortune, return to the stage—and the tale is told. Even in this meagre outline there is no slight savour of the romantic. "The Countess Rossi," it has been truly observed by a French writer, "has scarcely performed in any lyrical drama fuller of incident and romance than her own life. For her the line of flame which in theatres separates the real from the ideal world, has not existed."[7] Doubtless the details of this accomplished lady's life would be otherwise interesting than the bare outline of its leading events with which the world is fain to content itself. Twenty-five years, divided between the aristocracy of musical talent, and the aristocracy of diplomacy and high birth, must afford rich materials for autobiography. Nor would the period of her childhood be without its strong attraction, were she able to remember, and pleased to tell, of those days of infantine renown, when Coblenz and the banks of Rhine rang with praises of the seven-year-old songstress, whose parents, although they had the good sense to refuse the solicitations of managers, anxious to produce the prodigy, would yet at times place her on their table, and bid her sing for the gratification of admiring friends. Her first appearance in public was at the age of eleven, on the Darmstadt theatre; and perhaps even now that dullest of German capitals remains in her memory as a place of brightness and beauty, associated as it is with her early and complete success. But little Henrietta was not yet to continue the career she had so auspiciously begun. Hot theatres and unlimited praise composed a dangerous atmosphere for one so young, and her next step was to the Conservatory or great musical school at Prague, to the head of which she speedily made her way. At the age of fourteen or fifteen her proficiency in the various branches of her art was so great, that her cautious parents had scarcely a pretext for withholding her longer from the stage, which she manifestly was destined to adorn. Still they hesitated, when accident cast the die. The prima donna of the Prague opera was taken ill: not of one of those fleeting maladies to which singers and dancers are proverbially liable—and which appear an hour or two after noon, to disappear in time for a late breakfast next morning—but seriously, and without hope of speedy recovery. The despairing manager appealed to the pity of the Sontags. His only hope was in Henrietta, and Henrietta was allowed to appear upon the boards of the[Pg 692] Imperial Opera of Prague—a theatre to which immortality is secured by the first performance of the Nozze di Figaro and the Clemenza di Tito having taken place within its walls. From a recently published and authentic sketch of Madame Sontag's professional life,[8] we extract an account of her entrance.

"If nothing was wanting in courage, natural gifts of voice, and intellectual power, on the part of the child, as regards the height of her person there was a mancamento of several inches. But the stage-manager was not oblivious of the means by which the Greeks gave altitude to their scenic heroes and heroines; and the little prima donna, to whom was assigned for her début the principal female part in a translation of the favourite French opera Jean de Paris, was supplied with enormous cork heels. There was a time, at the court of Louis XV., when an inch and a half of red heel was the distinctive characteristic of a marquis, or of a lady of sufficient quality to be allowed to sit in the presence of royalty. On the occasion of the début of Henriette Sontag, four inches of vermillion-coloured cork foreshadowed the rank of the little lady, destined to become one of the most absolute mimic queens of the lyrical world, and afterwards a real and much respected countess. When the singer who enacted the pompous seneschal in the opera of Jean de Paris came forward, and said, 'It is no less a personage than the Princess of Navarre whose arrival I announce!' the applause and laughter was universal. When the little prodigy appeared on her cork pedestal, the house re-echoed with acclamations. As the business of the stage proceeded, the auditors found there was no longer any indulgence necessary on the score of age, but that there were claims on their admiration for a voice which, for purity, peculiar flute-like tone, and agility, has never been surpassed. The celebrated tenor, Gerstener, that night surpassed himself, finding he had to cope with the attraction of a new musical power. Many nights successively did she thus sing the Princess of Navarre, with increasing success, to crowded houses. Her next part was one far more difficult—that of the heroine in Paer's fine opera, Sargin. But the capital of Bohemia was not long to retain her. The Imperial court heard of her extraordinary success, and Henriette Sontag was summoned to Vienna, where she appeared, the very next season, at the German Opera."

Fraulein Sontag had not been long in the Austrian capital when the eccentric Domenico Barbaja, then lessee of La Scala, the San Carlo, and of the Italian Opera at Vienna, arrived there, incredulous of the merits of the new prima donna. His incredulity must not be ascribed to mere prejudice, for at that time Italy was generally believed to have the monopoly of melodious throats; and even now the exceptions are only just enough to prove the rule, at least as regards female singers. Of these, Germany and Scandinavia have produced but three who have acquired European reputation. The capricious but wonderfully talented Gertrude Schmeling (La Mara,) who at nine years of age drew large audiences at Vienna by her performance on the violin, who afterwards achieved first-rate excellence on the piano, and then, for nearly forty years, held undisputed sway, as unapproachable prima donna, over the entire musical world—and whose name is almost as celebrated by reason of the strange adventures and vicissitudes of her life as on account of her astonishing voice and genius—is the most ancient of these, and Madame Sontag and Jenny Lind complete the trio. When at length prevailed upon to visit the German Opera, Barbaja was astonished, and he immediately offered the young singer an engagement for the San Carlo. This was declined, her parents having a wholesome, perhaps an exaggerated, dread of the temptations and perils that would await their daughter in the luxurious land of Naples. Nay, so deeply rooted was the aversion of the honest Germans for things Italian, that it was with the greatest difficulty Barbaja could obtain their permission for Henrietta to appear at the Italian Opera at Vienna. There she had colleagues worthy of herself—Rubini, the prince of tenors, and the evergreen Lablache, with whom, after an interval of five-and-twenty years, she is now again singing. There also she heard Madame Mainvielle Fodor, by the study of whose admirable style she greatly[Pg 693] improved herself. Leipzig and Berlin next witnessed her triumphs, and there she excited great enthusiasm by her singing in Weber's operas of Der Freischütz and Euryanthe.

"The admirers of the genius of that great composer," says M. P. Scudo, in a lively, but not strictly correct sketch of Madame Sontag's career, inserted in the Revue des Deux Mondes, "consisted of the youth of the universities, and of all the ardent and generous spirits who desired to emancipate Germany intellectually as well as politically from foreign domination.... They were grateful to Mademoiselle Sontag for consecrating a magnificent voice, and a method rarely found beyond the Rhine, to the energetic and profound music of Weber, Beethoven, Spohr, and the new race of German composers, who had broken all compact with foreign impiety, and given an impulse to the national genius. Receiving universal homage, celebrated by wits, serenaded by students, and escorted by the huzzas of the German press, Mademoiselle Sontag was called to Berlin, where she made her appearance with immense success at the Koenigstadt Theatre. It was at Berlin, as is well known, that the Freischütz was for the first time performed, in 1821. It was at Berlin, the Protestant and rationalist city, the centre of an intellectual and political movement which sought to absorb the activity of Germany at the expense of Vienna—that catholic capital, where the spirit of tradition, sensuality, the soft breezes and melodies of Italy reigned—it was at Berlin that the new school of dramatic music founded by Weber had taken the firmest hold. With enthusiasm, as the inspired interpreter of the national music, Mademoiselle Sontag was there welcomed. The disciples of Hegel took her for the text of their learned commentaries, and hailed, in her limpid and sonorous voice, the subjective confounded with the objective in an absolute unity! The old King of Prussia received her at his court with paternal goodness. There it was that diplomacy had the opportunity to approach Mademoiselle Sontag, and to make an impression on the heart of the muse."

With all deference to M. Scudo, who is rather smart than accurate, we will remark that the applause of the Berliners was elicited less by the nationality of the music than by the excellence of the singing; and that they were perfectly satisfied to listen to translations of Rossini, and to the music then in vogue in the other chief opera houses of Europe. Doubtless they were proud of their countrywoman; and their jealousy and indignation were highly excited when, after a visit to Paris, she came back to Berlin with the avowed intention of returning to the French capital. This raised a storm, and on her first appearance at the Koenigstadt, she was received, probably for the first and last time in her life, with a storm of groans and hisses. So violent was the tumult that the other actors left the stage in alarm; but the Sontag remained, strong in her right and regardless of the unmerited hurricane of censure, and of the almost menacing adjurations addressed to her by the audience to break off with the French, and remain in her own country. At last, hopeless of making an impression on the resolute young lady, the incensed Prussians calmed themselves, and from that night to the day of her departure she was as popular as ever.

At Paris was fully confirmed the favourable judgment passed upon Mademoiselle Sontag at Prague, Vienna, and Berlin. And, in one respect, her triumph there was more important and complete than any she had previously enjoyed—more important, not so much on account of the superior critical acumen and taste of her hearers, as by reason of the formidable rivals with whom she had to compete. We are far from belonging to that class of persons—a class confined, as we believe, almost exclusively to France—which holds the favourable verdict of the Parisian musical world the most difficult to obtain, and the most flattering to the artist, of any in Europe. This notion has been diligently set abroad by the Parisians themselves, who, with characteristic self-complacency, look upon their tribunal as the court of last appeal in matters of art and music. The only solid ground upon which such a presumption can plausibly be sustained, is the fact that Paris (by its gaiety and central position the European metropolis of pleasure) annually assembles,—or did assemble, before recent disastrous follies closed its saloons and deterred foreign visitors—a very large portion of the intellectual and art-loving of all countries. Upon this basis rests the sole claim of Paris to fastidiousness and[Pg 694] infallibility of judgment. This only can give superior value to the laurel wreaths bestowed in the Salle Ventadour, or the Rue Lepelletier, over those that may be acquired in half-a-dozen other European opera houses. As regards the worth of the verdict of an exclusively French audience, we confess that, when we see the crowds that are attracted, and the enthusiasm that is excited, by the usually flimsy and second-rate music given at the Opera Comique, (for many years past unquestionably the most uniformly prosperous and popular of the Paris musical theatres,) we incline to answer in the affirmative the question put by one of the shrewdest and wittiest of Frenchmen, whether the French nation be not rather song-loving than musical?[9] But if Mademoiselle Sontag, after conquering the unbounded applause of Vienna and Berlin audiences, and the suffrage of so keen a connoisseur as Barbaja, had no need to dread the ordeal of Parisian criticism, on the other hand she well might feel trepidation at thoughts of the competitors she was about to encounter, foremost amongst whom were the great names of Pasta, Pisaroni, and Malibran. In presence of such a trio, any but a first-rate talent must have succumbed and fallen back into the rear rank. Not so did the Sontag, but at once took and kept her place on a level with those great singers. It was with Malibran, the ardent, warm-hearted, passionate Spaniard, that she was brought into most frequent comparison. But although many tales have been told of the bitterness of their rivalry, these have been suggested by probability or malice, not by fact; for, from a very early period of their acquaintance, a sincere friendship existed between them. The Countess de Merlin, in her memoir of Malibran, gives the following account of its origin:—

"The presence of Mademoiselle Sontag at the Italian Theatre was fresh stimulus for Maria's talent, and contributed to its perfection. Each time that the former obtained a brilliant triumph, Maria wept and exclaimed, 'Mon Dieu! why does she sing so well?' Then from those tears sprang a beauty and sublimity of harmony, of which the public had the benefit. It was the ardent desire of amateurs to hear these two charming artists sing together in the same opera; but they mutually feared each other, and for some time the much-coveted gratification was deferred. One night they met at a concert at my house; a sort of plot had been laid, and towards the middle of the concert they were asked to sing the duet in Tancredi. For a few moments they showed fear, hesitation; but at last they yielded, and approached the piano, amidst the acclamations of all present. They both seemed agitated and disturbed, and observant of each other; but presently the conclusion of the symphony fixed their attention, and the duet begun. The enthusiasm their singing excited was so vivid and so equally divided, that at the end of the duet, and in the midst of the applause, they gazed at each other, bewildered, delighted, astonished; and by a spontaneous movement, an involuntary attraction, their hands and lips met, and a kiss of peace was given and received with all the vivacity and sincerity of youth. The scene was charming, and has assuredly not been forgotten by those who witnessed it."[10]

The good understanding thus brought about was permanent, and many proofs of it are on record. From that time forward Sontag and Malibran frequently sang together, both in Paris and London, and displayed an amiability very rare amongst operatic celebrities, in respect to distribution of parts, and to other points which often prove a prolific source of strife behind the scenes. In the little English memoir already referred to, we find some anecdotes illustrative of the kindly feeling between the blue-eyed soprano and the dark-browed contralto. Towards the close of the London opera season of 1829, Malibran one day met Donzelli, the celebrated tenor, with discontent stamped upon his features. She asked the cause of his vexation. The time was at hand for his benefit, he said, and he had been unable to fix on an attractive opera.

"'Have you thought of nothing?' inquired Malibran.

"'Yes; I had thought of the Matrimonio Segreto; but Pisaroni says she is quite ugly enough without playing[Pg 695] Fidalma: and then you would not be included in the cast; and I don't know what opera to choose in which you would not have the second part to Mademoiselle Sontag's first—that would not please you, and I am in despair.'

"'Well,' said Malibran, 'to please you, and to show you I would play any part with Sontag, I will play Fidalma.'

"'What, old Fidalma? You are joking!'

"'To prove that I am in earnest, announce it this very day.'"

The opera was announced; Malibran was as good as her word, and played the old aunt admirably: not as Fidalma has since been sometimes misrepresented by singers who sacrificed scenic truth to their own coquetry, but with the due allowance of wrinkles and the antiquated costume appropriate to the part.

Some time previously to the date of this last-recorded incident, Mademoiselle Sontag had twice changed her name. The old King of Prussia, informed of her projected marriage with a Sardinian nobleman and diplomatist, to whose sovereign it was possible that her humble birth might be objectionable, ennobled her under the name and title of Mademoiselle de Launstein, which she soon afterwards abandoned for that of Countess de Rossi. Her first visit to England was subsequent to her marriage, then kept private, although pretty generally known. She first sang in this country at a concert at Devonshire House, her passage to which was through a throng of gazers, drawn together by her reputation for grace, beauty, and musical genius. A few days afterwards, on Tuesday the 15th April 1828, occurred her appearance at the London Opera, in the character of Rosina, in the Barbiere di Seviglia. For two seasons she sang in London; then in Berlin and St Petersburg; and then, the King of Sardinia having authorised her husband to declare his marriage, she left the stage—for ever, as she doubtless thought. But in days when kings are discarded, constitutions annulled, and empires turned upside down at a few hours' notice, who shall presume to foretell his fate? For eighteen years Madame de Rossi adorned the various courts to which her husband was successively accredited as ambassador. The Hague, Frankfort, St Petersburg, Berlin, each in turn welcomed and cherished her. Then came the storm: her fortune was swallowed up; her husband's diplomatic prospects were injured; she thought of her children, and sacrificed herself—if sacrifice it is to be called, by which, whilst fulfilling what she feels to be her duty to her family, she may reckon on speedily retrieving the pecuniary losses consequent on German and Sardinian revolutions.

"The position of an actress," says a clever French theatrical critic, in a pamphlet already quoted, "is a very singular one, even in these days, when prejudice is supposed to have disappeared. She is a mark for applause and adulation, for gold and flowers; she is intoxicated with incense and persecuted by lovers; the gravest personages enact follies for her sake; men unharness her horses, and carry her in triumph; the crowns refused to great poets are thrown to her in profusion; the homage that would be servile, done to a queen, seems quite natural when offered to a prima donna. Only, she must not cross the row of lamps which flame at her feet like a magic circle. From the ivory or golden throne of her lyric empire she may demand what she pleases; but let her attempt to overstep the limit, to take her place in the drawing-room by the side of one of those ladies who applaud her to the bursting of their white gloves, and who pluck the bouquets from their bosoms to throw to her, and what a change is there! How haughty now the mien of those who so lately admired! What chilling reserve; what insulting politeness; what a deep and sudden line of demarcation! A polar breeze has succeeded to the warm breath of enthusiasm; frost has replaced flowers; the idol is no longer even a woman, but a creature.

"Some of those singers who are adored amongst the most celebrated and beautiful, imagine that they go into society, because, on certain nights, when camelias deck the staircases and lustres sparkle to the wax-lights, when a crowd throngs the saloons and obstructs the entrance, they are allowed to present themselves, between eleven and twelve o'clock, at everybody's hour, at the hour of uncared-for acquaintances and friends one does not know. But, on their appearance, how quickly is the music-book opened, how speedily are they manœuvred towards the piano or singing desk, how pitilessly is every possible note extracted from these fine singers! If by chance, instead of roulades, they venture[Pg 696] upon conversation, and aspire to enjoy the pleasures of elegant and polite society, how quickly comes the cloud on the brow of the fair hostess! How evident is it that, in admitting the singer, she excludes the woman! Let the best received presume to have a cold, and she will soon see!

"A prima donna may obtain everything in the world except one thing. For a smile, for a glance, for a single pearl from her string of notes, for a single rose-leaf from her bouquet, she shall have guineas, rubles, bundles of bank-notes, marble palaces, equipages that kings might envy; the heirs of ancient houses shall give her the castles of their ancestors, and efface their fathers' scutcheon to substitute her cipher. But what she shall not have, and what she never will have is a quarter of an hour's conversation at the chimney corner, in a tone neither too polite nor too familiar, on a footing of equality with a great lady and an honest woman.

"The Countess de Rossi has attained this marvellous result; and certainly, to those who know the invincible obstacles she had to overcome, her talent as a singer will appear but a secondary quality. None can tell all the judgment, tact, reserve, sagacity, delicacy, intuition, the various qualities, in short, that have been required to accomplish this most difficult metamorphosis of the actress into the woman of good society.... To behold the prima donna an ambassadress is strange and striking; but still more so is it to see the ambassadress, after twenty years passed in the highest spheres of life, on an equality with all that is most brilliant and illustrious in nobility and diplomacy, again become a prima donna, taking up her success where she had left it, continuing in womanhood what she had begun in early youth, resuming her part in that duet where Malibran, alas! is now missing, and reconquering applause greater perhaps than that of former days. Time has flown for all of us, except for her. Europe has been revolutionised, a throne has crumbled, a republic has replaced the monarchy; but that one thing, so frail, so fleeting, so aërial, that a nothing can annihilate it—that crystal bell which the slightest shock may crack or shiver, the voice of a songstress—has preserved itself unimpaired; in that pure organ still vibrate the silver notes of youth."

M. Gautier is well known to be a man of wit and talent; in the passages from his pen, whose spirit and letter we have here done our best to render, he gives proof of keen observation and good feeling. But whilst implying his sympathy with the musical artist, who, like Tantalus, beholds but may not partake, and whose admittance to the saloons of good society is as a show, not as a guest, he forgets even to glance at the causes of such exclusion, necessary as a rule, but doubtless admitting of exceptions. He omits reference to the laxity of usages and morals which, although perhaps less so than formerly, is still the frequent characteristic of theatrical and musical professors, and which causes them to be, as he shows, kept at arm's length in good French society. In this country—in such matters the least facile and tolerant of any—there is still greater scruple of admitting singers and actresses, however eminent their talent, to the intercourse even of those classes into which, but for their profession, they would have a right to admission. Exceptions have occasionally, and with much propriety, been made, and royalty itself has been known to set the example. But only under the peculiar circumstances of Madame de Rossi's eventful career—only in presence of a reputation which the breath of scandal has never dared assail, and of social qualities and graces which render her an acquisition to any circle—can it occur to a singer to pass from the boards of the Opera to the most exclusive of London's saloons, to be welcomed as an equal by those who, a few minutes previously, applauded her as an actress.

With respect to Madame Sontag's voice and talent, it is unnecessary to be diffuse. Few comprehend, and still fewer care for, the jargon of contrapuntal criticism, whether applied to a singer or an opera; and for those few, abundant food is continually supplied by dilettanti more profound and scientific than ourselves. Purity, sweetness, flexibility, are the most prominent characteristics of Madame Sontag's voice; her execution is extraordinarily brilliant, correct and elegant, and supremely easy. No appearance of effort ever distresses her audience; the most difficult passages are achieved without the swelling of a vein, the strain of a muscle, or the slightest contortion of her agreeable countenance. Although[Pg 697] excelling in those tours-de-force which captivate the multitude, and skilled to decorate the composer's theme with an embroidery of sweet sounds as intricate as graceful, she also well knows how to captivate the true connoisseur by her exquisite taste and sobriety in rendering simple melodies, and such music as would be the worse for adornment. We commenced this paper with a determination to avoid comparisons, and we shall therefore make none: but assuredly Madame Sontag need fear none. In her own style she is quite unrivalled. That style we consider to be more particularly the genteel comedy of opera—a combination of sentiment with gaiety and grace. In her younger days she was considered less successful in more impassioned parts, but this is no longer the case. None who have witnessed her admirable personation of Amina, Linda, and Elvira, will tax her with want of soul and of dramatic energy; and we scarcely know whether to prefer her in those parts, or in the gayer ones of Rosina, Susanna, and Norina—which last character, peculiarly adapted to her arch and ladylike style of acting, she has made her own as completely as Lablache has identified himself with that of her elderly and disappointed wooer. To say the truth, when we first heard of Madame Sontag's expected return to the stage, it was with no pleasurable feeling. The reappearance of a singer after twenty years' absence can in few instances be other than a melancholy sight. It is mournful to listen to the efforts of a deteriorated voice that one has known in its melodious freshness. But an agreeable disappointment awaited all who ventured such unpleasant anticipations with respect to Madame Sontag. Her early campaign had been so short that she was yet in her vigorous prime when she returned, a veteran in fame but not in age or voice. Amidst various statements of her age, the most favourable give her forty-one years, whilst the least so add but two or three to that number. The subject is a delicate one, and we are too happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, which she is the more entitled to that neither on nor off the stage does she look even the least of the ages assigned to her. This would make her but three years older than Madame Grisi, who first saw the light, if theatrical records tell truth, in 1812, and in whose voice none, that we are aware of, have as yet pretended to discover a falling off. Whether twenty years of almost constant exercise, or the same period of comparative repose, be most favourable to the preservation of the singing faculties, we shall not decide. Madame Sontag, however, has never risked by disuse the rusting of her fine organ. At the different courts at which she resided, she invariably showed the utmost complaisance, and willingly contributed, for the pleasure of her friends—and, on occasion, for the purposes of charity—those treasures of song for which managers, before and since, have been glad to pay a prince's ransom. This season her voice is even fresher and more flexible than in 1849; and there can be no reason why the opera-loving public should not, for many years to come, applaud her as their chief favourite—unless, indeed, the very high rate of remuneration her talent commands should, by speedily realising her object in returning to the stage, induce her soon to quit it. We believe it is no secret that her present engagement secures her about fourteen thousand pounds for twelve months' performances—about thrice the salary of a secretary of state. The sum is a very satisfactory one; and, whatever the fortune Madame Sontag has lost, she has evidently at her disposal the means of rapidly amassing another of no mean amount. Who will give the odds that we do not again see her an ambassadress?

A host in herself, Madame Sontag is powerfully seconded. The management of the Opera House, aware of the danger of trusting for success to any one singer, however eminent, to the neglect of that general excellence essential to an effective operatic company, has shown great activity, and has been exceedingly fortunate, in filling those vacancies left by the defections already alluded to. Of first appearances, the most remarkable this season has been that of a young tenor, who has at once taken a very[Pg 698] high place amongst that rare class of singers. Since Mario made his debut, a dozen years ago, on the boards of the Académie Royale, Beaucarde is the only pure tenor who has come forward that can fairly be considered a first-rate. Mario, although his debut was decidedly successful, was little appreciated for some time after his first appearance, and, when desirous to transfer himself to the Italian stage, the manager of the French Opera readily cancelled his engagement on a nominal forfeit. The world knows the excellence, both as actor and singer, to which he has since attained. Beaucarde has come before the London public with more experience of the stage than Mario possessed when he first presented himself to the Parisians, and he has become immediately highly and most deservedly popular. Could any doubt of his excellence have existed in the minds of those who had heard him in other parts, his singing and acting of Arturo in the Puritani must at once have dissipated them. Tenderness and elegance marked his delivery of the whole of that graceful music, which displayed his beautiful quality of voice to the utmost advantage. Beaucarde is a very young man, and a very young singer. His father, a French engineer officer, who had settled at Florence after Napoleon's fall, intended him for a painter; but his own bias was for music, the study of which he secretly and enthusiastically pursued. It is not yet two years since his father's death left him at liberty to follow his own inclinations. With great difficulty he obtained an engagement at a second-rate theatre in his native city. There he was so little appreciated that, after being several months before the public, he was refused the very humble salary of two hundred pounds a-year. He was not discouraged. Perhaps he thought of Rubini—how that tenor of tenors, in his early days, could obtain no better place wherein to warble than a squalid booth at a country festival. Many who knew him in his after period of unrivalled prosperity and renown, will remember, in that room full of trophies, amidst plate and jewels bestowed upon him by kings and emperors, where the eye was dazzled with the glitter of gold and diamonds, a certain picture frame which he was wont to turn round and exhibit to his admiring visitors, who beheld with astonishment on its reverse the announcement of his performance at a fair, admission a single soldo—in English currency, a halfpenny. With such an instance before his eyes, Beaucarde might well persevere. At Florence, Romani, the celebrated musical professor, heard him sing, and insisted upon giving him lessons—by which, however, he did not long profit, having accepted an engagement at a Neapolitan minor opera. At Naples he speedily ascended in the scale, and finally made his debut with complete success at the San Carlo. Mercadante, struck by the beauty of his voice, immediately offered his services as his instructor; but, like Romani, he did not long retain his pupil. Perhaps it was as well he did not; for, whatever Beaucarde might have gained in modish art under his tuition, would have been at the expense of that chaste simplicity which now characterises his style, constituting, in our opinion, one of its greatest merits. How far the taste of his present public will suffer that extreme refinement of style to be compatible with his permanent and complete popularity, may be matter of doubt. The London opera is indebted for his acquisition to the veteran Lablache, who, whilst indulging in a vacation ramble through his old haunts, heard him at the San Carlo, and brought news of his excellence from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Thames.

Calzolari, a remarkably sweet singer and graceful actor, and Sims Reeves, complete such a trio of tenors as has not often been united at one opera house. Mr Reeves' reception on the stage of the Italian theatre has certainly not been the less favourable on account of his being of home growth; and the same remark applies to Miss Catherine Hayes, a delightful singer, who will do well to pay attention to her acting. We make this remark in no unfriendly spirit: we are amongst the warm admirers of Miss Hayes' voice and talent, but we have seen her in parts whose dramatic requirements[Pg 699] she seemed somewhat to overlook. It may express our meaning to say that she at times reminds us of the concert room. Upon the stage this should never be. We may instance her performance of Cherubino. Her singing in that charming part was excellent; her delivery of the thrilling and impassioned air, Voi che sapete, left nothing to wish for, and elicited as fervent an encore from a very crowded house as the most ambitious could desire. But as to illusion, we are bound to confess there was little enough—what with the ladylike calmness of her acting, and the epicene costume in which she thought proper to appear. We beheld before us a graceful young woman and an excellent singer—but of the wilful and enamoured page we had but glimpses. A little more spirit, and a little less satin, would have been a decided improvement. Of course we are all cognisant of the "wild sweet-briery fence" which, Mr Moore asserts, environs the beauties of Erin. But is it quite necessary that Miss Hayes should interpret the metaphor into feminine attire when she plays a male part?

We are unable, nor is it necessary, individually to criticise all the members of the Italian company now performing at her Majesty's Theatre, and which, in all respects, is excellent and most effective. There is one other singer, however, who must have a word of mention, were it only that he was the indirect means of making the English public acquainted with Jenny Lind. Belletti was formerly engaged at the opera at Stockholm, and was a great favourite with the late king, Bernadotte. Jenny Lind heard him, and his admirable method and acting at once revealed to her the treasures of the Italian school. She saw that she had much to acquire, and departed for Paris to study. But Belletti has a claim to other than second-hand gratitude. His singing and acting are alike first-rate. Nothing can be better than his Figaro; in less important characters he is equally careful and efficient. His forte is in buffo parts, where his rich mellow voice and contagious merriment are greatly relished. He will probably become—we will not say popular, for that he already is in the highest degree, but an indispensable member of the London company. We regret to learn that he is shortly to accompany Miss Lind to America, and trust his absence will not be of long duration.

Can we close this enumeration without a word of our old acquaintance, Luigi Lablache? Surely a small corner may be found for the great man, who flourishes in unabated vigour, in spite of accumulating years and, as we fancy, annually increasing bulk. There is a geniality and a joviality about this long-standing pillar of the opera, which never fails of its effect upon his public. Probably no foreign actor ever enlisted so uniformly and heartily the goodwill of an English audience; and his popularity, although of course augmented by his vocal merits, is by no means dependent on them. We lately somewhere encountered a hypercritical comment upon his acting, in which he was accused of condescending to buffoonery. Never was charge more unfounded and absurd. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Lablache is the extreme skill with which he draws the line between humour and vulgarity; the perfect good taste distinguishing his drolleries and occasional deviations from the letter of his part. The practice of now and then introducing a French or English word or sentence in an Italian opera, for the purpose of producing a comic effect, is one that certainly should only be indulged with great discretion; but in this, and in all other respects, we may be sure that any dereliction from correct taste would promptly be detected and reproved by so sensitive an audience as that of her Majesty's Theatre. But from his first appearance in London, in 1829, to the present day, an instance, we believe, was never known of a sally of Lablache not obtaining at least a smile—far oftener a hearty laugh. In him the rich Italian humour of the buffo Napolitano, the droll of the San Carlino, still exists, happily tempered and modified by the gentlemanly tact of the experienced comedian. Long may the colossus of bassos preserve his voice and his good humour! His loss would be sorely felt, and his place be hard to fill.[Pg 700] Who, after him, shall dare undertake Dulcamara and Pasquale? One thing certain is, that, whenever fulness of years or pocket may detach him from the stage he has so long adorned, to bask away his old age, with dignity and ease, in some sunny Italian town, the public of London and Paris, accustomed to his annual presence amongst them, will regret, in Lablache, not less the accomplished actor than the amiable and kind-hearted man.

We have not room for any particular review of the operas that have been this year performed; and, for the same reason, we can give but a few words to the chief novelty announced. We refer to the forthcoming opera of the Tempest, whose composition devolved, after the death of Mendelssohn, upon Halévy, the youngest, and one of the most distinguished, of living French composers. Scribe has supplied the poem. Upon his merits as a librettist it were superfluous to expatiate; it were perhaps more necessary, did it come within the scope of this paper, to correct the popular error that, compared with the music, the libretto of an opera is of little or no consequence. That kind of poetry has certainly been much degraded by the incapacity of many who have presumptuously undertaken it. Good writers of librettos are even more rare than good composers. Since Metastasio's day, those who alone can fairly claim a place in the first rank are Romani, Da Ponte, (the librettist of Don Giovanni,) and Scribe, that able and indefatigable purveyor of the stage, to whom English managers and playwrights owe so heavy a debt of gratitude—a debt which they are not always very prompt to acknowledge. Mendelssohn, when he agreed to compose an opera on the Tempest, stipulated that the libretto should be confided to Scribe, who willingly undertook it, and afterwards declared that he knew few subjects so well adapted for music. This opinion, proceeding from a man who, amongst the various classes of theatrical composition in which he has succeeded, is considered to have been especially successful in that of libretti—so much so, indeed, that it has been asserted he owed more than one vote, at his election as member of the French Academy, to their excellence alone—is of no slight weight. Nor were it reasonable to doubt that the composer of the Juive and of Guido et Ginevra, who seems to have caught, especially in the last-named opera, no feeble spark of the inspiration of his brother Israelite, the great Meyerbeer, will have succeeded in clothing the verse of Scribe in music correspondingly worthy.

We must conclude without even touching upon the ballet. It needs no praise from us: the names alone of Carlotta Grisi, Marie Taglioni, and Amalia Ferraris, are sufficient guarantee of its excellence. Perhaps upon some future day we may be able to discuss its merits.

[Pg 701]

THE GREEN HAND.

A "SHORT" YARN.

PART X.

As soon as you near St Helena by a few miles, the trade-wind falls light; and making the rock, as you do from the South Atlantic, a good deal to leeward of the harbour, 'twould be pretty slow work beating round to north-east, but for the breeze always coming off the height, with the help of which one can coast easy enough along. Captain Wallis said no more than to bid the first lieutenant make the brig's number at her mast-head, while she still bore in direct upon the breast of the land, as much out of soundings as the day before; the smooth heavy swell seeming to float the island up in one huge lump ahead of us, till you saw it rolling in to the very foot, with a line of surf, as if it all rose sheer out of the bottom of the sea; as grim and hard as a block of iron, too, and a good deal the same colour. By noon, it hung fairly as it were over our mast-heads, the brig looking by comparison as tiny and as ticklish as a craft made of glass; she coasting away round, with yards braced first one way then another, and opening point after point from three hundred to two thousand feet high; while at times she would go stealing in with a faint ripple at her bows, near enough to hear the deep sound of the sea plunging slowly to the face of the rock, where the surf rose white against it without a break. There wasn't so much as a weed to be seen, the rocks getting redder and more coppery, sending out the light like metal, till you'd have thought they tingled all over with the heat. Then as you opened another bulge in the line, the sharp sugar-loaf hills, far away up, with the ragged cliffs and crags, shot over against the bare white sky in all sort of shapes; and after a good long spell of the sea, there was little fancy needed to give one the notion they were changing into these, as we passed ahead, to mock you. There was one peak for all the world like the top of St Paul's, and no end of church spires and steeples, all lengths and ways; then big bells and trumpets, mixed with wild-beasts' heads, grinning at each other across some split in the blue beyond, and soldier's helmets—not to speak of one huge block, like a Nigger's face with a cowl behind it, hanging far out over the water. Save for the colour of it all, in fact, St Helena reminds one more of a tremendous iceberg than an island, and not the less that it looks ready in some parts to topple over and show a new face; while the sea working round it, surging into the hollows below water-mark, and making the air groan inside of them, keeps up a noise the like of which you wouldn't wish to cruise alongside of every day. The strangest thing about it, however, was that now and then, as you came abreast of some deep gully running up inland, a sudden blast of wind would rush out of it, sufficient to make the Podargus reel—with a savage thundering roar, too, like the howl out of a lion's mouth; while you looked far up a narrow, bare black glen, closing into a hubbub of red rocks, or losing itself up a grey hill-side in a white thread of a water-course; then the rough shell of the island shut in again, as still as before, save the light breeze and the deep hum of the surf along its foot. Curiously enough in a latitude like St Helena's, the island seems, as it were, a perfect bag of air. What with the heat of the rock, its hollow inside, the high peaks of it catching the clouds, and the narrow outlets it has, 'tis always brewing wind, you may say, to ventilate that part of the tropics—just as one may keep up cold draughts through and through a wet heap of loose stones, no matter how hot the weather is, as long as he pleases. As for a landing-place, though, there wasn't one of the gullies that didn't yawn over without falling to the sea; and not to mention the surf underneath, where[Pg 702] the dark swell came in unbroken from deep water without a shoal to soften it, why, watching it from the brig's side, I shouldn't have said a cat would scramble up or down the steep slopes and the wreck of stones, from the water's edge to the jaws of the easiest gully you saw.

Once or twice, standing further off, we caught sight of Diana's Peak over the shoulder of a hill, with the light haze melting about it; at last you noticed a large gun mounted against the sky on a lofty peak, where it looked like a huge telescope; and on clearing another headland, a beautiful frigate came in between us and the burst of light to seaward, cruising to windward under easy sail. She bore up and stood towards the brig-of-war, just as the line of wall was to be seen winding round the middle of Sugar-Loaf Point, where the sentry's bayonet glittered near his watch-box, and the soldiers' red coats could be seen moving through the covered passage to the batteries. Five minutes after, the Podargus swept round the breast of Rupert's Hill into the bay, in sight of James Town and the ships lying off the harbour; cluing up her sails and ready to drop anchor, as the frigate hove to not far astern.

You can fancy land heaving in sight after thrice as many weeks as you've been at sea, ladies; or the view of a ship to a man that's been long laid up in bed ashore; or a gulp of fresh water in a sandy desert,—but I question if any of them matches your first glimpse of James Town from the roadstead, like a bright piece of fairy-work in the mouth of the narrow brown valley, after seeing desolation enough to make you wish for a clear horizon again. More especially this time, when all the while one couldn't help bringing to mind one's notion of the French Emperor, how, not long ago, the sight of the French coast, or a strange frigate over the Channel swell, used to make us think of him far ashore, with half the earth for his own, and millions of soldiers. We reefers down in the cockpit would save our grog to drink confusion to Napoleon, and in a rough night near a lee-shore, it was look alive aloft, or choose betwixt cold brine and the clutch of a gendarme hauling you to land. I do believe we looked upon him as a sort of god, as Captain Wallis did in the Temple; every ship or gun-boat we saw taken, or had a hand in the mauling of, why, 'twas for the sheer sake of the thing, and scarce by way of harm to Boney; while nothing like danger, from breakers on the lee-bow to a November gale, but had seemingly a taste of him. None of us any more thought of bringing him to this, than we did of his marching into London, or of a French frigate being able to rake our old Pandora in a set-to on green water or blue, with us to handle her.

But there was the neat little cluster of houses, white, yellow, and green, spreading down close together in the bottom of the valley, and out along the sea's edge; the rough brown cliffs sloping up on each side, with the ladder-like way to the fort on the right, mounting, as it were, out of the very street, to the flag-staff on the top, and dotted with red-coats going up and down; a bright line of a pier and a wall before the whole, the Government House dazzling through a row of spreading trees, and a little square church tower to be seen beyond. 'Twas more like a scene in a play, than aught else; what with the suddenness of it all, the tiny look of it betwixt the huge rocks, the greenness of the trees and bushes, and patches of garden struggling up as far as they could go into the stone, and the gay little toys of cottages, with scarce flat enough to stand upon: save for the blue swell of the sea plunging lazily in through the bit of a bay, and the streak of air behind, that let you in high over the head of the hollow, up above one height and another, to a flat-headed blue rise in the distance, where Longwood could be seen from the main-cross-trees I had gone to as the sails were furled. The sunlight, striking from both the red sides of the ravine, made the little village of a place, trees and all, glitter in a lump together, out of it, like no spot in the rest of the world; while elsewhere there wasn't so much as a weed to be seen hanging from the rock, nor the sign of another human habitation, saving the bare batteries on each hand, with a few sheds and warehouses over the beach along the landing-place.[Pg 703] Once or twice the same sudden gust as before would come slap down through the valley into the brig's bare rigging, hot as the air was, with a howling kind of a sigh you took some time to get accustomed to, lest there was a hurricane to follow: in fact one didn't well know whether it was the wild look of it outside, or the lovely spot in its grim mouth of a landing-place, but the whole island gave you the notion of a thing you couldn't be long sure of, without fancying it would give a shake some day or other again; or else spout fire, as no doubt it had done before, if there wasn't more fear of Napoleon getting back somehow to France, and wreaking bloody vengeance on the kings that shut him up in St Helena.

There was apparently a busy scene ashore, however, both in the little town, which has scarce more than a single street, and along the quay, full of residents, as well as passengers from two Indiamen lying in-shore of us, while the Government esplanade seemed to be crowded with ladies, listening to the regimental band under the trees. The Newcastle frigate, with Sir Dudley Aldcombe's flag hoisted at her mizen, was at anchor out abreast at Ladder Hill; and our first lieutenant had scarce pulled aboard of the Hebe, which was hove-to off the brig's quarter, before I noticed the Admiral's barge lying alongside the Hebe. Seeing Mr Aldridge on his way back shortly after, I came down the rigging, more anxious than ever to have my own matter settled; indeed, Captain Wallis no sooner caught sight of my face, uncomfortable as I daresay it looked, than he told me he was going to wait on the Admiral aboard the Hebe, and would take me with him at once, if I chose. For my part, I needed nothing but the leave, and in ten minutes time I found myself, no small mark of curiosity, betwixt the waist and the quarterdeck of the Hebe, where the officers eyed me with as little appearance of rudeness as they could help, and I overhauled the spars and rigging aloft as coolly as I could, waiting to be sent for below. The Hebe, in fact, was the very beauty of a twenty-eight; taking the shine, and the wind, too, clean out of everything even at Plymouth, where I had seen her once a year or two before: our poor dear old Iris herself had scarce such a pattern of a hull, falling in, as it did, from the round swell of her bilge, to just under the plank-sheer, and spreading out again with her bright black top-sides, till where the figurehead shot over the cut-water, and out of her full pair of bows, like a swan's neck out of its breast. As for the Iris, our boatswain himself one day privately confessed to me, almost with tears in his eyes, that she tumbled home a thought too much just in front of the fore-chains, and he'd tried to get it softened off with dead planking and paint, but it wouldn't do; everybody saw through them. The truth was, to feel this fine ship under one, with her loose topsails hanging high against the gloom of the red gully towards Longwood, and the gay little town peeping just over her larboard bow, a mile away, it somehow or other cleared one's mind of a load. I was thinking already how, if one had the command of such a craft, to do something with her at sea—hang it! but surely that old Judge couldn't be too proud to give him a fair hearing. By Jove! thought I—had one only wild enough weather, off the Cape, say—if I wouldn't undertake to bother even a seventy-four a whole voyage through, till she struck her flag; in which case a fellow might really venture to hold his head up and speak his mind, lovely as Violet Hyde would be in Calcutta. But then, again, there was St Helena towering red and rough over the ships, with the grand French Emperor hidden in it hard and fast, and all the work he used to give us at an end!

Just at the moment, happening to catch sight of the American mate's sallow black visage over the brig-of-war's hammock-cloths, peering as he did from the cliffs to the lofty spars of the frigate, while his Negro shipmates were to be made out nearer the bows—somehow or other the whole affair of their being burnt out and picked up started into my mind again, along with our late queer adventures in the Indiaman. Not to mention Captain Wallis's story, it flashed upon me all at once, for the first time, that the strange schooner[Pg 704] was after some scheme as regarded the island; and a man more likely to try something uncommon than the Frenchman, I never had seen yet. The truth was, but for my thoughts being otherwise taken up, I'd have wondered at my own confounded stupidity in not fathoming the thing sooner; whereas now, I'm not going to deny it, I half began actually to wish him good success, or else a close miss of it, where either way one couldn't well fail having a share in the squall. At any rate, I saw it was cunningly enough gone about; this same burnt barque of the Yankee's, I perceived in a moment, was part of the plot; though as for meddling in it till I saw more, 'twas likely to spoil the whole; let alone making an ass of one's-self in case of mistake. I was eyeing the shipwrecked mate, indeed, when one of the lieutenants told me politely the Admiral wanted to see me in the cabin below.

Not being much accustomed to admirals' society, as a little white-haired fellow-reefer of mine once said at a tea-party ashore, I came in at the door with rather an awkward bow, no doubt; for Sir Dudley, who was sitting on the sofa with his cocked hat and sword beside him, talking to Captain Wallis, turned his head at the captain's word, as if he were trying to keep in a smile. A tall, fine-looking man he was, and few seamen equal to him for handling a large fleet, as I knew, though his manners were finished enough to have made him easy in a king's court. As for the captain of the Hebe, he was leaning out of an open stern-window, seemingly a young man, but who he might be I didn't know at the moment. The Admiral had only a question or two to put, before he looked back to Captain Wallis again, remarking it was clear he had brought away the wrong man. "I didn't think you were so dull in the Podargus," said he, smiling, "as to let an Indiaman play off such a trick on you—eh, Captain Wallis!" Captain Wallis glanced round the cabin, and then sideways down at Sir Dudley's cocked hat, in a funny enough way, as much as to say he took all the blame on himself; and it struck me more than ever what a kind heart the man had in him—if you only set aside his hatred to Buonaparte, which in fact was nothing else but a twisted sort of proof of the same thing. "Pooh, pooh, Wallis," continued Sir Dudley, "we can't do anything in the matter; though, if the service were better than it really is at present, I should certainly incline to question a smart young fellow like this, that has held His Majesty's commission, for idling in an Indiaman after the lady passengers! I am afraid, sir," said he to me, "you've lost your passage, though,—unless the captain of the Hebe will give you his second berth here, to make amends." "You need not be afraid, Lord Frederick!" added he, looking toward the captain of the frigate, and raising his voice; "you do not know him, after all, I suppose!" The captain drew in his head, saying he had been doubtful about one of the pivots of the rudder, then turned full round and looked uneasily at me, on which his face brightened immediately, and he said, "No, Sir Dudley, I do not!" I was still in ignorance for a moment or so, myself, who this titled young post-captain might be, though I had certainly seen him before; till all at once I recollected him, with a start as pleasant to me as his seemed to him at not knowing me. Both Westwood and I had been midshipmen together for a while in the Orion, fifty-gun ship, where he was second lieutenant, several years before. As for me, I was too fond of a frigate to stay longer in her than I could help; but I remembered my being a pest to the second lieutenant, and Tom's being a favourite of his, so that he staid behind me, and got master's mate as soon as he was 'passed.' The Honourable Frederick Bury he was then, and the handsomest young fellow in the squadron, as well as the best-natured aboard. I don't believe he knew how to splice in a dead-eye, and any of the masters'-mates could take charge of the ship better in a rough night, I daresay; but for a gallant affair in the way of hard knocks, with management to boot, there wasn't his match. He never was known to fail when he took a thing in hand; lost fewer men, too, than any one else did;[Pg 705] and whenever there turned up anything ticklish for the boats, it was always "Mr Bury will lead." "The honourable Bury," we used to call him, and "Fighting Free-the-deck." Westwood was one of his school, whereas I had learnt from Jacobs in a merchantman's forecastle; and many a time did we play off such tricks on the second lieutenant as coming gravely aft to him during the watch, three or four of us together, me carrying a bit of rope where a "turk's-head" or a "mouse" was be worked, while I asked him innocently to show us the way. Or else it was some dispute we contrived beforehand, as to the best plan of sending up new topmasts at sea, or running out of a "round" gale in the Indian Ocean, on which the men forward would be all ready to break out laughing; and the second lieutenant, after thinking a moment, would quietly pitch upon me to go aloft, and study the point for two hours at the mast-head.

"What is your name then, young man?" inquired Sir Dudley Aldcombe of me. The instant I told him, Lord Frederick Bury gave me another look, then a smile. "What?" said he, "Collins that was in the Orion?" "Yes, Lord Frederick," said I, "the same; I was third in the Iris off the West African coast, since then." "Why," said he, "I recollect you quite well, Mr Collins, although you have grown a foot, I think, sir—but your eye reminds me of sundry pranks you used to play on board! What nickname was it your mess-mates called you, by the bye?" "Something foolish enough, I suppose, my lord," replied I, biting my lip; "but I remember clearly having the honour to steer the second cutter in shore one dark night near Dunkirk, when your lordship carried the Dutch brig and the two French chasse-marées—" "'Faith," broke in the captain of the Hebe, "you've a better memory than I have—I do not recollect any chasse-marées at all, that time, Mr Collins!" "Why," said I, "I got a knock on the head from a fellow in a red shirt—that always kept me in mind." "Oh," remarked the Admiral to Captain Wallis, laughing, "Lord Frederick Bury must have had so many little parties of the kind, that his memory can't be expected to be very nice! However, I shall go ashore at present, gentlemen, leaving the Hebe and you to dispose of this runaway lieutenant in someway or other. Only you'd better settle it before Admiral Plampin arrives!" "Have you seen the—the—Longwood lately, Sir Dudley?" asked the captain of the Podargus, carelessly. "Yes, not many days ago I had an interview," said the Admiral gravely; "proud as ever, and evidently resolved not to flinch from his condition. 'Tis wonderful the command that man has over himself, Wallis—he speaks of the whole world and its affairs like one that sees into them, and had them still nearly under his foot! All saving those miserable squabbles with Plantation House, which—but, next time, I shall take my leave, and wash my hands of the whole concern, I am glad to think!" Lord Frederick was talking to me meanwhile at the other end of the cabin, but I was listening in spite of myself to Sir Dudley Aldcombe, and noticed that Captain Wallis made no answer. "By the way, Wallis," continued the Admiral, "'tis curious that he seemed anxious more than once to know what you think of him—I believe he would like to see you!" "To see me!" said the commander of the Podargus, suddenly. "At last, does he! No, Sir Dudley, he and I never will meet; he ought to have thought of it twelve years sooner! God knows," he went on, "the commander of a ten-gun brig is too small a man to see the Emperor Napoleon a prisoner—but in ten years of war, Sir Dudley, what mightn't one have been, instead of being remembered after as only plain John Wallis, whom Buonaparte kept all that time in prison, and who was sent, in course of time, to cruise off St Helena!" Here the Admiral said something about a British sailor not keeping malice, and Captain Wallis looked up at him gravely. "No," replied he; "no, Sir Dudley, I shouldn't have chosen the thing; but in the mean time I'm only doing my duty. There's a gloomy turn in my mind by this time, no doubt; but you've no idea, Sir Dudley, how the thought of other people comes into one's head when he's years shut up—so[Pg 706] I may stand for many a one Buonaparte will never see more than myself, that'll ring him round surer than those rocks there, though they're dead and in their graves, Sir Dudley!" The Admiral shook his head, observing that Napoleon was no common man, and oughtn't to be judged as such. "Too many victories in that eye of his, I suspect, Captain Wallis," said he, "for either Plantation House or his own conscience to break his spirit!" "Ay, ay sir," answered the captain respectfully, "excuse me, Sir Dudley, but there it is—so long as he's got his victories to fall back upon, he can't see how, if he'd regarded common men more, with all belonging to them, he wouldn't have been here! Why did Providence shut him up in a dead volcano, with blue water round it, Sir Dudley, if it wasn't to learn somehow or other he was a man after all?" Sir Dudley Aldcombe shrugged his shoulders and looked to Lord Frederick, upon which he rose, and the two captains followed him out of the cabin; in five minutes I heard the side piped for the Admiral's leaving, and soon after the captain of the Hebe came below again.

"This is a disagreeable affair of your old messmate's, Mr Collins," said he, seriously. "You are, perhaps, not aware that Captain Duncombe was a relative of my own, and the fact of his property having fallen by will to myself, rendered my position the more peculiarly disagreeable, had I been obliged not only to recognise Lieutenant Westwood here, but afterwards to urge proceedings against him, even if he were let off by court-martial. I cannot tell you how the sight of a stranger, as I thought, relieved me, sir!" "Indeed, Lord Frederick!" replied I, too much confused in the circumstances to say more. However, his lordship's manner soon set me at my ease, the old good-humoured smile coming over his fine features again, while he went on to offer me the place of his second lieutenant, who was going home very ill by one of the homeward bound Indiamen; adding, that Sir Dudley would confirm the appointment; indeed, he could scarce help himself, he said, as there was nobody else he could get at present. "You must be a thorough good sailor by this time, Collins," continued he, "if you have gone on at the rate you used to do. I remember how fond you were of having charge for a minute or two of the old Orion, or when I let you put her about in my watch. Why they called you 'young Green,' I never could understand, unless it was 'ut lucus a non lucendo' as we used to say at Eton, you know. Well, what do you say?" Now, as you may suppose, the idea of boxing about St Helena, for heaven knew how long, didn't at all suit my liking—with the thought of the Seringapatam steering away for Bombay the whole time, and a hundred notions of Violet Hyde in India,—'twould have driven me madder than the Temple did Captain Wallis: but it was only the first part of my mind I gave Lord Frederick. "What!" exclaimed he, with a flush over his face, and drawing up his tall figure, "you didn't suppose I should remain here? Why, the Hebe is on her way for Calcutta and Canton, and will sail as soon as the Conqueror arrives at James Town with Admiral Plampin." "Your lordship is very kind," said I looking down to cover my delight; "and if I am not worthy of the post, it shan't be my fault, Lord Frederick." "Ah, very good!" said he smiling; "'tis an opportunity you oughtn't to let slip, Collins, let me tell you! For my own part, I should just as soon cut out a pirate in the Straits of Malacca as a French brig in the Channel; and there are plenty of them, I hear, there. As for a chase, sir, I flatter myself you won't easily see a finer thing than the Hebe spreading her cloth after one of those fast proas will be—I think you are just the fellow to make her walk, too, Mr Collins—pah! to compare a day on the Derby turf with that, would be a sin! You have no idea, sir, how one longs for a fair horizon again, and brisk breezes, when so ineffably tired out of all those ball-rooms, and such things as you see about town just now—only I fear I shall wish to be second lieutenant again, eh?" The noble captain of the Hebe turned to look out through the stern window to seaward, his face losing the weary sort of half-melancholy cast it had shown for the last minute, while his eye[Pg 707] glistened; and it struck me how well-matched the Hebe and her commander were: you'd have said both had good blood in them, both being models to look at of their kind, and the frigate lifting under you at the moment, from the keel upward, with a check aloft in her main-topsail, that lifted her stem to the surge. A small telescope rolled off the sofa on to the cabin deck, and as I picked it up, another gust could be heard coming down St James' Valley from inside the island; through the gun-port one saw the trees wave over the hot white houses in the bright coloured little town, while the ship's canvass gave another flutter above decks. Lord Frederick laughed, and said, "Then, I suppose, we need say no more about it, Mr Collins, except referring once for all to Sir Dudley?" I bowed, and the upshot was, that, an hour or two after, I had my acting commission sent me from the Admiral, the same boat having called at the Podargus for my things; upon which Lord Frederick introduced me to the first lieutenant, and I found myself once more doing duty in the service—the Hebe standing out to leeward with the last light, just as the Podargus was tripping anchor to beat round again the other way. As for our friends from the burnt vessel, I must say I had forgot them already, for the time at least.

Every block, crag, and knot in the huge crust of the rock, shone terribly bright for a minute or two, aloft from over the yard-ends, as she stood suddenly out into the fiery gleam of the sun going down many a mile away in the Atlantic. Then up leapt the light keener and keener to the very topmost peak, till you'd have thought it went in like a living thing behind a telegraph, that stood out against a black cleft betwixt two cliffs. We saw the evening gun off Ladder Hill flash upon the deep blue of the sky, seemingly throwing up the peak and flag-staff a dozen feet higher; and the boom of the gun sounding in among the wild hills and hollows within the island, as if one heard it going up to Longwood door. Scarce was it lost, ere a star or two were to be seen in the shadow on the other side, and you listened almost, in the hush following upon the gunfire, for an echo to it, or something stranger; in place of which the Hebe was already forging ahead in the dark to get well clear of the land, every wave bringing its own blackness with it up toward her forechains, then sparkling back to her waist in the seeth of foam as she felt the breeze; while St Helena lay towering along to larboard, with its ragged top blotting against the deep dark-blue of the sky, all filling as it was with the stars.

I had the middle watch that night; the ship being under short canvass, and slowly edging down to make the most leewardly point of the island, from which she was to beat up again at her leisure by the morning. All we had to do was to keep a good look-out, on the one hand, into the streak of starlight to seaward, and on the other along the foot of the rocks, as well as holding her well in hand, in case of some sudden squall through the valleys from inside. However, I shan't easily forget the thoughts that ran in my mind, walking the quarterdeck, with the frigate under charge, the first time I noticed Orion and the Serpent begin to wheel glittering away from over Diana's Peak—the others stealing quietly into sight after them, past the leech of our main-topsail: scarce an English star to be seen for the height of the island off our quarter; some of the men on one side of the booms humming a song about Napoleon's dream, which you'll hear to this day in ships' forecastles; another yarning solemnly, on the other side, about some old sweetheart of his—but all of them ready to jump at my own least word. In the morning, however, there we were, stretching back by degrees to go round the lee side of the island again; the haze melting off Diana's Peak as before, and the sea rolling in swells as blue as indigo, to the huge red lumps of bare crag; while the bright surges leapt out of them all along the frigate's side, and the spray rose at times to her figure-head.

During the day we cruised farther out, and the Hebe had enough to do in seeing off one Indiaman for home, and speaking another outward-bound craft, that passed forty miles off or so, without touching; the governor's telegraphs were eternally at work on the heights, bothering her for the least trifle, and making out a sail sixty[Pg 708] miles off, it was said. For my part, I was pretty well tired of it already, sincerely wishing for the Conqueror, with Admiral Plampin, to heave in sight; but glad enough all aboard the Hebe were, when, after an entire week of the thing, it came to her turn, with the Newcastle and Podargus, to lie at anchor off James Town, where half the ship's company at a time had their liberty ashore. For my part, I had to see after the frigate's water-tanks, and a gang at the rigging, till the afternoon, when Lord Frederick took the first lieutenant and myself ashore with him in his gig; and no joke it was landing even there, where the swell of the surf nighhand hove her right up on the quay, while you had to look sharp, in case the next wave washed you back again off your feet. The whole place was hot as could be from the sun's rays off the rocks, slanting bare red to the cloudless sky, on both sides of the neat little gaudy houses crowded in the mouth of the valley, which narrowed away beyond the rise of the street, till you didn't see how you'd get farther. But for the air of the sea, indeed, with now and then a breath down out of the hills, 'twas for all the world like a half-kindled oven; except under the broad trees along the Government esplanade, where one couldn't have stood for people. What with blacks, lascars, Chinamen, and native 'Yamstocks,' together with liberty men from the men-of-war and Indiamen, as well as reefers trotting about on ponies and donkeys, the very soldiers could scarce get down the foot of the road up Ladder Hill: as for the little town holding one half of them, it was out of the question, but the noise and kick-up were beyond aught else of the kind, saving a Calcutta bazaar. Accordingly, it was pleasant enough at last to come within a shady walk of thick green fig-trees, growing almost out of the rock near the main battery, above the small sound of the water far below; the very sea looking bluer through the leaves, while some birds no bigger than wrens hopped, chirruping, about the branches. Here we met Sir Dudley Aldcombe coming down from the batteries along with some Company's officers from India, and he stopped to speak to Lord Frederick, giving the first lieutenant and me a bow in return, as we lifted our hats and waited behind. The Admiral proposed to get Lord Frederick a pass to visit Napoleon along with himself next day, as the Conqueror would probably arrive very soon. "You will oblige me greatly, Sir Dudley," said the captain of the Hebe. "He seems as fond of seeing a true sailor," said the Admiral, "as if we'd never done him harm! Things will be worse after I go. By the way," added he suddenly, "'tis curious enough, but there's one person on the island at present, has made wonderful progress in Sir Hudson's good graces, for the short time—that American botanist, or whatever he calls himself, that Captain Wallis took off the burnt vessel on his way here. Your new lieutenant was aboard at the time, you know, Lord Frederick." "You saw him, sir, of course?" said the Admiral, looking to me. "Only for a minute that night, Sir Dudley," answered I; "and afterwards both he and his servant were under the surgeon's charge below." "Well," continued Sir Dudley to the captain, "they seem quite recovered now; for I saw them to-day up at Plantation House, where the philosopher was in close discourse with the Governor about plants and such things; while her ladyship was as much engaged with the assistant, who can only speak Spanish. A remarkable-looking man the latter is, too; a Mexican, I understand, with Indian blood in him, apparently—whereas his principal has a strong Yankee twang; and queer enough it was to hear him snuffling away as solemnly as possible about buttany and such things—besides his hinting at some great discovery likely to be made in the island, which Sir Hudson seemed rather anxious to keep quiet from me." What Sir Dudley said made me prick up my ears, as you may fancy. I could scarce believe the thing; 'twas so thoroughly rich, and so confoundedly cool at once, to risk striking at the very heart of things this way with the Governor himself; but the whole scheme, so far, flashed upon me in a moment, evidently carried on, as it had been all along, by some one bold enough for anything earthly, and with no small cunning besides. All that he needed,[Pg 709] no doubt, was somebody else with the devil's own impudence and plenty of talk; nor, if I'd thought for a day together, could one have pitched easily upon a customer as plausible as our friend Daniel, who hadn't a spark of fear in him, I knew, just owing to his want of respect for aught in the entire creation. Still I couldn't, for the life of me, see what the end of their plan was to be, unless the strange Frenchman might have been some general or other under Buonaparte, and just wanted to see his old commander once more; which, thought I, I'll be hanged if I don't think fair enough, much pains as he had put himself to for the thing.

"How!" asked Lord Frederick, "a discovery, did you say, Sir Dudley?" "Oh, nothing of the kind we should care about, after all," said the Admiral; "from what I could gather, 'twas only scientific, though the American called it 'a pretty importaint fact.' This Mr Mathewson Brown, I believe, was sent out by the States' Government as botanist in an expedition to southward, and has leave from Sir Hudson to use his opportunity before the next Indiaman sails, for examining part of the island; and to-day he thought he found the same plants in St Helena as he did in Gough's Island and Tristan d'Acunha, twelve hundred miles off, near the Cape; showing, as he said, how once on a time there must have been land between them, perhaps as far as Ascension!" "Why," put in Lord Frederick, "that would have made a pretty good empire, even for Napoleon!" "So it would, my lord," said Sir Dudley, "much better than Elba,—but the strangest part of it is, this Mr Brown was just telling his Excellency, as I entered the room, that some of the ancient philosophers wrote about this said country existing in the Atlantic before the Flood—how rich it was, with the kings it had, and the wars carried on there; till on account of their doings, no doubt, what with an earthquake, a volcano, and the ocean together, they all sunk to the bottom except the tops of the mountains! Now I must say," continued the Admiral, "all this learning seemed to one to come rather too much by rote out of this gentleman's mouth, and the American style of his talk made it somewhat ludicrous, though he evidently believed in what may be all very true—particularly, in mentioning the treasures that must lie under water for leagues round, or even in nooks about the St Helena rocks, I thought his very teeth watered. As for Sir Hudson, he had caught at the idea altogether, but rather in view of a historical work on the island, from the earliest times till now—and I believe he means to accompany the two botanists himself over toward Longwood to-morrow, where we may very likely get sight of them."

"O—h?" thought I, and Lord Frederick Bury smiled. "Rather a novelty, indeed!" said he; and the first lieutenant looked significantly enough to me, as we leant over the battery wall, watching the hot horizon through the spars of the ships before James Town. "What amused me," Sir Dudley said again, "was the American botanist's utter indifference, when I asked if he had seen anything of 'the General' in the distance. The Governor started, glancing sharp at Mr Brown, and I noticed his dark companion give a sudden side-look from the midst of his talk with her ladyship, whereupon the botanist merely pointed with his thumb to the floor, asking coolly 'what it was to science?' At this," added Sir Dudley to the captain, "his Excellency seemed much relieved; and after having got leave for myself and your lordship to-morrow, I left them still in the spirit of it. It certainly struck me that, in the United States themselves, educated men in general couldn't have such a vulgar manner about them,—in fact I thought the Mexican attendant more the gentleman of the two—his face was turned half from me most of the time, but still it struck me as remarkably intelligent." "Ah," said Lord Frederick carelessly, "all the Spaniards have naturally a noble sort of air, you know, Sir Dudley—they'll never make republicans!" "And I must say," added the Admiral, as they strolled out of the shade, up the battery steps, "little as I know of Latin, what this Mr Brown used did seem to me fearfully bad!"

[Pg 710]

"And no wonder!" thought I "from a Yankee schoolmaster," as I had found my late shipmate was, before he thought of travelling; but the valuable Daniel turning his hand to help out some communication or other, no doubt, with Napoleon Buonaparte in St Helena, took me at first as so queer an affair, that I didn't know whether to laugh at him or admire his Yankee coolness, when he ran such risks. As for the feasibleness of actually getting the prisoner clear out of the island, our cruising on guard was enough to show me it would be little short of a miracle; yet I couldn't help thinking they meant to try it; and in case of a dark night, which the southeaster was very likely to bring, if it shifted or freshened a little,—why, I knew you needn't call anything impossible that a cool head and a bold heart had to do with, provided only they could get their plans laid inside and out so as to tally. The more eager I got for next day, when it would be easy enough for any of us to go up inland after Lord Frederick, as far as Hut's Gate, at least. Meantime the first lieutenant and I walked up together to where the little town broke into a sort of suburb of fancy cottages, with verandahs and green venetians in bungalow style, scattered to both sides of the rock amongst little grass plots and garden patches; every foot of ground made use of. And a perfect gush of flowers and leaves it was, clustering over the tiles of the low roofs; while you saw through a thicket of poplars and plantains, right into the back of the gulley, with a ridge of black rock closing it fair up; and Side Path, as they call the road to windward, winding overhead along the crag behind the houses, out of sight round a mass of cliffs. Every here and there, a runlet of water came trickling down from above the trees to water their roots; you saw the mice in hundreds, scampering in and out of holes in the dry stone, with now and then a big ugly rat that turned round to face you, being no doubt fine game to the St Helena people, ill off as they all seemed for something to do—except the Chinese with their huge hats, hoeing away under almost every tree one saw, and the Yamstock fishermen to be seen bobbing for mullet outside the ships, in a blaze of light sufficient to bake any heads but their own. Every cottage had seven or eight parrots in it, apparently; a cockatoo on a stand by the door, or a monkey up in a box—not to speak of canaries in the window, and white goats feeding about with bells round their necks: so you may suppose what a jabbering, screaming, whistling, and tinkling there was up the whole hollow, added to no end of children and young ladies making the most of the shade as it got near nightfall—and all that were out of doors came flocking down Side-Path.

Both of us having leave ashore that night, for a ball in one of these same little bungalows near the head of the valley, 'twas no use to think of a bed, and as little to expect getting off to the ship, which none could do after gunfire. For that matter, I daresay there might be twenty such parties, full of young reefers and homeward-bound old East Indians, keeping it up as long as might be, because they had nowhere to sleep. The young lady of the house we were in was one of the St Helena beauties, called "the Rosebud," from her colour. A lovely creature she was, certainly, as it was plain our Hebe's first lieutenant thought, with several more to boot: every sight of her figure gliding about through the rest, the white muslin floating round her like haze, different as her face was, made one think of the Seringapatam's deck at sea, with the men walking the forecastle in the middle watch, and the poop quiet over the Judge's cabins. Two or three times I had fancied for a moment that, if one had somewhat stirring to busy himself with, why, he might so far forget what was no doubt likely to interfere pretty much with a profession like my own; and so it might have been, perhaps, had I only seen her ashore: whereas now, whether it was ashore or afloat, by Jove! everything called her somehow to mind. The truth is, I defy you to get rid very easily of the thought about one you've sailed in the same ship with, be it girl or woman—the same bottom betwixt you and the water, the same breeze blowing your pilot-coat in the watch on deck, that[Pg 711] ripples past her ear below, and the self-same dangers to strive against! At a break in the dance I went out of the dancing-room into the verandah, where the cool of the air among the honeysuckle flowers and creepers was delightful to feel; though it was quite dark in the valley, and you couldn't make out anything but the solemn black-blue of the sky full of stars above you, between the two cliffs; or right out, where the stretch of sea widening to the horizon, looked almost white through the mouth of the valley, over the house-roofs below: one heard the small surf plashing low and slow into the little bay, with the boats dipping at their moorings, but I never saw sea look so lonely. Then tip at the head of the gulley one could mark the steep black crag that shut it up, glooming quiet and large against a gleam from one of the clusters of stars: the sight of it was awful, I didn't know well why, unless by comparison with the lively scene inside, not to say with one's own whole life afloat, as well as the wishes one had at heart. 'Twas pretty late, but I heard the music strike up again in the room, and was going back again, when all of a sudden I thought the strangest sound that ever came to one's ears went sweeping round and round far above the island, more like the flutter of a sail miles wide than aught else I can fancy; then a rush of something like those same blasts of wind I was pretty well used to by this time—but wind it was not—growing in half a minute to a rumbling clatter, and then to a smothered roar, as if something more than mortal shot from inland down through the valley, and passed out by its mouth into the open sea at once. I scarce felt the ground heave under me, though I thought I saw the black head of the ravine lift against the stars—one terrible plunge of the sea down at the quays and batteries, then everything was still again; but the whole dancing party came rushing out in confusion at my back, the ladies shrieking, the men looking up into the sky, or at the cliffs on both sides; the British flag, over the fort on Ladder Hill, blowing out steadily to a stiff breeze aloft. It wasn't for some time, in fact, that they picked up courage again, to say it had been an earthquake. However, the ball was over, and, as soon as matters could be set to rights, it was nothing but questions whether it had aught to do with him up at Longwood, or hadn't been an attempt to blow up the island—some of the officers being so much taken aback at first, that they fancied the French had come. At last, however, we who had nothing else for it got stowed away on sofas or otherwise about the dancing-room: for my part, I woke up just early enough to see the high head of the valley coming out as clearly as before against the morning light, and the water glancing blue out miles away beyond the knot of ships in the opening. The news was only that Napoleon was safe, having been in his bed at the time, where he lay thinking one of the frigates had blown up, they said. Not a word of his that got wind but the people in James Town made it their day's text—in the want of which they'd even gossip about the coat he wore that morning—till you'd have said the whole nest of them, soldiers and all, lay under his shadow as the town did at the foot of the cliffs, just ready to vanish as soon as he went down. The Longwood doctor had told some one in the Jew Solomon's toy-shop, by the forenoon, that Buonaparte couldn't sleep that night for making some calculations about a great battle he had fought, when he counted three separate shocks of the thing, and noticed it was luckily right up and down, or else James Town would have been buried under tons of rock. The doctor had mentioned besides that there was twice an earthquake before in the island, in former times; but it didn't need some of the town's people's looks to tell you they'd be afraid many a night after, lest the French Emperor should wake up thinking of his battles; while, as for myself, I must say the notion stuck to me some time, along with my own ideas at that exact moment—at any rate, not for worlds would I have lived long ashore in St Helena.

Mr Newland the first lieutenant, and I, set out early in the day, accordingly, with a couple of the Hebe's midshipmen, mounted on as many of the little island ponies, to go up inland for a cruise about the hills.[Pg 712] You take Side Path along the crags, with a wall betwixt the hard track and the gulf below, till you lose sight of James Town like a cluster of children's toy-houses under you, and turn up above a sloping hollow full of green trees and tropical-like flowering shrubs, round a pretty cottage called the Briars—where one begins to have a notion, however, of the bare blocks, the red bluffs, and the sharp peaks standing up higher and higher round the shell of the island. Then you had another rise of it to climb, on which you caught sight of James Town and the harbour again, even smaller than before, and saw nothing before your beast's head but a desert of stony ground, running hither and thither into wild staring clefts, grim ravines, and rocks of every size tumbled over each other like figures of ogres and giants in hard fight. After two or three miles of all this, we came in view of Longwood hill, lying green on a level to north and east, and clipping to windward against the sea beyond; all round it elsewhere was the thick red crust of the island, rising in ragged points and sharp spires:—the greenish sugar-loaf of Diana's Peak shooting in the middle over the high ridge that hid the Plantation House side of St Helena to leeward. Between the spot where we were and Longwood is a huge fearful-looking black hollow, called the Devil's Punch-Bowl, as round and deep as a pitch-pot for caulking all the ships in the world—except on a slope into one corner of it, where you saw a couple of yellow cottages with gardens about them; while every here and there a patch of grass began to appear, a clump of wild weeds and flowers hanging off the fronts of the rocks, or the head of some valley widening away out of sight, with the glimpse of a house amongst trees, where some stream of water came leaping down off the heights and vanished in the boggy piece of green below. From here over the brow of the track it was all like seeing into an immense stone basin half hewn out, with all the lumps and wrinkles left rising in it and twisting every way about—the black Devil's Punch-Bowl for a hole in the middle, where some infernal liquor or other had run through: the soft bottoms of the valleys just bringing the whole of it up distincter to the green over Longwood hill; while the ragged heights ran round on every side like a rim with notches in it, and Diana's Peak for a sort of a handle that the clouds could take hold of. All this time we had strained ourselves to get as fast up as possible, except once near the Alarm House, where there was a telegraph signal-post, with a little guard-hut for the soldiers; but there each turned round in his saddle, letting out a long breath the next thing to a cry, and heaving-to directly, at sight of the prospect behind. The Atlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glittering faint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand; only the high back of the island shut out the other side—save here and there through a deep-notched gully or two—and accordingly you saw the sea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, clasping the dark-coloured lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms lifting it high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it into their wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, where they meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the first lieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to go with them, lest they got into mischief: for my part I preferred the chance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as I fancied not unlikely, or what was less to be looked for, a sight of Buonaparte himself.

Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handed round one side of the Devil's Punch-Bowl, when I heard a clatter of horse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick riding quickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood—which, curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving down from the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather some kind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after that such was often the case, the climate up there being quite different from below, where they never feel a[Pg 713] gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow I got into it was as hot and still as it would have been in India, the blackberry trailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed with prickly pear-bushes, willows, gum-wood, and an African palm or two; though, from the look of the sea, I could notice the south-east trade had freshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night than ordinary, and to shift a little round. Suddenly the fog began to clear by degrees from over Longwood, till it was fairly before me, nearer than I thought; and just as I rode up a rising ground, out came the roof of a house on the slope amongst some trees, glittering wet as if the sun laid a finger on it; with a low bluish-coloured stretch of wood farther off, bringing out the white tents of the soldiers' camp pitched about the edge of it. Nearly to windward there was one sail in sight on the horizon, over an opening in the rocks beyond Longwood House, that seemingly let down toward the coast; however, I just glanced back to notice the telegraph on the signal-post at work, signalling to the Podargus in the offing, and next minute Hut's Gate was right a-head of me, not a quarter of a mile off—a long-shaped bungalow of a cottage, inside of a wall with a gate in it, where I knew I needn't try farther, unless I wanted the sentries to take me under arrest. Betwixt me and it, however, in the low ground, was a party of man-o'-war's-men under charge of a midshipman, carrying some timber and house-furniture for Longwood, as I remembered, from seeing them come ashore from the Podargus that morning; so I stood over, to give my late shipmates a hail. But the moment I got up with them, it struck me not a little, as things stood, to find three of the four Blacks we had taken aboard from that said burnt barque of the American mate's, trudging patiently enough under the heaviest loads of the gang. Jetty-black, savage-looking fellows they were, as strong as horses, and reminded me more of our wild friends in the Nouries River, than of 'States niggers; still, what caught my notice most wasn't so much their being there at all, as the want of the fourth one, and where he might be. I don't know yet how this trifling bit of a puzzle got hold on me, but it was the sole thing that kept me from what might have turned a scrape to myself—namely, passing myself in as officer of the party; which was easy enough at the time, and the tars would have entered into the frolic as soon as I started it. On second thoughts, nevertheless, I bade them good-day, steering my animal away round the slant of the ground, to see after a good perch as near as possible; and, I daresay, I was getting within the bounds before I knew it, when another sentry sung out to me off the heights to keep lower down, first bringing his musket to salute for my uniform's sake, then letting it fall level with a ringing slap of his palm, as much as to say it was all the distinction I'd get over plain clothes.

At this, of course, I gave it up, with a blessing to all lobster-backs, and made sail down to leeward again as far as the next rise, from which there was a full view of the sea at any rate, though the face of a rough crag over behind me shut out Longwood House altogether. Here I had to get fairly off the saddle—rather sore, I must say, with riding up St Helena roads after so many weeks at sea—and flung myself down on the grass, with little enough fear of the hungry little beast getting far adrift. This said crag, by the way, drew my eye to it by the queer colours it showed, white, blue, gray, and bright red in the hot sunlight; and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off the ship's glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hue of it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, that seemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while the lot of plants and trailers half-covering the steep front of it, would no doubt, I thought, have delighted my old friend the Yankee, if he was the botanising gentleman in question. By this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak, the sky glowing clearer deep-blue at that height than you'd have thought sky could do, even in the tropics—the very peaks of bare red rock being softened into a purple tint, far off round you. One saw into the[Pg 714] rough bottom of the huge Devil's Punch-Bowl, and far through without a shadow down the green patches in the little valleys, and over Deadwood Camp,—there was nothing, as it were, between the grass, the ground, the stones and leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the sea spread far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you. You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St Helena, with the Atlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight, like the horns of the bright new moon round the dim old one; which St Helena pretty much resembled, if what the star-gazers say of its surface be true, all peaks and dry hollows—if, indeed, you weren't lifting up out of the world, so to speak, when one looked through his fingers right into the keen blue overhead!

If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't tell half what I felt lying there; but, as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of the late European war by land and sea. Not that I could have said so at the time, but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've known one have when a schoolboy, lying on the green grass the same way, with one's face turned up into the hot summer heavens: half of it flying glimpses, as it were, of the French Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we were children—then the fears about the invasion, with the Channel full of British fleets, and Dover Cliffs—Trafalgar and Nelson's death, and the battle of Waterloo, just after we heard he had got out of Elba. In the terrible flash of the thing all together, one almost fancied them all gone like smoke; and for a moment I thought I was falling away off, down into the wide sky, so up I started to sit. From that, suddenly I took to guessing and puzzling closely again how I should go to work myself, if I were the strange Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted to manage Napoleon's escape out of St Helena. And first, there was how to get into the island and put him up to the scheme—why, sure enough, I couldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to have done all along: what could one do but just dodge about that latitude under all sorts of false rig, then catch hold of somebody fit to cover one's landing. No Englishman would do it, and no foreigner but would set Sir Hudson Lowe on his guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put on the island,—and really a neat enough plan it was to dog one of the very cruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars in the night-time, set them all a-blaze with tar, and pretend we were fresh from a craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of the Podargus, as it happened, was too much of a British seaman not to carry us straight to St Helena! Again, I must say it was a touch beyond me—but to hit the Governor's notions of a hobby, and go picking up plants round Longwood, was a likely enough way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least let him see one was there!

How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though? That was the prime matter. Seeing that even if the schooner—which was no doubt hovering out of sight—were to make a bold dash for the land with the trade-wind, in a night eleven hours long—there were sentries close round Longwood from sunset, the starlight shining mostly always in the want of a moon; and at any rate there was rock and gully enough, betwixt here and the coast, to try the surest foot aboard the Hebe, let alone an emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal up close to Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be made a mark of. Whew! but why were those same Blacks on the island, I thought: just strip them stark-naked, and let them lie in the Devil's Punch-bowl, or somewhere, beyond military hours, when I warrant me they might slip up, gully by gully, to the very sentries' backs! Their colour wouldn't show them, and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sentries as they needed, creep into the very bedchamber where Buonaparte slept, and manhandle him bodily away down through some of the nearest hollows, before any one was the wiser? The point that still bothered me was, why the fourth of the Blacks was wanting at present, unless he had his part to play elsewhere. If it was chance, then the whole might be a notion of mine, which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only[Pg 715] make out the fourth Black, so as to tally with the scheme, on the other hand, then I thought it was all sure: but of course this quite pauled me, and I gave it up, to work out my fancy case by providing signals betwixt us plotters inside, and the schooner out of sight from the telegraphs. There was no use for her to run in and take the risk, without good luck having turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must be both sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough not to alarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse puzzle than all, and I only guessed at it for my own satisfaction—as a fellow can't help doing when he hears a question he can't answer—till my eye lighted on Diana's Peak, near three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, by Jove! 'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was always more or less cloud near the top; and if you set a fire on the very peak, 'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that brought to mind a similar thing which I told you saved the Indiaman from a lee-shore one night on the African coast,—and again, by George! I saw that must have been meant at first by the Negroes as a smoke to help the French brig easier in! Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once what the fourth Black's errand might be—namely, to watch for the schooner, and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the island for mist. I was sure of it; and as for a dark night coming on at sea, the freshening of the breeze there promised nothing more likely; a bright white haze was softening out the horizon already, and here and there the egg of a cloud could be seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which would be better known afloat than here.

The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to hurry down and get aboard again, but, on standing up, the head of a peak fell below the sail I had noticed in the distance, and, seeing she loomed large on the stretch of water, I pretty soon found she must be a ship of the line. The telegraph over the Alarm House was hard at work again, so I e'en took down my glass and cleaned it to have a better sight, during which I caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier officer or other on horseback, with a mounted red-coat behind him, riding hastily up the gully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red piece of crag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though I couldn't have a better spy at him for want of my glass, I had no doubt he was the Governor himself, for the sentries in the distance took no note of him. There was nobody else visible at the time, and the said cliff stood fair up like a look-out place, so as to shut them out as they went higher. Once or twice after, I fancied I made out a man's head or two lower down the gully than the cliff was; which, it occurred to me, might possibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding out how long St Helena had been an island: however, I soon turned the glass before me upon the ship, by this time right opposite the ragged opening of Prosperous Bay, and heading well up about fourteen miles or so off the coast, as I reckoned, to make James Town harbour. The moment I had the sight of the glass right for her—though you'd have thought she stood still on the smooth soft blue water—I could see her whole beam rise off the swells before me, from the dark side and white band, checkered with a double row of ports, to the hamper of her lofty spars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze; the foam gleaming under her high bows, and her wake running aft in the heave of the sea. She was evidently a seventy-four: I fanced I could make out her men's faces peering over the yards toward the island, as they thought of "Boneypart;" a white rear-admiral's flag was at the mizen-royal-masthead, leaving no doubt she was the Conqueror at last, with Admiral Plampin, and, in a day or two at farthest, the Hebe would be bound for India.

I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting the Conqueror sink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on a mantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw some one standing near the brow of the cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glass at his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make out anything, save so[Pg 716] much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a near sight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the slope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass so long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocks in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on it flickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could have seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where the Admiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good way back; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or three others along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on one knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where I plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform, gazing to seaward—I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however, not to be sadly galled. Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his hands behind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at once lowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if to leave him alone—what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was standing, single in the round bright field of the glass I had hold of like a vice—his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept the telescope fixed fair in front of me—only I saw the smooth broad round of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries at Paris, or known him by sight since I was a boy—I knew it was Napoleon!

During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as the glass went—you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, as still as a figure in iron; watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'd done myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four was beating slowly to windward. When I did glance to the knot of officers twenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waiting respectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his army at the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his hands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it, seemed near enough for me to touch it—his eyes shot stern into me from below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn. That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, the clear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures above the crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against the slope beyond.

'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can I forget the sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of his, after the telescope sank from his eye, when the Conqueror must have shot back with all her stately hamper into the floor of the Atlantic again! Once more I brought my spyglass to bear on the place where he had been, and was almost on the point of calling out to warn him off the edge of the cliff, forgetting the distance I was away. Napoleon had stepped, with one foot before him, on the very brink, his two hands hanging loose by his side, with the glass in one of them, till the shadow of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes, and he stood as it were looking down past the face of the precipice. What he thought of no mortal tongue can say, whether he was master at the time over a wilder battle than any he'd ever fought—but just then, what was the surprise it gave me to see the head of a man, with a red tasselled cap on it, raised through amongst the ivy from below, while he seemed to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoisting himself by one hand round the tangled roots, till no doubt he must have looked right aloft into the French Emperor's face; and perhaps he whispered something,—though, for my part, it was all dumb-show to me, where I knelt peering into the glass. I saw even him start at the suddenness of the thing—he raised his head upright, still glancing down over the front of the crag, with the spread hand lifted, and the side of his face half turned toward the party within earshot behind, where the Governor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no doubt watching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far beyond. The keen sunlight on the spot brought out every motion of the two in front—the one so full in my view, that I could mark his look settle[Pg 717] again on the other below, his firm lips parting and his hand out before him, like a man seeing a spirit he knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of a wand came stealing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's very fingers. The head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one moment, ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked back, pointing with his loose hand to the horizon—there was one minute between them without a motion, seemingly—the captive Emperor's chin was sunk on his breast, though you'd have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow on his forehead; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of the bright-coloured cliff, under his two hands holding amongst the leaves. Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with it—it might have been refusing, it might have been agreeing, or it might be farewell, I never expect to know; but he folded his arms across his breast, with the bunch of leaves in his fingers, and stepped slowly back from the brink toward the officers. I was watching the stranger below it, as he swung there for a second or two, in a way like to let him go dash to the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short though the glance I had of him was—his features set hard in some bitter feeling or other, his dress different, too, besides the mustache being off, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened—it served to prove what I'd suspected: he was no other than the Frenchman I had seen in the brig, and, mad or sensible, the very look I caught was more like that he faced the thunder-squall with, than aught besides. Directly after, he was letting himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the party above were moving off over the brow of the crags, and the Governor riding round, apparently to come once more down the hollow between us. In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this time so far in that the peaks in the distance shut her out; but I ran the glass carefully along the whole horizon in my view, for signs of the schooner. The haze was too bright, however, to make sure either way; though, dead to windward, there were some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once or twice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. The Podargus was to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too, beating out in a different direction, as if the telegraph had signalled her elsewhere; after which you heard the dull rumble of the forts saluting the Conqueror down at James Town as she came in: and being late in the afternoon, it was high time for me to crowd sail downward, to fall in with my shipmates.

I was just getting near the turn into Side Path, accordingly, after a couple of mortal hours' hard riding, and once more in sight of the harbour beneath, when the three of them overtook me, having managed to reach the top of Diana's Peak, as they meant. The first lieutenant was full of the grand views on the way, with the prospect off the peak, where one saw the sea all round St Helena like a ring, and the sky over you as blue as blue water. "But what do you think we saw on the top, Mr Collins?" asked one of the urchins at me—a mischievous imp he was himself, too, pockmarked, with hair like a brush, and squinted like a ship's two hawse-holes. "Why, Mister Snelling," said I, gruffly—for I knew him pretty well already, and he was rather a favourite with me for his sharpness, though you may suppose I was thinking of no trifles at the moment—"why, the devil perhaps!" "I must say I thought at first it was him, sir," said the reefer, grinning; "'twas a black Nigger, though, sir, sitting right on the very truck of it with his hands on his two knees, and we'd got to shove him off before we could dig our knives into it!" "By the Lord Harry!" I rapped out, "the very thing that—" "'Twas really the case, though, Mr Collins," said the first lieutenant; "and I thought it curious, but there are so many Negroes in the island." "If you please, sir," put in the least of the mids, "perhaps they haven't all of 'em room to meditate, sir!" "Or sent to the masthead, eh, Roscoe?" said Snelling. "Which you'll be, sirrah," broke in the first lieutenant, "the moment I get aboard, if you don't keep a small helm!" We were clattering down over James Town by this time, the sun blazing red off the horizon, into it and the doors of the houses, and the huge hull and spars of the Conqueror almost blocking[Pg 718] up the harbour, as she lay anchored outside the Indiamen. The evening gun fired as we pulled aboard the Hebe, which immediately got under weigh by order, although Lord Frederick was not come down yet; but it fell to her turn that night to supply a guard-boat to windward, and she stood up under full sail round Sugar-Loaf Point, just as the dusk fell like a shadow over the island.

The Newcastle's boat was on the leeward coast that night, and one of our cutters was getting ready to lower, nearly off Prosperous Bay, to windward; while the frigate herself would hold farther out to sea. One of the master's mates should have taken the cutter; but after giving the first lieutenant a few hints as far as I liked to go, I proposed to go in charge of her that time, myself—which being laid to the score of my freshness on the station, and the mate being happy to get rid of a tiresome duty, I got leave at once. The sharp midshipman, Snelling, took it into his ugly head to keep me company, and away we pulled into hearing of the surf. The moment things took the shape of fair work, in fact, I lost all thoughts of the late kind. In place of seeing the ragged heights against the sky, and musing all sorts of notions about the French Emperor, there was nothing but the broad bulk of the island high over us, the swell below, and the sea glimmering wide from our gunwale to the stars; so no sooner did we lose sight of the Hebe slowly melting into the gloom, than I lit a cheroot, gave the tiller to the mid, and sat stirring to the heart at the thought of something to come, I scarce knew what. As for Buonaparte, with all that belonged to him, 'twas little to me in that mood, in spite of what I'd seen during the day, compared with a snatch of old Channel times: the truth was, next morning I'd feel for him again.

The night for a good while was pretty tolerable starlight, and in a sort of a way you could make out a good distance. One time we pulled right round betwixt the two points, though slowly enough; then again the men lay on their oars, letting her float in with the long swells, till the surf could be heard too loud for a safe berth. Farther on in the night, however, it got to be dark—below, at least—the breeze holding steady, and bringing it thicker and thicker; at last it was so black all round that on one side you just knew the rocks over you, with the help of a faint twinkle of stars right aloft. On the other side there was only, at times, the two lights swinging at the mast-head of the Podargus and Hebe, far apart, and one farther to sea than the other; or now and then their stern-window and a port, when the heave of the water lifted them, or the ships yawed a little. One hour after another, it was wearisome enough waiting for nothing at all, especially in the key one was in at the time, and with a long tropical night before you.

All of a sudden, fairly between the brig and the frigate, I fancied I caught a glimpse for one moment of another twinkle; then it was out again, and I had given it up, when I was certain I saw it plainly once more, as well as a third time, for as short a space as before. We were off a cove in the coast, inside Prosperous Bay, where a bight in the rocks softened the force of the surf, not far from the steep break where one of these same narrow gullies came out—a good deal short of the shore, indeed, but I knew by this time it led up somewhere toward the Longwood side. Accordingly the idea struck me of a plan to set agoing, whether I hit upon the right place or not; if it was the schooner, she would be coming down right from windward, on the look-out for a signal, as well as for the spot to aim at: the thing was to lure her boat ashore there before their time, seize her crew and take the schooner herself by surprise, as if we were coming back all right; since signal the ships we couldn't, and the schooner would be wary as a dolphin.

No sooner said than done. I steered cautiously for the cove, fearfully though the swell bore in, breaking over the rocks outside of it; and the reefer and I had to spring one after the other for our lives, just as the bowman prized her off into the back-wash. As for the cutter, it would spoil all to keep her off thereabouts; and I knew if a boat did come in of the kind I guessed, why she wouldn't lay herself out for strength of crew. Snelling and I were well armed enough to manage half a[Pg 719] dozen, if they fancied us friends, so I ordered the men to pull clear off for an hour, at least, leaving fair water. In fact there were sentries about the heights, I was aware, if they could have heard or seen us; but the din of the surf, the dark, and the expectation of the thing set us both upon our mettle; while I showed the boat's lantern every now and then, like the light I had noticed, such as the Channel smugglers use every thick night on our own coast. I suppose we might have waited five or ten minutes when the same twinkle was to be caught, dipping dark down into the swell again, about opposite the cove: next we had half an hour more—every now and then we giving them a flash of the lantern, when suddenly the reefer said he saw oars glisten over a swell, which he knew weren't man-o'-war's strokes, or else the fellows ought to have their grog stopped. I had the lantern in my hand, slipping the shade once more, and the other to feel for my cutlass hilt, when the mid gave a cry behind me, and I turned just in time to see the dark figure of a Black spring off the stones at our backs. One after another, three or four more came leaping past me out of the gloom—the Frenchman's red cap and his dark fierce face glared on me by the light of the lantern; and next moment it was down, with him and me in a deadly struggle over it in the thick black of the night. Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell, washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me, when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears.

I came up above water again by the sheer force of the swell, as it seemed to me, plunging into the shore; with the choice, I thought, of either being drowned in the dark, or knocked to a jelly on the rocks; but out I struck, naturally enough, rising on the huge scud of the sea, and trying to breast it, though I felt it sweep me backwards at every stroke, and just saw the wide glimmer of it heave far and wide for a moment against the gloom of the cliffs behind. All at once, in the trough, I heard the panting of some one's breath near alongside of me, and directly after, I was caught hold of by the hair of the head, somebody else grabbing at the same time for my shoulder. We weren't half-a-dozen fathoms from the stranger's boat, the Blacks who had fallen foul of me swimming manfully together, and the boat lifting bow-on to the run of the sea, as her crew looked about for us by the light of their lantern. I had just got my senses enough about me to notice so much, when they were hauling me aboard; all four of the Negroes holding on with one hand by the boat's gunnel, and helping their way with the other; while the oars began to make for the light, which was still to be caught by fits, right betwixt those of the two cruisers, as the space widened slowly in the midst of them, standing out to sea. Scarce had I time to feel some one beside me as wet as myself, whether the reefer or the Frenchman I didn't know, when crash came another boat with her bows fairly down upon our gunwale, out of the dark. The spray splashed up betwixt us, I saw the glitter of the oar-blades, and heard Snelling's shrill voice singing out to "sink the villans, my lads—down with 'em—remember the second lieutenant!" The lantern in the French boat flared, floating out for a single instant amongst a wreck of staves and heads, bobbing wildly together on the side of a wave. One of my own men from the cutter pulled me by the cuff of the neck off the crest of it with his boat-hook, as it rose swelling away past, till I had fast grip of her quarter; the Blacks could be seen struggling in the hollow, to keep up their master's body, with his hands spread helplessly hither and thither above water. The poor devils' wet black faces turned so wistfully, in their desperation, toward the cutter, that I gasped out to save him. They kept making towards us, in fact, and the bowman managed to hook him at last, though not a moment too soon, for the next heave broke the unlucky wretches apart, and we lost sight of them; the cutter hanging on her oars till they had both him and me stowed into the stern-sheets, where the Frenchman lay seemingly dead or senseless, and I spitting out the salt water like a Cockney after a bathe.

[Pg 720]

"Why, Mister Snelling," said I, as soon as I came fully to myself, "I can't at all understand how I got into the water!" "Nor I either, sir," said he; "I'll be hanged, sir, if I didn't think it was a whirlwind of Niggers off the top of Diana's Peak, seeing I made out the very one we found there this afternoon—the four of them took you and this other gentleman up in their arms in a lump, as you were floundering about together, and took to the water like so many seals, sir!" I looked down into the Frenchman's face, where he lay stretched with his head back and his hair dripping. "Is he gone?" said I. "Well, sir," said the mid, who had contrived to light the lantern again, "I'm afraid he's pretty near it. Is he a friend of yours, sir?—I thought as much, by the way you caught him the moment you clapped eyes on each other, sir." "Silence, sirrah!" said I: "d'ye see anything of the light to seaward?" For a minute or two we peered over the swells into the dark, to catch the twinkle of the signal again, but to no purpose; and I began to think the bird was flown. All of a sudden, however, there it was once more, dipping as before beyond the heave of the sea, and between the backs of it, sliding across the open space, with the blind side to the cruisers. "Hallo, my lads!" said I, quickly, and giving myself another shake as I seized the tiller, "give way seaward—stretch your backs for ten minutes, and we have her!" We were pulling right for the spot, when the light vanished, but a show of our lantern brought it gleaming fairly out again, till I could even catch glimpse by it of some craft or other's hull, and the iron of one boom-end, rising over the swells. "Bow-oar, there!" whispered I; "stand by, my lad, and look sharp!" "Hola!" came a short sharp hail over the swells; "d'où venez-vous?" "Oui, oui!" I sung out boldly, through my hand, to cover the difference as much as possible; then a thought occurred to me, recollecting the French surgeon's words on board this very craft the first time we saw her—"De la cage de l'Aigle"—I hailed—"bonne fortune, mes amis!" "C'est possible! c'est possible, mon capitaine!" shouted several of the schooner's crew, jumping upon her bulwarks, "que vous apportez lui-même?" We were pulling for her side as lubberly as possible, all the time—a man ran up on her quarter with a coil of line ready to heave—but still the main boom of the schooner was already jibing, her helm up, and she under way; they seemed half doubtful of us, and another moment might turn the scales. "Vite, vite!" roared I, choosing my French at hap-hazard. "Oui, oui, jettez votre corde—venez au lof, mes amis!"—luff, that was to say. I heard somebody aboard say it was the American—the schooner came up in the wind, the line whizzing off her quarter into our bows, and we came sheering down close by her lee quarter, grinding against her bends in the surge, twenty eager faces peering over at us in the confusion; when I sung out hoarsely to run for brandy and hot blankets, as he was half-drowned. "Promptement—promptement, mes amis!" shouted I, and as quickly there was a rush from her bulwarks to bring what was wanted, while Snelling and I made dash up her side followed by the men, cutlass in hand. Three minutes of hubbub, and as many strokes betwixt us, when we had driven the few that stood in our way pell-mell down the nearest hatchway. The schooner was completely our own.

We hoisted up the cutter, with the French captain still stretched in the stern-sheets—hauled aft the schooner's head-sheets, let her large mainsail swing full again, and were soon standing swiftly out toward the light at the frigate's masthead.

When the Hebe first caught sight of us, or rather heard the sound of the schooner's sharp bows rushing through the water, she naturally enough didn't know what to make of us. I noticed our first luff's sudden order to clear away the foremost weather-gun, with the rush of the men for it; but my hail set all to rights. We hove-to off her weather quarter, and I was directly after on board, explaining as simply as possible how we had come to get hold of a French craft thereabouts in such a strange fashion.

Accordingly, you may fancy the[Pg 721] surprise at James Town in the morning, to see the Hebe standing in with her prize; let alone the governor's perfect astonishment at suspecting some scheme to carry off Napoleon, apparently, so far brought to a head. The upshot of it was, to cut this bit of my story short, he and the military folks would have it, at last, that there was nothing of the kind; but only some slaver from the African coast wanting to land a cargo, especially as there were so many Blacks aboard of her; and the Frenchman at once took the cue, the little Monsieur of a mate swearing he had been employed by several of the islanders, some months before, to bring them slaves. For my own part, all things considered, I had nothing to say; and, after some likelihood of a shine being kicked up about it at first, the matter was hushed up. However, the schooner was of course condemned in the mean time, as the Hebe's fair prize, till such time as the Admiralty Court at the Cape should settle it on our outward-bound voyage.

As the Hebe was to sail at once for India, the governor took the opportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel along with us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist; and though, being in the frigate, I didn't see him, I made as sure as if I had it was my old shipmate Daniel.

Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for sea, in company with the prize: it wasn't more than ten or eleven days since we had arrived in the Podargus, but I was as weary with the sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely hull, and her taunt spars, spreading the square stretch of her white canvass sideways to the Trade, put new life into me: slowly as we dropped the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. "Luck and the anchors stowed!" thought I, "and hang all forethoughts!" I walked the weather quarterdeck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third lieutenant.

It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our 'gallant-sails oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before going down to his cabin, "Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!" "Indeed, Lord Frederick!" said I, respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. "Yes, sir," continued he; "as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to Bombay." "The deuce!" I thought, "are we never to be done with this infernal affair?" "'Tis excessively disagreeable," continued the Captain, swinging his gold eye-glass round his finger by the chain, as was his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at the schooner. "A beautiful craft, by the way, Mr Collins!" said he, "even within sight of the Hebe." "She is so, my lord," said I; "if she had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in her." "I say, Mr Collins," went on his lordship, musingly, "I think I have it, though—the way to get rid of this scrape!"

I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more about it.

[Pg 722]

PALACE THEATRICALS.

A DAY-DREAM.

I never heard, nor is it important, why my father, Major Von Degen, an old officer of the King's German Legion, resolved to have me educated in his native country, unvisited by him since boyhood, and supplanted in his affections, to all outward appearance, by the land he long had served and dwelt in, of whose daughters he had taken a wife, and in which he proposed to end his days. Be that as it may, at an early age I was sent from England to a town in the north of Germany, where I passed four years in the house of a worthy and kind-hearted professor, and which I quitted at the age of eighteen to proceed to the university of Heidelberg. For me, as for most young men, the gay, careless, light-hearted student-life, with its imaginary independence and fantastical privileges, its carouses of Rhenish wine and Bavarian beer, its harmless duels and mock-heroic festivals, at first had strong attractions. And when, after a certain number of joyously-kept terms and pleasant vacation rambles, university diversions began to pall, and I became a less constant attendant in the fencing hall and at the evening potations, I still was detained at Heidelberg—not by love of study, for to study, being destined to no profession, I little applied, but by the force of habit, by the charm of a delightful country, and, more particularly, by the agreeable society I found in a number of families resident in and around the town. Although but moderately attentive to the branches of learning usually pursued at a university, I was not altogether unmindful of my improvement. I busied myself with modern languages, exercised my pencil by sketching the surrounding scenery, and, above all, assiduously cultivated a tolerable talent for music. In this I was particularly successful. Enthusiastically fond of the art, gifted by nature with a good tenor voice, and having chanced upon an excellent instructor, I made rapid progress; and during the latter part of my residence at Heidelberg, no musical party or amateur concert for miles around was deemed complete without me.

I left the university in my five-and-twentieth year, and, after passing another twelvemonth in a tour through southern Europe, I was upon my way to England, when I paused for a day in the village of Mauseloch, capital of the Duchy of Klein-Fleckenberg—an independent and sovereign state of which geographers make little mention, and historians still less, but which is known, at least by name, to most persons who have travelled through those pleasant districts of central Germany watered by the Rhine and its tributaries. Those ignorant of its existence, and curious of its whereabout, will do well to consult the larger and more accurate maps of that country; upon which, greatly to the credit of the topographers, they will find it noted down, although its entire superficies is scarcely more extensive than that of the private park of more than one European monarch. Its population is perhaps equal to that of the Jews' quarter in Frankfort on the Maine, and its revenue would enable a private gentleman to live in tolerably good style in London or Paris. Its standing army, which, when seen upon parade, bears a strong resemblance to a sergeant's guard, greatly distinguished itself in the wars against Napoleon, sustained dreadful losses, and by its valour, as several patriotic Klein-Fleckenbergers have informed me, decided the fate of more than one hard-fought field. In most respects Klein-Fleckenberg differs so little from many other German principalities, duchies, landgraviates, &c. &c., that description is almost superfluous. In spring it is white with the blossoms of plum and pear, fruits which constitute no unimportant article of its consumption and commerce; it is celebrated for sour kraut; its pigs yield the best of sausages; it has half a dozen corn-fields and a hop-ground, and also a mineral-spring, whose waters, although not sufficiently renowned[Pg 723] to attract strangers, annually work miraculous cures upon sickly natives. At the time I speak of, the reigning duke was Augustus IX., an amiable and easy-going prince, whose illustrious brows were more frequently bound with a velvet smoking-cap than with a golden diadem, and whose hand, in lieu of sceptre, usually carried a riding-whip, sometimes a fowling-piece. His mild sway was lightly borne by his loyal subjects, who failed not, each successive Sabbath, to pray for his welfare and preservation, and who, if they sometimes grumbled when called upon for the contributions destined to support his princely state, imputed blame only to the tax-gatherer, and never dreamed of attaching it to their benevolent and well-beloved sovereign.

The chapel of the ducal residence of Mauseloch was filled to the roof, when, upon a bright Sunday morning of the year 183—, I entered and looked around for a vacant seat. Not one was to seen. More than one good-natured burgess screwed himself, as I passed near him, into the smallest possible compass, to try to make room for me, but on that sultry autumn morning I had too great regard both for my own comfort and that of others, to avail myself of the scanty space thus courteously afforded. In the whole church there literally was not a sitting vacant, and several persons seemed, by their attitude, to have resigned themselves to stand out the service. I hesitated whether to do the same or to leave the church, when somebody touched my arm, and on looking round I saw the precentor beckoning to me, and pointing to an empty stool behind the singing-desk. Glad of the offer, I at once installed myself amongst the choristers.

The extraordinary concourse in the church was not owing, as I afterwards learned, to any unwonted pious fervour of the Klein Fleckenbergers, but to the presence—for the first time after a visit of some weeks to a brother potentate—of the reigning duke and his duchess, and of their daughter the Princess Theresa. From my seat in the choir, I had a full view of these distinguished personages. The duke was a sleek elderly gentleman, with at least as much bonhomie as dignity in his bearing; his wife, with rather more of the starch of a petty German court, was yet a kindly-looking princess enough. But their daughter was a pearl of beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age, slender and graceful, with darker eyes and hair than are common amongst her countrywomen, and—but I shall not attempt to describe her. With all the advantages of ivory tablets and silken brushes, and the seven tints of the rainbow, it would need a cunning artist to do justice to her perfections; so it were absurd of me, a mere sketcher, with pen, paper, and an indifferent ink-bottle for sole materials, to attempt to portray them. I will therefore merely say, that with elegance of form and regularity and delicacy of feature, she combined the highest charm that grace and intelligence of expression can bestow. Fresh from the sunburnt shores of Italy, where I had basked at the foot of Vesuvius till my heart was as inflammable as tinder, I took fire at once. My eyes were riveted upon the peerless Theresa, when she chanced to look up. There was electricity in the glance. I was stricken on the spot; my heart was brought down like a snipe with a slug through his wing, and fell fluttering at its conqueror's feet. I know not how long I had gazed, when I was roused from my contemplation by a stir in the choir, and the choristers struck up a psalm to a fine old German air, in which I had often joined at concerts of Handel's and Haydn's splendid church music. Instinctively I took my accustomed part, and was scarcely conscious of doing so, until, after a few bars, I perceived myself the object of the choristers' curious attention, and saw the singer whose part I had taken cease to sing, either of his own accord or at a sign from the precentor. Certainly the wiry quavering and unskilled execution of the Klein Fleckenberger tenor could not compete for an instant with a voice which was then in its mellow prime, and of very considerable power; without vanity, the substitution was for the better, and so apparently thought the congregation, for a cat's footfall might have been heard in the church, and all eyes were turned towards the[Pg 724] choir. Amongst them I particularly observed the beautiful hazel orbs of the Princess Theresa, which more than once fixed themselves upon me, so I fancied, as if she singled out my voice and distinguished it from the less cultivated vocalisation of my companions. The singing at an end, I observed her whisper the duke, who immediately cast a glance in my direction.

The service over, I hurried from the church, eager to catch a view of my divinity, on whose passage I stationed myself. Presently an open carriage, with high-pacing Mecklenberg horses and a bearded chasseur, rolled rapidly by, its occupants receiving on their passage the respectful greetings of the people. In my turn I took off my hat, and I could not but think there was a gleam of recognition in the beautiful Theresa's eyes as she gracefully bent in acknowledgment of my salutation. And when the carriage had passed me a few yards, the duke put his head out and looked back, but for whom or what the look was intended I could not decide, before a turn of the road hid the vehicle from my view.

The ragouts at the Fleckenberger Arms were not of such excellence as to induce me to linger over them, even if my appetite had not been somewhat destroyed by the feverish excitement in which the sight of the peerless Theresa had left me. The fact was, absurd as it may seem, that I had actually, and at first sight, allowed myself to fall violently in love with the charming and high-born German. I say absurd; because, although my father was of a good enough Brunswick family, and my mother, a rich English heiress, had brought him a rent-roll perhaps not much inferior to the combined civil list and private revenue of the dukes of Klein Fleckenberg, yet a princess is always a princess, whether her realm be wide as China or limited as Monaco, a hemisphere or a paddock; and I was well assured of the haughty astonishment with which Augustus IX. would not fail to repel the presumptuous advances of plain Charles von Degen. At the time, however, I did not stay to calculate all this, but yielded to the impulse of the moment.

I was sitting after dinner in the public room of the hotel, and planning a walk abroad in hopes of obtaining another glimpse of the lady of my thoughts, when I heard my name pronounced. The door was half open, and by a slight change of position I saw into the entrance-hall, where Herr Damfnudel, landlord of the Fleckenberger Arms, was exhibiting, to a stranger in a dapper brown coat and of smug and courtly aspect, the folio volume in which, according to German custom, each visitor to the hotel was expected to inscribe his name and calling, his whence-come and his whither-go. Presently the stranger entered the room and paced it twice in its entire length, whilst I sat at the table turning over a newspaper, in whose perusal I affected to be busied, but at the same time observing, by the aid of a friendly mirror, the appearance and movements of the stranger, to whom I was evidently an object of curiosity and examination. Presently he took up a paper, sat down at no great distance from me, offered me snuff, and glided into talk. Aided by tolerable familiarity with the ways and style of little German courts and courtiers, I soon made up my mind as to what he was. His manner, appearance, and tone of conversation convinced me he was in some way or other attached to the ducal residence, although I had difficulty in conjecturing his motive for trying to extract from me various particulars concerning myself and my country, and especially concerning the object of my visit to Mauseloch. He either did not possess, or thought it unnecessary to employ, any great amount of finesse, and I soon detected his drift. My pure German accent could have left him no doubt that in me he addressed a countryman; the hotel-book told him little besides my name, for I had inscribed myself as a particulier or private gentleman, coming from the last town I had slept at, and proceeding to the next at which I proposed pausing on my journey homewards. Hope and vanity combined to flatter me with the belief that the chamberlain, or whatever else he was, acted merely as an agent in the affair; and, at any rate, I thought it wise to affect the mysterious, being sufficiently acquainted with optics to[Pg 725] know that a fog magnifies the objects it envelops. The stranger could make nothing of me. At times his sharp little grey eyes assumed an expression of doubt, and at others his manner had a tinge of deep respect that puzzled me not a little. At last he took his departure, and it was my turn to play the inquisitor. Calling for Herr Damfnudel, I preferred those two requests which no innkeeper was ever known to refuse—namely, a bottle of his best wine, and his company to drink it. The generous juice of the Rhine grape speedily oiled the hinges of his tongue; and at the very first assault, by speaking of the stranger as the Kammerherr or chamberlain, I ascertained that he really held a somewhat similar post in the duke's household. Before the bottle, of which I took care my host should drink the greater part, was quite empty, I had learned all that the worthy Damfnudel knew. This amounted to no great deal. The duke's gentleman had been inquisitive as to who I was, had inspected the book, had inquired if I had a servant, and had seemed disappointed at finding I was quite alone, and that the innkeeper could tell him little or nothing about me. Damfnudel was much inclined to believe, indeed had heard it rumoured in the town, that an important personage was expected at the castle, whom it was thought possible might be standing in my boots under the assumed name of Charles von Degen. Flattering as was the implied compliment to the aristocratic distinction of my appearance, I nevertheless repudiated the incognito, declared myself to be no other than I seemed, and begged Damfnudel to treat me and charge me as an ordinary traveller, and by no means as a prince, ambassador, or field-marshal, or other great dignitary. Dumfnudel, however, was of opinion that in these times so many real and ex-potentates travel incognito, that it is impossible to say who is who, and that a prudent innkeeper must consequently suspect all his guests of high rank until the contrary be proven, and charge accordingly.

Although I most perseveringly perambulated Mauseloch and its vicinity, I saw nothing more that day of the too fascinating Theresa. I ascertained, however, that the following morning was fixed for a grand shooting party in the ducal preserves, and that there I might confidently expect to obtain a view of my enchantress. Accordingly, at an early hour I mingled with the sportsmen and idlers who were thronging to the scene of action, and had not very long to wait before the party from the castle drove through the park gates. At first I had no eyes but for the lovely Theresa, who stepped lightly from her carriage, more beautiful than ever, her sweet face and graceful form shown to the utmost advantage by a closely-fitted hunting dress, in which she might have been taken for the queen of the Amazons, or for Cynthia herself newly descended from Olympus to hunt a boar in Klein Fleckenberg. Bright was her glance, gay and graceful her smile, as she alighted on the turf whose blades her fairy foot scarce bent. There was a murmur of admiration amongst the bystanders as she bowed cheerfully and kindly around, and again I thought her eye rested half a second's space on me, as I stood a little in the background, in the shadow of the trees. The duke and duchess were with her, and the three were attended by their little court, amongst whose members I recognised my inquisitive friend of the previous day.

The kind of park in which the battue was to take place, was a romantic tract of forest land, veined and dotted with rows and clusters of trees, abounding in excellent cover, and interspersed with grassy glades and lawns, whose delightful freshness was preserved by the meanderings of two rivulets, feeders of a neighbouring river, which flowed shallow and rapid over beds of white sand, and between banks gorgeous with wild flowers. The sport began. There was no lack of beaters. Besides a certain number of peasants, whose duty it was to attend when their lord went a-hunting, half the idlers of the duchy were at hand, eager to volunteer their services; and soon began a shouting and clamour, a thrashing of bushes and rummaging of brushwood, which drove the terrified game headlong from form and harbour, across the open ground, in full view and under the muzzles of[Pg 726] the sportsmen. Loud then rang rifle and fowling-piece, and cheerily clanged the horns, arousing the echoes of the woods, and reverberated back from the clefts and ravines of the neighbouring mountains, whilst the lusty cries of German woodcraft were on every side repeated. So gay and inspiriting was the scene, that for a moment it had almost diverted my thoughts from Theresa, when I was suddenly accosted by my friend the Spy. With a low bow he offered me a double-barrelled gun and a hunting-knife. "His highness," he said, in a tone of the utmost ceremony and respect, "was far from seeking to dispel the strict incognito I thought fit to maintain, but he trusted I would be pleased to take post, and share in the sports of the day." Having said thus much, he made another profound bow, wished me good sport, then bowed again, and retreated, leaving me so astonished and perplexed, that I was scarce able to reply to his civility, and to stammer out something about "a mistake under which his highness laboured," words which elicited only a bland and respectful smile, and another obeisance deeper than before. I was utterly confounded; puzzled and anxious to see how the mistake, of which I was evidently the subject, would ultimately be cleared up; whilst at the same time I could not help caressing a sweet presentiment that the misapprehension of the court would afford me opportunity of nearer acquaintance with the princess. Before these thoughts had passed through my mind, the gun was in my grasp, the hunting-knife by my side, and I was alone and without choice but to stand like an advanced sentry in the open ground, or to take post in the line of sportsmen stationed around the skirt of an adjacent cover. I chose the latter; but truly neither hare nor roebuck had much to fear from me. I had been too recently shot through the heart myself to be a very formidable foe to the startled creatures that scampered and scudded in all directions. I had made but slight addition to the stock of venison, when an end was put to this part of the day's sport, and a respite given to the smaller game by the appearance of a huge wild boar. The bristly monarch of the German forest had been tracked and driven upon a previous day into a sau-garten, an enclosure allotted for the purpose, and was now let out into the duke's chase. With eyes inflamed with fury, bristles erect, and white tusks protruding from under the blood-red wrinkles of his lip, he now dashed along, pursued by a few stanch mastiffs, more than one of which, when pressing too closely on the monster, atoned for his temerity with his life. Thus escorted, the fierce animal came careering down a long green alley, when one of the duke's counsellors, seized suddenly with a perilous ardour, brandished a boar-spear, planted himself in the middle of the path, and awaited the onset. In appearance he was not much of a Nimrod, being chiefly remarkable for the shortness of his legs and rotundity of his body, which seemed but ill at ease in a tight green hunting-coat, whilst the picturesque low-crowned hat and bunch of cock's feathers sat oddly enough above a jolly rubicund visage that might have belonged to Falstaff himself. The comical twinkle in his eye, which seemed to indicate his vocation to be that of court-jester in the drawing-room, rather than court-champion in the hunting-field, was quenched and replaced by a stare of visible uneasiness as the wild pig came bowling along, squinting ominously at him from under its shaggy eyebrows, and evidently wondering what manner of man thus rashly awaited its formidable charge. The worthy privy counsellor already puffed and perspired with his exertions, but still he manfully stood his ground, and, greeting his antagonist with the customary defiant cry of Hui Sau! he lowered his broad, keen spear-point, and prepared for a deadly thrust. But the dangerous contest required a firmer and prompter hand than his. Evading the weapon, the boar darted forward, thrust himself between the legs of the portly sportsman, and, without injuring him, carried him fairly off, astride upon his back. At this moment a char-à-banc, containing the duchess, the Princess Theresa, and two other ladies, and escorted by the[Pg 727] duke and some gentlemen on horseback, drove out of a cross-road, and the cavalcade obtained a full view of the scene. The piteous mien of the fat counsellor astride upon the pig, whose curly tail he grasped with a vehemence that augmented the indignation of the furious animal, was irresistibly ludicrous. There was a peal of laughter from the spectators, the duke swayed to and fro in his saddle with excess of mirth, and even the ladies caught the contagion. The joke, however, became serious earnest when the boar, by a sudden wriggle of his unclean body, shook off the counsellor, and turned upon him with the evident purpose of ripping his rotundity with his dangerous tusks. This occurred within a few steps of where I stood, and at the moment that the mirth of the spectators was exchanged for cries of anxious horror, and when the swine's ivory seemed already fumbling the ribs of the fallen man, I sprang forward and drove my couteau de chasse deep into the shoulder of the grunting savage. The next moment, a well-directed and powerful thrust from a huntsman's boar-spear laid the brute expiring upon the ground, cheek by jowl with the luckless sportsman who had so nearly been its victim. Bewildered by his fall, and panting with terror, the corpulent courtier, when set upon his legs by the huntsman, at first seemed in doubt whether the blood that sprinkled his smart hunting-dress belonged to himself or the pig. Satisfied upon this point, he picked up his crushed castor, and, without replacing it on his head, turned to me, with an air of profound respect. "Gracious sir," he said, bowing to the ground, "I am doubly fortunate in being rescued by so illustrious a hand from so imminent a danger." I at first thought the man was playing the buffoon by addressing me in this style, which had been more appropriate to a prince than to an unpretending commoner like myself, and I scanned his features sharply, but their sole expression was one of satisfaction at his deliverance, and of obsequious gratitude to his deliverer. Before I could frame a disclaimer of the honour thrust upon me, we were surrounded by the court. In a tone of mingled cordiality and circumspection, the duke paid me a compliment on the prompt aid afforded to his trusty friend and counsellor, upon whom he then opened a smart fire of good-humoured sarcasms, which, as in duty bound, his suite heartily laughed at and applauded. His wit was lost upon me, engrossed as I was by the presence of the lovely Theresa, who, encouraged by her father's example, smiled approvingly, and addressed to me a few obliging words, whilst a blush mantled her beauteous cheek. Then the char-à-banc drove on, accompanied by the horsemen, and I remained as one entranced, her silver tones yet ringing in my ear, her sweet and graceful smile still shedding sunshine around me. I had not yet recovered full possession of my senses, scattered and confused by the quick succession of events, and the curious dilemma in which I found myself, when one of the duke's grooms led up a saddle-horse, and respectfully held the stirrup for me to mount. I began to be resigned to the sort of equivoque in which I was entangled, and, somewhat tired by the exertions of the morning, I willingly availed myself of the proffered steed. At the door of the hotel I gave the animal up to my attendant, with a douceur whose liberality may certainly have contributed to maintain a belief of my being a more important personage than I seemed. My appearance on a horse of the duke's, and attended by one of his grooms, produced a great and manifest impression upon Herr Damfnudel, who treated me with redoubled respect, and, I have little doubt, augmented my score in the same proportion.

Left to solitude and reflection, after the bustle and excitement of the morning, a certain uneasiness took possession of me. Hurried along by a stream of odd but agreeable incidents, I had as yet lacked time to weigh the possible consequences. I almost wished I had kept in the background, and contented myself with sighing at a hopeless distance for the amiable Theresa, instead of accepting proffered attentions, and so passively encouraging the error into which the duke and his family had evidently[Pg 728] run. I felt that I was in some degree an impostor, unless I at once broke down the blunder by declaring who I was. On the other hand, I could not make up my mind thus rudely to alter a state of things which I had not brought about, for which I consequently was not to blame, and which, I plainly saw, was likely to afford me opportunities of interviews, and even of intimacy, with her by whom my thoughts were now entirely engrossed. Another course was certainly open to me, namely, instant departure; but to this I had great difficulty in making up my mind. My perplexities haunted me in my dreams, and the next morning found me in the same state of painful indecision, when a letter weighed down the scale of inclination, and made prudence kick the beam. It was brought me by a servant in the duke's livery, and written in courtly French by the marshal of his household. I had betrayed, it said, so charming a musical talent, that I must not feel surprised at the inference that my dramatic abilities were equally remarkable. To celebrate the birthday of his highness the duke, the court proposed getting up Kotzebue's play of the Love Child, and it was earnestly hoped I would not refuse to take the part of Ehrmann, which was accordingly enclosed. There was to be a rehearsal that evening at the palace.

This tempting invitation swept away my uncertainties like cobwebs. My theatrical experience little exceeded a few acted charades, but I had always been a great playgoer, and had long frequented a school of elocution, where I had acquired readiness of delivery, and the habit of speaking before a numerous audience. So I doubted not of making at least a respectable appearance upon the boards of the palace theatre. I had no reason to complain of the part assigned to me, for it was to be rewarded upon the stage with the hand of a beautiful baroness. Like more than one pious congregation, I thought the Klein-Fleckenbergers were in distress for a good parson, and doubtless I might pass muster as a tolerable one. It was no small stimulus to me to accept the part and do my best, that I should thereby be giving pleasure to her who I felt assured would be at once the most illustrious and the most lovely of my audience. And since the court persisted in discerning in me, an undisguised and unassuming private gentleman, a distinguished Incognito, whose mask, however, it carefully abstained from plucking off, I made up my mind there was no harm in letting the mistake go a stage further.

Kotzebue's agreeable play of the Love Child (Das Kind der Liebe) has, I think, appeared in an English dress, and will be known to many. I need here refer but to a small portion of the plot. Baron Wildenhain, a wealthy nobleman, destines the hand of his beautiful and artless daughter, Amelia, to Count Von der Mulde, a Frenchified German and empty coxcomb, but in other respects an advantageous match. Unwilling, however, to bestow her hand upon one to whom she may be unable to give her heart, he commissions Ehrmann, a clergyman, who has been her tutor, to ascertain her feelings towards the count, and to warn her against accepting him as a companion for life if she is unable to love and esteem him. Ehrmann, who has long been secretly attached to Amelia, but has scrupulously concealed his passion, magnanimously accepts the difficult and delicate mission; but whilst accomplishing it, and explaining to his former pupil the indispensable conditions of conjugal happiness, he is at once surprised, pained, and overjoyed by her naive confession that the sentiments of esteem and affection he tells her she ought to entertain towards her future husband, are exactly those she experiences for himself. This scene is skilfully managed, and a happy dénouement is brought about by the baron's preferring his daughter's happiness to his own pride, and giving her to the humbly-born but accomplished and virtuous minister.

By assiduous application during the whole of that day, I knew my part pretty well when the hour of rehearsal came. On reaching the palace, I was conducted to one of the wings, where a small but very complete theatre was fitted up. The marshal of the household, who received me with the most courteous attention, played Baron Wildenhain; his lady was Wilhelmina[Pg 729] Bottger; the humorous part of the butler was worthily filled by my boar-hunting friend of the previous day. The other male characters had all found very tolerable representatives, with the exception of the important one of Count Von der Mulde, which was taken by a young secretary who had scarcely set foot over the boundary of the duchy, and who, strive as he might, was but a tame and inefficient representative of the mincing Frenchified fop. The morrow being the duke's birthday, there was time but for this one rehearsal, which was therefore to be gone through in full dress. A costume awaited me, and I flattered myself I made a most reverend and imposing appearance in my priestly sables. My next concern was to know who took the character of the baron's daughter, the sprightly and innocent Amelia, with whom my own part was so closely linked. I conjectured it would be the marshal's daughter, but did not choose to ask. Great indeed was my surprise when, in the second act, the Princess Theresa made her entrance in a morning dress of exquisite elegance and freshness, and, in the character of Amelia, tripped and prattled, with natural and enchanting grace, through the scene where the baron sounds his daughter respecting Count Von der Mulde. With lightning swiftness the tender scenes I should have to play with her flashed across my memory, and drove every drop of blood to my heart. It was fortunate I was not then required on the stage, for I should have been unable to remember or utter a word. During that and the following scene, however, I had time to recover my composure; and when I at last went on for an interview with the father, I quickly glided into the spirit of my part, and acquitted myself well enough. Soon I found myself alone on the stage with Amelia, with the task set me to expose and explain to her the joys and sorrows of wedlock, and then her admirable acting and my feelings towards her converted the dramatic fiction into gravest reality—so far, at least, as I was concerned. When she so innocently and artlessly confessed her love, when she placed her hand in mine to move me to an avowal of affection, when I felt the pressure of her delicate fingers, it was all I could do to adhere to the letter of my part, and not avow in earnest the passion I was to appear to repress and conceal. With what seductive simplicity did she deliver the passage, "Long have I wondered what made my heart so full; but now I know; 'tis here!" And as she spoke, her bosom rose and fell beneath its covering of snow-white muslin. "Lady!" I exclaimed, and never were words more heartfelt, "you have destroyed my peace of mind for ever!"

It was with feelings approaching to rapture that I observed how completely the princess identified herself with her part. More than once I saw tears of sensibility suffuse her eyes. Her admirable performance elicited from the other actors applause too hearty and cordial to be the mere tribute of courtly adulation. And the scene in which Amelia, pretending to seek a needle beside her father's chair, throws herself suddenly on his neck, and passionately implores his consent, took the hearts of all present by storm. As for mine, it had long since surrendered at discretion.

The better to adapt it to the means and circumstances of a private theatre, the play had been a good deal cut and altered. The scene in which the fortunate Ehrmann obtains the hand of Amelia had been somewhat toned down, in consideration for the rank of the actress; and the embrace and kiss had been struck out. But, as it often happens that one involuntarily does the very thing that should be avoided, so, when Baron Wildenhain said, "I am indeed deeply in your debt: Milly, will you pay him for me?" she adhered to the uncurtailed version, let herself fall upon my arm, and exclaimed, with tender emotion, as my lips pressed her cheek, "Ah, what joy is this!" That thrill of felicity could not be surpassed. Immense was the happiness concentrated in that one brief moment. How incredulously should I have listened had I been told, twenty-four hours previously, that I so soon was to press that angel to my breast, and feel upon my arm the quick throbbings of her heart!

The rehearsal over, I was divesting myself of my clerical robe, when the[Pg 730] princess passed near me, accompanied by the marshal's lady.

"Dear Mr Ehrmann!" she said, "surely we soon shall see you doff another disguise?"

"Gracious princess," I was forced to reply, "unhappily I am and must ever remain what I now appear."

With a half-incredulous, half-mournful look she passed on, and left the theatre.

On returning to the hotel, I found there had been an arrival during my absence. A gentleman, mounted on a fine horse, and attended by a servant, had alighted about an hour previously at the Fleckenberger Arms, and was now seated in the coffee-room at supper. The stranger, a young man of agreeable exterior and remarkably well-bred air, had already heard of the private theatricals in preparation at the palace, and doubtless the loquacious Damfnudel had also informed him I was one of the performers; for scarcely had we exchanged a few of those commonplace remarks with which travellers at an hotel usually commence acquaintance, when, with an air of lively interest, he began to question me on the subject. I told him what the play was, described the arrangement of the theatre and the distribution of the parts, and added some remarks on the comparative merits of the performers, the least effective of whom, I observed, was the young secretary, who took the prominent and difficult character of Count Von der Mulde. There was something so encouraging to confidence in the frank and pleasing manner of the stranger, that before we retired to bed, after a pretty long sitting over our cigars, I narrated to him the curious chain of trifling circumstances that had led to my sharing in the projected performance, and did not even conceal that the inmates of the palace evidently took me for some great personage travelling incognito. I said little about the Princess Theresa, and nothing at all of the romantic passion with which she had inspired me. The stranger was vastly diverted at the whole affair; and declared me perfectly justified in yielding to the gentle violence done me, and profiting for my amusement by the harmless misapprehension. He then told me that he himself was a great lover of theatricals, and that he should like exceedingly to share in the performance at the palace; and, if possible, to take the part of Count Von der Mulde, in which he had frequently been applauded in his own country. He was a Livonian baron, who had been much at Paris; and I made no doubt that he really would perform the Gallomaniac fop extremely well, the more so that he himself was a little Frenchified in his manner. And I felt sure the general effect of the performance would be greatly heightened if a practised actor replaced the present unskilled representative of Von der Mulde. It was out of the question for me to think of proposing or presenting him, when my own footing was so precarious; but I informed him that the whole management was vested in the marshal of the duke's household—an affable and amiable person, by whom, if he could obtain the slightest introduction, I thought his aid would gladly be accepted. My Livonian friend mused a little; thought it possible he might get presented to the marshal; fancied he had formerly known a cousin of his at Paris; would think over it, and see in the morning what could be done. Thereupon we parted for the night.

I passed the whole of the next morning studying my part, and it was afternoon before I again met the accomplished stranger. With a pleasant smile, and easy, self-satisfied air, he told me he had settled everything, and should have the honour of appearing that evening as my unsuccessful rival for the hand of the fair Amelia Wildenhain. He had procured an introduction to the marshal, (he did not say through whom,) and that nobleman, delighted to recruit an efficient actor in lieu of a stop-gap, had proposed calling a morning rehearsal; but this the new representative of Von der Mulde declared to be quite unnecessary. He was perfectly familiar with the part, and undertook not to miss a word.

The hour of performance came. The little theatre was thronged with Klein-Fleckenbergers, noble and gentle, from country and town. The duke and duchess made their appearance, and were greeted by a flourish[Pg 731] of trumpets, whilst the audience rose in a body to welcome them. Count Von der Mulde dressed at the hotel, and did not appear in the greenroom till towards the close of that portion of the play in which he had nothing to do. In the fifth scene of the second act he made his entrance, and almost embarrassed Wildenhain and Amelia by the great spirit and naturalness of his acting. Kotzebue himself can hardly have conceived the part more vividly and characteristically than the stranger rendered it.

"I have scarcely recovered myself yet, dear Mr Ehrmann," said the Princess Theresa to me, between the acts. "The count quite frightened me. I could not help fancying it was the real Von der Mulde."

The completeness of the illusion was undeniable. The jests of the portly boar-hunter, in the part of the butler, passed unperceived, amidst the admiration excited by the count, who bewailed the pomatum-pot, forgotten by his servant, as though it were his best friend he had been compelled to leave behind, and whose eyes actually glistened with tears as he whined forth his apprehensions that unsavoury German mice would devour the most delicate perfume France had ever produced. The question passed round, amongst actors and audience, who this admirable performer was, and the duke himself sent behind the scenes to make the inquiry. "A Livonian gentleman," was the reply, "who would shortly have the honour to pay his respects to his highness."

The play proceeded, and if the rehearsal had had circumstances peculiarly gratifying to me as an individual, as an amateur of art I could not withhold my warmest approbation from this day's performance. The admirable tact and delicacy of the princess's acting, combined with the utter absence of stage-trick and conventionality, gave an unusual and extraordinary charm to her personation of a part that is by no means easy. The honours of the evening were for her and the count, and with justice, for few of the many German theatres I had visited could boast of such able and tasteful actors. Between the acts, the marshal's lady took her jestingly to task, and asked her whether, if the play were reality, she should not be disposed, without disparagement to me, to admit that the count was no despicable or unlikely wooer? "To her thinking," the princess replied, "our merits in real life might very well bear about the same relative proportion as those of the characters we assumed, and, for her part, she preferred her amiable and gentle tutor." Then perceiving, as she finished speaking, that I was within hearing, she turned away with a blush and a smile, that seemed to me like an opening of the gates of Elysium. Upon this occasion, however, the embracing scene was gone through according to the corrected version—that is to say, with the embrace omitted—but my vanity consoled me by attaching so much the greater price to the deviation that had been made in my favour upon the preceding evening. In short, I gave myself up to the enchantment of the hour: I was, or fancied myself, desperately in love; visions of felicity flitted through my brain to the exclusion of matter-of-fact reflections; I had dreamed myself into an impossible Paradise, whence it would take no slight shock to expel me. One awaited me, sufficiently violent to dissipate in a second the whole air-built fabric.

The performance was drawing to a close, when a sudden commotion arose behind the scenes, and cries of alarm were uttered. The flaring of a lamp, fixed in one of the narrow wings, had set fire to the elaborate frills and floating frippery that decorated the coxcombical costume of Count Von der Mulde. His servant, a simple fellow, who had attended him to the theatre, was ludicrously terrified at seeing his master in a blaze. "Water!" he shouted, at the top of his lungs. "Water! water! the Prince of Schnapselzerhausen is on fire!"

And, snatching up a crystal jug of water that stood at hand, he dashed it over his master, successfully quenching the burning muslin, but, at the same time, drenching him from head to foot. His exclamation had attracted universal attention.

"The Prince of Schnapselzerhausen!" repeated fifty voices.

[Pg 732]

"Blockhead!" exclaimed the stranger.

"Count Von der Mulde, I mean!" cried the bewildered servant. "Well," he added, seeing that none heeded his correction, "the murder is out; but it was better to tell his name than let him burn."

The murder was out, indeed. With much ado the scene was played to an end, and the curtain fell. Every one crowded round the singed and dripping Von der Mulde. The princess, instead of greeting in him the son of the reigning Prince of Schnapselzerhausen, her destined bridegroom, seemed bewildered and almost shocked at the discovery, and was carried fainting from the theatre. The prince was hurried away by his future father-in-law, whilst I, with my brain in a whirl, betook myself to my inn.

After a feverish and sleepless night, I fell at daybreak into a slumber, which lasted till late in the day. On getting out of bed, with the sun high in the sky, and before I was well awake, I began, almost unconsciously, to pack my portmanteau. The instinct was a true one; evidently I had now nothing to stay for in Klein-Fleckenberg. I rang for the waiter, and bade him secure me a place in that day's eilwagen. I was not yet dressed, when a servant brought me a letter and a small packet. I opened the former first. It was from the Countess Von P——, the wife of the marshal of the household. Its contents were as follows:—

"Rev. Mr Ehrmann—I thus address you because it is in that character we shall longest remember you. You are entitled to an explanation of certain circumstances and overtures concerning whose origin the appearance of his highness the Prince of Schnapselzerhausen will already have partly enlightened you.

"The description given us of the prince in the last letter of our confidential correspondent at his father's court—in which letter his musical skill and love of dramatic performances were particularly referred to—coincided, as did also the probable time of his arrival here, so closely with your appearance, that, when the real prince presented himself, under the assumed name of a Livonian gentleman, we were far from suspecting who he really was.

"I am commissioned to thank you, in the joint names of the Princess Theresa and her illustrious parents, for your excellent performance in yesterday's play. The princess, who is suffering from indisposition, brought on by the alarm of fire and subsequent surprise, requests your acceptance of the accompanying trinket as a slight token of her esteem."

The trinket was a gold ring, with the initial T. in brilliants. I pressed it to my lips, and I know not why I should be ashamed to confess that my eyes grew dim as I gazed upon it. I had had a vain but happy dream, and the moment of awakening was painful. An hour later I crossed for the last time the frontier of the pleasant little duchy.

The Gotha Almanack supplies the date of the marriage of the Princess Theresa of Klein-Fleckenberg with the son of the reigning Prince of Schnapselzerhausen. It also records a series of subsequent events which would induce many to believe in the conjugal felicity of the illustrious pair;—the birth, namely, of half a dozen little Schnapselzerhausens. That the second-born is christened Charles, may be ascribed by the world to caprice, accident, or a god-father: my vanity explains it otherwise.

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THE QUAKER'S LAMENT.

[The subject of the following poem will best be gathered from the entry in the notice-sheet of the House of Commons of 7th May last. We do not disguise our delight at finding that Mr Bright is about to take up the cause of protection in any portion of Her Majesty's dominions; and although his sympathies seem to have been awakened at a considerable distance from the metropolis, we are not without hope that the tide will set in, decidedly and strongly, towards the point where it is most especially needed. It is, at all events, refreshing to know that the Ryots of India have secured the services of so powerful and determined a champion, who has now ample leisure, owing to the general dulness of trade, to do every justice to their cause.

"Mr Bright,—That an humble Address be presented to her Majesty, praying her Majesty to appoint a commission to proceed to India, to inquire into the obstacles which prevent an increased growth of cotton in that country, and to report upon any circumstances which may injuriously affect the economical and industrial condition of the native population, being cultivators of the soil within the presidencies of Bombay and Madras. Tuesday 14th May."]

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THE GREAT PROTECTION MEETING IN LONDON.

We have considered it our duty to record in a permanent form the proceedings of the most important meeting which has been held in Britain, since Sir Robert Peel deliberately renounced that policy of which he was once the plighted champion. Not many months have elapsed since the Free-traders were wont to aver, with undaunted effrontery, that all idea of a return to the principles of Protection to native industry was eradicated from the minds of the British public; that, saving some elderly peers and a few bigoted enthusiasts like ourselves, no sane man would attempt to overturn a system which placed the untaxed foreigner on a level with the home-producer; and that cheapness, superinduced by exorbitant competition, was in reality the greatest blessing which could be vouchsafed to an industrious people. The great measure of the age, originally propounded as an experiment, was eagerly assumed as a fact; and we were told, for the first time in British history, that legislation, however faulty it might prove, was to be regarded as a thing irrevocable.

It was, however, rather remarkable that, whilst making these broad assertions, the Free-traders manifested a distinct uneasiness as to the working of their favourite scheme. If the measures which they advocated and carried were indeed final, there was surely no need for the bluster which was repeated, week after week, and day after day, from platform and from hustings, in Parliament and out of it, in pamphlet, broad-sheet, and review. If no considerable party cared about Protection, and still less meditated a vigorous effort for its revival, why should Mr Cobden and his brother demagogues have uselessly committed themselves by threatening, in so many words, to shake society to its centre, and overturn the constitution of the realm? Men never resort to threats, when they deem themselves positively secure. Such language was, to say the least of it, injudicious; since it was calculated to create an impression, especially among the waverers, that the temple of Free Trade, (which, by the way, is to be roofed in next year,) might after all have its foundation on a quicksand, instead of being firmly established on the solid stratum of the rock.

No charge can be made against the country party, that they have precipitately commenced their movement. On the contrary, we believe it would be impossible to find an instance of a vast body of men betrayed by their appointed leader; aggrieved by a course of legislation which they could not prevent, since a direct appeal to the suffrages of the nation was denied; injured in their property; and taunted for their apathy even by their opponents—yet submitting so long and so patiently to the operation of a cruel law which day by day was forcing them onwards to the brink of ruin. The practical working of the withdrawal of agricultural protection dates from February 1849, when that event was inaugurated by a Manchester ovation. In April the price of wheat had fallen to about 44s.—in December it was below 40s.; and then, and not till then, was the spirit of the people fairly and thoroughly aroused. We need not here advert to the foolish and deplorable trash put forward by the political economists in defence of a system of cheapness, caused by an unnatural depreciation of the value of British produce. That such a depreciation could take place, without lowering in a corresponding degree the rates of labour all over the country, and curtailing the demand for employment in proportion to the diminished means of the consumers, was obviously impossible. Nor could the wit of man devise any answer to the proposition at once so clear and so momentous, that the burden of taxation, already felt to be severe, was enormously aggravated and increased by the measures which virtually established a new standard of value for produce, and which violently acted upon the incomes of almost every ratepayer in the kingdom. But it is well worth noting that the leading advocates of Free Trade, previous to the[Pg 739] conversion of Sir Robert Peel, cautiously abstained from arguing their case on the ground of permanent cheapness. We have on this point the valuable testimony of Mr Cobden, who repeatedly declared his conviction that the farmers, and even the landowners, would derive a large and direct advantage from the repeal of the corn laws. We have the treatises of Mr Wilson, Secretary of the Board of Control, pathetically pointing out the positive detriment to the country which must ensue from a long continuance of low prices of grain. And finally, we have Sir Robert Peel's distinct admission that 56s. per quarter is the average price for which wheat can be raised with a profit in Great Britain. It was not until all rational hope of a rise was extinguished—until the amount of importations poured into this country demonstrated the fallacy of all the calculations which had been made as to the amount of surplus supply available from the Continent and from America—that any section of the Free-traders ventured to proclaim the doctrine that cheapness, ranging below the level of the cost of home production, was a positive advantage to the nation. It is true that this monstrous fallacy is now maintained by only a few of the more unscrupulous and desperate of the party; and that the Ministry have as yet abstained from committing themselves to so fatal a dogma. They would have us rather cling to the hope that present prices are only temporary, though they cannot assign a single plausible reason to account for the continued depression. They talk, in vague general terms,—the surest symptoms of their actual incapacity and helplessness—of "transition states of suffering," of "partial derangement inseparable from the formation of a new system of commercial policy," and much more such pompous and unmeaning jargon; whilst, at the same time, they refuse to commit themselves to any decided line of action, if it should actually be found that they were wrong in their calculations, and that prices so low as to be absolutely ruinous are not temporary in their operation, but must hereafter prevail as the rule. How often have we heard, on the part of their organs, even within the last two months, joyous assertions that the markets were again rising, and foreign supplies diminishing! Within this last fortnight, the Times, emboldened by the continuance of cold easterly winds, and the backward state of the vegetation, prophesied, with more than its usual confidence, a rapid rise and a consequent diminution of cheapness. On the 13th of May, our prospects were thus described:—"Happily just now corn is rising, and we are quite as likely to see wheat at 60s. as 30s. in the course of the year." On the 14th, the journalist again returned to the charge—"Just now the market is rising all over the world, and it seems likely enough that the farmer will soon have, in the natural course of things, what Mr G. Berkeley wants to obtain by a return to Protection.... The same agreeable tidings pour in from all parts of the kingdom, and indeed from all parts of the world." Alas for human prescience! On the 21st, the note was changed, and the bulletin from Corn-Exchange announced that "the trade was dull, and the prices gave way 1s. to 2s. per quarter before any progress could be made in sales." The aggregate average of wheat for the six weeks ending May 11th, was 37s. 1d.—a rate at which no one, not even the most sanguine dabbler in agricultural improvement, has ventured to aver that corn can be raised, under present burdens, without occasioning an enormous loss to the grower.

We do not complain of these calculations or prophecies, however fallacious they may be; but we do complain, very seriously, that Ministers, their organs and their underlings, are halting between two opinions. If cheapness is their watchword and principle, then they have no right to plume themselves upon any rise in the value of produce. We can understand the thorough-paced Free-trader who tells us broadly, that the cheaper food can be bought, no matter whence it comes, so much the better for the community. That is, at all events, plain sailing. But we say deliberately, that a more pitiable spectacle of mental imbecility cannot be imagined[Pg 740] than that which is now presented by the Cabinet, who, with cheapness in their mouths, are eagerly catching at the faintest shadow of a rise in prices; and who, did such a rise take place, would be the first to congratulate the country on the improved condition of its prospects! Mr Wilson, who usually communicates to the Premier, in the House of Commons, the invaluable results of his experience, has been blundering on for months in the preposterous hope of getting rid of facts by trumpery and fallacious statistics; and has at last landed himself in such a quagmire of contradictions, that his best friends are compelled to despair of his ultimate extrication. Yet this gentleman is one of those authorities whom we are told to regard with reverence; and whom we do regard with just as much reverence as we would bestow upon a broker's clerk who had set up for himself in business as a dealer in the scrip of exploded and abandoned lines.

It was not until sinking markets, and continued foreign importations, showed as clearly as facts could do that the depression of value was permanent, and not temporary—until the farmers of England found that they were absolute losers in their trade, and that their stock had become unprofitable—until wages were beginning to fall in many important districts, and the means of employment for thousands were gradually taken away—not until all this was seen, and felt, and known, that the suffering interests awoke from their presumed lethargy, and commenced that system of active agitation which, in an incredibly short period of time, has become universal over the face of the country. We shall not particularise the language which was used by men of the opposite party during the first period of the movement. All that insolence, bluster, and menace could do, was attempted by the former leaders of the League, to intimidate those who knew that they were performing their duty to their country and themselves, by making head against the most monstrous system of tyranny which ever yet was devised for the oppression of a free and prosperous people. Mr Cobden had the consummate folly—we need not call it wickedness—to threaten that, if one iota of the free-trade policy were reversed, he would raise up such a storm as would shake England to its centre and thoroughly revolutionise society. And, to the eternal disgrace of the Government be it spoken—the name of the demagogue who had dared to hold such language was allowed by the first Minister of the Crown to stand on a list of public commissioners! Then the landowners were emphatically warned to beware of originating a struggle, from which they might chance to emerge with something worse than a mere depreciation of their property. The warning, though doubtless well meant, was almost wholly unnecessary. The marked and characteristic feature of the new agitation is, that the landlords, as a body, have kept themselves so far aloof from it that their apathy has more than once been made a topic for the severest censure. It was among the tenant-farmers and yeomen of England—we say it to their praise and glory—that this mighty movement began. They saw how they had been deceived and betrayed by those to whom they had intrusted their cause; and the gallant Saxon spirit, never so greatly shown as when roused by a sense of oppression, was exerted to vindicate and champion the rights of their insulted order. The men of almost every county of England spoke out manfully in their turn. By a wise and timely system of organisation, skilfully planned and energetically carried into effect, their isolated efforts were directed into one grand channel of action. The National Association for the Protection of Industry and Capital, under the presidency of that high-minded and patriotic nobleman, the Duke of Richmond, and the energetic direction of Mr George Frederick Young, whose services to the cause can never be adequately acknowledged, afforded a centre and rallying point to the operations of the English Protectionists; and county after county, division after division, town after town, came forward to give new impulse and confidence to the movement. It might have been expected that a feeling so general, so undeniably powerful in itself, might have been treated with fair respect[Pg 741] by the experimental party and their organs. The fact was otherwise. The farmers were branded with falsehood, with fraud, with getting up fictitious cases of distress, with ignorance in not understanding their own peculiar business. Last year they had been invited to join the enemy, and to embark in a crusade the object of which was not explicitly set forth; but enough was disclosed to indicate that it boded no good to the maintenance either of the constitution or the public credit, or the interests of society as these have hitherto been acknowledged. They were told to let the landlords fight their own battle, and they, the farmers, would be cared for. Those who held such language had forgotten that, of all known sins, hypocrisy is the one most odious to the English mind. True, if familiarity with hypocrisy could have blunted that finer moral sense, it might have been assumed that the many public examples to be gathered from the history of the last few years, might have overcome that extreme repugnance to deceit which is part of the national character. If so, the Free-traders little understood the temper of the men with whom they had to deal. The proposal of an amalgamation with those who had never scrupled to use the most tortuous and questionable means for the attainment of their own object, was rejected with consummate scorn; and the disappointed agitators revenged themselves by discharging against the agriculturists whole volleys of unmeaning invective.

As if to add to real injury as much insult as the most perverted ingenuity could devise, the yeomen and farmers were publicly and repeatedly told, that the suffering of which they complained was their own deliberate choice. There was plenty of excellent land for tillage elsewhere than in Britain—acres might be had at a cheap rate either in America or in Poland—why not emigrate to those countries, and assist in augmenting that stream of importation which would only swamp them at home? Such was the advice tendered, and tendered seriously, in more than one of the leading journals of the day; and we hardly know whether to reprobate it most on account of its folly or its wickedness. If it was meant as a jest, all we shall say is, that a sorrier or more indecent one was never hatched in a shallow brain. We have not yet, thank God! arrived at such a pass that love of country and of kindred, and those ties which ought to be dearest to the human heart, are regarded by Englishmen as no better than idle and unmeaning terms—we are not yet prepared to abandon our nationality, and receive the fraternal hug from the arms of cosmopolitan democracy. That such insults as these have been felt bitterly, we know; and it is small wonder. Those who coined them knew little of the workings of human nature, if they hoped by such wretched means to deter any one from the path of duty. They have simply succeeded in arousing a feeling which had far better have been allowed to slumber—a conviction on the part of those whom they deride, that the injury which the Free-trading party has inflicted on the community at large arose less from an error in judgment than from a wilful obduracy of heart.

We have spoken thus strongly, because we would fain see less bitterness connected with a contest which is clearly inevitable, and which ought to be one of principle. Men who are in the deepest earnest, and thoroughly impressed with the truth and magnitude of their cause, are not apt to make allowance for the play of ill-regulated sarcasm, or the efforts of a clumsy humour. Still less will they brook such insolent defiance as lately emanated from Mr Cobden at Leeds. To the latter individual we presume to offer no advice. He stands chargeable with having done his utmost to excite a war of classes, and if he fails in doing so, it will not be for want of determination of purpose. But we do say to others, and we say it most seriously, that it is not safe, in the present posture of affairs, to heap insult upon a body of men, comprehending in their numbers the very flower of England's population—a body at all times averse to combination, and to those agitating arts which of late years have been so successfully practised in the towns—a body which never is roused except on occasion of the utmost moment; but which, when,[Pg 742] once roused, will never rest till it has triumphantly achieved its purpose.

The movement, which has been so rapid in the south, has also extended to Scotland. A Central Protective Association has been instituted in Edinburgh, comprising amongst its members many of the highest rank and greatest intelligence in the country. Local societies have been formed in East Lothian, Morayshire, Banffshire, Ross-shire, Aberdeen, Roxburghshire, and elsewhere; and, from the communications received from every quarter, we have no doubt that, in a very short while, similar Protection Associations will be organised in every county of Scotland from Berwick to Caithness. From the present Parliament it is now quite plain that nothing can be expected. We never were so unreasonable as to expect that, however strong might be the convictions of individual members—however public opinion and the lessons of experience might shake the faith of many in the wisdom of our late commercial policy—this Parliament would undo the work which was sanctioned by its predecessor. Had the Free-trade question been before the public at the last general election, we might have entertained an opposite opinion. But it was not so. Sir Robert Peel had no intention that the country should have a voice in the matter. He seized the moment when, by an extraordinary combination of circumstances, a majority was at his command, to play into the hands of the enemy, and to complete, by the surrender of the Corn Laws, the furtive scheme of which his tariffs were the mere commencement. That once carried, the nation was unwilling to disturb, by premature opposition or attempt at a reversal, an experiment in behalf of which such weighty testimony had been given. No impediment was thrown in the way—no unnecessary obstacle interposed. The Whig Ministry, who, in their new character of Free-traders, had undertaken the superintendence of affairs, were allowed by the constituencies of the Empire to have more than a working majority; so that, at all events, whatever might be the issue of the scheme, they could not pretend that a fair trial was denied to it. The question now arises, whether the trial has been of sufficiently long endurance. On that point there is no doubt in the minds of the agriculturists, of those connected with the Colonies, of the shipowners, of a large proportion of the merchants, and of a considerable body of the tradesmen. The effect of the experiment has been felt; and that, too, more severely and intensely than perhaps the most determined opponent of the Free-trade policy had anticipated. The movement has been begun, as is most natural, among those who are first in the order of suffering; and who now see, very clearly, that longer endurance and quiescence is tantamount to absolute ruin. Each day swells their ranks by a fresh accession of adherents, whilst the opposite party, defeated in argument, and unable to adduce a single proof of the advantages which they formerly prophesied, are compelled to have recourse to the Janus-like attitude which we have already attempted to sketch, and, when hard pressed, to repeat their sullen refusal of originating a change—for no better reason than that they are ashamed to acknowledge the extent of their error.

From the present Parliament, then, we expect little. Whatever impression may be made upon it by the present unmistakeable ferment abroad, we cannot indulge in a rational hope that it will depart from its original character. Our business is to prepare for a change by that pacific but most necessary agitation, which, if properly conducted, must compel the most obstinate Minister, for his own sake, and in fulfilment of his sworn duty to his Sovereign, to advise that opportunity of an appeal to the sense of the country which is now so generally demanded, and which can scarce be constitutionally refused.

In the following pages our readers will find a correct report of the proceedings of the delegates who were deputed from almost every part of the United Kingdom to assemble in London in the earlier part of May, and to hold a conference on the present alarming prospects of the industrial condition of the nation. We shall not offer any comment on the speeches delivered at the great public meeting at the Crown and Anchor on the 7th[Pg 743] ult.—a meeting which has stricken with confusion and dismay those who affected to deny the existence of general distress throughout the kingdom—further than to notice the odious and unfounded charge of disloyalty and disaffection which has been preferred against some of the speakers. That the leading journals opposed to Protection should have made the most of casual expressions uttered by honest men, unused to platform exhibitions, whilst referring to circumstances of almost unparalleled provocation, appears to us nowise wonderful. The journalist, writing at short notice, has a certain conventional license of interpretation; and unless he is unusually stringent or unfair, few people are inclined to quarrel with the pungency of a leading article. But we confess that we were not prepared for the sudden bursts of loyalty which emanated from the Whigs. With the memory of the T. Y. correspondence still vividly impressed upon our minds, we were surprised by the improved delicacy and refinement of tone exhibited by certain parties who are popularly supposed to know something of those famous letters. For their satisfaction, we are glad to inform them that their apprehensions are as groundless as their insinuations are hypocritical. It never has been, and it never will be, a charge against the yeomanry and tenantry of Great Britain that they are cold in their loyalty, or deficient in their duty and devotion to their Sovereign. But when they are taunted and defied by the approvers of republican institutions—when they are told broadly, from the manufacturing districts, that whatever may be the decision of another Parliament, whatever may be the verdict of the electoral body throughout the kingdom—that decision and that verdict shall avail nothing to reinstate them in their former position, but shall be nullified and overwhelmed by revolutionary risings and appeals to physical force—it is not only most natural, but most proper, that they should declare their resolute determination to vindicate their rights, if needful, by all the means which Providence has placed in their power, and to rescue their country from the lawless usurpation and tyranny of those who have been audacious enough to disclose the true nature and character of their schemes. It is perhaps needless to say any more upon this subject; indeed, after the remarks which fell from Lord John Russell at his interview with the delegates, it would be absurd to proceed further in the refutation of a charge which can only recoil with disgrace and ridicule on those who ventured to prefer it. Nor do we think it any matter of regret that the persons who have so often taunted the agricultural interest with their supineness, and drawn unfavourable conclusions as to their zeal from the singular extent of their patience, should at length be made aware that it may be dangerous to trifle with men who are driven by indefensible legislation to the brink of misery and ruin.

The annexed report of the meeting at the Crown and Anchor, revised by the several speakers, will show the unanimity which prevailed, the ability with which the interests of the country party were advocated, and the enthusiasm with which the spirited addresses were received. It was indeed an assembly which will be long remembered after the excitement and emergency which created it have passed away. We need not dwell upon details which are still fresh in the public mind: we shall best perform our duty by making one or two commentaries upon the replies which were made to the addresses of the delegates who were deputed to wait upon the Premier and on Lord Stanley.

The address to Lord John Russell is a document deserving of the most serious attention. It is a broad protest and warning, on the part of the loyal and constitutional people of the realm, against obstinate perseverance in a course of policy which has already proved disastrous to many of the most important interests. After setting forth in clear and temperate language the nature of the measures complained of, it concludes with as solemn a remonstrance and charge of responsibility as ever yet was addressed to a Minister of Great Britain. Lord John Russell accepts the responsibility, which, indeed, he cannot deny; but, without ignoring the justice of the complaint, he refuses the required relief.[Pg 744] Perhaps no other answer was expected by the most sanguine of those who formed the deputation, nor should we have done more than simply note the general tenor of the refusal, had not Lord John Russell volunteered a statement which, we humbly think, is by no means calculated to augment his reputation as a minister, and which discloses certain views which we maintain to be at utter variance with the genius and spirit of the constitution. The passage to which we refer is as follows:—"I am sorry to say that I think the conduct of the agricultural, the colonial, and the other interests, was not prudent in declaring that there should be no change in 1841. Still, that was their decision, and in 1846 a much greater change was effected in those laws. In 1847, a general election took place, by which the electors had to decide upon the conduct of those who had taken part in the adoption of these changes; and the result was the election of the present Parliament, which has decided upon continuing the policy which the House of Commons had laid down in 1846. I own I do think it was very unwise, if I may be allowed to say so, in 1841, not to have sought some compromise; but I think it would be far more unwise now to seek to restore a system of protective duties." Here we have the acknowledgment, quite unreservedly made, that expediency and not justice is the principle recognised by Her Majesty's Government. What Lord John Russell said resolves itself clearly into this: "If you, who represent the agricultural, colonial, and other interests, had thought fit to make a bargain with us in 1841, we, in return for your support, would have insured you a certain amount of protection. I think you were fools not to have done so; but, as you did not, you must even take the consequences." We should like very much to know upon what principle of ethics this singular declaration can be defended. To us it appears at utter variance with honesty, fair dealing, and honour. If, as the Free-traders say, the continuance of protection was a manifest wrong to the industrious classes of the community, what right could Lord John Russell have had to effect any manner of compromise? From every Government, whatever be its constitution, we are entitled to expect clear and uninfluenced justice. We know of no rule acknowledged in heaven or on earth, which, by the most forced construction, can justify Ministers in sacrificing the general interests of the community for the advantage of one particular class, or in making compromises between public right and private monopoly and gain. For ourselves, and those who think with us, we declare emphatically that we never would be parties to any such degrading compromise; that we should feel ourselves dishonoured if we were advocating merely the interests of a class; and that it is because we know that we have justice on our side that we are resolute in our present appeal. To talk now of former lapsed opportunities of compromise, is to use the language of a freebooter. It reminds us forcibly of an incident in the life of the famous outlaw Rob Roy Macgregor, who, when challenged for having driven away a herd of cattle belonging to his neighbour, very coolly replied—"And what for, then, did he not pay me black-mail?" The cases are perfectly similar. In 1841 no black-mail was tendered: in 1850, after the depredation has been made, we are taunted with not having purchased the favour and the protection of the Whigs!

What right, moreover, we may ask, has Lord John Russell to separate the interests of classes, and to talk of the agriculturists and those connected with the colonies as having taken a distinct and responsible part in the deliberations of 1841? According to the constitutional view, Parliament is the sole tribunal for the settlement of national questions. It is rather too much at the present day to insinuate such a taunt, and to tell the ruined farmer that he has only himself to blame, when, in all human probability, the expected negotiator on the other side, who ought to have made terms with the Whigs, was no less notable a person than Sir Robert Peel! It is difficult to imagine a more detestable and dangerous state of affairs, or one more hurtful to the general morality of the country, than must ensue if these indicated views of the Premier were to pass into general[Pg 745] acceptance; and if it were to be understood that individuals, and corporations, and interests, might, on special occasions, effect compromises with the Government, at variance with public justice, with equity, and with honour. We all know what sort of "compromises" were made by Sir Robert Walpole in the course of last century; and evil indeed will be the day when the example so set shall be acted on by a British minister, with this difference merely, that large and avowed "compromises" are substituted for private purchase.

Very different, indeed, was the reception which the delegates received from Lord Stanley. At this peculiar crisis, before the many hundreds of gentlemen who had assembled in the metropolis from all parts of the United Kingdom separated, each to report progress to those of his own county or district, it was determined that a select number of them should wait upon the man to whom the eyes of all were turned as their chosen leader—not only to testify their deep respect for his character and principles, but respectfully to ask advice as to the course which they ought in future to pursue. The universal feeling of the delegates—their confidence in Lord Stanley—their prospects, and the spirit which animated them, were admirably expressed by Mr Layton, who was intrusted with the duty of presenting the address; and the speech of Lord Stanley, which that address elicited, can never pass from the memory of those who were privileged to hear it.

Clearly, rapidly, and with a master hand, Lord Stanley described the position of parties in both Houses of Parliament, not vindicating—for vindication was unnecessary—but guarding himself and those who acted with him against any charge of apathy or indifference in the cause that lay most warmly at their hearts. He explained for the satisfaction of those who, in their impatience, would have precipitated measures, why it was that the leaders of the Protection party had abstained from originating that direct discussion which their opponents, confident in the possession of a majority, were so palpably eager to provoke. Admitting to the full, and deploring the magnitude and prevalence of the suffering which Free Trade has brought upon the country, he did not disguise his belief that a yet further period of probation must be endured, ere the full conviction of the fallacy of those schemes which have passed into law came home to the understanding of the nation. The advice, so cordially asked, was frankly and freely given. "You ask me for advice," said the noble lord—and we cannot forbear again quoting his memorable words, "I say, go on, and God prosper you. Do not tire, do not hesitate, do not falter in your course. Maintain the language of strict loyalty to the crown; and, with a spirit of unswerving obedience to the laws, combine in a determined resolution by all constitutional means to obtain your rights, and to enforce upon those who now misrepresent you the duty of really representing your sentiments, and supporting you in Parliament.... If you ask my advice, I say persevere in the course you have adopted. Agitate the country from one end to the other. Continue to call meetings in every direction. Do not fear, do not flinch from discussion. By all means accept the offer of holding a meeting in that magnificent building at Liverpool; and in our greatest commercial towns show that there is a feeling in regard to the result of our so-called Free Trade widely different from that which was anticipated by the Free-traders, and from that which did prevail only a few years ago. Your efforts may not be so soon crowned with success as you hope; but depend upon it, let us stand hand to hand firmly together; let the landlord, the tenant, and the labourer—ay, and the country shopkeeper—ay, before long, the manufacturer himself, be called on to show and to prove what the effects of this experiment are—and, as sure as we stand together, temperately but firmly determined to assert our rights, so certainly—at the expense, it may be, of intense suffering, and perhaps of ruin to many—of ruin which, God knows, if I could avert, I would omit no effort for that purpose—but ultimately, certainly, and securely we shall attain our object, and recede from that insane policy which has been pursued during the last few years."

We shall not attempt to describe[Pg 746] the effect which that address produced upon those who were present—suffice it to say, that every individual there esteemed it a privilege to be allowed to labour in the same cause with the true-hearted, patriotic, and eloquent statesman who had that day so frankly ratified their unanimous choice of a leader, and in whose honour, integrity, and perseverance they reposed the fullest confidence that can be yielded by man to man. Of this our readers may be well assured, that the movement so auspiciously begun will not be allowed to flag; and that it will not be abandoned until the full measure of justice is conceded to all classes throughout the British empire who have been made the victims of a rash experiment, and of one-sided and unjustifiable legislation.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF INDUSTRY AND CAPITAL.

A General Meeting was convened by the above body at the Crown and Anchor on Tuesday, 7th May, at one o'clock. The great hall was crowded from one extremity to the other by delegates and others from various parts of the kingdom. Nearly two thousand gentlemen were present during the proceedings, whilst many more were compelled to retire without having obtained admittance for want of standing room. On the platform were—the Duke of Richmond, K.G., in the Chair; Major William Beresford, M.P.; Mr Richard Blakemore, M.P.; Captain Boteler, R.E.; Mr T. W. Bramston, M.P.; Mr R. Bremridge, M.P.; Sir Brook W. Bridges, Bart.; Mr L. W. Buck, M.P.; Sir Charles M. Burrell, Bart., M.P.; Viscount Combermere, G.C.B.; Major Chetwynd, M.P.; Colonel Chatterton, M.P.; Mr E. Cayley, jun.; Mr E. S. Chandos Pole; Mr R.A. Christopher, M.P.; the Marquis of Downshire; Baron Dimsdale; Mr J. W. Dod, M.P.; Mr E. Fellowes, M.P.; Mr Floyer, M.P.; Lord Feversham; Mr H. Frewen, M.P.; the Earl of Glengall; Mr A. L. Goddard, M.P.; Mr Howell Gwyn, M.P.; Sir Alexander Hood, M.P.; Mr William King; Sir C. Knightley, Bart., M.P.; Sir Ralph Lopez, Bart., M.P.; Mr W. Long, M.P.; the Earl of Malmesbury; Mr W. F. Mackenzie, M.P.; Lord John Manners, M.P.; Mr J. Neeld, M.P.; Mr Newdegate, M.P.; Mr C. W. Packe, M.P.; Mr Melville Portal, M.P.; Lord Rollo; Earl Stanhope; Viscount Strangford, G.C.B.; Sir Michael Shaw Stewart; Lord Sondes; Colonel Sibthorpe, M.P.; Mr A. Stewart; Earl Talbot; the Hon. and Rev. C. Talbot; Alderman Thompson, M.P.; Sir John Trollope, Bart., M.P.; Sir John T. Tyrell, Bart., M.P.; Captain R. H. R. Howard Vyse, M.P.; Mr H. S. Waddington; the Rev. Edward Young; Mr P. Foskett; Mr G. F. Young; Professor Aytoun, Edinburgh; Mr J. Butt, Q.C.; Professor David Low; Lieutenant-Colonel Blois; Rev. W. M. S. Marriott; Sir James Ramsay, Bart.; Mr W. Caldecott; Captain E. Morgan; Mr Richard Oastler; Rev. A. Duncombe Shafto; Colonel Warren; Mr C. Byron; Rev. H. Franklin; Mr George Edward Frere; Captain Pearson; Sir John Hall, Bart., of Dunglass; Sir Thomas G. Hesketh, Bart.; Mr C. G. White, Limehouse; Rev. R. Exton; Rev. V. G. Yonge; Rev. C. H. Mainwaring; Major Rose; Sir James Drummond, Bart.; Mr Henry Burgess; Mr Samuel Kydd; Mr Delaforce, secretary of trades' delegates; Mr John Blackwood, Edinburgh; Mr H. Higgins, &c., &c.

The following is a correct list of the delegates from the different societies:—

BEDFORDSHIRE.

Bedfordshire.—Messrs Joseph Pain, John Rogers, William Biggs, Benjamin Prole, Thomas Gell, T. James.

BERKSHIRE.

Berkshire.—Messrs E. Tull, R. Warman, George Shackel, J. J. Allnatt, J. Brown, Job Lousley, William Aldworth, W. Sharp.

Newbury District.—Messrs John Brown, Job Lousley.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

Buckingham.—Messrs Philip Box and Henry Smith.

Amersham District.—Messrs Philip Goddard and Robert Ranshaw.

Bucks Association for the Relief of Real Property.—Messrs Edward Stone and Edwin W. Cox.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

Cambridgeshire.—Messrs Alexander Cotton, Edward Hicks, Thomas St Quintin, Samuel Webb, John Ellis, W. Bennett, John King, Edward Ball, Samuel Jonas, James Witt, King, John Oslar, Wilson, Holben, Peter Grain, James Leonard, Samuel Witt, James Ivatt.

Isle of Ely.—Messrs Joseph Little, W. Layton, John Vipan, (High Sheriff,) J. Fryer, Henry Martin, Thomas Saberton, Henry Rayner, J. Cropley, W. Martin, W. Saberton, T. W. Granger, W. Harlock, John Cutlack, H. Martin, Thomas Vipan, John Reid, W. Luddington, W. E. Reid, John Swift, John Hall, Henry Martin, jun., George Cook, William Vipan.

Newmarket.—Messrs R. D. Fyson (chairman,) P. Smith (vice chairman,) J. Dobede, W. Layton, G. F. Robins, John Fyson, William Fyson, Edward Staples, Waller Miles King, George Dennis, John Lyles King, R. F. Seaber, William Staples, William Westrope, Thomas Gardner, Robert Fyson, Ambrose Gardner.

DERBYSHIRE, SOUTH.

South Derbyshire.—E. S. Chandos Pole Esq., Mr Malins.

[Pg 747]

DEVONSHIRE, SOUTH.

South Devon Branch.—J. Elliott, Esq.

Devon and Exter Branch.—Sir J. Y. Buller, Bart., M.P., L. W. Buck, M.P., R. Bremridge, Esq., M.P., Lawrence Palk, Esq., George Turner, Esq., R. Brent, Esq., M.D., secretary, Sir J. Duckworth. Bart., M.P., Edward Trood, Esq.

DORSETSHIRE.

Dorchester.—J. Floyer, Esq., M.P., W. Symonds, Esq.

ESSEX.

Essex Protection Society.—Messrs John Ambrose, S. Baker, Jas. Barker, John Barnard, T. Bridge, Geo. Carter, John Clayden, J. G. Fum, John Francis, Jos. Glascock, Jas. Grove, W. Fisher Hobbs, Jos. Lawrence, S. Reeve, T. K. Thedam, W. Yall, S. Willis, and H. T. Biddell (the secretary.)

Romford District.—Messrs Christopher Thomas Tower, William Bowyer Smyth, Robert Field, John S. Thompson, Major Crosse, J. Gilmore, G. Mashiter, E. Vipan Ind, W. Haslehurst, John Bearblock, John Coseker, James Paulin, Hon. and Rev. H. W. Bertie, Rev. T. L. Fanshawe, Rev. D. G. Stacey, Rev. George Fielding, Thomas Mashiter, jun., W. H. Clifton, Thomas Lee, Robert Pemberton, J. Wallen, James Biggs, John P. Peacock, Henry Moss, T. W. Brittain, James Laming Padnall, George Hooper Theydon, Richard Bunter, Henry Joseph Hance, Thomas Champness, Charles Mollett, Richard Webb, James Hill, George Porter, John Bearblock (Hall Farm,) John Francis, S. B. Gooch, Frederick Francis, Henry Joslin, Wm. Baker, Wm. Blewitt, Thomas Surridge, Rowland Cowper, Collinson Hall, S. R. G. Francis, Daniel Haws, Wm. Freeman, W. Sworder, Charles Pratt, Daniel Hicks.

Grays District.—Messrs Richard Meeson, J. Curtis, T. Sturgeon, Thos. Skinner, Chas. Asplin, Chas. Squier, W. L. Bell, W. C. Cook, J. Sawell, Richard Knight, W. Willis, W. Stevens, H. Sackett, R. Bright, J. Nokes, R. Cliff, C. Sturgeon, R. Ingram, D. Jackson,—Uwins, H. Long, S. Newcome, A. Causton,—Woodthrope, Rev. W. Goodchild, Rev. C. Day, Rev. H. S. Hele, Rev. J. Boulby, Rev. J. Tucker.

Billericay.—Messrs Isaac Crush, J. Brewitt, G. Shaw.

GLAMORGANSHIRE.

Glamorgan.—Rev. Robert Knight, Captain Boteler, Dr Carne; Messrs A. Murray, E. David, William Llewellyn, and R. Franklen.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE, EAST.

Cirencester and Gloucestershire.—Messrs P. Matthews, Edmund Ruck, David Bowly.

HAMPSHIRE, NORTH.

Alton District.—Messrs H. Holding, Edward Knight, H. J. Mulcock, W. Garnett, J. Eggan.

Basingstoke.—Mr George Harriott.

HAMPSHIRE, SOUTH.

Botley and South Hants.—Messrs Edward Twynam, Josh. Blundell, Caleb Gater, W. C. Spooner.

HEREFORDSHIRE.

Herefordshire.—Mr Henry Higgins.

Ledbury District.—Rev. Edward Higgins, Messrs Reynolds Petton, Thomas France.

Ross District.—Mr H. Chillingworth.

HUNTINGDONSHIRE.

Huntingdonshire.—Rev. James Linton, Messrs John Mann, Hammond, Ibbot Mason, Robert T. Moseley, Geo. Brighty, Peter Purvis, John Warsop.

KENT, EAST.

East Kent.—Sir B. W. Bridges, Bart., Messrs D. H. Carttar, Edward Hughes, John Abbot, Edward C. Hughes, Rev. Bradley Dyne, Musgrave Hilton, Charles Neame.

KENT, WEST.

Cranbrook.—Rev. W. M. S. Marriott, Messrs J. E. King, R. Tooth, Geo. Hinds, J. E. Wilson.

Gravesend.—W. M. Smith, Esq., late high sheriff, Messrs W. F. Dobson, T. Collyer, Pinching, W. E. Russell, R. C. Arnold, J. Armstrong, W. Brown, W. Hubble, T. Mace.

Rochester.—Messrs W. Mauclark, W. Miles, C. Lake.

Maidstone.—Messrs T. Abbott, F. B. Eloy, G. Powell.

Edenbridge.—Messrs W. Searle, sen., J. Holmden, Geo. Arnold.

Sevenoaks.—Messrs J. Selby, G. Turner, E. Crook.

Bromley.—Messrs Hammond, Moysar, and Edgerton.

Dartford.—Messrs W. Allen, J. Solomon, and Slaughter.

Tonbridge.—Rev. G. Woodgate, and others.

Wrotham.—Messrs Leary, Thomas Spencer, and Charlton.

LANCASHIRE, SOUTH.

Liverpool.—Messrs Richard C. Naylor, II., Clever Chapman, Charles Turner, Lawrence Peel, Thomas Bold.

LEICESTERSHIRE, NORTH.

Leicestershire.—Messrs Perkins, G. Kilby.

Waltham.—Messrs John Clark, F. Vincent.

LEICESTERSHIRE SOUTH.

Market Harborough.—Messrs Edward Fisher, jun., Josh. Perkins.

Hinckley.—Messrs Matthew Oldacres, John Champion, Charles D. Breton, Thomas Swinnerton, John Brown, Richard Warner, John P. Cooke, James H. Ward.

LINCOLNSHIRE, NORTH.

Lincoln and Lindsey.—Colonel Sibthorp, M.P., R. A. Christopher, Esq., M.P., Mr T. Greetham, Mr J. G. Stevenson.

Grimsby.—Mr F. Iles.

Caistor.—Mr Wm. Torr.

Alford.—Mr W. Loft.

LINCOLNSHIRE, SOUTH.

Long Sutton and Holbeach.—Messrs Wm. Skelton, Spencer Skelton, George Prest.

Sleaford.—Messrs Tinley and Nickolls.

LINCOLNSHIRE, EAST.

East Lincolnshire.—Messrs Fricker, Joseph Rinder, jun.

NORFOLK, EAST.

North Walsham.—John Warnes, Esq.

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

Northamptonshire.—Messrs Gray, Rogers, and J. Scriven.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

Northumberland.—Sir Matthew White Ridley, Bart., Messrs Robert David, John Ayersby, John Robson, Walter Johnson, Thomas Smith, H. Wilkin.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.

North Nottinghamshire.—Messrs John Holmes, John Walker, T. Hopkinson.

South Nottinghamshire.—Messrs George Storer, W. Chouler, Richard Milward, W. Champion, J. Parkinson, jun., H. Gilbert.

OXFORDSHIRE.

Banbury.—Messrs S. Lovell, J. Gardner, J. Selby.

RUTLANDSHIRE.

Rutland Branch.—Messrs Thomas Spencer, Christopher Smith, Samuel Cheetham.

Uppingham Branch.—Messrs Owsley, Edward Wortley.

SHROPSHIRE, NORTH.

Shropshire.—Four delegates.

Oswestry District.—S. Bickerton, Esq.

SHROPSHIRE, SOUTH.

Bridgnorth.—E. W. Powell, Esq., John Stephens, Esq.

SOMERSETSHIRE, WEST.

Somerset.—Messrs Cridland and Bult, John Wood, H. G. Andrews, R. Hooke, J. Hooke.

[Pg 748]

Langport and Bridgewater District.—Mr John King, (vice chairman) and Mr T.B. Morle.

STAFFORDSHIRE, NORTH.

Stafford.—Major Chetwynd, Messrs T. Hartshorne, W. T. Lockyer, C. Keeling, J. Nickisson, J. Aston.

STAFFORDSHIRE, SOUTH.

Eccleshall Branch.—Rev. V. G. Yonge, Rev. Charles Mainwaring.

SUFFOLK.

East Suffolk.—Rev. Mr Alston, Messrs John Mosely, N. Barthropp, P. Dykes, W. Bloss.

Ipswich Branch.—C. Lillingston, Esq. Deputy Lieutenant, Messrs T. Haward, W. F. Schrieber, J. Garnall, Venn, W. Back, W. Rodwell, J.D. Everett, Morgan, R. C. Perry, Mark Wade, Rev. F. K. Steward.

Hartismere Branch.—Dr Chevalier, Messrs Samuel Peck and Deck.

Stradbroke District.—W. L. B. Frener, Esq., Rev. A. Cooper.

West Suffolk.—Messrs King, Vrall, Simpson, Woodward, George Gayford.

Cosford Hundred.—Messrs C. Kersey, P. Postans.

Bungay Branch.—Two delegates.

SURREY, EAST.

Kingston.—Messrs G. Nightingale and Daniels.

Croydon Branch.—Messrs Cressingham, (chairman,) Rowland, Raincock, Robinson, Walker, and Gutteridge.

Reigate Branch.—Messrs Peter, Caffyn, Jesse Pym.

Tandridge Hundred Branch.—Messrs Isaac Stavely, Edward Kelsey.

SURREY, WEST.

West Surrey United Association.—Col. Holme Summer, Rowland Goldhawk, Esq.

Epsom District.—Messrs Francis Garner and King.

Dorking District.—Messrs Weller and Dewdney.

SUSSEX, EAST.

Sussex.—Messrs W. Rigden, A. Denman, S. H. Bigg, Edward Wyatt.

East Grinsted.—Messrs George Head, Wm. Turner, John Rose, John Mills, John Payne.

WARWICKSHIRE, NORTH.

Rugby and Dunchurch Branch.—Messrs H. Townsend, John Perkins.

Sutton Coldfield.—The Hon. E. S. Jervis, W. M. Jervis, Esq., Rev. W. K. B. Bedford, Messrs R. Fowler, R. Fowler, jun., Bodington, Sadler, Osborne, Buggins.

Coleshill.—Messrs Cook, Gilbert, H. Thornley, John York, and Dr Davies.

WARWICKSHIRE, SOUTH.

Warwickshire.—Messrs Edward Greaves, C. M. Caldecott, Luke Pearman, J. H. Walker, W. W. Bromfield, R. Hemming, S. Umbers, B. Sedgeley, John Moore, H. Brown.

WILTSHIRE, NORTH.

Messrs G. Brown, W. Ferris, J. A. Williams, R. Strange, J. Wilkes, E. L. Rumbold, L. Waldron.

WILTSHIRE, SOUTH.

Salisbury Branch.—Messrs Stephen Mills, F. King, George Burtt, Leonard Maton, B. Pinnegar,—Lush.

WORCESTERSHIRE, WEST.

Worcestershire Branch.—The Hon. and Rev. W. C. Talbot, F. Woodward, Esq., Richard Gardner.

YORKSHIRE, NORTH RIDING.

Knaresborough.—Mr T. Collins, jun., of Scotton.

Easingwold.—Mr Charles Harland.

YORKSHIRE, EAST RIDING.

East Riding.—Mr John Almack.

Malton.—E. Cayley, Esq.

Holderness.—Messrs Josh. Stickney and G. C. Francis.

Pocklington.— — Cross.

YORKSHIRE, WEST RIDING.

Boroughbridge Branch.—Wm. Josh. Coltman, Esq.

SCOTLAND.

Scottish Protective Association.—Sir J. Drummond, Bart., Professor Aytoun, Professor Low, Dr Gardner, Messrs Geo. Makgill, Jno. Dickson, Jno. Dudgeon, J. Murdoch, J. Shand, Blackwood, Garland, Hugh Watson, Cheyne, Steuart of Auchlunkart.

East Lothian.—Sir Jno. Hall, Bart. of Dunglass, Messrs R. Scot Skirving and Aitchison, of Alderston.

Aberdeenshire.—Dr Garden.

IRELAND.

County Down.—The Marquis of Downshire.

The noble Chairman rose and said—Gentlemen, it will not be necessary for me upon the present occasion to trespass but a few moments upon your attention, because I am happy to say that there are gentlemen much more able to discuss the question upon which we are met here to-day than the individual who now stands before you—more able, I say; but there is no man in the United Kingdom who is more deeply impressed than I am with the conviction that, if this country is to continue to be great and free, moderate import duties must be imposed (loud cheers.) Though some persons have called free trade a "great experiment," and wish us to wait and see what the result of that "experiment" is to be, I tell them fairly now, that that experiment has been tried—that it has failed—and that common sense always said it would fail (great cheering.) But during the trial of this "great experiment," have they calculated the amount of hazard which they are incurring? Are they aware of the mass of landowners and tenant-farmers of England who must be cast away if this experiment is not immediately put an end to? (loud cheers.) We are met here to-day to receive deputations from different parts of the country, and it has been thought advisable to convene this meeting, because doubts have been expressed in Parliament, whether distress was universal or not. We are met to-day to hear from the tenant-farmers from various parts of the country the prospects of their localities (hear, hear.) Gentlemen, I fear those prospects are bad indeed. But still I will say before you that which I stated in Parliament—that I have the greatest confidence in the good feeling of the people of England (cheers.) I believe that the tenant-farmers will follow the advice which I have ventured to give them, and persevere (hear, hear.) They know the justice of their cause. Let you, all of you, when you return home, tell your neighbours to persevere; and depend upon it, justice will, sooner or later,[Pg 749] be done to you (loud cheers.) I will not now detain you longer than to say I hope that the expressions which may be made use of here to-day will be to show that, ill used as we are, we are still loyal to our Sovereign, and firmly attached to the constitution of our country (tremendous cheering.)

Mr T. W. BOOKER, Ex-High-Sheriff of Glamorganshire, of Velindra House, near Cardiff, was then called upon by the noble chairman, and amidst great applause stepped forward to propose the first resolution—"That the difficulty and intolerable distress pervading the agricultural and other great interests of the country, and the state of deprivation and suffering to which large masses of the industrial population are reduced, are, in the opinion of this meeting, fraught with consequences the most disastrous to the public welfare, and if not speedily remedied must prove fatal to the maintenance of public credit, will endanger the public peace, and may even place in peril the safety of the state."—Mr Booker spoke as follows: My lord duke, my lords, and gentlemen,—It is, I do most unfeignedly assure you, with the deepest diffidence, if not with the deepest reluctance, that I stand before you thus early in the proceedings of this most eventful day; for, gentlemen, I came here under the sincere hope that I might be allowed to listen to others instead of myself occupying your time. But there are times, and this is an occasion, when I feel that it would ill become any man to shrink from the discharge of a public duty which those with whom he has an identity of feeling and a community of interest will and wish should devolve upon him. Humble, therefore, though my name may be, yet I will, without further apology, proceed at once to the objects which have called us together. (Cheers.) At this time of day, and on this occasion, I need not, I think, enter upon any lengthened argument, nor need I adduce any elaborate statements of statistical facts, to prove that the condition of Great Britain and Ireland and her dependencies is, to say the least, most unsatisfactory. (Hear, hear.) Your own experience will tell you that. Therefore to save your time, and with a knowledge of those who will have to follow me, I will assume three propositions. First of all, I will assume that the agricultural interest is immeasurably the most important interest of the state. (Hear.) Secondly, I will assume that that interest is in a state of alarming and greatly increasing depression. (Hear, hear.) And, thirdly, I will assume that that depression is occasioned and aggravated by the adoption and continuance in that altered policy of the country which now prevails. (Cheers.) I presume that my two first propositions will be conceded to me everywhere; and as to the third, here at least I presume we are unanimous, that the difficulties, the dangers, the distresses, and the disasters that now accompany us are attributable to that vile, suicidal policy falsely called free trade. (Cheers.) Having gone thus far, and having arrived at this point, it will not be of much advantage to you that I should dwell long upon the nature and extent of the distress which now accompanies you, and now environs you. That I will leave to others of those intelligent practical men who, in such multitudinous numbers, have left their homes and have come here to tell, in this central heart of England, their feelings upon the distresses and dangers that have overtaken them. But I will just glance at what is the prevailing symptom of the distress of the present day. And, strange as it may appear, the prevailing symptom is cheapness—cheapness of all the necessaries and conveniences of life—cheapness of the bountiful gifts of Providence, the productions of the earth—cheapness of the works of man, the produce of his skill and labour. And how is it that this cheapness, which augurs plenty and abundance, should not be accompanied with its usual, nay, its invariable concomitants—ease, enjoyment, safety, and repose? (Cheers.) There must be something fundamentally wrong in a state which produces such startling results. It was the opinion of one whose opinion, and whose memory too, ought to be an object of veneration with every Free-trader, as unquestionably they are of respect, from the sterling, amiable, pains-taking qualities of the man—I allude to the late Mr Huskisson—it was his opinion, and he delivered it in his place in the House of Commons so long ago as the year 1815—it was his opinion that nothing could be more delusive than the proposition that cheapness in the price of provisions is always a benefit. On the contrary, cheapness, without a demand for labour, is a symptom of distress. (Cheers.) The French, he adds, in his day, had cheapness without capital, and that was a proof in them of progressive decay. But this all-pervading state of cheapness is so ably glanced at and set forth in a document which I hold in my hand, and which has been transmitted to me since my arrival in town, that I cannot forbear quoting some passages from it. It is the Address of the Metropolitan Trades' Delegates to their fellow-countrymen, on the interests and the present position of the labouring classes of the empire; and if there can be words of solemn warning and import, they are contained in this most extraordinary document. It commences:—

[Pg 750]

"Fellow-Countrymen,—There is not recorded an era in the history of our country, nor, indeed, in the history of all nations, when the great subject of the natural and social rights of those who live by means of their labour was required to be so thoughtfully considered, so clearly explained, and so zealously and faithfully supported, as the present era."

It afterwards goes on to treat the question of cheapness thus:—

"We have it announced to us that it is under the operation of unregulated, stimulated, and universal competition, we are henceforth to live.

"Cheapness is proclaimed to be the one great and desirable attainment. But the cheapness that is attained under this system is not the result of fair and distributory abundance—being mainly acquired by diminishing the enjoyments, or the consumption, of those by whose labour productions are derived, and by that economy of labour by which, in so many instances, the labourer is cast off altogether from employment, because a cheaper, that is, a less consuming instrument than his body, is invented and applied. The labour of the working man thus becomes a superfluous commodity in the market, so that he must either be an outcast altogether from society, or else find some way of doing more work for less of materials of consumption; and even then, if he should succeed in this course of realising cheapness, he becomes instrumental in bringing many others of his fellow-labourers down to the same degraded level to which he is reduced. (Loud cheers.)

"Bad and appalling, however, as is the existing condition of so many whose only means of supporting themselves and their families is the exercise of their daily labour, yet we maintain that the prospect before us is still more dark and gloomy. We declare to you our conviction that a far greater degree of suffering and of destitution impends over the labouring class and their families, both of this and of all other nations, unless the falseness of the free or competitive system be thoroughly penetrated, clearly exposed, and a course of general commerce, very different from that emanating from the free system, be entered upon." (Great cheers.) In this manner do these practical men, who are practically groaning under the evils of this altered system, dispose of the question of cheapness. The men whose signatures are appended to that document, have done me the honour also of communicating with me since I have been in town, and of stating to me what their intentions and objects are. They write me on the 4th of May inst. that "The delegates have a desire to collect all the statistics in their power showing the decline in the employment of the people, and also showing the gradual falling-off of wages since the introduction of free-trade measures to their respective trades; and also the condition of those trades which have not been directly interfered with by foreign imports, but which the delegates have reason to believe are indirectly affected by the displaced hands, from other industrial branches, continually forcing themselves into the above-mentioned trades—this is the reason they have appealed to all who are friends to native industry for assistance." But, gentlemen, it is said that free trade has not yet had fair play. Most fortunately I am indebted to the kindness and courtesy of a member of parliament, a personal friend of my own, the invaluable member for Falmouth, Mr Gwyn, for the returns of trade and navigation up to the close of last month, which only appeared and were placed in my hands last night. I have gone through these documents with all the business habits that I am capable of; and I come to this conclusion and result, the truth of which I defy any Free-trader to controvert. (Cheers.) The flourishing state of the cotton trade is boasted of. Why, these documents prove to you that the export of cotton goods has increased 10 per cent, but the consumption of cotton altogether has decreased 20 per cent. (Loud cheers.) And what does this show? That there is a decrease in the consumption of cotton of 30 per cent. What! free trade not had fair play! Why, our colonies have had free trade for the last twenty years. For the last ten years they have had the blessing of free and unrestricted trade, and let me appeal to any colonist, what is the universal language which defies even contradiction—We are ruined! (loud cheers.) Our own British possessions get their supplies cheaper from the United States than they can from Great Britain or our North American colonies. They expend the property of their own colonies, and of ours too, which they get there, in fostering the trade of our rivals to the destruction and exclusion of their own. Free trade not had fair play! Why, what have been its effects in Ireland? (hear, hear.) In the year 1844 or 1845, there were of acres cultivated in wheat in Ireland, 1,059,620; but in 1847, the blessed year that followed the consummation of free trade, the number was reduced to 743,871, and in 1848 it was still further reduced to 565,746, thus showing a decrease in three years of the palmy days of free trade of no less than 500,000 acres of wheat, equal to the production of 2,100,000 quarters, and in value, at what ought to be the price of[Pg 751] wheat, upwards of six millions sterling. (Shouts of "hear, hear.") This shows with a vengeance that capital is flowing from the banks of the Shannon to the shores of the Vistula (hear, hear.) Free trade not had fair play! What will you, farmers, your wives and daughters, say to this? In the year 1833, the export of salt butter from Ireland was 25,000 tons, in value L.3,000,000 sterling, and it would take 260,000 cows to produce that quantity of butter. Now, let the Free-traders tell us what has been the export of salt butter from Ireland during the last year (hear, hear.) Ireland has broken up her old pastures, and has sown wheat upon them; and yet with all that forced and ruinous cultivation, the foreigner beats her out-and-out. But it is only a waste of time to go through the extent and the nature of the distress which afflicts you. I will no longer dilate upon it. I will leave its effects upon England to those admirable men whose public spirit and whose private wrongs have brought them here. And I will at once ask, what is to be the remedy? You will answer me with one acclaim, There can be but one, and that is a return to the policy of protection to native industry (cheers.) And how is this remedy to be attained? Why, by a cordial union of all classes whose labour has been invaded, and the produce of whose skill, enterprise, and industry has been excluded by that vile policy which has supplanted us in our own markets. I presume, and I say it with all respect and deep humility, that you can have no remaining hope from the present parliament (cheers), nor from the present advisers of the Crown (tremendous cheering.) But we have a constitutional sovereign, who well knows that her own peace and happiness depend upon the welfare and prosperity of her people. She well knows that upon that peace and prosperity, not only her own happiness, but the security of her throne (cheers,) and the stability of the monarchy that she administers, all alike depend (cheers.) Let us carry to the foot of the throne the wishes of her faithful people. Let us tell her of the distress and difficulties that are overtaking the industrious cultivators of the soil of the empire which she benignly governs. (Loud cries of "hear.") Let us tell her of the dangers and disasters that environ the hard-working, industrious occupiers of the territorial domains of the ancient nobility and gentry of her land (hear, hear.) Let us tell her, as the noble duke said, that, although oppressed, we are still faithful—still uncompromising—still unswerving—still unseduceable—still loyal and true to her; and I will stake my life on it, that she will be compassionate and true to us (hear, hear.) The humble individual who now addresses you is no proud aristocrat—he is no lordly possessor of wide-spread territorial domains; but he has obtained his fortune by the active pursuits of commercial industry (hear, hear.) He affords daily employment to hundreds, and thousands are dependent for their daily bread on his care and success (hear, hear.) I hope, therefore, that I speak with a due sense of the responsibility of my words and actions; and I desire—and, with God's blessing, I shall use every energy and talent that my Maker has endowed me with (loud cheers)—I desire, and with God's help, I shall endeavour to transmit to my children's children unimpaired those laws and liberties, those customs and institutions, which have afforded me protection during my own career of successful toil (cheers.) You will take one word of counsel from me. You, the owners and industrious occupiers of the soil, will, I hope, from this vast assembly hurl back with proud defiance that gross threat, that, if success should attend your exertions for a restoration of protection, the foundations of property would be shaken to their centre (hear, hear.) Such is the language used by Free-traders in fustian, in words as well as in merchandise (hear, hear.) Ay, forsooth, by the apostle of peace, who would have the manly quarrels of nations, as well as of individuals, settled by palaver and humbug, instead of musketry and gunpowder (great cheering.) Hurl back, I say, that defiance, and let your answer reach the ears of all who dare to obstruct the exercise of free discussion, and the results of free discussion in this hitherto free and prosperous land (hear.) But, in the struggle that must of necessity ensue before we can obtain the gracious accession of our beloved Sovereign to the prayers of her people, it may and will happen that our friends who, amidst treachery and desertion unparalleled (hear, hear,) had stood firm and faithful to their principles and professions, may be inconvenienced, and that their seats in the legislature may be jeopardised by the miscellaneous onslaught of our ministerial and jacobinical opponents (hear, hear.) But this must not, this shall not, be; for these men must be protected at the hustings (hear, hear.) When I look at this vast, this magnificent assemblage—when I consider whom and what it represents—I cannot for a moment doubt that there are, in the ranks of the protectionists of England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, a thousand men who will put down their hundred pounds a-piece to form a fund against all aggressors (hear, hear.) For myself, I shall at once avow that I will be one, either of a thousand to put down my[Pg 752] hundred pounds (hear, hear,) or, if need be, I will be one of a hundred to put down my thousand pounds (loud cheers,) for this national, this necessary object. And then having done our duty, and having among our hereditary legislators a Richmond (cheers,) a Stanhope (hear,) a Stanley (cheers,) an Eglinton, a Talbot, a Downshire, a Malmesbury, a Beaufort, and a host of others, who will forgive me if I now fail to name them; and a Disraeli (great cheering followed the mention of Mr Disraeli's name,) a Granby (hear, hear,) a Manners (hear, hear,) a Beresford, a Stuart, a Newdegate, and many more such whom we will send to aid them in the House of Commons, let us commit our cause, the cause of peace and plenty, the cause of truth and justice (cheers,) the sacred cause of protection to native industry and capital (hear, hear)—let us commend that cause to our Sovereign, to our country, and to our God (loud cheers.) My lords and gentlemen, I must apologise for the undue length at which I have addressed you. I thank you most cordially for the kindness and the enthusiasm with which you have listened to me, and I now beg to propose the resolution with which I have the honour to be intrusted.

The honourable gentleman sat down amidst the most deafening cheers.

Mr W. CHOULER, South Muskham, Newark, Notts, in rising to second the resolution, said he should not waste their time by offering any apologies for his unfitness to address them upon that occasion. He had come forward to state facts, and he should at once proceed to discharge that duty to the best of his ability. He should first of all advert to the state of the labourers in his own immediate neighbourhood. He could state that the wages of those labourers had of late been reduced nominally from 12s. to 10s., and in some parts of the county to 9s. a-week; while the real reduction was much greater, because, in consequence of the depressed condition of their employers, they had been deprived of that piece-work by which they had formerly earned a further sum of 1s. or 2s. a-week. Since he had come to London he had received a statement of the condition of the labourers in a part of Leicestershire which adjoined South Nottinghamshire, and from that statement he found that during the winter there had been many unemployed labourers in that district; and that latterly, even at the approach of the spring-time, eight of those labourers had been going about begging. They had not asked, however, for alms, but for employment, by which they could have obtained an honest livelihood for themselves and their families. (Hear, hear.) Now, he appealed to every one whom he was addressing, whether a cultivator of the soil could be placed in a more heartrending situation than when he found himself unable to afford employment to an honest and industrious, but necessitous labourer? But, feeling dissatisfied with things at home, he had taken some trouble to ascertain how the labourers are situated in other districts with which he had no immediate connexion. As a matter of course, he had thought that the place in which he might expect to find perfection was the estate of Sir Robert Peel. (Loud cries of "hear, hear," jeers, and laughter.) He had read the document issued some time since by Sir Robert Peel to his tenantry, and through his tenantry to the country at large; and from the wording of that document he had been led to suppose that in the parish of Kingsbury, the property of Sir Robert Peel, the labourers were fully employed, well housed, and well fed. But he would tell them what he had seen there only a few days ago. The parish of Kingsbury was an extensive one, and the farms there were large, for that part of the country, as they varied from 300 to 400 acres. But instead of the labourers in Kingsbury being lodged in comfortable cottages, he found scarcely any labourers' cottages upon the estate. There were no small holdings, no cottage allotments in the parish; and he had been told that the labourers employed in it resided at a distance of two or three miles from the place. The fact was, that for some years a system had been carried on in that parish for reducing the number of its agricultural labourers, (hear, hear,) and removing the poor off the property. He confessed he only wondered that the "Times Commissioner" had not been down there (hear, and laughter,) to tell the tenantry how much of the physical force of the labourer was lost by living so far from his work. But he had found worse than that. He had found that English labourers were being gradually displaced by low-priced Irish labourers. He had found that the tenants of Sir Robert Peel had been employing during the winter, is well as during the summer, six or eight Irish labourers each, to whom they paid little or no money wages. (Cries of "shame.") Now he should not have thought much about that if he had found that the Irish labourers were prospering, as they are British subjects; but he had seen them in a very wretched condition, to which the English labourers also were being rapidly reduced. The Irish there have no house to live in, no bed to lie on, or fire to go to, but lay on straw in an outhouse; therefore this system has this tendency,—to depress the English labourer to the[Pg 753] Irish or Continental level, without elevating the other. He would pass, however, from the parish of Kingsbury to a district represented by another lion of the day. (A laugh.) They would recollect that Mr C. Villiers, the member for Wolverhampton, had stated at the commencement of the session that there had been L.91,000,000 a-year saved to the country by the fall in prices which had followed the adoption of the free-trade policy. Now it had occurred to him that the constituents of Mr Villiers must have obtained a pretty good share of that sum. But he had found that in Wolverhampton the poor-rates had been gradually increasing during the last eight or ten years. It appeared that, during the twelve months ending in March 1842, the poor-rates in the union of Wolverhampton had not amounted to half the sum which they had reached during the twelve months ending in March 1850. It further appeared that in the year ending March 25, 1849, they had amounted to only L.10,007, while in the year ending March 25, 1850, they had amounted to L.11,625. He had mentioned these facts for the purpose of showing that the people of Wolverhampton had derived no advantage from the supposed saving of L.91,000,000 a-year effected by the adoption of a free-trade policy. But he said, without fear of contradiction, that no such saving had been made. He admitted that that sum had been lost to one class in this country (hear, hear,) but he denied that it had been gained by any other. (Cheers and laughter.) Lord John Russell said last Friday night week, that if Mr Henley brought forward a direct motion in favour of protection, he should be prepared to show that the great mass of the people were in possession of as great comforts as they ever had been. Now this was three months after the country had been said to have been the gainer of L.91,000,000 a-year, and yet all that Lord John Russell could say was that the people were in "as good" a position as ever they were. He would admit, if necessary, that this sum had been lost to one class, but it had not been gained by another. He should not be so much dissatisfied if the farmers had lost it, if only some other class had gained it. But the farmers had lost it and no one in this country had gained it. (Cheers.) Two-thirds of the people of this country were engaged in agricultural pursuits, and could any policy, he would ask, be more suicidal than to deprive them of L.91,000,000 a-year, without conferring any benefit on the remaining one-third of the population? (Hear, hear.) He had no hesitation in saying that the agriculturists, as a body, had never been in a worse position than that in which they were at present placed. He felt convinced that, if the existing prices for agricultural produce were to continue much longer, the tenant-farmers would be wholly unable to afford full employment to labourers; great efforts had been made last winter to employ the labourers; and when parliament met we were told, because we had employed them, that there was no distress. But if the class of able-bodied labourers were offered no alternative but to perish from destitution or to enter the workhouse, he had no hesitation in saying that this country would soon be reduced to a state which he should be most sorry to witness. Already the agricultural labourers talked of combinations; and although the farmers might be able to stem the torrent by affording them employment until the termination of the harvest, he could not help anticipating the most serious perils after that period. The labourers did not blame the farmers for their condition, for they were well aware that the farmers had not the means for affording them employment; and under those circumstances, could it be expected that the farmers would mount their horses for the purpose of opposing the just demands of their humbler fellow-countrymen? (Hear, hear.) If a man was willing and able to work in this country, he had a right to have the means of living in comfort in it. (Hear, hear.) Mr Cobden had said what he would do if a system of protection were re-established, and what would then become of the landlords. But I will say openly and publicly, that if the landlords will stick to us, we will stick to them. (Loud and enthusiastic cheers.) But I will go further than that—I have not yet quite finished the subject. We own nine-tenths of the horses of the kingdom, and we have the men to ride upon them. (Vociferous cheering.) And we go further still: we will support the Crown as well as the landlords. (Cheers.) Her Majesty need not fear, if she turn her back upon the towns, that she will not be supported. Protected ourselves, we will protect her against all assailants. (Loud cheers.) Mr Chouler then proceeded to say that, in his opinion, it matters not what prices were, provided all interests were placed upon the same footing. But if one interest were reduced below another, if employment were lessened whilst taxation was kept up, if more money left the country than came into it, the result must be beggary. (Cries of "Hear," and "Now for the rents.") He would come to that directly; but first[Pg 754] stop a bit. (Laughter.) He had not quite done yet, (cheers;) but would mention to them the case of a tenant-farmer who had applied to him for advice as to what he should do under his present circumstances. This gentleman occupied three farms, had a large family, and employed a good deal of capital. The ages of his children varied from 24 to 9. He stated that his wheat wanted hoeing, and that he had no money to do it with; that he intended to have placed his family on the farms, but that if he were to do so they could not live. What could he do with them? Some of them were too old to be put to trades, and then, if he were to take out his capital, all his dead stock would go almost for nothing. He (Mr Chouler) knew he could not do anything for him. The man was a good cultivator, in good circumstances, and that was the case of hundreds and thousands of tenant-farmers. (Hear, hear.) Rent had been alluded to by some one just now. He had always regarded rent as a private bargain between two individuals. He did not come there to find fault with either his own landlord or the landlord class generally, because, as a class, he had seen them act as the very best friends of the people. But he did think that in this particular movement, latterly, they had left it almost entirely not only to the tenants to do the work—that he should not care anything about; but to defray all the expenses. (Cheers and laughter.) Now, if the tenant-farmer could not cultivate his land properly, his labourers and himself would get worse off, and he would be in a worse position to pay his rent, his tithes, and his taxes; and if no tithes and rent were paid, how are the clergy and aristocracy to pay their taxes and servants? (Cheers.) With regard to taxes, he would ask, was there a class of men in any other country who produced an article that was taxed from 75 to 100 per cent, before they could use it themselves? for that was the case with the malt-tax in this country at the present moment. (Cheers.) Sir Robert Peel had told them that the food of the labouring man should be free from taxation; but what was the fact? Why, he held in his hand a list of no less than 15 articles, all of which were eatables or drinkables, and necessaries to the poor man, which had to pay taxes at this moment. They were—butter, cheese, cocoa, coffee, corn and meal, eggs, fruits, hams, rice, spices, spirits, sugar, refined ditto, molasses, and tea; and they produced a revenue to the country of L.13,677,795. And yet this "wiseacre" had said that the food of the working man should be free from taxation. In addition to that, there were the articles of tobacco and snuff, which produced upwards of L.4,000,000 more. (Hear.) And was not tobacco a necessity of the working man? (Hear, hear.) Well, that brought the amount up to L.18,000,000 sterling, or more than one-third of the whole of the general taxation of the country, raised upon articles of food. (Laughter and cheers.) With regard to the malt tax, he thought that no impost was more unjust, because there was not a great quantity of malt liquor consumed by the higher classes, the greater portion being consumed by the working classes; and, with the exception of one or two cyder counties, malt liquor, in one shape or other, was the universal beverage of the labourers. But beer must be taxed, forsooth! That was not the food of the people! (Hear.) There is only one other point (continued Mr Chouler) upon which I will make an observation, and that is with reference to the great "Exhibition" of 1851. (Oh, oh! groans and hisses.) I have heard of many curious things in my lifetime; but there is one thing which I have always regarded as visionary, or as never having had an existence—but it has actually been realised in this 19th century, and in this great city—ay, in this year of grace 1850—a "mare's" (mayor's) nest has been discovered. (Roars of laughter.) Yes; and in this "mayor's nest" was "the Prince," and what does "the Prince" say? Now I beg that it may be distinctly understood that I mean no disrespect to my Sovereign or the Prince; but I came here to speak the truth, and I have spoken it fearlessly, and the truth I will know before I go home. The Prince says that, when you get the productions of all countries and nations before you, you have only to choose which is the cheapest and the best. Well, if you are to do that, is it not to show you that you have the opportunity of buying them? (Hear, hear.) A little umbrage has been taken at this exhibition as savouring somewhat of free-trade, and the royal commissioners have told us that they do not intend that the articles shall be sold, but that they shall be merely shown. But do you believe that the foreigner will bring his produce across the Channel or the Atlantic, and take it back again without receiving English money for it? Now, I want to know who does speak the truth? (Cries of "the Prince.") I suppose the Prince does. (Shouts of "no.") Well, well, have it as you like. (Roars of laughter.) I am come here as a delegate from the part of the country in which I reside. I came to seek the truth, and I will know it and declare it. I ask, is the foreign corn that will be imported into England in the year 1851, to come in and be looked at without being sold? (Loud cheers.) What will[Pg 755] the foreigner say? Why, he will say "I care nothing about your 'looks,' give me your money" (Cheers and laughter.) That is what he will say. It is my duty then to ascertain whether or not it is intended still to encourage the sending out of the country money which it would be better to circulate at home. And I hope I am not exceeding my functions as a delegate in asking that question. Now you have heard my opinions upon this subject, and the concluding remarks I shall make are these: that without an alteration this country will be so shaken—after harvest, mind you, as there will be a good deal of work until then, not before—that I am perfectly confident it will be totally impossible to preserve the public peace. (Loud cheers.) I am not surprised at untruths coming from the royal commission, considering whom that commission is composed of, when I find Peel and Cobden amongst them. (Groans and hisses.) There is one name amongst them, however, which I am always in the habit of speaking of with respect and honour, and that is the name of Lord Stanley. (Cheers.) How far he will come out from among these royal commissioners without harm (bravo, loud cheers, and laughter,) from such a den of—you must supply the rest—I do not know, but I have confidence in the man. (Loud cheers, and great laughter.)

The resolution was put from the chair, and carried unanimously.

Mr EDWARD BALL, Burwell, Cambridgeshire, then moved the next resolution:—"That the indifference with which the just complaints of the people have been received by the House of Commons, its disinclination to adopt any measures for removing or alleviating the existing distress; and the want of sympathy it has exhibited for the sufferings of the people, have produced a widely-diffused feeling of disappointment, discontent, and distrust, which is fast undermining their reliance on the justice and wisdom of Parliament, the best security for loyalty to the Throne, and for the maintenance of the invaluable institutions of the country." The attendance of the noble duke this day, observed Mr Ball, imposes a fresh debt of gratitude upon us, and realises the hope we entertain, that whenever there is a grand field day he will be found in his right position—at the head of the troops. As our great commander, it is obligatory upon us that we should observe his orders, and one of those orders is, that we should express ourselves temperately and with moderation. (Hear, hear.) But I am sure that, from his experience of the field of conflict, he knows that sometimes the ardour and zeal of the British troops carry them somewhat beyond the exact line marked out by their leader and chief. (Cheers.) And if we should be found upon this occasion to advance a little beyond that strict line of propriety which he has chalked out for us, his kindness will excuse it when he knows that it is out of the fulness of our hearts, and the deep distress in which we are plunged, that we are assembled to-day to make our representations and complaints. (Cheers.) Coming, then, to the resolution which I have to propose, I ask is the allegation contained in it true? For if the thing stated in it be not true, it is useless for us to use it as an argument in justification of our assembling here to-day. Is it true? (Cries of "Yes; it is true.") Is it true that the House of Commons has shown great disregard to our petitions? (Cheers.) Is it true that it has rushed on heedless of the entreaties of the whole body of agriculturists, and passed a measure which it was elected for the very end and purpose of preventing? This (proceeded Mr Ball) constituted the bitterness of their grief, that when Lord John Russell's commercial measures of 1841 were defeated, a new parliament was called, and the voice of the nation proclaimed through that parliament against free trade—that the great mass of the constituencies rallied around the banner of protection—that they raised such a number of men to represent them in the House of Commons, that Lord J. Russell was obliged to throw up the reins of government into the hands of Sir Robert Peel, who took the leadership of the House of Commons with a good majority of 100, who were thought truly and honourably to represent the agricultural interest, and ready to protect their cause. (Cheers.) Then he wanted to know if the complaint in the resolution was not just when they saw that very house, which was congregated for the express purpose of maintaining protection, unhesitatingly strike that protection down, defeat all their objects, blast all their hopes, and prove untrue and unfaithful to the great constituencies of the empire. (Loud cheers.) I say, exclaimed Mr Ball, that we will never cease to represent that it was not by fair and legitimate means that we were beaten (cheers;) but that it was by the unfair, the foul play, the treacherous betrayal of those who had headed us to lead us on to victory, but who conducted the enemy into the camp, introduced the foe into the citadel, and destroyed all our hopes and prospects. (Loud cheers.) That being true, what is the language of the Free-trader upon the occasion? He sees a consequence that he never anticipated. He sees the result which we pointed out, and which he disbelieved. He finds that prices are as ruinous as we stated that they[Pg 756] would be, and that free trade is as great a hindrance to the welfare of agriculture as we always reported that it would be. And now how does he shelter himself? Instead of coming forward, and honestly saying we have failed—it was only an experiment, which was forced upon us, and having made an error we will endeavour to correct it—he says that it is an exceptional case; that it is not the legitimate consequence, but that there are some particular circumstances which make the principles of free trade press with unusual severity just now. (Hear, and oh.) Now, look at the reasoning of this. If the foreigner, when he had no hope of such a market being opened to him, could for the last two years send in a supply of nearly twenty-two million quarters of various descriptions of corn, and if he could do that out of his surplus produce, what will he do now that he has the market entirely open to him—when he has got our capital to improve his cultivation, and when he knows that he may produce and send an unlimited quantity into our markets? (Hear.) I want to know how it is that, with an express declaration of the principles of the people upon the question of free trade, the landlords in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons, contrary to their own creed and in opposition to their own judgment, swerved from all that they had promised us, and threw up to those who were more impassioned and boisterous than themselves all that protection which they were bound in honour and in interest to uphold? (Loud cheers.) I feel that it is painful to speak of the landlords of this kingdom in the presence of so many of that aristocracy who shed a lustre upon their order, and whose presence here shows us how much they respond to our own principles. (Cheers.) We can never forget that those laurels which adorn the brow of the noble duke who presides over us were won in the most terrible and hard-fought encounters that ever brought glory, honour, and renown to the British arms, and that the noble duke has, from the period that he turned his sword into a ploughshare, ever stood true to the best interests of agriculture—(loud cheers)—has ever stood true to the declarations which he has made; and under all changes, and in the midst of the vapourings of his opponents, has been steadfast, untarnished, and unsullied, and now comes before us with renewed glory and increased claims upon our gratitude and support. (Loud cheers.) We cannot forget that the noble lord on his right—the Earl Stanhope—(great cheering)—whom it has been my privilege for five-and-twenty years to follow in the paths of philanthropy—who has come to the evening of a long and a useful life, in which he has shown sympathy to the poor, and has had the best interests of his fellow-men at heart—that he comes here, too, for the purpose of giving his powerful support to the great principles to which he and we are alike devoted. (Loud cheers.) They had also several other noble and honourable gentlemen present. They all knew the undaunted courage with which the Marquis of Downshire had fought for their right. They knew that the gentlemen around him were noble exceptions to that great defalcation which had been committed by so large a portion of the aristocracy. (Cheers.) Therefore, he (Mr Ball) could not discharge what he considered to be his duty now, without pointing them out as exceptions to the statement he was about to make—that they had fallen, not by Cobden's—that they had fallen, not by the League's tricks—that they had fallen, not by the treachery of Peel; but because their landlords—the aristocracy—those who should have upheld them—had swerved from their duty in the houses of Parliament. (Cheers.) We had the power—we had the majority—we had the voice of the country, not loud, but strong and firm, and ready to manifest itself when the moment for action came; but they were faint-hearted, they failed in the hour of need, and sacrificed us to the discordant elements of demagogueism and free-tradeism. (Uproarious cheering.) Moreover, they have contrived to take the full tale from the poverty and the debilitated circumstances of a struggling tenantry. (Loud cheers.) Let me put this simple case to you. I take the free-trade landlord, and I take the tenant-farmer. They are in partnership, are engaged in the same pursuit, and have a joint interest in the same property. A is the landlord, B the tenant-farmer. A comes to B and says, "We must make an experiment upon this land. We must introduce certain fresh modes of cultivation. We must change our plan; and if we do so-and-so you will farm better, my rent will be more secure, and we shall be altogether in more favourable circumstances than before." B, the tenant, says, "No, it is too frightful an experiment. No, it may involve me in ruin. No, you risk nothing—I risk all." (Great cheering.) But A is the richer man—A has the greater power, and he insists upon the experiment being made, in spite of the tears and protestations of the tenant. In the legislature A assents that the experiment shall be made. Thus he sweeps away and brings down to ruin the tenant who, in his wretchedness, looks up to the landlord for relief; and I do say that, according to the immutable principles of justice, and on the ground of what is due from man to man, the landlord, who is a party to the passing of free-trade measures, is bound to sustain[Pg 757] and uphold his tenant, and reimburse his losses. (Vehement cheers.) I want to know, also, if I have L.5000, L.10,000, or L.20,000, placed in the funds, and a similar sum invested in the land, both of them being sustained and supported by the law—I want to know if the land be to pay the interest of the national debt, whether it is fair and just to take away the income out of which the interest of the national debt is to be paid, and what right or justice there is in demanding the full payment of the national debt? (Loud cheers.) If the fundholder has looked on and encouraged the movement which was made to bring us to ruin, I want to know with what propriety or consistency he can ask to gather out of our ruined means the wealth which, under other circumstances, we would gladly and cheerfully pay him? (Cheers.) But we are told that our landlords cannot now reverse this policy—that they have gone too far to recede—and Cobden, in that celebrated speech of his, which he made at the close of last year in Leeds, said "Only let the agriculturist come forward and put on one shilling in the shape of corn duty, and I will create such a tumult as shall shake the kingdom to its centre." (Laughter.) Most deliberately and dispassionately my answer to that is—The sooner the better! (Tremendous cheering; the whole of the vast assemblage rising to their feet, and waving their hat and hands.) I say that we have a conscience, that we have a superintending Providence, that we have laws violated, that we have all these things which will sustain and give endurance to us in any conflict that may approach; and that, therefore, we may laugh at all threatenings, and set them at defiance. (Loud cheering.) But what have the tenant-farmers to fear at the approach of discord? Can you be worse off? (No, no.) Can any alteration damage you? (Renewed cries of "no no.") All is lost! Persevere in your free-trade laws, and there is no concealing the fact that, as a class, we are swept away. (Hear.) Persevere in those laws, our homes will be taken from us. Persevere in those laws, our wives will be without protection. Persevere in those laws, our children will become paupers. (Cheers.) Will you then tell me, when laws have been enacted that reduce me to that position, that I, a broken-hearted man, passing into poverty and my family degraded, that I shall fear the threats of a demagogue? (Much cheering.) My answer for the whole body of the tenantry of the country is this—that we are disposed to risk all, brave all, dare all! (vociferous cheering, again and again repeated;) and that we are prepared, come what will, and cost what it may, at the hour of our country's peril, for our homes, our wives, and our families, to take those terrible steps which are the most frightful for a good and peaceable man to imagine, but which necessity and unjust treatment hurry us on and bring us to the contemplation of. (Vehement plaudits.) The most abominable part of it is this, however. If it had been a calamity brought on in the Providence of God—by the failure of the seasons, or by something which was above legislative control, we would have humbly bowed to it. But here comes the scourge—we fell through the cowardice and faint-heartedness of him whom we considered to be the greatest of modern statesmen; and when the history of the age that is passing has been recorded, it will tell us that at the same period there was in Italy a man (Count Rossi) who had been appointed minister of the Pope; that he was the witness of a rising tumult and a coming desolation; and that on the very morning of his death he was told not to go to the Senate, for if he did so there would be danger attending him. His reply was, "I have taken office—and when I did that, I took not only its honours and emoluments, but its duties and its dangers." He went to the Senate, and perished upon the steps of the Forum. But our statesman (Sir Robert Peel) saw the approach of the storm, quailed at the tempest, bowed down to the lowering cloud, dishonoured the country, brought infamy upon his own name, and poverty upon the people. (Great cheering.)

Mr J. ALLIN WILLIAMS, of Wiltshire, seconded the resolution. He stood before them that day as a Wiltshire farmer, second to none in the kingdom in his loyalty and attachment to the throne and his love of the constitution of old England. (Cheers.) Moreover, he stood before them deputed by the farmers of the county of Wilts, for the purpose of protesting against the treatment to which the occupiers of the soil of Great Britain, as a class, had been subjected by the measures of her Majesty's Ministers and by the House of Commons. (Cheers.) He wished he could think that those measures and their consequences had been properly considered and contemplated by their framers before they were brought forward. Despite the remonstrances of the defenders of the agricultural interest in the House of Commons, and of the noble duke in the chair, and of other noblemen in the Upper House of the Legislature, her Majesty's Ministers persisted in those measures which must ultimately reduce the tenantry of England to beggary. (Hear, hear.) An individual, whom he would not name, as his name appeared to grate upon the ears of every[Pg 758] honest farmer in this country—(cheers)—but whom it was impossible to forget, as he had laid down maxims which they felt obliged to take up and consider—a few years ago that individual laid down, as a rule, that the British farmer could not grow wheat in this kingdom under 56s. per quarter. (Hear, hear.) And upon the faith of that statement many of the men that he saw before him, himself included, had entered into agreements with their landlords for the purpose of occupying their estates for a certain period of years. (Hear, hear.) He himself had taken a lease for 14 years. What, then, must be the condition of the farmers of those estates when they were obliged to sell wheat at 36s. per quarter? The consequence was, that all, or the greater part of those who were similarly situated with himself, must be ruined. Upon the same figures was also based the Tithe Commutation Act; and by that act, which, as they too well knew, was ruled by a septennial clause, last year, when they were selling their wheat at the price of two guineas per quarter, they were compelled to pay after the rate of 54s. 10d. per quarter as the tithe of their produce; and this year, when they were selling their wheat at from 36s. to 40s. per quarter, they had to pay upon an average of 53s. (Hear, hear.) It was on that account that he came there to proclaim that her Majesty's Ministers had done the farmers a great piece of injustice, and that they had in fact emptied the pockets of the British farmers by their legislation. If there had been a necessity for the late Free-trade measures, (and he denied that there was any such necessity,) he contended that every portion of the community ought to have been made to bear a fair share of the burdens which had been placed upon the agriculturists. But what was the fact? He maintained that the industrious classes, the producers, alone were made to feel the burden, and that property and capital were wholly exempt. (Hear, hear.) The Free-traders, when proposing their ruinous measures, appear to have made a grand discovery, and assert, that we have no right to tax the food of the people. But did it ever enter their brains that on the wheat produced by the British farmer he paid a large tax in the shape of the superior wages paid to the labourers as compared with those of the labourers of the foreigner, to meet the taxes that are imposed on them upon the necessaries of life? That in fact the proportion of labour in a quarter of wheat (which he would assert to be two-thirds) was taxed to the enormous extent of 33 per cent? (Hear, hear, hear.) Again, was not the wheat produced by the British farmer taxed by the poor rates, the highway rates, &c.? and the heavy rents which he paid as compared with the foreign farmer, (such rents as were not heard of in any other country in the world,) was it not on account of the heavy taxes the landlords had to pay? If these things never entered the brains of her Majesty's Ministers, they were no men of business. (Hear, hear.) If they did enter into their brains, then their conduct was most knavish, most scandalous; for thereby they compelled the farmers of England to compete on most unequal terms with the foreigner. (Hear, hear.) The aristocracy of this country, he regretted to say, had not as a body done their duty in this matter. (Hear, hear.) Had the farmers of England had the aristocracy and the clergy of the country with them, they might easily have resisted the iniquitous measures of the Free-traders, and they would not have been in their present deplorable condition. (Cheers.) But now let them look for a remedy. Let them from that day call forth those men who had hitherto been blind and apathetic as regarded their own best interests, as well as those of their own immediate dependents. Let them call upon the landed gentry and the clergy throughout the country to do their duty. (Hear, hear.) He thought he might say with confidence, if they responded to that call, that the agricultural interest had nothing to fear. If nothing else would rouse the aristocracy of the country to a proper attention to their vital interests, as well as those of their common country, surely the insolent language of Mr Cobden at Leeds was enough to rouse them from their lethargy. But if they still refused to do their duty, he would call upon them, in the language of Milton, to

"Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen."

(Cheers.) He knew that time was pressing on, and that he must be brief. He would therefore conclude by again protesting against the treatment they had received, and most heartily seconding the resolution which had been proposed to them by Mr Ball. But he could not resume his seat before he had conjured them to send Whig principles to the winds. (Laughter and cheers.) His belief was, that Dr Samuel Johnson never made so happy a hit in his definition of those principles, as when he said that the devil was the first Whig. (Great laughter and cheers.)

The resolution was then put and unanimously carried.

[Pg 759]

Professor AYTOUN, of Edinburgh then came forward, amidst loud cheering, to propose the following resolution:—"That this meeting attributes the depression and distress of the agricultural, colonial, shipping, and other interests to the rash and impolitic changes in the laws which had long regulated the importation of foreign productions; that it is of opinion that those laws were based on the most just principles, and dictated by the soundest policy; that, under their salutary influence, the British nation had attained an unexampled state of prosperity, and a proud pre-eminence in the scale of nations; and that if their object and spirit in fostering and protecting native industry be finally abandoned, many of the most important interests of the state will be sacrificed, and the national prosperity and greatness be ruinously impaired." The learned Professor proceeded as follows:—Gentlemen, I have been desired, perhaps, rather than requested, on the part of the Scottish Protective Association, (hear, hear,) to attend this meeting, and to move one of the resolutions. I most sincerely wish that the task had been confided to abler hands than mine; but all of us have a distinct duty to perform; and those of my countrymen who act with me feel that, on such an occasion as this, it would be wrong and faint-hearted if Scotland, which is so deeply interested in the grand question of protection to native industry, were to hang back, and refuse to come forward to testify to you and to the tenantry of England that our zeal in this cause is as great, our feeling as decided, our determination as strong as your own. (Cheers.) I cannot offer to you the testimony of a practical agriculturist, but, perhaps, I may be allowed to say that I do not consider this is a meeting entirely of agriculturists. (Hear, hear.) Every man in this nation, from the lowest to the highest, has, I conceive, a distinct stake in this question. Every man, whatever be his occupation or his calling, is entitled to come forward here and declare his opinion upon those measures which have been thrust on the nation by an act of perfidy and treachery, to find a parallel for which we shall search the pages of history in vain. (Hear, hear.) I do not exaggerate our case when I say that Scotland is, if possible, more interested than England in the maintenance or the restoration of protection to native industry. Far later in point of time were our fields broken up, our moors reclaimed, our morasses drained; and the prosperity of Scotland, great as it has been, can hardly be reckoned as of older date than the last seventy years. Glasgow, the largest city of Scotland, the second city of the United Kingdom, rose to its present high wealth and distinction by its colonial connexion within a comparatively recent period. Our counties and our towns are alike interested in this matter. The "transition state" of suffering which our opponents now affect to have foreseen as the inevitable result of their measures—though they took especial care to conceal that revelation from every human eye—is more than beginning to make itself felt in the latter: in the former, it is evident and undenied, and already, I am sorry to say, in our remote Highland districts the work of desolation has begun. They may call it peace if they please; it is not peace, alas! it is solitude. (Hear, hear.) Now, there are certain things you have imported from Scotland for which perhaps you may not thank us very much, and one of those things is a certain race called Political Economists. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I do not, however, wish to include among the number the father of political economy, Adam Smith, now in his grave three-quarters of a century, who wrote at a time and under circumstances very different from those in which we are at present placed. I observe that Mr Cobden is going about the country with the works, as he says, of Adam Smith in his hands, and favouring the public with his comments on those works; but I hope those comments will be taken by the public, as I take them, at their true value—estimating the quality of the text at a different ratio from the perverted interpretations of the expounder. There is another Scottish Political Economist, Mr M'Culloch, who has written a great deal on the subject of the corn trade, and who has been hitherto, during his long life, a decided enemy to all restrictive duties; but who, I believe, is now discovering at the last hour, that he has been going too fast in his views, and that the total withdrawal of protection is not likely to do all the good which he had at one time anticipated from it. Then, there is another gentleman, who is an ornament to the present House of Commons—the illustrious Mr Macgregor, (roars of laughter,) the gifted and infallible seer, who won the suffrages of a benighted city by telling its electors from the hustings that the nation was to increase in wealth, under the free-trade system, at the rate of precisely L.2,000,000 a-week. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) That was to be the national gain; a gain in which we were all to participate the moment the corn laws were swept away. Mr Macgregor also told the people of Glasgow that in this matter he was the political tutor of Sir R. Peel, (hear, hear, and laughter;) that he, the two million a-week man, was the individual who laid down that grand plan under which we are all at present suffering. If that[Pg 760] be true, all I shall remark is this, that surely never did any pupil select so singular a master. Under these circumstances, I must admit that, however we may be entitled to appear here as a deputation, one gift which we have sent you from Scotland, in the shape of political economists, is a gift for which you cannot be very thankful. This is, I may add, an age in which men have been more befooled by figures than by anything else which we can mention. (Hear) Half a century ago, when any extraordinary account appeared in the newspapers, it used to be said that it must be true because it was to be found in print. Now, that delusion seems to have passed away; the charm of infallibility is broken, and people do not at present suppose that the press has got any particular exemption from error. But a delusion quite as great, and even more baneful, still prevails with respect to figures. There are men seated in their closets, with blue-books before them, casting up long columns of accounts, and making out statements which they call statistics, which are to form the invariable rules by which mankind is to be governed, and by which the commerce of this country is to be regulated; and it is by putting their noxious dogmas into effect that this country has of late been exposed to so much suffering. The system is older even than the days of Adam Smith; for about a century ago there went forth from Edinburgh a man of the name of John Law, the founder of the famous Mississippi scheme—a scheme for enriching men by foreign trade and for conferring on them fortunes at once, while it did away with native industry. History has its cycles, and we have again arrived at a period when quackery and imposture have usurped the place of sound common-sense, of wise policy, and I fear not to add, of truthful and Christian legislation. (Great cheering.) I know well that it is not my part to dwell long upon topics with which others are better acquainted, but if you will allow me, I shall make a few observations with regard to the present state of agricultural industry in Scotland. We have of late years been much flattered by commendations of our system of farming in that country. Whenever any of the farmers of England were supposed not to be quite up to the mark, it used to be said by Sir Robert Peel and his friends, that those farmers had only to imitate the example of the men of the same class in the Lothians. But in the beginning of this year, after a fair trial had been given to the so-called experiment of free trade, the farmers of the Lothians came forward, and testified by the leading members of their body that they were losing under the present system, and that their industry, skill, energy, and frugality were employed in vain so long as that incubus weighed upon them. (Hear, hear.) What followed? Why, the note was immediately changed, and it was said that those men were not farming high enough! That discovery was made by a gentleman who now appears to be Sir Robert Peel's great authority upon the subject—a certain Mr Caird. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Now that gentleman, although a farmer, does not happen to be able to say that he ever made anything himself by farming. But he is acquainted with another individual, who is the factor on an estate of a very liberal landlord, who lets him have land for a merely nominal rent. That individual is at present in possession of a fine peat-moss, exceedingly well fitted for growing potatoes; and, as there has been less rot this year in his potatoes than in those of the greater portion of other farmers, he had derived from them a considerable profit. That is the farmer whose example is now recommended by Mr Caird as the grand panacea for all the evils under which the agricultural class is suffering. (Hear, hear.) So you see, gentlemen, in what you are to put your trust—peat-moss and potatoes! (Great laughter.) These are the twin resources with which you are to meet unlimited importations of grain! Pity, for the sake of Ireland, where both articles are abundant, that the discovery was made so late! I believe, indeed I know, you have something of the same sort here. Mr Mechi—(hear, hear, and laughter)—a gentleman whose razors are of undeniable excellence—has been attempting to show the farmers of England how to shave close (a laugh;) and the unclean spirit of free trade, finding no other place of refuge, has at last flown into the herd of Mr Huxtable's swine. (Immense cheering.) But I must say a few words with regard to the poorer districts—with regard to the Highlands of Scotland. The misery prevailing in many of those districts, more especially in the west and in the islands, did not proceed solely from the repeal of the corn laws; for it was also in a great measure owing to the noxious tariffs of Sir R. Peel, which admitted provisions duty-free into this country. It appears—indeed I believe it is an uncontradicted fact—that the British fleet is now victualled by foreign product. (Cries of "Shame.") I hold in my hand a letter from a banker in the town of Oban in Argyleshire, stating that emigration is now taking place to a very considerable extent there, that most of those who can scrape a few pounds together are taking their passage to America, and that shortly the landlords will be left with no class of people on their lands save the reckless, the improvident, and the idle. Free trade is now rapidly[Pg 761] driving from the Highlands their most industrious inhabitants; and I believe that unless we compel the Government to retrace their steps, a large portion of Scotland will soon be brought back to the condition in which she was placed at the time when the Heritable Jurisdictions were repealed, and when the country was in a half savage state. (Hear.) I say that Scotland is now rapidly assuming the place which Ireland has hitherto occupied. A deluge of Irish labourers is already flowing over to us, and forcing down wages all over the country. I believe that, if this fatal experiment should be allowed to go on for another year, the cry from Scotland, and especially from her remoter districts, will become overpowering and appalling. We have seen the recent revelations made by the public press with regard to the state of the poor in this country. Everybody, I believe, has read in the graphic letters in the Morning Chronicle upon that subject, tales of the most appalling distress, flowing from excessive competition in every branch of industry. But that competition must necessarily be increased by that crowding into the towns from the country, which I know is now taking place in Scotland, of labourers who would emigrate if they had the means of doing so. I observe that it has been proposed, in a pamphlet recently published by an eccentric writer, that the surplus population of our towns should be marched out in industrial regiments, and sent to till the bogs and reclaim the hill sides. Such schemes are utterly visionary; and they are founded upon a shallow and perverted view of the social grievances against which we emphatically protest. Why, it is the want of occupation in the country just now which is doing the whole of the mischief, and which is creating that mass of pauperism which we all deplore. (Hear, hear.) It would seem, indeed, as if the present Ministers and the Free-traders would wish to realise no better picture of Great Britain than this—

The Free-traders tell us that they are at present as determined as ever on persisting in their experiment; but they talk incoherently about some future measure of relief, which, if we will consent to be quiet, they may possibly, out of their great bounty, vouchsafe to the victims of their policy. Now, let us see in what position we are placed. For the first time probably in the memory of man, the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer has a surplus; but he does not well know what to do with it; and he thinks that perhaps the best way of employing a portion of it is to give the manufacturers another bonus by taking the duty off bricks; but he calls that a boon to the agriculturists. (Hear.) Why, in a single factory stalk there are more bricks than would build cottages for a whole parish! Let us see, however, how that surplus has been occasioned. That surplus would be a deficit, and a large deficit, were it not for the property and income tax laid on by Sir R. Peel—(hear, hear)—under a promise as solemn as ever flowed from the lips of man, that it was to be but temporary in its operation. But that tax has never been removed, and never will be removed, unless this country shall speak with more determination upon the subject than it has hitherto done. How does that tax work on you farmers? (Cheers.) You are charged to the income-tax in proportion to the amount of your rents, so that you do not pay it out of your profits. Now, I say that the continuance of that tax on the farmers, after the legislature has deprived them of the profits of their business, is a crying iniquity. (Hear, hear, and cries of "We will no longer pay it.") I suppose you will not pay it because you cannot pay it; that is, no doubt, the reason. But let us see what argument is advanced in favour of the continuance of Free Trade. What tangible ground have they for telling us that we are still bound to persevere? There is none; there cannot be any argument advanced in its favour. The experiment was adopted, we are told, with a view to stimulate exports, and to give the manufacturers of this country more extended markets for their produce. Well, but last year the amount of these exports had not reached the amount of the year 1845—the last year of Protection. (Immense cheering.) So then, even the exporting manufacturers have been disappointed. As to the home trade, we all know, and the manufacturers themselves know to their cost, in what a wretched position that is placed. But when the Free-traders were asked why they had adopted the Free-trade policy or why they continued it, they replied that it was because if they had not done so there would have been a revolution in this country. (Hear, and laughter.) That is, indeed, the most precious reason I have ever heard assigned for any course of policy. What does that say for the loyalty of the individuals for whom the change has been made? (Loud cries of "Hear, hear.") But you are known to be loyal, and you[Pg 762] therefore the class selected to be sacrificed to buy up the loyalty of the towns. (Enormous cheering.) Test this argument of theirs in any way you will, and I defy you to arrive at any other conclusion. Is it not enough to make one sick to see such legislation going on? But it is not confined to Great Britain alone: we have it in Canada also at this moment. There the Government is buying up the rebels, compensating those who rose in arms against this country, and spreading disaffection among the loyal people of that colony, who were ready to lay down their lives in defence of the Queen and the Constitution. But I fear I have already detained you longer than I ought to have done. We are here simply to tell you, that in this great national struggle, for a principle which is scarce less vital to us than our liberties, our co-operation, according to the measure of our ability, shall be cordially and unreservedly given. (Loud cheering.) This is not England's battle only: it is ours as well; and therefore are we here to-day. It is matter for regret that the tenantry in Scotland have not oftener had opportunities of meeting their brethren in the south, and, indeed, that the agriculturists of the country generally cannot, from obvious reasons, be brought into contact with each other as frequently as would be desirable. But this I will say, that I believe the feelings among the yeomanry and the tenantry in both countries are the same; and that those two classes who, in days long gone by, met in hostile conflict, are now united in their determination to have the infamous measures which are over-riding us all repealed; and when the red cross of St George and the silver cross of St Andrew are blended indissolubly together, I fear no Cobdens—I fear no opposing force: I fear neither the machinations of the intriguer, nor the empty bluster of the demagogue. (Loud and long-continued cheers.) I despise their threats, as I know that their hearts are cowardly; and I tell them that their insolent challenge has been taken up, in a manner which they fear to answer, by the true men and the valiant spirits of Britain; and in the justice of the cause we repose our faith in its issue. (Loud and vociferous cheering.)

Sir M. RIDLEY WHITE, Bart., of Northumberland, seconded the resolution. He could undertake to say, from his personal knowledge, that, in the important county with which he was more intimately connected, the Free-trade policy had proved most seriously prejudicial to the agricultural classes. Earl Grey had declared that he did not consider the value of his property had been diminished by the adoption of that policy. But he (Sir M. Ridley White) could state one very striking fact, which, he thought, would show how groundless was that declaration. The noble Earl possessed, among other fine farms on his large estates, what might be called the picked farm of the county, as regarded the production of barley and turnips. That farm had been tenanted, a few years ago, by an intelligent and enterprising man, who had hitherto paid for it a rent of L.2240. The tenant had, some time since, announced that the circumstances of the times were such that he could no longer pay that rent, and that it should be reduced to L.1600. That proposal had not been agreed to by the noble Earl, and the farm had been advertised in all the local prints, as well as in other portions of England and in Scotland. One offer had been made for it, which, however, had subsequently been withdrawn, and the highest sum afterwards bid for it was a rent of L.1680. That offer had been refused by the noble Earl, and the result was that that farm, the pick, as it were, of the county, was at present occupied by the noble Earl himself. (Loud cries of "Hear, hear.") With such a fact staring the noble Earl in the face, he (Sir M. Ridley White) supposed he would not again get up in his place in the House of Lords and say that his property had not been depreciated by the adoption of the Free-trade system. But he should proceed to lay before the meeting a number of other facts, the truth of which he should at any time be ready to substantiate, for the purpose of showing how much the value of agricultural property had, of late, been diminished in the county of Northumberland. Many farms in that county had been recently relinquished in consequence of the depressed state of the markets for agricultural produce, and the rentals of those that had been re-let, had, in general, been reduced. A few instances to the contrary might be cited, but that variation could be satisfactorily accounted for. In the farm of Berwick Hill, the old rent had been L.500, the new rent was L.300. In Great Ryle, in the parish of Whittingham, the old rent had been L.1100, the new rent was L.855, being a decrease of 22 per cent. In Morwick, in the parish of Warkworth, the old rent had been L.715, the new rent was L.533, being a decrease of 22¹⁄₂ per cent. Prestwick East Farm, in the parish of Dinnington, within five miles Of the populous town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which had been recently let at L.300, was re-let this year at L.220, being a diminution of 26¹⁄₂ per cent. Then, again, he found that agricultural capital had been reduced very considerably, and in many cases rents were being paid out of the capital, and not from the returns of the farms.[Pg 763] Reductions had been made in the wages paid to labourers to the amount of from 1s. to 2s. per week, and in the northern parts of the county to 2s. 6d. The sales of farm-stock had been unprecedented, both as to numbers, extent, and importance: the reduction in value at ready-money sales, as compared with former years, had been very considerable in every instance, varying from 20 to 40 per cent. Many labourers had been thrown out of employment, and the demand for able-bodied workmen was much reduced, while improvements in agriculture were not carried on to the same extent, or with the same spirit, as in former years. The demand for adventitious manures had also decreased, and that depression extended to the towns throughout the county, in which the tradesmen, whose prosperity was mainly dependent on that of the agriculturists, had suffered a depreciation to the amount of from 30 to 35 per cent. Having submitted those facts to the meeting, he had much pleasure in recommending the resolution for their adoption. (Cheers.)

The resolution was then put, and unanimously agreed to.

Mr J. J. ALLNATT, Wallingford, in Berkshire, proposed the following resolution:—"That no relief from general or local taxation, which is consistent with the maintenance of national faith, and the efficiency of public establishments, can enable the British and colonial producer to maintain a successful competition with foreign productions, and that the only hope of replacing the agricultural and other British interests in a state of prosperity rests on the re-establishment of a just system of import duties." He regretted to find that at that advanced hour he could trespass but a few minutes on their attention, because he had much to say of the atrocious position in which the agricultural classes had been placed by the legislation adopted of late years in this country. He felt convinced that unless that policy were speedily reversed, it would be impossible to continue to raise the amount of revenue necessary for the maintenance of those great establishments on which the national safety and honour mainly depended. He did not see why the farmers should be made the victims of an experiment which every one, except her Majesty's Ministers and the Free-traders, had foretold must bring ruin on the country. But what would be the nature and extent of that ruin? Were those institutions which constituted our pride and the world's envy to be toppled down merely that an "experiment" might be tried? Why, that experiment had already been tried, and, moreover, had most signally failed. He spoke as a Berkshire farmer, representing the feelings and opinions of the Berkshire farmers, and he might say of Oxfordshire too, for he lived upon the borders of the Thames, which separated the two counties; and he spoke advisedly and decidedly when he said that these insane laws had already produced great distress amongst the agricultural classes generally in these counties, and, he regretted to add, had also shaken those constitutional feelings and that attachment to the Crown which were once their boast. (Cheers.) Now, if he asked a brother farmer how he felt upon certain points of great importance connected with these matters, he would answer him thus—"I thought it was the duty of a government to uphold and protect every individual who is called on to pay taxes for the support of that government. I thought that we owed our fealty upon certain conditions, and that we had a right to demand protection, in the exercise of our skill and industry, against unfair competition." I am not enamoured of the word Protection, but I certainly thought we had a right to live and to say to any government—"You shall not, and you dare not, put your hand into my pocket and rob me." (Loud cheers.) Reference had been made to the statement of Mr Charles Villiers—that L.90,000,000 sterling had been saved to the country through the operation of Free Trade, and that therefore the country was the richer to that amount. He (Mr Allnatt) denied that proposition. He admitted that the agricultural interest had been robbed of L.90,000,000, but the country was not the richer for the transaction. (Hear, hear.) And if it were a fact that from a depreciation in the value of agricultural produce the country was gaining L.90,000,000 a-year, the agricultural interest had had taken from them to that extent their capability of paying the taxes of the country; and if so, truly did the resolution he was about to propose express one important fact, that the national faith was in danger. (Cheers.) Was it to be supposed that if they were still to be robbed of 90,000,000 a-year of their income, they would not look to the public funds and say, "It is impossible that we, the working bees, having been plundered of our honey, can continue to support the drones." This consideration was of great importance, and ought to sink deeply into the minds of those who, because they possessed fixed incomes, must of course feel a certain degree of temporary prosperity on account of the depreciation in the value of agricultural produce; but he warned those gentlemen not to put too much faith in that temporary prosperity. If the agricultural interest were to be[Pg 764] thus treated—if they were to be thus robbed—for he could find no other expression that would accurately describe their treatment—he warned the fundholders that their time of trial and suffering would speedily arrive, and that shortly the term "national faith" would not be found in the vocabulary of the farmer. (Great cheering.) With regard to public establishments, he was as much disposed to support just and useful establishments as any man; but there were establishments in existence that were much too costly; and it was unjust that those persons who were connected with them should be in the receipt of the same amount of salary that was paid to them when wheat was 60s. a quarter. Therefore he told these officials—ay, the greatest of them—for he would go to the very pinnacle of power, and descend to the meanest of those who were paid by the State—"There ought to be some understanding as to how we are to pay you, and what amount we are to pay you in future." (Cheers.) But when he saw men like Mr Cobden and Mr Bright, professing the highest attachment to the principles of financial reform, and then reflected on their recent conduct in the House of Commons, when Mr Henley, the honest and patriotic member for Oxfordshire, brought forward his proposal embodying a proposition that was irrefutably true, and these men had the audacity, the hardihood, (a voice—"Impudence,")—ay, the impudence to meet that proposal by voting for the previous question, he (Mr Allnatt) was almost afraid to avow himself a financial reformer, lest he should be thought by honest men in some degree to partake of the inconsistency and hypocrisy of the leaders of the Free-trade faction. (An explosion of cheers.) The resolution concluded by the simple proposition that no relief which could be given by the remission of general taxation could save the agricultural interest from impending ruin. With respect to the House of Commons, he had formerly taken an active part in getting up petitions to that honourable house, but he had now done with that. (Loud cheers.) He should no more think of signing a petition to the House of Commons, under present circumstances, on behalf of the agricultural classes, than he should to the man in the moon. (Renewed cheers.) There was a time when he (Mr A.) was under the impression that the farmers of Great Britain and Ireland would, at all events, receive the sympathy, if not the assistance, of the majority of that branch of the Imperial Legislature at all times of difficulty and distress; That delusion had now vanished; and when he saw a majority of that House disbelieving the honest representations of those who were suffering the deepest distress, when he witnessed, in that majority, a disposition to evade the fair inference from facts which they dared not positively deny, and that they would do nothing voluntarily for the relief of that distress, which had been effected by their own erroneous legislation; then, he said, he considered it utterly useless either to trouble himself or disturb the calm repose of such an assembly as that, by stating to them his apprehensions of the impending ruin of British agriculture, and humbly soliciting their aid in averting so dire a calamity, which must ere long place in jeopardy even the most valued institutions of this great and powerful nation. (Cheers.) Did the farmers recollect what Mr S. Herbert had said about them—that they were coming before the House of Commons, ingloriously "whining for protection?" Now, I (continued Mr A.) do not mean to "whine." I mean to say, farmers of England! that you have no cause for whining—that you can, if you will, raise up your heads erect and demand the restoration of protection. (Vehement cheering.) I say it advisedly, that upon you, and upon the class which you represent, depends the great question, whether eventually the monarchy shall rest upon a rock, stable as those rocks which gird our shores, or whether a system shall be introduced breeding disaffection, alienating the attachment of the good and the loyal, and producing general confusion in the country. (Loud cheers.) I know, and I affirm fearlessly, that the continuance of the present system will ruin the landed interest of the country. We shall go first, but noble lords and the aristocracy of England will be the next to follow. It is impossible that the aristocracy of the country can be supported without the tenantry. We have lived long enough to find out that the expression of "rowing in the same boat" has been used figuratively, and has meant nothing. True, there are many exceptions, and noble lords and the gentlemen on the platform are amongst them. The allusion to "rowing in the same boat" is no longer generally applicable. We have rowed in the same boat, but they have too often pulled one way while we pulled another. (Cheers.) I want to see each one with a labouring oar in his hand. Let the landlords join the tenantry in pulling towards the desired haven, and I will be bound that the tenantry pull harder than they. (Loud cheers.) We come forward not only in defence of our own rights, but the rights of our landlords, and the rights of our labourers also. I am proud of the aristocracy of the country, and I believe their eyes will yet be opened, and that, when united with the tenant-farmer,[Pg 765] they will not only re-establish his right to live and prosper on the soil of Old England, but preserve the Throne and prevent the establishment of a republican form of government in this country, which would be but the prelude to anarchy, bloodshed, and national disgrace. Mr Allnatt concluded by moving the resolution, amidst loud cheers.

Mr HUGH WATSON, Keillor, N.B., considered it a high compliment to the farmers of Scotland, that he, as representing that body, should be called upon to take a part in the business of this great meeting by seconding the resolution, so ably moved and introduced, for which purpose he now rose. He had come there as one of a deputation from the Protective Association of Scotland, and could answer for his brother farmers in the North, that in heart and soul they were with them. The farmers of Scotland had been accused, perhaps justly, of being a little slow in the Protection movement; but if they were so, it was not for lack of good will, but from motives of expediency or prudence. Although we had not made any great public demonstration in the North, we had, thanks to a valuable portion of the periodical press in Scotland, been enabled to express our feelings. To this influential organ of public opinion, which was not to be bought or sold, we owed a debt of deep gratitude, for it had stood by us in our adversity as well as in former prosperity. He was sorry that he was not able to tell that things were better in Scotland than they were in England. The tale that he might have related to them, was one of as great misery as any they had been called upon to listen to that day. At this late hour of the meeting, he would not go much into detail. The experiment now being made has nearly ruined the farmers of Scotland—a large portion of the arable land must go out of cultivation—and confiscation of property had this year extended to more than the gross rental of that kingdom. But, though the farmers felt they were grievously oppressed, they were not yet subdued. (Loud cheers.) There was a time when the interests of the landlords and tenantry of Scotland were regarded as inseparable; but, he was sorry to say, that feeling was not now so strongly entertained as formerly. Delusions and deceptions had been practised which had, in some cases, weaned the affections of the one class from the other; he could see, however, a growing disposition to return to the path in which they had formerly trod. He would say to his brother farmers of England, that some apology was due to them from the farmers of Scotland, for the unfounded aspersions which had been cast upon them by a few empirical pretenders, who, from their insignificance, only deserved their contempt. Let them be assured that the farmers of Scotland were not so ignorant of the modes of farming, the management of stock, and the general economy of well-managed English farms, or of the intelligence of English farmers, as to try and deceive them by any fine-spun theories of high-farming, or any such humbug. (Cheers and laughter.) They might depend upon it, that the parties who thus attempted to deceive them, or their landlords, were not those sterling farmers of Scotland we have been accustomed to look to during the last forty years. (Hear, hear.) One subject, which had been alluded to here and in other places, had roused his Scottish blood a little. The tenant farmers have been told that they have not the courage, moral or physical, to stand up, and insist upon their rights. Surely the fools who made such assertions as these do not know of what stuff the yeomanry of England are composed. (Loud cheers.) Surely they could never have seen such a sample of an Irishman as was then on his left hand—(the Marquis of Downshire); and I am quite sure they were equally ignorant of the character of the hardy sons of Scotland, who would spend the last drop of their blood rather than submit to insult. (Cheers.) In conclusion, this I will say, that if such men as this Apostle of Peace and his satellites choose to insult us, the men of England, Ireland, and Scotland, or dare us to the strife, then say I—

(Vociferous cheering.)

The resolution was carried unanimously.

WILLIAM CALDECOTT, Esq.—My Lords and Gentlemen, I rise not only as a landowner of one farm, and an occupier of another, but as a delegate from the neighbourhood of Colchester, deputed by my brother delegates to move the following resolution:—"That the members of the various delegations from all parts of the United Kingdom now present cannot separate without recording their deep sense of the invaluable services rendered to the cause of Protection by the noble President, the respected chairman of the acting committee, and the other members of the National Association, in whom the whole agricultural community repose the most deserved and unbounded confidence. And they earnestly recommend to their fellow-countrymen who desire the restoration of protection as the leading principle of[Pg 766] legislative policy, to support the Association; and whatever differences of opinion may prevail on minor points, unitedly to follow its energetic but prudent guidance in the great struggle in which they are engaged." In my case, gentlemen, you see an instance of the distinction made between classes; for, when in private life as a merchant, my funded property escaped all contribution to tithes, poor-rates, and all other taxes; but no sooner was I induced, by the assurances of Sir Robert Peel, (the Judas Iscariot of political life,) that it would be madness to alter his corn-law, to invest it in land, than it became subject to an unequal and unjust share of public burdens, and which ought and must be inquired into, since faith has been broken with us; or how are we to keep faith with the national creditor when the means of doing so are taken from us? Knowing as I do from private friends, (Free-traders,) that the ulterior objects of the Free-traders are the destruction of the union between Church and State, the abolition of the Monarchy, and the establishment of a republic; and, lastly, the application of the sponge to the national debt, I tell Lord John Russell that, in aiding and abetting the Free-traders in these designs, instead of being a public reformer, he will prove himself a public destroyer, by alienating from her Majesty the most loyal and attached body in her kingdoms—the yeomanry of England. For the purpose of remedying the distress which was complained of, I would not (exclaimed Mr Caldecott) petition the House of Commons; but if we are to have no protection, let us go thousands in a body to insist upon equality of burdens. We have the power in our own hands. If they will not listen to the voice of reason—if constitutional means will not avail, band yourselves together in a league for withholding the taxes, the tithes, and the poor-rates, (immense cheering,) until the Government do listen to your complaints.

Mr WILLIAM RIGDEN, Hove, Sussex, seconded the resolution, and said at that late hour he would not detain the meeting, but merely make a single remark upon the report of the "Times' Commissioner" in reference to the county of Sussex. In the course of his travels the "Commissioner" seemed to have encountered a farm of 400 acres in the neighbourhood of Brighton, upon which he said the occupier had made a profit of £900 last year. He (Mr R.) undertook to say that that statement was not true, and he now publicly challenged the "Commissioner" to prove his assertion. (Loud cheers). As a proof of the distress prevailing in the county of Sussex, he might state, that within the last fortnight he had had more than fifty able-bodied labourers applying to him for work.

The resolution was put from the chair, and carried by acclamation.

Mr GEORGE BODINGTON, of Sutton Coldfield, said—I appear here to-day from the county of Warwick; and on behalf of the men of Warwickshire I say, that whatever may take place in this country as the consequence of the false policy of Free Trade, they will, under all circumstances, be ready to do their duty. It is, I think, a most surprising spectacle to see the yeomanry of England and Scotland assembled in the centre of this metropolis, for the purpose of carrying on an agitation in opposition to the measures of Government. We might almost appear to come forward in a new character upon this occasion, for we have been always ready to support the Monarchy, the Government, and the Constitution of this country. It might seem as if at present we were placed in a false position, but in reality we appear in the same position we have ever occupied, namely, as defenders of the institutions of the country. Free Trade is the policy of the Government, and it is a policy founded on the success of an agitation which was unconstitutional in its character and objects, and therefore we are here to-day to oppose it. The agitation which was carried on by the Anti-Corn-Law League, went to an extent, and had a purpose in view, far beyond the limits which the Constitution safely and fairly allows in the conduct and movement of measures by the people against the Government of the country. But how came the Constitution to fail on that occasion? For my part, I have faith in the British Constitution; and I do not believe that that great error would ever have been committed except through the treachery of those to whom its administration had been intrusted. Our cause has been lost by treachery and cowardice. (Cheers.) But how are we to rectify the error? I fear it can only be done by a dissolution of the present Parliament, and the election of another in its stead determined to vindicate the rights of native industry, and re-assert the authority and dignity of the Constitution from the violence and degradation to which it has been subjected. Are the present Ministers prepared to add to the dark catalogue of Free-trade[Pg 767] disasters, (embracing the ruin of the West Indian colonies, the disaffection and threatened alienation of the Canadas, the entire ruin of Ireland, which, through Free Trade, special as well as general, is sunk to the lowest depths of misery and destitution,) the utter destruction of the capital in the hands of the tenant-farmers and yeomen of the country?—and with that, as a consequence, of the aristocracy?—and with that, of the throne? Why, these things must follow as the inevitable results of one another. It had been asserted by Sir R. Peel, on a recent occasion in the House of Commons, that the doctrine of Free Trade was analogous in principle to the law of gravitation which governs the great material world around us. He used this allusion, however, merely as a piece of empty declamation, without the smallest particle of reasonable argument to support his position. It is obvious that the law of gravitation operates as a restrictive, repulsive, and prohibitive power, as well as an attractive; or otherwise the planet we inhabit and the other spheres would quit their orbits, run in upon the sun the great centre, and produce chaos and universal ruin. (Loud cheers.) And thus, to compare great things with small, in the commercial world, Great Britain, the sun and centre, is producing confusion and general disorder by her abandonment of those great negative principles which are essential to the maintenance of natural distinctions and differences, and of the several inferior commercial centres, so to speak, in their respective orbits. And these results are exemplified in the destruction of the labour-interest of Ireland, involving, as we see it does, the destruction there of every other interest; in the deterioration of the labour-interest of England; in the outcast, from circulation, of a very large proportion of monetary capital from the commercial world; in the conflict of classes, now induced both abroad and now at length at home; and in a host of other social and political evils. And thus this analogous allusion, fairly argued, justifies the principle of Protection by restrictive laws, and utterly repudiates that of unguarded intercourse.

Free Trade will inevitably lead to the ruin of every great national interest, and it is therefore the duty of every one who wishes well to the British Empire, to assist in obtaining as speedily as possible a complete reversal of that policy. I will not detain the Meeting any longer, but at once read the resolution which has been intrusted to me, as follows:—"That a Memorial to the right hon. the First Lord of the Treasury be prepared, founded on the foregoing resolutions, protesting in the strongest manner against the continuance of the present system of miscalled 'Free trade,' and solemnly casting on the Administration, of which his Lordship is the head, the heavy responsibility of rejecting the appeals of the people for the abandonment of that system, and that a deputation be appointed for the purpose of presenting the same to his Lordship, and of representing to him the present critical and alarming position of many districts of this country, and of some of the most important colonies and dependencies of the British Crown."

Mr H. HIGGINS, of Herefordshire, came forward to second the resolution. He said that the county which he then represented suffered greater distress than had ever been known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. He believed that if the present Free-trade policy were persisted in they would no longer have any of those fine exhibitions of cattle for which that county had hitherto been so famous. An hon. gentleman who preceded him had told them of the distress which at present prevailed in Ireland. But for his part, he believed that England was now being Ireland-ised as fast as possible. (Hear, hear.) And for whom had they (the tenant-farmers) been victimised? Who were reaping the harvest of their ruin? Why, the foreigner, the drone, and the millocrat. (Hear, hear.) It was not the industrious classes, as asserted by Mr Villiers, that had effected a saying of L.90,000,000 a-year by the repeal of the corn laws; for the greater portion of that sum went into the pocket of the foreigner. He told the Government that the industrious classes in this country would not stand that much longer. He warned the Government against driving these classes to desperation, and he told them that it was their firmness and loyalty which had at all times mainly contributed to keep the country in peace and quietness. But when a man lost his property he became reckless of consequences: for, in the scramble that might take place, he had everything to gain and nothing to lose. He would address one word to the landlords of England. He would tell them that they had not done their duty. (Hear, hear.) But he would further tell them, not to be misled by the delusion that they could derive from extra production a compensation for the depreciation of prices. He would call on the Legislature of this country to redress the wrongs of the agricultural classes, unless they intended to excite those classes to exercise the strength which they still retained in their hands. If they could not obtain justice by rational means—if they could not succeed by moral[Pg 768] force—he for one was prepared to do anything in defence of his own. (Hear, hear.)

The Right Hon. the Earl of EGLINTON then came forward, amidst loud cheers, to move the following resolutions:—"That the cordial thanks of this meeting be respectfully offered to his Grace the Duke of Richmond, K.G., for his manly and consistent maintenance of the cause of Protection on all occasions, and especially for the able and impartial manner in which he has presided over the proceedings of this day." The noble earl said, that meeting had been characterised by more unanimity than any meeting, perhaps, at which he had ever assisted; but he felt certain that whatever might be the unanimity, and whatever might be the enthusiasm with which they had received the preceding resolutions, the one which he had then to propose would be received with still more unanimity, and with still greater enthusiasm. He had to propose the thanks of the meeting to their noble chairman. (Loud and long continued cheers.) Many censures had that day been unsparingly, but he should confess most justly, showered down upon that class to which he belonged. He was, however, proud to say, that he, in common with hundreds of others, had escaped from that censure. He was also proud to say that the class to which he more especially belonged—he meant the peerage of Scotland—had been particularly exempt from that vacillation and apathy which had distinguished too many of the nobility of the empire. (Hear, hear.) When he told them that out of 16 representative peers who sat in the House of Lords for Scotland, on the great division which took place with respect to the repeal of the corn laws, 10 had voted against the measure, 2 had not voted at all, one of whom was now as stanch a Protectionist as any present, and only 4 had recorded their votes against the principle of Protection—one of these being thousands of miles off, and perhaps incapable of forming any decision of his own upon the subject—when he told them those facts, he thought they would admit that the peerage of Scotland had not as a body been deficient in their duty upon that occasion. One of the most eloquent speakers who had addressed them that day, Professor Aytoun, had told them of some bad articles which came from Scotland in the shape of political economists. But he (the Earl of Eglinton) could not refrain from saying one word in favour of "Auld Scotland" upon that occasion, and he would ask them whether they had not seen one good article come from that country in the shape of the Professor himself? (Cheers.) It might not be so well known to the body of the meeting as it was to him, how deeply the Protectionist cause was indebted to that gentleman (hear); but he knew that the most powerful, the most eloquent, and the most convincing statements in favour of Protection had come from his pen. (Cheers.) He should also call to their recollection the honest specimen of a Scotch tenant-farmer—namely, Mr Watson, whom they had heard that day, and of whom he confessed he, as a countryman, felt proud, (hear, hear;) but, above all, he begged to state, that Scotland owned one-half of their noble chairman. The noble duke was one-half a Scotchman by birth, by property, and by feeling. (Hear, hear.) He knew that that was not a time of the day to go on descanting on all that they owed to the noble duke, and still more did he know that the presence of the noble duke did not afford the fitting opportunity for adopting such a course. He should say, however, that he well knew that there was not in that room, or in the country, a sincere well-wisher to the British empire, who did not look upon the noble duke as one of the most straightforward, one of the most gallant, and one of the most useful men whom this country ever possessed. (Cheers.) He should not detain them longer; but would content himself with leaving the resolution in their hands. (Great cheering.)

Lord JOHN MANNERS, M.P., came forward, amidst very loud and general cheering, to second the resolution. The noble lord said that in terminating the proceedings of that most remarkable meeting—remarkable not only for the ability of the speeches which they had heard, and the unanimity that had characterised their proceedings, but also for the presence of so many delegates, representing, and representing so truly, every suffering interest in this great community—he felt that he had a task at once most difficult and most gratifying to perform. Most truly had Lord Eglinton said that in the presence of the noble duke a certain reserve was necessary in speaking of those qualities which commanded their admiration; but still they should not be doing justice to their feelings if they permitted that opportunity to pass without saying that they did not know in the whole peerage one man who more justly commanded the respect, the admiration, and the affection of the industrious classes of this country. (Cheers.) Lord Eglinton had said some thing in favour of that house to which the noble duke belonged; and he (Lord J. Manners) hoped he might be allowed for one moment to say something in favour of that house to which he had so recently been returned. He could not, like some of the gentlemen who had that day addressed[Pg 769] them, despair even of the present graceless House of Commons. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) If they asked him his reason, he should tell them that he found one in the fact, that, when that House of Commons had first met, the majority then against those principles which that meeting had assembled to enforce, and which they intended to carry into successful operation, amounted to not less than 100; while at the present moment that majority could not, he believed, be estimated at more than a score of votes. Another reason why he did not despair of the present House of Commons was derived from the recent election of the hon. and gallant colonel the member for Cork, who was then assisting at their proceedings. (Hear, hear.) He had no doubt but that at future elections they would continue further to increase the number of members ready to advocate and support their cause. If he might be permitted to give one word of advice, he would suggest that, while they took every precaution for returning, for the future, members who were prepared to vindicate the great principle of protection to native industry, they ought not to discourage, but to aid, those members in the present House of Commons who zealously sought to put down that system which they believed in their consciences to be working the destruction of this mighty empire. (Hear.) He should further say, that he found a fresh justification for a return of their somewhat waning confidence in the House of Lords, in the presence among them that day of the noble duke to whom they were going to offer by acclamation the vote of their unbounded confidence and admiration. (Cheers.) When they saw the noble duke supporting the dignity of the peerage with so much gallantry, so much honesty, and such unswerving onwardness of purpose, they might, he thought, well take courage; and believe that both Houses of Parliament would yet faithfully represent, and faithfully carry out, the principles on which the Constitution of this country had so long depended, and on which it must continue to depend if it was still to remain the Constitution of the greatest empire of the known world. (Hear, hear.) He called on them to vote by acclamation the resolution which he had the honour to second. He called upon them to rise as one man and give three lusty cheers for their noble chairman the Duke of Richmond. (The call was responded to with enthusiasm, the whole meeting rising as one man.)

The NOBLE DUKE proceeded to acknowledge the compliment as follows:—I rise, as you may well conceive that I must, impressed with a deep feeling of gratitude to you, the delegates from nearly every county in England and Scotland, for the very kind and flattering manner in which you have been pleased to pass the present resolution. I claim no merit for myself for what I have done in Parliament and out of Parliament, with the view of preventing the adoption of the Free-trade policy, or with a view of regaining protection to native industry. I claim no merit to myself for the course I have pursued, because I think that course is absolutely necessary, not only for the welfare and the prosperity of the landed interest of the country, but for the welfare of all classes of our fellow-subjects. (Hear, hear.) I never advocated protection to the farmer without also advocating protection to the silk weaver and to the manufacturer. (Hear, hear.) I am called on in Parliament not to legislate for one class, but to legislate for all classes, and I therefore have not pledged myself to the maintenance of the principle of protection without an earnest inquiry into the whole subject. I have, however, thought it my duty to give a pledge, and, with God's help, I will never violate it. (Cheers.) I am not made of that stuff which would permit me to veer about like the wind, and to flatter every popular demagogue. (Hear, hear.) I have one English quality in me, which is, that I will not be bullied into any course of which my judgment disapproves. (Hear, hear.) I will not allow a knot of Manchester Free-traders to dictate to the good sense of the community at large. (Hear, hear.) I will not consent to lose the colonies of this great empire. (Hear, hear.) I will not help to carry out a system which is bringing ruin to our shipping interest, (cheers,) and which forces to emigration those honest and industrious mechanics, who, by their skill, their energy, and their good conduct, have, up to the time of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, been able to get a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. (Cheers.) Neither will I consent to have the honour and glory of this great country dependent upon Mr Cobden and his party. (Cheers.) I am for English ships, manned by English hearts of oak. (Renewed cheers.) I am for protecting domestic industry in all its branches. (Hear, hear.) I feel, however, that at this time of the evening I ought not to trespass at any length on your attention; but cordially agreeing with all the resolutions that have been put here to-day, and carried unanimously, and agreeing with much that has fallen from the different eloquent gentlemen who have addressed you, I must speak out my own mind; and I hope that you, the farmers of England, will not respect me the less for doing so. (Hear.) Well, then, I must say that I only recommend constitutional means, (hear, hear,) and I certainly do not recommend the[Pg 770] adoption of any threats of violence or force, and still less do I recommend that we should band ourselves together not to pay taxes, (Hear, hear.) We are the representatives of a truly loyal people. By constitutional means we shall gain a victory of which we shall afterwards have reason to be proud; but if we descend to the miserable and degrading tricks of the Anti-Corn Law League, (hear, hear,) we cannot be respected, because we cannot respect ourselves. I thank you for the confidence you have shown towards me. I thank you, in my own name, and in the name of many Protectionists who have not been able to be present here to-day, for the unanimous manner in which you have carried the resolutions, and the patience with which you have listened to him who is now addressing you, who is so little worthy of attention. But as long as I shall continue to have health, I shall take every opportunity of meeting the tenant-farmers of this country, (hear, hear,) notwithstanding that I may be told in the House of Lords, in a majority of whose members I have no confidence, (hear, hear,) that by presiding at meetings of this description I am creating a panic among the tenantry. That, gentlemen, is the last attack that has been made on me and on my noble friends around me. I was told the other night, in the House of Lords, by a noble lord who is a disciple of Sir R. Peel, that it was to myself and to those who pursued a similar course to mine that the lowness in the price of corn is to be attributed. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) His assertion was, "That the speeches delivered in this country found their way into the German newspapers, and that the German farmers, believing that shortly a duty on the import of foreign corn would be imposed, sent over their corn to this country and sold it here at a loss." In reply I stated that, if this statement was correct, I could not regret that I had contributed to the foreigners losing money, if they choose to send their corn here. I have no bad feeling to the foreigner; but I may say that, if we are exposed to taxes from which he is exempt, I could feel no pity for any loss that he might sustain in his competition with the agriculturists of this country. (Cheers.) One word on the subject of the income tax, which is now so oppressive to the tenant-farmer. When I stated in the House of Lords, a few evenings ago, that the farmers had no right to be called upon to pay that tax whilst they derived no profit from their holdings, Lord Grey said that he admitted the hardness of the case, but that he and his party had not originally enacted the law, but that it emanated from Sir R. Peel. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) To that I felt it my duty to say, that although they did not originally enact the law, they had extended the time of its operation. (Hear, hear.) At the same time, I certainly did not attempt to justify Sir R. Peel; for I would be the last man to undertake such a task. (Hear, hear.) I again thank you for the confidence you have shown towards me; and if my services can ever be of the slightest use to the tenantry of this country, or to its domestic industry, I can only say that those services, such as they are, will ever be at your disposal. (The noble Duke concluded amidst enthusiastic cheering.)

The meeting immediately separated, Mr G. F. Young informing the delegates that the National Association was anxious for their presence at their rooms, at the South Sea House, on the following morning, at eleven o'clock.

PRESENTATION OF THE MEMORIAL TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

The delegates re-assembled in considerable numbers at the South Sea House on Saturday morning, when they agreed to the following address to the Prime Minister, which had been prepared, in conformity with the resolutions passed at the great aggregate meeting at the Crown and Anchor on Tuesday last:—

"TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P., FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, &c.

"May it please your Lordship,—We are deputed to address you in the name and at the desire of a public meeting held in this metropolis on the 7th inst., which, consisting of a considerable number of members of both Houses of Parliament, merchants, shipowners, tradesmen, and others connected with the most important interests of the nation, and comprising nearly 500 owners and occupiers of land, specially delegated by the agriculturists of every part of the United Kingdom, to represent the present condition of their respective localities, and to express their opinion on the public policy of your lordship's administration, presents a just claim to the serious attention of her Majesty's Government.

"On the authority of this meeting, unanimously expressed, it is our duty to declare to your lordship that intolerable distress now almost universally pervades the British agricultural interest; that many branches of the colonial interest are fast sinking into ruin; that the shipping and other great interests of the country are[Pg 771] involved in difficulty and deep depression; and that large masses of the industrial population are reduced to a state of lamentable deprivation and suffering.

"It must be obvious that such a condition of affairs is fraught with consequences disastrous to the public welfare; and if not speedily remedied, it is the conviction of the meeting that it will endanger the public peace, prove fatal to the maintenance of public credit, and may even place in peril the safety of the State.

"It is our duty further to declare to your lordship that the dangerous evils we have thus described are, in the deliberate judgment of the meeting, attributable to the recent changes made in those protective laws by which the importation of articles of foreign production had long been regulated, which changes it regards as most rash and impolitic. It considers the ancient system of commercial law to have been based on the most just principles, and dictated by the soundest views of national policy. It cannot forget that, under that system, Great Britain attained an unexampled state of prosperity and a proud pre-eminence in the scale of nations; and it is its firm conviction that if the principle of fostering and protecting British industry and British capital be abandoned, many of the most important interests of the State will be utterly and cruelly sacrificed, and the national prosperity and greatness be ruinously impaired.

"The meeting is further of opinion that no relief from general or local taxation, which would be consistent with the maintenance of public faith and the efficiency of public establishments, could enable the British and colonial producer successfully to compete with foreign productions; and that the only hope of replacing the agricultural and other native and colonial interests in a state of prosperity rests on the re-establishment of a just system of import duties.

"The meeting deeply deplores that the distressing and destructive consequences of the system of miscalled Free Trade having been repeatedly and urgently pressed on the attention of Parliament, the House of Commons has treated the just complaints of the people with indifference, has exhibited a total want of sympathy for their sufferings, and has refused to adopt any measures for removing or alleviating the prevalent difficulty and distress.

"This conduct has naturally produced a widely-diffused feeling of disappointment, discontent, and distrust, which is rapidly undermining the reliance of the people in the justice and wisdom of Parliament, the best security for loyalty to the Throne, and for the maintenance of the invaluable institutions of the country.

"Having thus faithfully represented to your lordship the general views on the policy of the country, expressed in the recorded resolutions of the meeting we represent, we proceed to discharge the further duty intrusted to us of addressing your lordship as the head of that Administration by which the policy so strongly deprecated is continued and defended.

"We are charged earnestly to remonstrate and protest on the part of the deeply injured thousands whose property has been torn from them by the unjust and suicidal impolicy of which we complain; and still more emphatically on behalf of the millions of the industrial population dependent on them for employment, and consequently for subsistence, against the longer continuance of a system which, under the specious name of Free Trade, violates every principle of real freedom, since it dooms the taxed, fettered, and disqualified native producer to unrestricted competition in his own market with the comparatively unburdened foreigner. We not only deny the moral right of any government or of any legislature to have involved in certain loss and suffering large masses of a flourishing community, for the sake of giving trial to a mere experiment; but we assert that the experiment has been tried, and has signally and disastrously failed, and we demand therefore, as the right of those we represent, the prompt restoration of that protection from unrestricted foreign import which can alone rescue them from impending destruction.

"It is painful for us to declare, but it is our duty not to disguise, that the pertinacious adherence of the Cabinet, of which your lordship is at the head, to the policy of miscalled Free Trade, and its determined rejection of the appeals of the people for a reversal of that policy, have extended to the executive government of the country the same feelings of distrust and discontent which are widely diffused with respect to the representative branch of the Legislature. We solemnly adjure your lordship to remember that discontent unattended to may ripen into disaffection.

"We know that the loyalty of the people to their most gracious Sovereign, under all their grievances and wrongs, remains, and will remain, unshaken; but we are aware, and it is our duty, therefore, to warn her Majesty's Government, that the state of feeling in many districts of the country is most critical and alarming, hazardous to its peace, perilous to the maintenance of public credit, and dangerous to its established[Pg 772] institutions; nor must we be deterred, either by our unqualified respect for your lordship's personal character, or by the just consideration we owe to the elevated position you occupy, from casting on your lordship and your colleagues the awful responsibility of all the consequences that may result from a continuance of your refusal either to redress the wrongs of the people, or to allow them the constitutional opportunity for the vindication of their rights, by dissolving the Parliament and appealing to the voice of the country.

"London, May 11, 1850."

(Signed)
George Frederick Young, Chairman of Acting Committee,			}
F. Cayley Worsely, Vice Chairman,			}
James Blyth, Vice Chairman,			}
Augustus Bosanquet, Chairman of Colonial Committee,			}	Of the National
Richard Davis,	}		}	Association.
Benjamin B. Greene,	}	Members of Ditto,	}
David Charles Guthrie,	}		}

Charles Beke, Secretary.
W. Tindall.	Thomas Hartshorne, South Staffordshire.
H. C. Chapman, Liverpool.	Thomas Jesty, Dorsetshire.
Wm. Layton, Cambridgeshire.	G. P. Dawson, Yorkshire, West Riding.
Nathaniel Barthropp, Suffolk.	W. T. Lockyer, North Stafford.
Edward Tull, Berkshire.	Samuel Lovell, Oxfordshire.
James Linton, Huntingdonshire.	Douglas Lynes, West Norfolk.
Paul Foskett, East Surrey.	E. Cayley, jun., East Yorkshire.
John King, Somerset.	R. Hewett, Northamptonshire.
John Elliot, South Devon.	William Gray, Northamptonshire.
Robert Baker, Essex.	Philip Box, Buckinghamshire.
Joseph Pain, Bedfordshire.	S. Musgrave Hilton, East Kent.
Samuel Cheetham, Rutland.	Charles Lillingston, Ross-shire.
Thomas Vowe, Leicestershire.	Edward Trood, Devonshire.
John Simpson, Suffolk.	Edward Trood, Devonshire.
Frederick King, Wilts.	Richard Franklen, Glamorganshire.
Richard Strange, Wiltshire.	Thomas Bold, Liverpool.
John Walker, Nottinghamshire.	J. Parsons Cook, Leicestershire, South.
George Storer, Nottinghamshire.	John Wood, East Somersetshire.
William Skelton, Lincolnshire.	Charles Harland, North Riding of Yorkshire.
J. H. Walker, Warwickshire.	M. White Ridley, Northumberland.
John Ellman, Sussex.	Richard Belton, South Shropshire.
Rowland Goldhawk, West Surrey.	John Hall, Bart., East Lothian.
William Mallins, South Derbyshire.	R. Scot Skirving, Haddingtonshire.
Charles Day, clerk, South Essex.	H. St. V. Rose, Ross-shire.
W. E. Russell, West Kent.	James A. Cheyne, Argyllshire.
Reynolds Peyton, Herefordshire.	George Burtt, North Hampshire.
Math. Henry Bigg, West Sussex.
Daniel Baker, Monmouthshire.
E. J. Perkins, North Warwick.

Shortly after twelve o'clock the deputation proceeded to the Premier's official residence in Downing Street. It consisted of the several gentlemen whose names were appended to the address, and was accompanied by Mr Newdegate, M.P., Colonel Sibthorp, M.P., Mr Bickerton, (Shropshire,) Sir J. F. Walker Drummond, Bart., (Midlothian,) Mr Hugh Watson, (Keillor,) Forfarshire; Mr John Dudgeon, (Spylaw,) Roxburghshire, &c.

On the deputation being ushered into the reception-room, Lord John Russell welcomed the gentlemen composing it with characteristic courtesy, and cordially shook Mr Young by the hand, at the same time expressing his regret that the Duke of Richmond was unable to attend.

Mr Young.—I was about to explain to your lordship that his Grace is unable to attend from indisposition, and that I this morning received a letter from his Grace, which I will read to your lordship:—

"Goodwood, May 10, 1850."

"My Dear Sir,—I write to ask you to make my excuses to the deputation if I do not make my appearance to-morrow at a quarter past twelve in Downing Street. I[Pg 773] have not been able to leave my room to-day from a violent cold and rheumatism, and if not better, shall not be able to go to London for some days.

"Believe me, my dear sir, yours sincerely,
"G. F. Young, Esq.    (Signed) "Richmond."

Mr Young continued—I feel deep regret that his Grace is unable to attend here to-day; but I beg to assure your lordship that we have his Grace's concurrence in all our proceedings, and I am about to place in your lordship's hands a document which has been drawn up under his full sanction, and to which his Grace's signature would have been affixed if his absence from indisposition had not prevented it, and we had not been ignorant of that fact until it was too late to transmit it to him for signature. Your Lordship is, no doubt, aware that a large public meeting took place in this metropolis on Tuesday last, at which certain resolutions were adopted relative to protection to native industry; and amongst them one appointing a deputation to wait upon your lordship with a memorial, and to furnish you with such explanations as you may require. With your lordship's permission, I will now proceed to read the address with which I have the honour to be intrusted. Mr Young here read the address, and continued thus:—I do not know, my lord, that it becomes me to make any comments upon this document, which has been prepared with the unanimous assent of the gentlemen whom I have here with me to-day, except to refer you generally to the opinions which it contains, and on their behalf to tender any explanation which your lordship may deem requisite in reference to the assertions therein made, or to any point connected with the subject which is now brought under your lordship's notice with very great pain on the part of those for whom I have the honour to speak.

Lord J. Russell.—I may be allowed to say—and I do not do so without due consideration—that, of course, I am ready at all times to take upon myself all the responsibility which belongs to the executive government; but with regard to the assertions in this address respecting the House of Commons, you state—"That the meeting is further of opinion that no relief from general or local taxation which would be consistent with the maintenance of public faith, and the efficiency of public establishments, could enable the British and colonial producer successfully to compete with foreign productions." Now, that proposal for relief from general and local taxation, consistent with the maintenance of public faith and the efficiency of public establishments, is, in fact, the only proposition of a large nature that has been rejected by the House of Commons. You also say here, "that the only hope of replacing the agricultural and other native and colonial interests in a state of prosperity, rests on the re-establishment of a just system of import duties." I do not deny, or wish in any way to shrink from the responsibility which rests upon her Majesty's government for the line of policy they have adopted; but no such proposition has been made to the House of Commons, and the House of Commons has not rejected any such proposition.

Mr Young.—It is intended to express the deep disappointment we felt that no such proposition has been made, whether as emanating from the Government, or from any party in the House of Commons.

Mr Newdegate.—Your lordship will permit me to remind you, that although no direct motion has been made in the House of Commons for the immediate restoration of Protection, that great question has been admitted to have been involved in the course of discussions that have arisen upon other questions.

Lord J. Russell.—That is true; but whilst some persons have said it would be beneficial, there are others who say that it would be injurious.

Mr Young.—I wish to impress upon your lordship's mind that I, and those with whom I am associated, do not attach much importance to those discussions in the House of Commons, because we are perfectly well aware that, if such a proposition were made, it would certainly be rejected. We attach no importance to them. We think that the House of Commons, as at present constituted, does not truly represent the feelings and opinions of the majority of the people of this country, and we should be glad to have the opportunity of seeing whether it does or not.

Mr John H. Walker (of Leamington.)—I am here as the representative of South Warwickshire, to express to your lordship my conviction that a great change has taken place in the opinions of the people with regard to free trade. I am in the habit of travelling a great deal, and I never enter a railway carriage or go into company that I do not find those who were formerly regular Free-traders, and have now become quite the reverse. They object to the operation of free trade, that the foreigner gets all the benefits which we are losing.

[Pg 774]

Mr Young.—It does not become us now to attempt to enter upon the discussion of so wide a question as that. I feel that we should not be able to do so with advantage, or be justified in intruding upon your time for that purpose. There is, however, one part of the proceedings at the recent meeting, a report of which your lordship has no doubt seen, upon which I wish to make a few observations. You will there have seen that some rather strong expressions were used. Without at all wishing to apologise for those expressions, or giving an opinion as to their propriety or impropriety, I will take the liberty of expressing our hope that, whatever opinion your lordship may have formed of those expressions, you will not take them as speaking the general sentiments of the meeting—which ought alone to be held responsible for the opinions expressed in their recorded resolutions. I allude to this simply as a matter of explanation, for I should be sorry if your lordship were led to depart from the general principle laid down, of only recognising the acts of the meeting, without judging of its character by merely isolated expressions falling from individual speakers.

Lord John Russell.—I can assure you, Mr Young, that I should not have adverted to that circumstance, as I am quite aware that in public meetings, where a number of persons are desirous of giving expression to their opinions, great latitude of speech must be allowed. With regard to the expressions alluded to, though I may think them rather stronger than necessary, I observed in the report of the proceedings that the Duke of Richmond, in his reply, went as far in censure of them as I should be disposed to do; and having every confidence in the Duke of Richmond's loyalty, his wish to support the law, and his discretion, I think what he said upon the subject was amply sufficient.

Mr Young.—I will only add that many of us are magistrates ourselves, and that we are fully conscious of the duty which devolves upon us to do all we can for the maintenance of the public peace. What was said, I believe, was only intended to show the facts of our position to the House of Commons, from whom we claim protection, as an act of justice.

Lord John Russell.—Mr Newdegate, do you wish to say anything further?

Mr Newdegate.—I wish merely to express my concurrence in the objects of the deputation, and that I consider it fortunate that your lordship has permitted the deputation this opportunity of bringing before your notice the reality and extent of the distress which prevails in many districts, the severity of its pressure, and the danger from the feelings of discontent which has unhappily but indubitably grown up under the severe depression to which a large portion of the community is now exposed.

Lord John Russell, (addressing Mr Young.)—You have very truly stated that it would be quite useless to enter into a discussion here upon, not only one large question, but the several large questions, which are involved in this memorial, and which refer to our commercial laws, the state of agriculture and shipping, and the condition of the country at large. These various subjects would lead to a most extended discussion, if once we were to enter upon it. All I can say, therefore, is, that I take upon myself the whole responsibility of any advice which I may consider it my duty to give to my Sovereign. Certainly my experience leads me, I confess it, to a directly opposite conclusion with respect to the main point contained in this memorial—I think it would neither be desirable to go back from free trade to prohibition or restriction; nor advisable to dissolve Parliament in order to ask the opinion of the country upon the subject. That is the conclusion to which I have come. With respect to the suffering which has been stated to exist, it is neither inconsistent with my expectations, nor inconsistent with what I have heard, that in various parts of the country deep suffering does exist, and that that suffering is partly—and I should say in part only—owing to recent changes in our commercial laws. I believe that these changes were, in their general aspect, inevitable. I believe that ten years ago it might have been foreseen that this country, as it became more opulent and commercial, would require great changes in that direction, and my object was at that time to make the transition accompanied by as little suffering and distress as possible. But the advice I gave with that view was rejected, not only with contempt, but with indignation. Other changes have taken place since then, and the changes which have now taken place have been certainly of a much more decisive character than those which I originally proposed. I am sorry to say that I think the conduct of the agricultural, the colonial, and other interests, was not prudent in declaring that there should be no change in 1841. Still that was their decision, and in 1846 a much greater change was effected in those laws. In 1847 a general election took place, by which the electors had to decide upon the conduct of[Pg 775] those who had taken part in the adoption of these changes, and the result was the election of the present parliament, which has decided upon continuing the policy which the House of Commons had laid down in 1846. I own I do think it was very unwise—if I may be allowed to say so—in 1841, not to have sought some compromise; but I think it would be far more unwise now to seek to restore a system of protective duties. I believe that that, so far from leading to a settlement of this great question, would lead to fresh agitation, and a renewal of the present law—the law repealing those protective duties. I would put it to any man who is engaged in industrial pursuits of any kind, however he may think it would be advisable to restore the ancient system of protection, whether it would be wise or advantageous to have those laws re-enacted in 1851, again to be repealed in 1852 or 1853? I own I must think that to all interests concerned, especially to the agricultural interest, those changes and those renewals would be the very worst measures that could be adopted. All return to the former system being, as I believe, impossible, it may be desirable to equalise, if possible, the charges upon land, which I believe to be the wish of all parties. The changes which have been made, I believe to be, in their general aspect, agreeable to the progress of society in this country, and that the endeavour of all interests should henceforth be to adapt themselves to those changes rather than attempt their reversal. I may be mistaken in these views, but in the position I occupy, whether as a minister of the Crown or as a member of parliament, I feel that I cannot do otherwise than act upon convictions which I so strongly entertain; and if I held your opinions I should act as you do.

Mr Young.—Perhaps you will not deem me unreasonable if I advert to one or two remarks which have just fallen from your lordship. In the first place, your lordship says it will not be wise again to return to a system of protection and restriction. I can speak especially for the interest to which I belong—and being almost altogether unconnected with the landed interest, I could have wished some of the gentlemen whom I see around me stood in the position in which I have been unexpectedly placed; but I can speak especially for the shipping interest, and I believe I may also for the agricultural interest, when I say that they do not seek, that they do not desire, a system of prohibition. If you refer to the expressions which are contained in that memorial, you will find that all they ask is a just and equitable system of import duties. We do not presume to dictate the degree which would constitute justice; but we believe that, if the principle were once acknowledged, there would be no difficulty in placing the details upon such a basis as to give satisfaction to all parties. The next point upon which I would venture to offer one word by way of explanation, and as the expression of that which I know to be the universal sentiment of this deputation, is, that although, after the enactment of the changes of 1846, namely, in 1847, a general election did take place, yet your lordship will recollect that which is imprinted upon the mind of the country at large, that that election took place under circumstances which had shattered to pieces all parties in the state, and had placed the constituencies in such a position that, as we think, the election of 1847 was not a fair exponent of the sentiments and opinions which were entertained by the people at large.

Mr Guthrie.—Your lordship has expressed it as your opinion that it was unwise to reject the proposition which you made in 1841, for imposing a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter on wheat. Now, supposing your lordship acted wisely in proposing that measure, and the other party unwisely in rejecting it, if the other party should come round to your lordship's former opinion upon that subject, allow me to ask if you think it would be wrong, in 1850, to revert to the proposal which you deemed to be so perfectly right in 1841.

Lord J. Russell.—I can easily answer that question. Without going into other considerations, supposing the price of corn to be at that time 58s., a law that would reduce the average to 50s. would be well taken; whereas, if the price were 42s., the law which would raise it from 42s. to 50s. would be ill taken.

Mr Young.—Allow me, on behalf of the deputation, to thank your lordship for the attention with which you have heard us, and to express a hope that, should any of the observations in the address which I have had the honour to place in your lordship's hands appear too strong, you will not consider it as any mark of disrespect to yourself, but merely as an indication of the feelings which we entertain on the subject. I can now only apologise for having detained your lordship so long, but trust the important nature of the interests we represent will be a sufficient excuse.

Mr Guthrie.—Are you not going to say anything relative to the colonial interests?

[Pg 776]

Mr Young.—I left that in your hands. I thought you were going to speak upon that subject rather than upon agriculture.

Mr Guthrie.—Then, perhaps, your lordship will excuse me for again occupying your attention for a few moments relative to the interests of the colonies. I had the honour to wait upon you once before on the same subject, and can assure you that the difficulties under which the colonies laboured last year are in no degree diminished. Indeed, since that time the creditors have become the possessors of the estates, and the proprietors are now between sinking and swimming. Whether or not they shall he ruined will depend upon whether the differential duties shall be continued or not. I consider that the colonists have a right to demand that some protection should be given to them, seeing the difficulties that have been thrown in their way in obtaining labour. Those duties are to be again reduced in July next, and go off entirely in the following July; but I consider that some measure ought to be introduced to put the produce of the colonies on an equal footing with the produce of slave countries. Immense sums have been spent by this country to put a stop to the slave trade, while every encouragement is given to the produce of slave-holding countries. The tendency of all the legislation of late years has been to raise the value of foreign produce, and depress the property of the colonies. I am sure that I need not inform your lordship that a deep sympathy is felt throughout the country for the sufferings of the colonists, and I hope that your lordship will give the subject your early consideration and attention, as the distress existing among the various interests of the country bound us as in a common bond to endeavour to revise and amend our present position.

The audience then terminated, and the deputation withdrew to the large room at the King's Arms, Palace Yard, where several delegates delivered spirit-stirring addresses, which contained earnest exhortations to each other, and to their friends in the country, to combine and manfully to fight the battle of protection for England's best interests; and a determination was expressed to act, in their respective localities, upon the advice of the committee of the National Association, to "Register, register, register."

THE DELEGATES' ADDRESS TO LORD STANLEY, AND HIS LORDSHIP'S REPLY.

Lord Stanley having complied with the request which had been made to him, founded upon a resolution agreed to at the meeting at the South Sea House, on Thursday last, to receive an address from the delegates, on the termination of the above proceedings, a large body of gentlemen, headed by Mr William Layton, the chairman of the Isle of Ely Protectionist Society, proceeded to Lord Eglinton's mansion in St James's Square, for that purpose, there being no room in Lord Stanley's residence sufficiently large for their reception. In addition to the delegates already named, there were present the noble owner of the mansion; the Earl of Malmesbury; Mr W. Forbes Mackenzie, M.P.; Mr Newdegate, M.P.; Colonel Sibthorp, M.P.; Mr Albert Williams; Mr W. Long of Hurts Hall, Suffolk; Major Playfair, St Andrew's; Mr Ritchie, Dunbar; Professor Aytoun, and Mr Blackwood.

Mr Layton, who was intrusted with the duty of presenting the address to Lord Stanley, said that the gentlemen then present had been deputed by their co-delegates to wait upon his lordship, as the leader of the Protectionist party in the House of Lords, to make known to him the extent of the distress which was at this time prevailing in all parts of the country, and to ask his advice with regard to the course which it was most advisable for them to pursue in the midst of their difficulties. They felt that they had been deserted by a considerable portion of the members of both houses of the legislature, and in this extremity they turned to his lordship, who had so long been the ablest and most powerful of the advocates in this cause. (Hear.) They had that morning had the honour of waiting upon Lord John Russell; but grieved to heart was he to say that the noble lord, the Prime Minister of England, was unwilling in any way to respond to the appeal which had been made to him on behalf of the suffering tenantry of the country. He (Mr Layton) held in his hand a copy of the address which had been submitted to Lord J. Russell, and, with Lord Stanley's permission, would lay it before him, that he might gather therefrom what were the feelings and sentiments which were entertained by the great body of the agricultural community. The delegates were prepared, if his lordship would give them encouragement, to return to their respective localities, and use their best exertions for the purpose of accomplishing the overthrow of that insane policy to which was attributable the distress of which they complained. (Hear.) Mr Disraeli had stated that it was outside the walls of the Houses of Parliament that this great battle was now to be fought. And we are prepared to fight the battle—exclaimed[Pg 777] Mr Layton—we are prepared to go into our respective localities, and convince the House of Lords that the yeomanry and tenant-farmers of this country, amongst whom this great movement emanates, will not cease agitating until we have attained our object. (Hear, hear.) We have to-day been taunted by Lord J. Russell that there has been no movement made by the Protectionist party in parliament to reverse the present policy. But, as you, my Lord Stanley, know well, this is for the best of all possible reasons. You know that we have not that support and encouragement in either house, which will warrant an attempt to reverse that iniquitous policy. (Hear, hear.) We have come to town at great expense and inconvenience to ourselves. I myself am deputed from a locality which is distinguished in every respect, alike for the richness of its soil, and the industry, the virtuous habits, and the loyalty of its people—the Isle of Ely. That district comprises 300,000 acres of the most fertile and productive land in the United Kingdom, and yet, with all these advantages, we have been plunged into difficulties; and unless we have the powerful aid and co-operation of men like your lordship, we must inevitably be ruined. (Hear, hear.) If such be the case with a country like that of the Isle of Ely, what must be the state of those districts where the cold clay soils prevail? (Hear, hear.) I am the owner of property, and I find it impossible to collect my rents. Believe me that we do not come here under false colours. We simply desire, as honest men, to inform your lordship of the exact position in which we are placed; and also, I regret to say, of the deplorable condition to which the agricultural labourers are being reduced. With your lordship's permission I will now read the address:—

"TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD STANLEY, &c.

"My Lord,—We have the honour to wait upon your lordship, in your acknowledged character of leader of the great Protection party in the House of Lords. We form a portion of a numerous body of delegates this week assembled in London, from the various local agricultural societies in Great Britain, and our object in troubling your lordship is to represent to you the sentiments of those delegates, and of their constituents, on the present alarming position of the agricultural interest in this kingdom.

"Your lordship has probably seen in the public prints the reports of the proceedings of the great meeting of delegates, held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, on Tuesday last. The resolutions of that meeting embody generally the sentiments of the delegates on the subjects then under discussion, and to them, therefore, we beg respectfully to refer your lordship, and also to the very important facts stated by the various speakers, and the arguments advanced by them in support of the resolutions.

"Your lordship will be able to collect from them the following distinct propositions:—

"That the existing system of a free importation of foreign agricultural produce is destroying the income of the farmer, and gradually undermining his capital.

"That the labourer, from inadequacy of wages and dearth of employment, is fast approaching a state of poverty and destitution, and that he is becoming discontented, dispirited, and dissatisfied with the laws of his country.

"That land is rapidly declining in value, and in many districts, as well as in the colonies, is becoming unsaleable, except at great sacrifices on the part of the owners.

"That the difficulties of entering into new engagements for the hire of farms are increasing to an alarming extent, and that in various parts of the country occupations have been already abandoned.

"That many of the great trading interests of the country are beginning to feel the mischievous effects of the free trade policy; and the home trade, already in a languishing state, will soon become greatly depressed.

"That in some parts of Scotland and England an extensive emigration of small farmers and labourers prevails, affording the strongest proof that can be adduced of their perilous condition in this country.

"That the evils adverted to are fraught with imminent danger to the best interests of the state, which can only be averted by a just system of import duties based on a fair remuneration to the cultivators of the soil.

"That prompt and efficacious measures of relief ought to be adopted, and any postponement of them to a future session, or a future parliament, may be fatal in its consequences, and may have the effect of seriously damaging, if not of destroying, some of the most valuable of our institutions in Church and State.

"The aforegoing propositions, my lord, we sincerely believe will be found on examination to contain indisputable truths. We have already been in communication[Pg 778] on the subject with the First Lord of the Treasury, and we have felt it our bounden duty, in a matter of such vast importance to the national interests, to convey to your lordship a frank and explicit avowal of our sentiments. We firmly believe that any delay in redressing the grievances under which the agricultural and other interests labour, will be found pregnant with danger to the institutions of the country, and, as loyal subjects of the Throne, firmly attached to those institutions, we have not hesitated to give warning of it in every quarter where any degree of responsibility may be considered to rest. We feel well assured your lordship will give to this communication, and to any observations any member of the deputation may address to you, a most anxious and earnest consideration.

"With great respect,
"I have the honour to be, my Lord,
"Your Lordship's very obedient servant,
"William Layton, Chairman,

"And on behalf of the Delegates now assembled in London."

Having informed Lord Stanley of the intended Protectionist meeting at Liverpool at which a great number of agricultural delegates were to be present, Mr Layton concluded by assuring his lordship of the determination of those gentlemen to be guided by his counsels in prosecuting their future crusade against the destructive system of free trade. (Hear, hear.)

Lord STANLEY.—Gentlemen,—I need hardly say to you that I have listened to the observations so forcibly made by Mr. Layton with very mingled feelings. I have listened to them with feelings of deep gratitude for the kindness with which, in your present alarming circumstances, you have expressed the confidence which you feel in me; and at the same time with an earnest desire that you may find that confidence not to have been misplaced, if not with regard to my ability, at least with regard to my inclination to serve you. But mixed with those feelings of personal gratification there cannot but be others of a most painful character. (Hear.) Mr Layton has truly observed that this delegation, and this move, is altogether unparalleled in the history of the country. The agricultural interest is not one that is generally quick to move, eager and ready to combine, or disposed to agitate. (Hear, hear.) It is of all other interests the most stable, the most peaceful, the least excitable; and great indeed must have been the distress of all connected with that interest—of landlords, of tenants, and of labourers—when it has been such as to overcome the natural difficulties which stand in the way of their combination, to excite so mighty a movement as that which is now stirring the country from one end to the other, and to create such a manifestation of opinion as I have read of as displayed in your proceedings the other day, and as I see embodied in the deputation whom I have now the honour to address. But, lamentable as have been the consequences of a mistaken and an insane policy, they are not greater than those which, when that policy was first proposed, I fearfully and anxiously anticipated. (Hear, hear.) So far, at least, I may claim, I hope, some justification for the confidence which you have been pleased to repose in me; for from the first I have never entertained a doubt of the melancholy results that would flow from that policy; and being convinced that that policy was alike unwise and unjust, my part was taken at once. (Hear, hear.) Office, and everything that is gratifying to a public man, was abandoned without hesitation; and to that policy I declared then, as to that policy I repeat my declaration now, that I would not, and I will not be a party. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, the anticipations of those who opposed the repeal of the corn laws have been fully accomplished, whilst the predictions of those who justified that repeal, and the arguments by which they sought to vindicate that repeal, have been falsified by the test of experience. (Hear, hear.) Importations of foreign produce have increased to the full amount that we anticipated they would do under the system of free trade. Prices have fallen to the full amount, and to a greater amount, than we ventured to predict, and for predicting which our apprehensions were ridiculed as exaggerated and absurd. The distress has gone on increasing. That distress is still increasing. That distress is pressing upon every portion of the community;[Pg 779] and it is the most lamentable part of this case that I feel convinced—and here I must speak to you frankly and plainly—that the reversal of that policy can only be obtained at the expense of still greater suffering on the part of still more extended interests. (Hear.) Mr Layton has stated that we have been taunted in the House of Commons, and taunted in the House of Lords, with bringing forward no specific measure, and asking for no decision by parliament on the merits of this question. Gentlemen, the taunt proceeds from our political opponents, and the advice implied in the taunt being the advice of an enemy, I must take the liberty of regarding it in that light, and not looking upon it as most likely to forward the objects and to be productive of the results which we desire. (Hear, hear.) Firmly adhering to the principle of protection—going along with the resolutions which have been read by Mr Layton—believing that a return to a system of reasonable import duties is indispensable to the prosperity of this country—not accepting the experiment which has been tried as an accomplished fact—not acquiescing in that policy, and determined to do all in my power to reverse it, I in the House of Lords, and my friends in the House of Commons, must be guided as to the course which is most likely to attain our ends in the several assemblies which we have to address, by our own knowledge of the dispositions of the bodies with which we have to deal. I know there are those who say we are slack, that we are not bringing forward measures, nor asking for the decision of the Houses of Parliament. Take the House of Commons to begin with. If we bring forward a distinct proposition, embodying our own principles, what have we to expect from the present House of Commons? Have we to expect—can we believe that that House of Commons, which has sanctioned the free-trade measures of the Government, will stultify itself by reversing its own decision, and pronouncing against the policy which it has approved? (Hear, hear.) If it will not, and still more, if there be some who, agreeing with us, but doubting the policy of bringing forward the question, would desert our ranks, and if the result of raising the question in the House of Commons would be to show an apparently diminishing minority for us, and an apparently increasing majority against us, I ask what advantage have we gained for our cause within the walls of parliament, and what encouragement have we given to our friends out of doors? (Hear, hear.) You and we have different parts to play. I rejoice to see the energy, I rejoice to see the zeal, I rejoice to see the courage and the perseverance with which the agricultural body of England are exerting themselves, and that throughout the length and breadth of the land, in every corner, in every agricultural district—ay, and in the great towns they are working upon public opinion, and compelling the country to look this question in the face, and to judge of the effects which have resulted from our present course. You ask me for advice. I say, Go on, and God prosper you. (Hear, hear.) Do not tire, do not hesitate, do not falter in your course. Maintain the language of strict loyalty to the Crown and obedience to the laws. Do not listen to rash and intemperate advisers, who would urge you to have recourse to unwise and disloyal threats. But with a spirit of unbroken and unshaken loyalty to the Crown, and with a spirit of unswerving obedience to the laws, combine in a determined resolution by all constitutional means to obtain your rights, and to enforce upon those who now misrepresent you the duty of really representing your sentiments and supporting you in Parliament. (Loud cheering.) It is not in the House of Lords—it is not in the House of Commons—it is in the country at large that your battle must be fought, and your triumph must be achieved. (Hear, hear.) You have the game in your own hands. You may compel your present members—or, at least, you may point out to them the necessary, the lamentable consequences to themselves of persisting in their present courses; and when the time shall come you will have it in your own power, by the return of men who really represent your sentiments, to exercise your constitutional influence over the legislature of the country, and to enforce your just demands in another House of Parliament. (Hear, hear.) If, as I said before, it be unwise in my judgment to bring forward a definite proposition in accordance with our own views, as a party question in the House[Pg 780] of Commons—I say that, looking at the constitution and character of the House of Lords, it is more unwise still to bring it forward there. Remember that the House of Lords is not like the House of Commons, a fluctuating body, of which one class of representatives may at a general election be replaced by another. The House of Lords is a permanent body, composed for the most part of men advanced in years, exercising their judgment—their independent judgment I will hope, though I won't say I speak confidently (hear, and a laugh)—cautious in coming to a decision, but still more cautious and naturally reluctant to reverse that decision when they have once formed it. At present I lament to say—and there is no use in concealing the fact—we are in a minority in the House of Commons; we are also in a minority in the House of Lords. How then are we to change that minority into a majority? In the House of Commons you have it in your own hands. Through the House of Commons and through the country you may act—not perhaps as speedily or as quickly as you or I might desire; but depend upon it that, when by a general election, or by individual elections as they occur, you have produced an effect upon the judgment and the votes of the House of Commons, the opinion of the country, as represented in the House of Commons, will never be lost upon the House of Lords. (Hear, hear.) The House of Lords, I do not doubt, many of them most unwillingly, gave their assent to the fatal measure which came up recommended by the Commons. I did all in my humble power to prevent their coming to that decision; but I failed in doing so. I should fail still more signally if, the House of Lords having come to that decision, I were to bring forward week after week, or even month after month, specific motions for reversing the decision to which they had so come. (Hear). Men are slow to come forward and confess that they have been mistaken, and, confessing that they have been mistaken, reverse the votes they previously gave; and if I compelled the House of Lords to pronounce a judgment upon the merits of the question month after month, or week after week, every vote given by those—and they are not a few—who have increasing doubts and misgivings, but are not fully convinced as to the mischievous result of the experiment, pledges them anew to the position which they originally took up, and adds to the difficulty of overcoming the present majority. The view which I have taken, and in which I am supported by those of the wisest and soundest judgment with whom I am in the habit of consulting, is not to meet this question by direct motions in the House of Lords for a reversal of this policy, but never to lose an opportunity of showing, if need be, week after week, the progressive effects of the experiment which is now going on. Now, observe, since last year—I will not say since last year, but since the commencement of the present session of Parliament—there has been a material change in the language of the Government. They who a short time ago advocated a reversal of this policy, or even doubted the finality of its adoption, were either scouted as madmen or ridiculed as fanatics. But we now hear the Marquis of Lansdowne, in the House of Lords, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons, speaking of this policy as "an experiment"—as an experiment in course of progress—and no longer as an act that has been decided, and therefore irreversible. They admit, moreover, that prices are low—lower than they expected; and it is admitted also by the Government, not simply that Free Trade has produced low prices, but lower prices than they had ever intended, and they apologise for this effect, which, upon the principles of Free Trade, ought to have been the triumph of their policy. (Hear). Well, then, we have brought them to admit that it is an experiment—we have brought them to admit that this cheapness is not what they intended or desired—we have brought them to apologise for its existence, as an exceptional and temporary state of things, and not attributable to their experiments. And step by step, if it is not the quickest, it is at least the soundest, policy; we shall have first this man and then that man saying, "The experiment has been tried long enough." "I am satisfied that it has not answered the intended purpose." "I think something must be done." "Really matters[Pg 781] are become alarming." And gradually, in that manner, and in that manner only, shall we, in a permanent body like the House of Lords, convert a minority against Free Trade into a majority in favour of our protective principles. (Hear). That is the course which I have felt it to be my duty to pursue during the present session of Parliament. That is the course which—not taking the advice of our opponents—I shall continue to pursue. Constantly we shall bring before them the results of their experiment. I hold in my hand at this moment a paper, which I received only this morning, and which was moved for by my noble friend the Earl of Malmesbury this session, in order to controvert an assertion of the Government, that at present prices the foreigner could not by possibility import, that present prices would not pay for the importation, and that we should therefore see a rapid and great diminution of the imports of foreign corn. That was the language which they held so late as the month of January last. I have heard several persons say that February or March would show an improvement in prices. We waited till February and March were past, and at my suggestion the Earl of Malmesbury moved in April for a return, showing the weekly price of wheat in the British markets, and the quantity of corn imported from abroad during each week in the present year. The result is, that, so far from indicating a falling-off in imports, or a rise in price, this return shows that the prices have fallen from 40s. on the 5th day of January, to 37s. 10d. on the 20th of April; whilst the imports have increased from 36,000 quarters of wheat in the second week of January, to 118,000 quarters of wheat, exclusive of flour, in the week ending the 17th of April. And the total amount of imports, in little more than three months, with an average price of from 37s. to 38s. a quarter, has not been far short of 1,000,000 quarters of corn, converting the flour into quarters at the ordinary rate. By the production of this paper before the House of Lords, we disprove the assertions of those who tell us that we have no reason to be alarmed at the course which the experiment is taking, or that at all events we have not sufficient grounds to call on Parliament to put an end to it. And in this course of practical argument from facts as they occur we mean to persevere. I know that this is a policy which is wearisome in its nature. (Hear, hear). I know that "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." I know that there must be increasing distress. I know that every month and every week that this fearful experiment is in progress the dangers and the difficulties are increasing. But how, with the present constitution of Parliament—how, with the present constitution of the House of Lords—how, with the present constitution of the House of Commons, with the best desire to serve you, with the most earnest and anxious wish to promote your interests—how can we take any step which shall more rapidly force conviction upon the minds of those whom it is necessary to convince before we can attain our ends? (Hear, hear.) I say again, do not complain of our apathy. Believe that we have no such feeling. Believe that we deeply sympathise with the misfortunes of those with whom we are bound up by so many ties; in whom all our interests—not to say our affections, are centred; and if we appear to be less speedy and energetic in the House of Lords and the House of Commons than you would desire us to appear to be, believe that it is not from indifference—believe that it is from a well-calculated policy, and a deliberate adoption of the course by which alone we may attain the object which you and we desire. (Hear, hear.) If you ask my advice, I say persevere in the course you have adopted. Agitate the country from one end to the other. Continue to call meetings in every direction. Do not fear, do not flinch from discussion. By all means accept the offer of holding a meeting in that magnificent building at Liverpool; and in our greatest commercial towns show that there is a feeling in regard to the result of our so-called Free Trade widely different from that which was anticipated by the Free-traders, and from that which did prevail only a few years ago. (Hear, hear). Your efforts may not be so soon crowned with success as you hope; but depend upon it, let us stand hand to hand firmly together; let the landlord, the tenant, and the labourer—ay, and the[Pg 782] country shopkeeper—ay, before long, the manufacturer himself, be called on to show and to prove what the effects of this experiment are,—and as sure as we stand together, temperately but firmly determined to assert our rights, so certainly, at the expense, it may be, of intense suffering, and perhaps of ruin to many—of ruin which, God knows, if I could avert I would omit no effort for that purpose—but ultimately, certainly and securely we shall attain our object, and recede from that insane policy which has been pursued during the last few years. (Hear, hear). I have now only to return you my most grateful thanks for the compliment you have paid me in wishing me to receive this deputation. I have heard with the liveliest interest the statements of Mr Layton. If in any part of the country—for now through you I address every district—if there be but one district in which a suspicion is entertained that I am flinching from, or hesitating in my advocacy of, those principles on which I stood in conjunction with my late deeply-lamented friend Lord George Bentinck, I authorise you—one and all of you—to assure those whom you represent, that in me they will find no hesitation, no flinching, and no change of opinion; that, attached as I have ever been to the principle of Protection, that attachment remains unchanged; and I only look for the moment when it may be possible for us to use the memorable words of the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo, and to say, "Up, Guards, and at them!" (Loud cheers.)

Mr PAUL FOSKETT.—My Lord Stanley, I know I speak the universal sentiments of the delegates who have attended our meetings this week, when I say that the address you have just delivered to us has penetrated our heart of hearts, and has made us feel that under your leadership our triumph is secure. (Cheers.) We shall now return to our several homes, and "agitate," "agitate," "agitate," until our object is attained. (Hear, hear.)

After a few observations from Mr Newdegate, Mr Box, (of Buckinghamshire,) and Mr Malins, (of Derbyshire,)

Mr LAYTON expressed the gratification he experienced at the result of the interview with Lord Stanley. They might all take comfort that they had such a leader and friend; and on the part of the delegation and the tenantry and labourers of the land, he begged to convey to his lordship his unqualified admiration and thanks for the manner in which he had received the deputation, and for the encouragement and hope he had held out to the various suffering interests of the country. (Hear, hear.)

Lord STANLEY in taking leave of the deputation, hoped that on their return to their several localities their efforts would be crowned with success. They might depend upon it, that whilst they kept up the pressure from without, if they would authorise him, he would not fail to keep up the pressure within.

The deputation then took their leave; and upon re-assembling at the King's Arms,

Mr LAYTON briefly reported the reception which had been given to them by Lord Stanley; and amidst the enthusiastic cheering of the audience, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:—

"That this meeting cannot separate without recording their grateful acknowledgments to Lord Stanly for the courteous and satisfactory reception he has afforded them this day, and their high gratification at the encouraging approval he has expressed of the steps they are taking; and they beg his lordship will receive the assurance of their perfect confidence in his powerful and talented advocacy of the cause of Protection in the House of Lords.

"That a copy of this resolution be transmitted to Lord Stanley."

It was also resolved,—

"That it is the opinion of the delegates now assembled in London, that a meeting in Liverpool, on as early a day as practicable, is highly desirable; and the delegates now present pledge themselves to support such meeting by personal attendance as far as practicable.

"And that as circumstances may occur, either during the present session of Parliament or after a prorogation, which may render it necessary for the delegates to reassemble in London, this meeting of delegates be at its rising adjourned till again summoned by the committee of the National Association, to which summons they will be ready instantly to respond; and that in such case, this meeting considers that one delegate at least for each district should attend the meeting."

After the transaction of some routine business, the meeting separated.

INDEX TO VOL. LXVII.

Aberdeen, lord, on the Greek constitution, 528.

Aberdeen, state of the shipping interest at, 356.

Aberdeen Journal, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 34.

Aberdeenshire, statistics of farming in, 113.

Actress, social position of the, 695.

Agricultural depreciation, amount of, 615
—depression, continued, 382
—its influence on commerce, 385
—interest, magnitude of the, 241
—labourers, state of the, 366
—question, not a landlords' one, 382.

Agriculture, Commerce, and Manufactures, 347
—opening of the session, ib.
—prospects of financial reform, ib.
—the Royal speech, ib.
—speeches on the address, 348
—debate in the commons, 349
—probable prices in future, 351
—failure of free trade prophecies, 353
—state of the shipping interest, 355
—G. F. Young on it, 359
—state of manufactures, 361
—value of the home and foreign markets, 363
—state of various manufactures, 365
—of the agricultural labourers, 366
—comparative value of agriculture and manufactures, 368
—imports and exports, 1845 and 1849, 370
—alleged increase of bullion, and its causes, 372
—general conclusions, 373
—influence of the depreciation of land on life assurance, 374.

Agriculture, British, see British Agriculture
—state of, in Greece, 532
—and manufactures, comparative values of, 368.

Agriculturists, contrast between, and the manufacturers, 132.

Agrippa d'Aubigné and Madame de Maintenon, 174.

Aikin's Life of Howard, remarks on, 52.

Alfieri and Shakspeare, contrast between, 636.

Algeria, sketches in, 292.

Alison's Political Essays, 605.

Allnatt, Mr J. J., at the protection meeting, 763.

Allston, Washington, 198.

America, importation of beef, &c. from, and its prices, 129.

American Adventure, 34.

Americans, the, in Mexico, 42.

Annexation movement in Canada, the, 266.

Anton, prophecies of, 566.

Appin, state of the cattle trade in, 240.

Argyleshire, state of the cattle trade in, 237 et seq.

Armansperg, count, government of Greece by, 527.

Army, state of the, in Greece, 532
—treachery of the, in France, 618.

Artistic biography, scarcity of true, 192.

Asem, Goldsmith's tale of, 299.

Athens, sketches at, 681.

Aubigné, Agrippa d', sketch of the life of, 174.

Auchness system of farming, on the, 105, 453.

Austria, reaction in, 3
—want of moral firmness in the government of, 4
—war of races and fidelity of the army in, 7
—danger to Europe from its dismemberment, 9.

Autobiographies, on, 192.

Aytoun, Professor, at the protection meeting, 759.


Bailey's Festus, review of, 415.

Ball, Mr E., at the protection meeting, 755.

Ballot, abuses of the, in Greece, 536.

Barbarian Rambles, 281.

Barbour & Co., Trade circular of, 600.

Bath, the Turkish, 294.

Bath Chronicle, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 37.

Beaucarde the singer, 698.

Beef, importation, &c. of, 128 et seq.

Belletti the singer, 699.

Bentinck, lord George, 617.

Berthier, sketches of, 574.

Berwick Warder, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 40.

Beykirch, Th., Prophetic voices by, 561.

Birch-tree, battle of the, prophecies of the, 563, 565, 567, 568, 569.

Bird the painter, 196.

Birmingham, state of manufactures in, 365.

Boddington, Mr G., at the protection meeting, 766.

Booker, T. W., at the protection meeting, 749.

Boston, state of the shipping interest at, 356.

Boston Atlas, the, on Canada, 257.

[Pg 784]Brandenburg, prophecies regarding, 561.

Bricks, proposed abolition of the duty on, 513.

Britain's Prosperity, a new song, 389.

British Agriculture and Foreign Competition. No. I., 94
—Peel on the lowest remunerating price of wheat, ib.
—Ducie and Kinnaird on high farming, 95
—and Caird, 97, 104
—quantities of grain available for importation, 99
—prices of grain abroad, 100
—expense of freight, &c. 103
—the Auchness system of farming, 105
—returns from various farmers, of produce, expenses, &c. under protection and free trade, 107 et seq.
—remarks on these, 119
—policy urged by Cobden, &c. 120
—The Times on Agricultural prospects, 121
—answer to the arguments founded on rise of rents, 122
—on Mr W. E. Gladstone's speech at Fettercairn, 124
—inconsistencies of the Free-traders, 127, 131
—effects of free trade on live stock, 128
—and on the provision trade, 129
—one-sidedness of recent legislation, 130
—contrast between the manufacturers and agriculturists, 132
—concluding remarks, 135.
No. II. Reply to the Times on former article, 222
—letter from Mr Watson in answer to it, ib. et seq.
—reply to the Morning Chronicle, 225
—comparative rates of rent in England and Scotland, 226
—inability of high farming to contend against free trade, 227
—increase of cultivation on the Continent, 228
—probable future prices, 229
—Continental prices, &c. 230
—importations from Moldavia, 231
—on professor Low's Appeal, 232
—cost of raising wheat, &c. in the United States, ib.
—Peel's letter to his tenantry, 233
—reply to it, 235
—effects of free trade on live stock, 237
—increased burden of taxation, 241
—present tactics of the Free-traders, 242
—Lord Drumlanrig's letter, 243
—state of the cotton manufactures, 247
—The newspaper press on No. I. Appendix.

Britannia, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 17.

Broad, W., letter from, on farming statistics, 111.

Brown, Peter, letter from, on farming statistics, 112.

Brown's life of Howard, on, 52.

Buckland, Dr, on Agriculture, &c. 95.

Budget, the, 513.

Bullion, alleged increase of, and its causes, 372.

Burke, eulogy on Howard by, 63
—and Goldsmith, anecdote of, 142.

Burn, Mr, statistics, &c. of the cotton trade by, 595.

Burn's Highland Mary, to, 309.


Cadiz, Urquhart's account of, 282.

Caernarvon, state of the shipping interest at, 356.

Caird's High farming, on, 97, 104.

Caird's High Farming Harrowed, 447.

Caldecott, Mr W., at the protection meeting, 765.

California, sketches in, 35
—conduct of the United States toward, 263.

Calzolari the singer, 698.

Camel, the, 683.

Canadas, Civil Revolution in the, 249
—geographical sketch, &c. of the, 259.

Canadian loyalty, an ode, 345.

Canning, sir Stratford, sent to Greece, 531.

Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets, review of, 641.

Cash and Pedigree, 431.

Cassio, on the character of, 483.

Cato the Censor, Caird's High farming harrowed by, 447.

Cattle, importations, &c. of, 128
—effects of free trade on the rearing of, 237.

Cervi, the island of, case regarding, 538.

Charles Albert, the final overthrow of, 3.

Chartists, overthrow of the, 3.

Cheltenham Chronicle, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 79.

Chester Courant, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 35.

Cheyne, Mr, on the cattle trade in Argyle, 239.

Chouler, Mr W., at the protection meeting, 752.

Christopher under Canvass, No. VI., 481
—No. VII., 622.

Citizen of the World, publication of the, 149
—notices of the, 296, 298, 306.

Civil Revolution in the Canadas, 249.

Clearing of the Glens, the, 475.

Cobbett, anticipation of, as to the effects of free trade, 519.

Cobden, inconsistencies of, 131
—on the effects of free trade, 353.

Coblenz, prophecy regarding, 567.

Cocoa, diminished consumption of, 385.

Coffee, diminished consumption of, 386.

Coleridge, S. T., on the character of Iago, 482
—on Othello, 484
—criticism on, 623, 624.

Coletti, Greek minister, 527, 530.

Collins, William, R.A., Memoir of, 192.

Cologne cathedral and city, prophecies regarding, 564, 567.

Colonial government, new system of, announced by ministers, 377.

Colonial policy, Carlyle on, 655.

Colonies, recent legislation toward the, and its effects, 249
—general discontent in, 380.

Commerce, reaction of Agricultural distress on, 385
—depressed state of, as shown by the trade circulars, 589 et seq.

Commons, speeches in, on the address, 349.

[Pg 785]Conservatives, conduct of the, in regard to the Reform Bill, 608.

Constantinople, a Month at, 679.

Constitutionalism, failure of, in Greece, 534.

Cork, state of the shipping interest at, 356.

Corn Laws, their repeal foreseen by Mr Alison, 609
—his anticipations as to its effects, 610.

Cotton trade and manufactures, statistics relating to the, 247, 361, 385, 590, 595, 597.

Court Martial, a late case of, 269.

Cultivation, state of, in Greece, 532, 533.

Currency bill, effects of the, 520.

Currency system, Alison on the effects of the changes in, 614.


Δ. The Dark Waggon, by, 71.

Daily News, the, on Canada, 253.

Dantzic, prices of wheat at, 231, 232.

Dark Waggon, the, by Δ., 71.

Day, Mr, exposure of Cobden by, 131.

Denmark, price of wheat in, 102.

Derby Mercury, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 30.

Deserted village, notices of the, 298, 304.

Dies Boreales, No. VI., 481
—on the character of Iago, ib.
—on Othello, 483
—on the question as to his being a negro, 485
—opposite characteristics shown in him, 486
—majesty of his character, 487
—impression left by the tragedy, 488
—the time of the tragedy, 489 et seq.
—proof of short time, ib.
—of long, 498
—attempt to show mixed, 506
—No. VII., 622
—errors of poets in delineating nature, 623 et seq.
—Othello continued, 626
—on the Greek tragedy, 636.

Direct taxes, amount of, repealed since the peace, 517.

Dixon's life of Howard, review of, 50.

Dogs of Constantinople, the, 684.

Doncaster Chronicle, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 40.

Dorset County Chronicle, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 84.

Doubleday, Mr, anticipations of, as to the effects of free trade, 245.

Douglas, captain, the case of, 269.

Drama, causes of the decline of the, 689.

Drogheda, state of the shipping interest at, 357.

Drumlanrig, lord, letter to his tenantry by, 243.

Dublin Mail, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 29.

Dublin Press, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 28.

Duclos, anecdotes of Louis XIV. by, 188, 190.

Dudgeon, Mr, statistics of farming produce, expenses, &c., by, 108
—letter from, to the editor of the Kelso Chronicle, Appendix, 104.

Dumfries Herald, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 51.

Dumas' Le Veloce, review of, 281.

Dundee, statistics of the provision trade from, 129.

Dundee Courier, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 51, 53
—letter to, by Justitia, Appendix, 93.

Dwarf and the Oak tree, the, 411.


Eastlake, Mr, and the National Gallery, 205.

Economist, the, on the Cotton manufacture, 247
—on the state of the cotton trade, 362
—on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 88, 89, 99, 109
—answer of Mr Watson to it, 103
—and of the editor, 118.

Edinburgh Advertiser on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 25.

Edinburgh Evening Courant on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 66.

Edinburgh Evening Post on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 24.

Edinburghshire, statistics of farming, &c. in, 116, 117.

Eddowes' Worcester Journal on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 79.

Eglinton, the Earl of, at the protection meeting, 768.

Election, system of, in Greece, 535.

Emancipation, Carlyle on, 655.

Emigration, increase of, from the Highlands and Islands, 239, 240
—statistics &c. of, from Liverpool, 592.

Emilia, on the character of, 504.

England, rates of rent &c. in, compared with Scotland, 226
—statistics of cotton spinning, &c. in, 595 et seq.

Essex, the earl of, speech of, on the address, 348.

Europe, general reaction against revolution in, 2 et seq.
—increase of grain cultivation in, 228.

Exeter Gazette, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 85.

Exports, 1845 and 1849, comparison of, 370
—the alleged increase in, examination of it, 383.


Farewell to Naples, a, 279.

Farming, statistics of, under protection and free trade, 107 et seq.

Faust, observations on the, 415.

Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 44.

Festus, 415.

Fezensac, M. de, his journal of the Russian campaign reviewed, 573.

Fiars, the Scotch, 382.

Fig packing at Smyrna, 683.

Finances, the French, effects of the Revolution on, 12.

Financial reform, prospects of, 347.

Ford's Spain, remarks on, 281.

Forster's life of Goldsmith, remarks on, 139, 140.

Fothergill, C., sketches of the Canadas by, 259.

[Pg 786]France, reaction in, 2, 3
—variety of interests assailed in, by the Revolution, 11
—effects of it on the finances of, 12
—prophecy regarding, 563, 564.
See also French.

Free trade finance, 513.

Free trade, influence of the system of, on Canada, 252
—its effects in diminishing the number of Irish voters, 380
—Sir William Napier on, 386
—its effects on taxes and their amount, 519
—reaction against it in Liverpool, 593
—its manifested effects, and present language of its supporters, 611
—losses caused to all parties by, 612.

Free-traders, present tactics of the, 242
—their indifference to the national glory, 250
—their diminished confidence, 603.

Freights, rates of, 359
—of corn, cost of, 103
—coasting and foreign, comparison between, 604.

French revolution, the first, influence of the memory of, 5
—revolutions, Alison on, 617
—satirical novels, on, 431.

Fundholders, danger to the, 384.


Galatz, prices of wheat at, 231.

Gentleman's Magazine, life of Howard in the, 60.

German popular prophecies, 560.

Gibraltar, Dumas' account of, 286.

Gibson, John, statistics of farming by, 117, 118
—reply to the Scotsman by, Appendix, 65.

Gladstone, Mr Ewart, speech of, at Fettercairn, 124.

Glasgow, distress in, 1848, 13 note.

Glasgow Constitutional, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 34.

Glass trade, state of the, 365.

Gloucester Chronicle, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 37.

Goethe's Faust, observations on, 415.

Gold region of California, the, 44.

Goldsmith, Part I., biography, 137
—Part II., works, 296.

Görres, Joseph von, prophecies of, 562.

Grain, present importation of, 99
—prices of, abroad, 100 et seq.
—prospects as regards its future prices, 229
—importations of, 1845 and 1849, 370.

Great Britain, reaction in, 3
—fidelity of the troops in, 6
—suppression of the threatened convulsions in, 14
—survey of her conduct toward Canada, 264
—her conduct toward Greece, 526.

Greece again, 526.

Greek constitution of 1848, the, 528
—senate, 536.

Greek drama, contrast between, and Shakspeare's, 636.

Green Hand, the, Part VII., 76
—Part VIII., 208
—Part IX., 329
—Part X., 701.

Greenock Advertiser, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 50.

Gregory, professor, account of German popular prophecies by, 560.


Haddington, prices of wheat at, 382.

Haig, James, statistics of farming produce by, 113.

Hamburg beef, importation &c. of, 129.

Hamlet, remarks on, 634, 635.

Harvest of 1849, the, 229.

Hay, W., letter from, on farming statistics, 114.

Hayes, Miss Catherine, 698.

Haynau, the cruelties of, in Hungary, 11.

Henry IV., sketches of, 177 et seq., passim.

Herrmann, the prophecies of, 561.

Hertford County Press, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 47.

Higgins, Mr H., at the protection meeting, 766.

High farming, inability of, to contend against free trade, 227.

Highlands, effects of free trade on the cattle trade of the, 237.

Hollingshed & Co., trade circular of, 598.

Holt, George, & Co., trade circular of, 590.

Home and foreign consumption of cotton, comparison between, 596
—markets, relative value of, 363.

Hood, David, letter from, on farming produce, &c., 112.

Howard, 50.

Howden, Andrew, letter from, on farming statistics, 111.

Huguenots, sketches of the, 175.

Hungarian Joseph, the, 658.

Hungary, the subjugation of, 3
—the struggle in, 8
—its true character, 9
—the severities in, 10.

Hutchison, John, letter from, on farming statistics, 112.


Iago, on the character of, 482.

Ibraila, prices of wheat at, 231, 232.

Imports, 1845 and 1849, comparison between, 370
—increase of, 385
—diminished consumption of, 589.

Indian corn, culture of, in Canada, 261.

Indians, massacres of the, by the Americans, 35.

Indirect taxes, amount of, repealed since the peace, 517.

Insolvency, effect of, in inducing the reaction, 12.

Insurance, on, and its relations to the Agricultural question, 374.

Interests, variety of, in France, endangered by the Revolution, 11.

Inverness Courier, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 80.

Ionian republic, claim advanced to Cervi, &c., by, 538.

Ireland, suppression of the rebellion in, 3, 14
—extinction of voters in, by free trade, 380 et seq.
—state of, 384.

Irish, immigration of the, into Scotland, 367.

Irish Reform bill, the new, 377 et seq.

Irving's Life of Goldsmith, review of, 137.

[Pg 787]Italian Opera, the, 688.

Italy, re-establishment of Austrian domination in, 3
—rapid suppression of the revolution in, 13.


Jackson, Mr, on the Agricultural question, 242.

Jaspers, the prophecies of, 562.

John Bull, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 9.

Johnson's Sights in the Gold regions, review of, 34.

Justitia, letter to Dundee Courier by, Appendix, 93.


Kappelmann, prophecies of, 569.

Kelso Chronicle, letter from Mr Dudgeon to, Appendix, 104.

Kelso Mail, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 85.

Kinnaird, lord, on high farming, &c., 96.

Krasnoi, the battle of, 577.


Lablache the singer, 699.

Labouchere, Mr, on the state of the shipping interest, 355
—answer of G. F. Young to, 360.

Lansdowne, lord, speech of, on the Address, 349.

Late Case of Court Martial, a, 269.

Latter-day Pamphlets, 641.

Layton, Mr, Presentation of Address to Lord Stanley by, 777.

Lear, remarks on, 634.

Leeds Intelligencer, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 27.

Lehnin, the prophecy of, 561.

Leicester Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 86.

Leperos of Mexico, the, 41.

Liberals, general policy of the, 378
—their conduct with reference to the Reform Bill, 608.

Liberalism, Carlyle's denunciations of, 643.

Life Insurance, on, as affected by free trade, 374.

Lindsay & Co., tables of freights by, 359.

Littledale & Co., state of the cotton trade reported by, 385
—tenor of the circulars of, 589.

Live Stock, effects of free trade on, 128, 237
—comparison between importation of, 1845 and 1849, 370.

Liverpool, importation of beef &c., into, 129
—state of the shipping interest at, 357
—state of trade at, 589
—prices current in, 591
—statistics of emigration from, 592.

Liverpool Standard, the, on the Cotton trade, 361
—on British competition, &c., Appendix, 69.

Lochfine, effects of free trade on cattle rearing in district of, 237.

Lombardy, re-establishment of Austrian domination in, 3.

London, the great Protection Meeting in, 738
—importation of grain into, 127
—present rate of its increase, 514.

Londos, M., Greek minister, 530.

Louis XIV., marriage of, to Madame Maintenon, &c., 186 et seq.

Louis Philippe, pusillanimity of, 4
—his overthrow, 619.

Louvois, anecdote of, 180 note.

Low's Appeal, remarks on, 232.

Lyceum Theatre, the, 690.

Lyons, sir E., in Greece, 526.


M'Combe, William, letter from, on farming statistics, 112.

M'Culloch, on the cotton manufacture, &c., 595.

M'Culloch's system of farming, on, 105.

Mackay, Mr, on the cost of wheat in the United States, 232.

M'Millan, J., on the cattle trade in Appin, 240.

M'Nair & Co., the trade circulars of, 598.

Madame Sontag and the Opera, 688.

Magyars, the, 8.

Maintenon, madame de, career of, 181.

Malibran, anecdotes of, 694.

Manchester, state of the cotton manufactures in, 361
—its depressed state, 383.

Manchester Courier, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 26.

Manners, lord John, at the protection meeting, 768.

Manufactures, protection still enjoyed by, 130
—list of articles still protected, 225
—state of, 361
—depression under which labouring, 383
—experienced effects of free trade on, 612, 613.

Manufacturers, contrast between, and the Agriculturists, 132.

Manufacturing districts, depressed state of the, 590.

Mark Lane Express, the, on the probable price of wheat, 351
—on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 39.

Maryport, state of the shipping interest at, 357.

Maurice, Mr, on the condition of the Agricultural labourers, 366.

Mercantile class in Greece, the, 533.

Methuen, lord, speech of, on the Address, 348.

Mexico, sketches in, 37.

Michael Angelo, Wilkie on, 201.

Military, general loyalty of the, in 1848, 5.

Ministerial measures, the, 377
—the Irish Reform bill, 378
—new colonial measures, 379
—general discontent in the colonies, 380
—extinction of voters in Ireland, ib.
—continued depression of Agriculture, 382
—alleged increase of exports, 383
—danger to the moneyed interest, 384
—influence of Agricultural distress on commerce, 385
—Sir William Napier on free trade, 386.

Ministry, subjection of the, to mob domination, 513.

Modern Argonauts, the, 539.

Moldavia, wheat-growing capabilities of, 231.

[Pg 788]Moneyed interest, present danger to the, 384
—its influence, 522.

Monmouth Beacon, the, on "British Agriculture," &c., Appendix, 57.

Monro, Mr, his answer to Caird's High Farming, 104.

Month at Constantinople, a, 679.

Montreal, loyalty of, during the Rebellion, 251
—contrast in 1848, 252.

Moore, W., letter from, on the state of the shipping interest, 358.

Morland the painter, notices of, 194, 195.

Morning Chronicle, reply to the, 225
—on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 10
—Letter from W. to it, and reply, Appendix, 13.

Morning Herald, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 3
—reply to the Times on it, Appendix, 14.

Mortgages, lord Drumlanrig on, 244.

Moscow, the burning of, 575.

Municipal government, system of, in Greece, 535
—institutions, necessity for, there, 531.

Münster, prophecy regarding, 567.

My Peninsular Medal, Part III. chap. vii. 15
—chap. viii. 22
—chap. ix. 26
—Part IV. chap. x. 313
—chap. xi. 318
—Part V. chap. xii. 393
—chap. xiii. 401
—chap. xiv. 405
—Part VI. chap. xv. 542
—chap. xvi. 547
—Part VII. chap. xvii. 661
—chap. xviii. 673.

Myers, T. M., Liverpool Prices current from, 591.


Napier, admiral sir Charles, on free trade &c., 387.

Napier, sir William, on free trade, 386
—letter from, 640.

Naples, a farewell to, 279
—reaction in, 3.

Napoleon in Russia, sketches of, 574.

National debt, recent additions, &c. to the, 513
—amount of, paid off by the sinking-fund, 516 et seq.

National Gallery, on the, 205.

Navigation laws, effects of the repeal of, 355.

Negro emancipation, Carlyle on, 654.

Newcastle Courant, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 43.

Newcastle Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 54.

Ney, sketches of, during the Moscow retreat, 576 et seq.

Ninon de l'Enclos, sketches of, 184.

Nisbet, Mr, letter from, on farming statistics, 111.

Noailles, the duc de, his Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon reviewed, 174.

North British Agriculturist, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 39.

North of Scotland Gazette, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 76.

Nottingham Guardian, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 47.


Oats, fiars price of, 382.

Opera, the, 688.

Orleans dynasty, pusillanimity of the, 4.

Orleans, the duchess d', heroism of, 4.

Osnabruck, prophecy regarding, 567.

Othello, the character and tragedy of, its time, &c., 483, 626.

Otho, King of Greece, sketch of government, &c., of, 526.

Ovid's Spring-time translated, 621.


Palace Theatricals, 722.

Palmerston, lord, policy of, toward Greece, 526, 529 et seq.

Paris, distress in, after the Revolution, 13 note.

Parkman's California, review of, 34.

Pauperism, Carlyle on, 643.

Peasantry, the Greek, state, &c. of, 532.

Peel, sir R., remunerative price for wheat fixed by, 94
—his letter to his tenantry, on, 233
—his conduct with regard to free trade, 617.

Peers, house of, speeches in, on the address, 348.

Penitent Free-trader, the, 585.

Penny postage, sacrifice of revenue by the, 523.

Periodical essays, on the republication of, 605.

Perth Courier, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 31, 83.

Phanariotes, character, &c. of the, 532.

Phillips, J., letter from, on the state of the operatives, 366.

Piscatory, Mr, French minister in Greece, 526.

Pius IX., weakness of, 4.

Plague, Howard's exertions regarding the, 67.

Plymouth, state of the shipping interest at, 357.

Poetry, The Dark Waggon, 71
—A Farewell to Naples, 279—To Burns' Highland Mary, 309
—Canadian Loyalty, 345
—Britain's Prosperity, 389
—The Dwarf and the Oak tree, 411
—The Clearing of the Glens, 475
—The Modern Argonauts, 539
—The Penitent Free-trader, 585
—Ovid's Spring-time, 621
—the Hungarian Joseph, 658
—the Quaker's Lament, 733.

Poland, prices of wheat in, 101.

Political Essays, republication of, 605.

Political Novels, modern French, 431.

Poor-rates, alleged diminution of, 383.

Pork, American, importation, &c. of, 129.

Portrait painting, the English school of, 203.

Post-office, statistics of, under the penny postage system, 523.

Pottgiesser, prophecy of, 564.

Poussin, Gaspar, 202.

Price, Dr, connection of, with Howard, 56.

Primates, the Greek, 532.

Prinny, a dog, anecdote of, 206.

[Pg 789]Prisons, Howard's exertions in connection with, 63 et seq.

Property, necessity of security of, 1
—destruction of, through recent legislation, 522.

Prophecies, German popular, 560.

Proprietors, character, state, &c., of, in Greece, 532.

Protection meeting, the Great, in London, 733.

Protective system, past benefits of the, to Canada, 255.

Provision trade, influence of free trade on, 129.

Provisions, importations of, 1845 and 1849, 370.

Prussia, reaction in, 3
—want of moral courage in the government of, 4
—fidelity of the troops in, 6
—prophecies regarding, 561 et seq.


Quaker's Lament, the, 733.


Railways, depreciation of, 383
—causes of their depressed state, 613
—German prophecies regarding, 563, 565.

Reaction, the year of, 1.

Reeves, Sims, the singer, 699.

Reform Bill, extinction of the Sinking fund by the, 517
—Alison's essay on the, 607.

Rembrandt, Wilkie on, 202.

Rent, rates of, in England and Scotland, 226.

Rents, alleged rise of, and its causes, 122.

Representation, proposed colonial system of, 379.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the, 187.

Revolution, philanthropic pretexts under which begun, 2
—causes of the success of, 4
—causes of the reaction against the, 5 et seq.
—the first French, influence of the remembrance of it, 5
—that of 1848, Alison on, 619.

Reybaud, Louis, the political novels of, 431.

Richmond, the duke of, speeches of, at the protection meeting, 748, 769.

Rigden, Mr W., at the protection meeting, 766.

Roberton, James, statistics of farming produce, &c., by, 114.

Rolink, prophecies of, 569.

Rome, reaction at, 3.

Rossi, the countess, career of, 690.

Rossini, anecdotes of, 688 note.

Roubiliac the sculptor, anecdote of, 143.

Roxburgh, returns of farming produce, &c., in, 108.

Roy, J. L., letter from, on farming statistics, 111.

Royal Academy, on the, 206.

Royal speech, the, 347.

Runcorn, state of the shipping interest at, 358.

Russell, lord John, on the Agricultural question, 352, 353
—presentation of the protectionist memorial to, 770 et seq.

Russia, effects of the intervention of, in Hungary, 9.

Russian Campaign, history of a regiment during the, 573.

Rusticus, letter from, to the Courant, Appendix, 66.

Ruxton, William, letter from, on farming statistics, 112.


Sacramento, battle of, 39.

Sacs et Parchemins, 439.

Sadler, Thomas, letter from, on farming statistics, 111
—statement of these by him, 116.

Sandars, Mr, on the price of wheat abroad, 102
—his pamphlet on the Agricultural question, 374.

Sandeau's Sacs et Parchemins, 431.

Sapienza, the island of, the case regarding, 538.

Scarron, marriage of madame de Maintenon to, 182.

Scotland, statistics of farming in, 107 et seq.
—rates of rent in, 226
—effects of free trade on the cattle trade of, 237
—state of the agricultural interest in, 367
—present prices of grain in, 382
—increase of poor rates in, 384.

Scotsman, the, on the "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 57
—letter of Mr Gibson to, Appendix, 65.

Scott, sir Walter, anecdote of, 207
—errors of, in describing nature, 624.

Sebastian del Piombo, Collins on, 203.

Segur's account of the Moscow campaign, on, 573.

Shakspeare's Othello, see Othello.

Sheep, effects of free trade on the rearing of, 238.

Sherborne Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 38.

Shipping Gazette, the, on the state of the shipping interest, 355.

Shipping interest, state of the, 355 et seq.

Shrewsbury Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 34.

Sidi Ibrahim, combat of, 292.

Siege of Dunbeg, the, 153.

Simpson, Robert, letter from, on farming statistics, 112.

Sinking fund, table showing the operation of the, 516 et seq.

Slave market at Constantinople, the, 685.

Smith, Adam, on colonial policy, 263.

Smith, Sidney, anecdote of, 196.

Smith's Month at Constantinople, review of, 679.

Smolensko, the French at, during the Moscow retreat, 577.

Smyrna, sketches of, 682.

Socialism, interests assailed by, in France, 11.

Sontag, Madame, and the Opera, 688.

Spackman, estimate by, of the value of Agriculture and Manufactures, 368.

Spain, Urquhart's sketches in, 282.

[Pg 790]Spectator, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 20.

Spielbahn, prophecies of, 564.

Staffordshire Agriculturist, letter of a, 235.

Stamps, proposed reduction of duties on, 513.

Standard, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 67.

Standard of Freedom, the, on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 73.

Stanley, lord, presentation of protectionist memorial to, 777 et seq.

State of the nation, pamphlet on the, 246.

Stephens, Mr, on Caird on high farming, 104.

Stewart, J. F., on the cotton crop of 1849, 601.

Strathmore, statistics of farming produce in, 107.

Sudolf, prophecies of, 569.

Suffrage, extended, the great remedy of the Liberals, 378.

Sugar, &c., diminished consumption of, 386.

Sunderland, state of shipbuilding, &c., at, 358.


Tangiers, sketches by Dumas in, 285.

Taxation, increased burden of, under free trade, 241.

Taxes, amount of, repealed, &c., since the peace, 517.

Taylor's life of Howard, on, 53.

Tea, comparative consumption of, 1845 and 1849, 371
—diminished consumption of, 386.

Tenor of the trade circulars, the, 589.

Thomson, John, letter from, on farming statistics, 111.

Thouvenel, M., French minister in Greece, 530.

Time, Shakspeare's treatment of, 481 et seq., 622 et seq.

Times, the, on the prospects of the Agricultural interest, 121
—reply and letter from Mr Watson to, 222
—tactics of the, on the Agricultural question, 242
—on "British Agriculture, &c." Appendix, 6
—John Bull in answer to it, Appendix, 9
—Morning Herald, Appendix, 14
—and Britannia, Appendix, 17.

Tintoretto's Crucifixion, on, 202.

Titian, Collins on, 200.

Tooke, Mr, on the expected importation of grain, 99.

Towns, present state of the, 612
—state of the, in Greece, 532.

Trade circulars, tenor of the, 589.

Traveller, Goldsmith's, 301.

Turkey, the attack by Russia and Austria on, 10.

Turkish bath, the, 294.


United States, cost of raising wheat in the, 232
—present internal policy of the, 250
—comparison between, and Canada, 253 et seq.
—state of the cotton crop, &c., in, 601.

Universal suffrage, evils of, in Greece, 535.

Urquhart's Pillars of Hercules, review of, 281.


Vandervelde the painter, 202.

Vasari's Life of Angelico, on, 192.

Vicar of Wakefield, the, 297, 307.

Villiers, Mr, speech of, on the Address, 349, 353
—on the shipping interest, 355.

Voters, diminution in number of, in Ireland, 380.


W., letter from, to the Morning Chronicle, and answer, Appendix, 13.

W. E. A., translation of Ovid's Springtime by, 621.

Wakefield Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 49.

Wallachia, wheat-growing capabilities of, 231.

Walmsley, sir Joshua, 347, 658.

Warren, S., review of his letter on the case of Captain Douglas, 269.

Watson, Mr, statement of farming produce by, 107
—reply of, to the Times, 222
—and to the Economist, Appendix, 103
—at the protection meeting, 765.

West of England Conservative, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 53.

Westphalia, prophecies regarding, 563.

Wheat, culture of, in Canada, 261
—Peel on the lowest remunerative price of, 352
—fiars, prices of, 382
—freights of, from various quarters, 604.

Wilkie, sir David, correspondence of, with Collins, 199.

William, Mr J. A., at the protection meeting, 757.

Wilson, James, on the lowest remunerative price of wheat, 352, 353, 364 et seq., 366. See also Economist.

Wilson, sir Robert, Dumas' account of, 286.

Wilts Standard, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 35.

Wise's Los Gringos, review of, 34.

Wood, sir Charles, speech of, on the Address, 350
—on the state of the shipping interest, 355
—speech of, on the finances, 514.

Worcester Journal, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 78.

Wyse, Mr, British minister in Greece, 530.


Year of Reaction, the, 1.

York Gazette, the, on "British Agriculture, &c.," Appendix, 71.

Young, G. F., on the shipping interest, 360
—at the presentation of the protectionist memorial, 770 et seq.

Youth of Elsen, prophecies of the, 566.

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