ligence. It is the honor of Christian civilization that it had made repentance penetrate even the soul of nations. England repented that she had oppressed Ireland; Europe repented of having practised slavery. Pagan antiquity never had these awakenings of the public conscience, these moral enlightenments suddenly changing the hearts of men, and shortly, the social condition. Tacitus could only deplore the loss of the early virtues of Rome, and Marcus Aurelius but shut himself up sadly in the stoical isolation of the sage; nothing indicates that these superior minds had even suspected the great crimes of their society in its best days, and aspired to reform it. The Christian world, from epoch to epoch, sees new truths and new virtues rise upon its horizon, revealing to it at once its grandeur and its faults, and, by purifying it, restoring its youth.

Even before O'Connell had begged for them, England felt herself obliged to those acts of munificence toward Ireland which could alone, if not repair, at least expiate, the wrongs of ages. Parliament was not yet in session, but already immense public works had been ordered and commenced in Ireland, works ill planned, and for the most part without aim or utility, real national charities under the name of employment, useful only for the moment to give bread to the starving and manifest a solicitude to relieve, on the part of those in authority. In the month of January, 1847, five hundred thousand workmen were thus employed in Ireland, each man earning, it was said, nearly sufficient to feed four persons, making in all two millions of individuals fed by government; and on the 25th, when Lord John Russell took up the subject in Parliament, the expense for the month amounted to 700,000 pounds sterling. Parliament endeavored to regulate a little better the object and supervision of these works, and decided that the expense of them should not be levied on Ireland alone, but that England

should bear her part of the burden. Considerable sums were advanced to the Irish proprietors for the purchase of seed, for the drainage of their lands, and the reclamation of bogs. Private endeavors were united with the public effort; everywhere the charitable work of the public kitchens was carried on by English and Irish, women and men, working together for the relief of the starving. As a matter of fact, and for the time, all attempts were insufficient, and the succor brought to the general distress was really but insignificant; everything failed before an abyss of suffering slowly dug by national idleness and improvidence, as truly as by a long-continued foreign oppression. Finally, however, and as Ireland emerged from a terrible epoch, the nation as it was had vanished, with its hopeless poverty. The law in respect to embarrassed estates modified the situation of the Irish land-owners, while emigration opened to the Irish peasantry vast prospects and infinite resources. A new Ireland henceforth began to be founded beyond the seas.

CHAPTER V.

FOREIGN POLICY.

IR ROBERT PEEL had resigned on the rejection of

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the Bill for the repression of outrages in Ireland, but he had secured in advance the sole efficacious remedies against the distresses which were soon to overwhelm that unhappy country. The principle of Free Trade grew and strengthened itself in the midst of the misfortunes with which those were

smitten who had most violently combated it. Not merely were all taxes on the importation of grain suspended, but also the Navigation Laws which restrained the importation by enhancing the price of freight; the most decided partisans of the protective system voted themselves for these measures whose scope they did not, however, fail to perceive. "When the shipping-interest joined the Anti-Corn-Law League in forcing the repeal of the Corn-Laws," said Lord George Bentinck, "I always anticipated that it would find its own turn to come next, and would suffer the penalty of its rashness."

England had thus taken an important step, destined soon to become definitive, in that path of Free Trade which she has opened to all nations. She was the better able to do this, inasmuch as peace prevailed throughout Europe, and her Cabinet was on those intimate and confidential relations with France which simplified and facilitated the solution of all international questions. "I doubt," says M. Guizot, "whether any two governments have ever been more sympathetic than

were at that time the Cabinets of France and England, both in their views of general policy and in their mutual dispositions, or ever had to experience more frequent and delicate trials." Like Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, King Louis Philippe and his Cabinet seriously and sincerely desired peace and justice in the relations of the two kingdoms. During the ministry of Sir Robert Peel, three grave questions menaced the harmony between France and England, the right of search for the suppression of the slave-trade; the occupation of Tahiti; and the French war in Morocco. The affair of the Spanish Marriage, at that time commencing, was soon to fall into other hands less friendly toward France and her government.

From the date when she had freely and generously abolished slavery throughout the whole extent of her territory, England had taken the lead in the Christian and philanthropic crusade against the slave-trade. The agreements concluded in 1831 and 1833 between France and England, authorized the mutual right of search of vessels suspected of being employed in this barbarous traffic; in 1841, France signed this treaty anew with slight modifications, and Austria, Prussia, and Russia now concurred in it. This was the occasion of violent debates in the French Chambers; the ministry was hotly attacked, and the echo of the strife resounded in England. The ratifications of this treaty had been held back. M. Guizot at first delayed them, and finally refused them absolutely. A new agreement was drawn up at London, between France and England, by the Duc de Broglie and Dr. Lushington. Both were old and well-known advocates of the abolition of the slave-trade; they were also imbued with a spirit of reciprocal kindliness and conciliation. On the 29th of March, 1845, the new treaty was signed, and each of the two countries engaged to repress the slave-trade in its own vessels. The right of search was abolished, and the entente cordiale, for a moment threatened by ancient prejudices