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especially the Irish Catholics, by obtaining a grant towards the maintenance of a mail-packet service between the port of Galway and the United States. It was hoped that this service would prove a source of wealth not only to Galway itself and the neighbouring districts, but also to the whole of that part of Ireland in which it is situated. When, therefore, the grant that had been made for this purpose was withdrawn by the government of Lord Palmerston, and the visions of prosperity which had been conjured up in the minds of the Irish people were dashed and dispelled, great was the indignation excited throughout Ireland, and especially the parts of Ireland which had expected to profit most largely by the scheme. The consequence was, that the government had become exceedingly unpopular in the sister country; and no effort was spared by many who had hitherto been reckoned amongst its supporter to place it in a minority, and bring Lord Derby back into office before the withdrawal of the grant had been irrevocably effected. A priest named Daly, who had been mainly instrumental in obtaining the grant, was energetically active in his efforts to secure the continuance of it. He came over armed with credentials from men of all parties, and used his utmost exertions to cajole or intimidate the Irish liberal members into transferring their support from the present government to the conservative party, and it was hoped that if they could succeed in defeating the government, they would in case of a dissolution gain a large accession of strength in Ireland.

A great effort, therefore, was made to defeat the plan of the chancellor of the exchequer. It was strongly opposed by Mr. Disraeli; Lord Robert Cecil especially distinguished himself by the violence of his attacks on the government, denouncing the bill as designed to avenge a special political defeat, to gratify a special pique, and to gain the doubtful votes of a special political section; and making a vehement attack on Mr. Gladstone. On the other hand Sir J. Graham, though suffering from a disease which in less than six months after carried him off, came down to the House to express his warm approval of the course taken by the government, and spoke with remarkable earnestness and eloquence in favour of the bill. When the House divided the numbers were:

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There can be no doubt that the efforts of the numerous penny papers which had been started in anticipation of the reduction of the duty, and could not be profitably carried on so long as it remained unrepealed, contributed in no small degree to this result. Mr. Disraeli, finding that by attempting to continue the contest he would only expose himself to a still more signal defeat, wisely gave way; and the peers were obliged to submit.

The bankruptcy bill, one of the few government measures promised in the Queen's speech, was brought in by the attorney-general, Sir R. Bethell, and passed through both Houses; but so altered in form, that its framer declared that it had not one valuable feature left in it. He soon after became Lord Westbury and lord chancellor, that office having been rendered vacant by the sudden death of Lord Campbell.

The question of reform was raised in this session by the motion of Mr. Locke King for lowering the county franchise to a 107. qualification, and that of Mr. Baines for reducing the borough franchise to 6l., but both of these proposals were summarily rejected.

The civil war which had broken out in the United States of America seemed at this time not unlikely to terminate in the formation of two separate republics; one composed of the free states of the North, and the other of the slave states of the South. It does not fall within the province of this History to trace the course of that great struggle, except so far as it affected our own country, which it did to a very considerable extent. The quarrel had its origin in the persevering efforts of the opponents of slavery in the North to obtain the abolition of that institution throughout the Union. These efforts had gained a great triumph in the election for the first time of an anti-slavery president of the Union in the person of Abraham Lincoln. This event caused much consternation throughout the slave states, and was the signal for the preparation for a mighty effort on the part of the slaveholders to separate themselves from the free states; the result was, that on

the 20th of December, 1860, the state convention of South Carolina, sitting at Charleston, adopted an ordinance dissolving the connection between that state and the other states of the Union, and took measures to resist any attempt to enforce the authority of the government of the United States over the province. The example thus set was followed in the course of 1861 by the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, which, one after another, gave in their adhesion to the rebellion. President Buchanan, who was in office when the secession commenced, was strongly Southern in his sympathies; and instead of taking prompt and vigorous measures to suppress the rebellion in its infancy, he temporised with it. hoping that some solution of the difficulty might be found. without recourse to arms. His successor took a more decided course, and prepared, with the zealous assistance of his ministers, to maintain the authority of the government in all parts of the United States. Meanwhile the rebellious states had formed themselves into a confederation, of which Mr. Jefferson Davis was appointed the first president. The two parties were mustering their forces, and preparing for a war which it seemed probable would be long and bloody. It might have been anticipated that, as this was a struggle into which the Southern states had entered with the avowed object of maintaining and perpetuating slavery within their borders, the feeling in favour of the Northern states in England would have been strong and unanimous, and that the sympathy of the English government and of the English people would have gone with the enemies of an institution which England had so long been foremost in opposing. This, however, was very far from being the case. The majority of the English people had not forgotten many displays of arrogance that had been made by the government of the States, and many alarms of war, which, though groundless, were not altogether unfounded; and they were rather disposed to rejoice at the humiliation of the United States than to rejoice at the prospect of the liberation of the vast number of negroes who were held in bondage throughout the Southern confederacy. It is true that a considerable part of the nation, and especially of the working classes, was superior to this unworthy jealousy,

1861.]

THE AFFAIR OF THE TRENT.

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and gave an unalloyed sympathy to the North; but a large portion of the government, of the aristocracy, of the middle classes, and not a few also of the lower orders, strongly sympathised with the South, and seemed to abjure that spirit which had sacrificed twenty millions to purchase freedom for the slave throughout the British dominions, and had compelled our government to make such costly sacrifices in order to put down the slave-trade and slavery in other parts of the world. When, therefore, intelligence reached England that the Southerners had achieved a signal success at the battle of Bull's Run, and had pursued their flying and panic-stricken opponents almost into Washington, the news was received here with general satisfaction; and when it was found, later in the year, that a United-States war-vessel, the San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes, had stopped the Trent, West-Indian steamer, and with needless insolence had forcibly taken Messrs. Mason, Slidell, M'Farland, and Eustis, who were on board her and under the protection of the British flag, a thrill of patriotic emotion passed through the country. Indignation was mingled with astonishment. The sensational announcements put forth by the newspapers, such as 'Outrage on the British Flag,' increased the feeling that the act itself, and the manner in which it had been carried out, was calculated to awaken. What,' said the men who had been accustomed to sing 'Rule, Britannia!' 'England insulted on the sea, and by the Americans, whose insolence we have so often endured! Now is the time to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.' Some voices timidly suggested that perhaps, after all, Captain Wilkes had right on his side, and that though he had undoubtedly behaved with swaggering insolence, he had only done what he was authorised by international law to do, and what certainly had been done before with at least equal insolence by many an English captain. The highest legal authorities were consulted; and there was a moment of hushed and anxious suspense, until they gave a distinct opinion that the action of Captain Wilkes was illegal. This opinion was received with loud exultation. It was forgotten that the American legal authorities might deliver an opposite opinion to that given by our legists. It was forgotten that the South was fighting for slavery, and the North for freedom. It was

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forgotten that in the southern port of Savannah, Captain Vaughan, the commander of a British vessel, guilty of no other crime than that of entertaining a man of colour at dinner, had been seized on board his ship, torn from the arms of his wife, and then tarred and feathered. All these things were forgotten; and from one end of the country to the other there was one loud and almost unanimous cry for war and vengeance. Messrs. Bright and Cobden stood alone among our public men, in resisting the war mania that prevailed for the moment throughout the country. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, put himself at the head of the movement, and by his acts and language stimulated the feeling that prevailed. It was noticed that there was a marked difference between his tone and that of Lord John Russell when they referred to the subject. However, both the prime minister and the foreign secretary were carried away by the general feeling. A despatch was at once forwarded to Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, instructing him peremptorily to demand the liberation of the four gentlemen who had been taken out of the Trent, with a suitable apology for the insult which had been inflicted on the British flag. By another despatch he was instructed to allow the American government a delay of only seven days to deliberate on the course they would adopt, and was directed to leave Washington with all the members of his legation, and repair to London with the archives of the embassy, if an answer was not given within the stipulated time, or if any other answer should be given except a promise of compliance with the demands of the British government. This message was supported by France, Austria, and Prussia, in a manner which showed that the view taken of the affair by these great powers was in accordance with that taken of it by our own government, and that they were therefore prepared to give a moral if not a material support to the efforts that England might make to obtain redress. Without waiting for a reply to these demands, the British government made immediate preparations for war. Though winter was coming on, the Guards and other troops were hurried off to Canada; and their departure was accompanied by loud cheering and other manifestations, which showed that the war would be popular, at least at its commencement. The American

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