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seemed, in the eyes of foreigners, to be declining. It CHAP. was not the reduction of the military and establishments which was the really evil sign: for-to say nothing of ancient times-the Swiss in Europe, and some of the States of the North American continent, have shown the world that a people which almost dispenses with a standing army may yet be among the most resolute and warlike of nations; but there was in England a general decrying of arms. Well-meaning men harangued and lectured in this spirit. What they sincerely desired was a continuance of peace; but instead of taking the thought and acquiring the knowledge which might have qualified them to warn their fellow-countrymen against steps tending to a needless war, they squandered their indignation upon the deceased authors of former wars, and used language of such breadth that what they said was as applicable to one war as to another. At length they generated a sect called the Peace Party,' which denounced war in strong indiscriminate terms.

Moreover, at this time extravagant veneration was avowed for mechanical contrivances, and the very words which grateful nations had wrought from out of their hearts in praise of tried chiefs and heroes were plundered, as it were, from the warlike professions, and given to those who for their own gain could make the best goods. It was no longer enough to say that an honest tradesman was a valuable member of society, or that a man who contrived a good machine was ingenious. More was expected from those who had the utterance of the public feeling; and

CHAP. it was announced that glory' and 'honour'-nay,

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to prevent all mistake, 'true honour' and 'true glory' -were due to him who could produce the best articles of trade. At length, in the summer of 1851, it was made to appear to foreigners that this singular faith had demanded and obtained an outward sign of its acceptance, and a solemn recognition by Church and State. The foreigners were mistaken. The truth is that the English, in their exuberant strength and their carelessness about the strict import of words, are accustomed to indulge a certain extravagance in their demonstrations of public feeling; and this is the more bewildering to foreign minds because it goes along with practical moderation and wisdom. What the English really meant was to give people an opportunity of seeing the new inventions and comparing all kinds of patterns, but, above all, to have a new kind of show, and bring about an immense gathering of people. Perhaps, too, in the secret hearts of many who were weary of tame life, there lurked a hope of animating tumults. This was all the English really meant. But the political philosophers of the Continent were resolved to impute to the islanders a more profound intent. They saw in the festival a solemn renouncing of all such dominion as rests upon force. England, they thought, was closing her great career by a whimsical act of abdication; and it must be acknowledged that there was enough to confound men accustomed to lay stress upon symbols. For the glory of mechanic Arts, and in token of their conquest over nature, a

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cathedral of glass climbed high over the stately elms CHAP. of Knightsbridge, enclosing them, as it were, in a casket the work of men's hands, and it was not thought wrong nor impious to give the work the sanction of a religious ceremony. It was by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the money-changers were brought back into the temple. Few protested. One man, indeed, abounding in Scripture, and inflamed with the sight of the glass Babel ascending to the skies, stood up and denounced the work, and foretold wars' and judgments.' But he was a prophet speaking to the wrong generation, and no one heeded him. Indeed, it seemed likely that the soundness of his mind would be questioned; and if he went on to foretell that within three years England would be engaged in a bloody war springing out of a dispute about a key and a silver star, he was probably adjudged to be mad, for the whole country at the time felt sure of its peaceful temper. Certainly it was a hard task for the sagacity of a foreigner to pierce through these outward signs, and see that, notwithstanding them all, the old familiar Eastern Question' might be so used as to make it rekindle the warlike ardour of England. Even for Englishmen, until long after the beginning of 1853, it was difficult to foresee how the country would be willing to act in regard to the defence of Turkey; and the representatives of foreign Powers accredited to St James's might be excused if they assured their Courts that England was deep in pursuits which would hinder her from

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* This I witnessed.

VOL. I.

G

CHAP. all due assertion of her will as a great European

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Thus foreigners came to believe that the English nature was changed, and that for the future the country would always be tame in Europe; and it chanced that, in the beginning of the year 1853, they were strengthened in their faith by observing the structure of the Ministry then recently formed; for Lord Palmerston, whose name had become associated with the idea of a resolute and watchful policy, was banished to the Home Office, and the Prime Minister was Lord Aberdeen, the same statesman who had held the seals of the Foreign Office in former years, when Austria was vainly entreating England to join with her in defending the Sultan. The Emperor Nicholas heard the tidings of Lord Aberdeen's elevation to the premiership with a delight which he did not suppress. Yet this very event, as will be seen, was a main link in the chain of causes which was destined to draw the Czar into war, and bring him in misery to the grave.

But if there was a phantasy in vogue which seemed likely to make England acquiesce in transactions adverse to her accustomed policy in the East, there were other counsels afloat which, although they were based on very different views, seemed to tend in the same direction, for some of our countrymen were beginning to perceive that the restoration of a Bonapartist Empire in France would bring back with it the traditions and the predatory schemes of the First Napoleon. These advisers were unwilling that the

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elements of the great alliance which, thirty-eight CHA P. years before, had delivered Europe from its thraldom, should now be cast asunder for the mere sake of giving a better effect to the policy which the Foreign Office was accustomed to follow upon the Eastern Question. And in truth this same Eastern policy, though held by almost all responsible statesmen, was not so universally received in England as to go altogether unchallenged. The notion of England's standing still and suffering the Turks to be driven. from Europe was not deemed so preposterous as to be unworthy of being put forward by men commanding great means of persuasion; and before the new year was far advanced, the Emperor Nicholas had means of knowing that the old English policy of averting the dismemberment of Turkey would be gravely questioned, and brought in an effective way to the test of printed discussion. Upon the whole, therefore, it seemed to the Czar that now, if ever, England might be willing to acquiesce in his encroachments upon Turkey, and even perhaps to abet him in schemes for the actual dismemberment of the Empire.

*

Hamilton

It is said Seymour.

The Minister who represented the Queen at the sir Russian Court was Sir Hamilton Seymour. It is said that before there was a prospect of his being accredited at St Petersburg he had conceived a high admiration of the qualities of the Emperor Nicholas, and that this circumstance, becoming known to the Czar, tended at first to make the English Minister more than commonly welcome at the Imperial Court.

* 1853.

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