CHAP. XI.]

and now no stringent alien supervision; and that such a power of letter-opening as the law gave to the secretaries of state was absolutely necessary for the frustration of conspiracy at home, and to prevent our country from becoming a nest of conspiracy against foreign governments in alliance with us; but such explanations excited little but indignation. And this was very well. It not only evidenced the honest and generous feeling of Englishmen on a matter of high morality; it enhanced the merit of the support given to Sir James Graham by other and rival statesmen when the right time came, and the impressiveness of his justification when the committees of inquiry presented their report.

There was a committee of each House-secret, of course, but composed of men who commanded universal confidence. Their reports were in the hands of the public in August; and they settled the question, without any alteration of the law. It appeared-to the astonishment of the nation, which had lost all remembrance of the fact that the Postoffice was established on the express condition, notified in the preambles of the acts, that the government should be entitled to inspect any letters that it chose. In the old, half-barbarous times, the people were willing to have their letters conveyed speedily and safely on that condition. The power had since been revised and confirmed; and, at the last date, in the year of Queen Victoria's accession. There was no doubt about the law of the case; and indeed there had been none, since ex-ministers of all parties had got up, one after another, in parliament, to avow that they had used the power. Lord Tankerville testified to the existence of a warrant signed by Mr Fox in 1782, ordering the detention and opening of all letters addressed to foreign ministers; and of another warrant, directing that all letters addressed to Lord George Gordon should be opened. Lord Normanby had used the power in Ireland, for the detection of 'low Ribbonism which could not be ferreted out by other means.' Lord J. Russell had held Sir J. Graham's office in the full conviction that the law gave him the power under investigation, and that the sole question was how it was used. On this point, the report of the committee was eminently satisfactory with regard to the conduct of Sir James Graham. He had not only done nothing more than had been done by all his predecessors, but he had been more scrupulous and more careful. He had seen the warrants destroyed at the first possible moment; whereas other ministers had been careless in allowing them to remain in existence. The specification of the number of warrants issued during a long course of years effectually calmed the public mind. From 1799 to 1844, the number of warrants issued was 372—that is, a fraction above eight in a year; but, when it is considered that the average is so greatly exceeded in years of alarm as to amount to 28 in 1812, 20 in 1842, 17 in 1831, 16 in 1839, and so on, the Post-office may be considered practically inviolate; and it has since been so considered. The conclusion drawn from the whole inquiry was, that it would not be desirable to deprive the government of this power of

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frustrating conspiracy, in extraordinary cases; nor yet to surround the power with new legal restrictions which would raise it into a fresh and pernicious importance in the eyes both of rulers and the people. No steps, therefore, were taken in consequence of the reports, which had answered their purpose in bringing out a knowledge of the law and the facts of the case, for the benefit of all parties.

One reason for the vehemence of indignation displayed on this occasion was that a rumour prevailed that Signor Mazzini's letters had been examined at the desire of the Sardinian minister, who thus made the British cabinet a tool of foreign despotism. This was put an end to by a few words from the Duke of Wellington: 'He was enabled to state that there was no foundation whatever for these rumours.'

The new Alien Act of this session, its enlarged scope, and the perfect indifference with which it was received, shew that Great Britain had no particular sympathy with the jealousies and fears of foreign despots. For some years past, the registration provisions of our alien law had been practically useless. The act contained no provision for enforcing any penalty on the omission to register; and foreigners omitted it whenever it suited them. In 1842, out of 11,600 foreigners officially known to have landed, only 6084 registered under the act. Out of 794 who landed at Hull in that year, only one registered; at Southampton, out of 1174, not one; and at Liverpool, no account whatever was kept of the foreigners who arrived. The time was clearly come for removing all impediments, real or nominal, to the settlement of foreigners in England. It would have been done very long before, but for the perpetual opposition of popular prejudice. The popular prejudice against aliens now seemed to be worn out; and the thing was done

liberally and thoroughly. Without delay, and at a trifling cost, foreigners could now secure the privileges of native subjects. They could secure from the secretary of state a charter of naturalisation more liberal than parliament could formerly confer. The only exclusion was from parliament and the council-board; and even this exclusion might be cancelled, through an appeal to parliament. The new privileges were to extend, as of course, to aliens already resident in the country; and all women married to British subjects were naturalised de facto. Such was the scope of the measure of which Mr Hutt, the mover, said: 'He believed it would be productive of much real practical advantage, and that it would conduce to the reputation of the country. He had to express his acknowledgments to Sir R. Peel for much kindness and encouragement. In other times, attempts to settle this question on a sound and liberal basis had more than once convulsed the whole nation, and proved fatal to the existence of governments. To have been permitted to bring such a question to a final and peaceful conclusion, was very gratifying to his feelings.'

So far was this measure from convulsing the nation and perilling its rulers now, that we find the Spectator observing, the week after its passage, that it had 'escaped the notice of the newspapers.' Such

was one of the effects of the enlightening and tranquillising influences of long-continued peace.

CHAPTER XII.

HE mere existence of the rumour that the Sardinian government was jealous of the residence of Signor Mazzini in England points to a popular expectation of troubles in Italy, and, as a consequence, among the despotisms of Europe. It was so. Signs of approaching struggle multiplied to watchful eyes; and while Eastern despotism and the claims of Western

civilisation were falling into a position of antagonism more distinct every day, the free nations of Western Europe, who must form the main strength on one side when the war of opinion should at length break out, were grievously disposed to quarrel among themselves.

A traveller in Russia reports a certain Prince K. to have pointed out to him that Russia is now only 400 years distant from the invasion of barbarians, while Western Europe boasts an interval of 1400; and that an additional civilisation of 1000 years makes an immeasurable change in the mind and manners of a people. The conviction was now spreading everywhere that peoples separated by the civilisation of a thousand years could not much longer live in alliance and apparent peace; and that henceforth the more civilised party would have no release

CHAP. XII.]

Russia became more precarious, and the eventual outbreak was felt to be drawing on. The emperor was, and is, in the habit of saying that nothing is further from his thoughts than conquest; that he has as much territory as any man can possibly wish for; and that he has enough to do to cherish and improve his Russian subjects. Supposing this to be perfectly sincere, it may become necessary, according to his views indispensable to the cherishing of his native subjects-to extinguish communities which hold dangerous ideas. If that extinction should be tried where the work is easy, this is a sufficient reason for watchfulness on the part of the Western peoples. If it should be difficult, the struggle would be precisely that war of opinion for which the Western peoples were warned by political philosophers to prepare.

The

What vigilant eyes could see was this. emperor lost no opportunity of insulting the King of the French. Since the revolution of 1830, he had behaved with increasing rudeness; and now his temper was becoming as bitter as it had always been overbearing. In August 1842, the King of Prussia had issued an ordinance calling together the elements of a popular representation; and from that moment, Russian relations with Prussia became cool, distant, and threatening. In September 1843, there was a revolution in Greece-a revolution so needed, and so universally desired, that the people obtained a constitution without any struggle, and England and France, and even Austria, uttered not one word of rebuke or remonstrance; but, when the Greek assembly began its sittings, an armed Russian steamer appeared at the Piræus, the Russian ambassador was summoned on board, and he was carried off without being even allowed to land. He was dismissed with disgrace from the service of the emperor, and his papers seized. At the same time, the brightness of Russian favour shone on the court at Vienna during a conference which was held there -a conference ill suited to the date of 1844. Plenipotentiaries from the German states met Prince Metternich at Vienna, to hear from him how perilous was the popular desire for an extension of the powers of the chambers. 'It perverts youth,' said the grayheaded minister, 'and seduces even men of mature age.' It was settled at this conference that any extension of the rights of the chambers was a direct injury to the rights of the crown; that, in case of any appeal by the chambers to the constitution, the government alone should be the interpreter of the constitution; that the acts of the chambers, while legal, should stand, as far as the government should think proper; and so on, through a series of twenty resolutions, all consonant to the czar's modes of thinking, and certain to insure that brilliant favour with which he was now regarding the Austrian court. In the Caucasus, the emperor was pushing the war with the desperation of despotic wrath. season, the fever cut off 5000 of his soldiers; and his forces were surrounded by fire in the forests, obstructed by barricades at all openings, and crushed in the passes by rocks rolled from above; 2000 officers were slain in one campaign, and the generalin-chief, Woronzoff, appeared with a countenance

In one

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of deep melancholy at its close-melancholy on account of slain comrades and his suffering forces; yet was every officer disgraced who made any failure in any expedition against the Circassians; and the Circassian patriots were spoken of and treated as vermin, fit only to be exterminated. In Servia, again, he appeared as an avenging despot, after having declared himself, in the Treaty of Adrianople, the protector of Servia, granting certain rights and liberties to the Servians. The Servians expelled a prince whom they detested, and elected one whom they loved. Turkey let them alone; but Russia interfered, proscribing, banishing, insisting on new elections, terrifying the people into submission, but by no means increasing their love for Russian protection, or their desire for Russian intercourses. We are told by an authority worthy of all respect, that since the strange accidents which caused the Russian army to be encamped at Paris, not only has Russia declared herself the protector of the cause of monarchy in Europe, but her people have become fully persuaded that, as other states fall to pieces under the explosive force of the democratic principle, Russia is to put them together again, and dispose of them at her pleasure. Absurd as this notion appears to us, it is sedulously declared wherever Russia has partisans, and especially in Germany. It appears to have been in the discharge of his assumed vocation that the czar achieved the last act of despotic meddling which falls within the period of our history -the extinction of the independence of Cracow, in 1846. It has been related how Cracow was insulted and overborne in 1836; in February 1846, the Austrians, who held the city, were driven out by those who conceived themselves the proper inhabitants, and who were exasperated into the adventure of striking one more blow for the liberties of Poland. They were supported by an extensive insurrection in Silesia, and for a time held their ground wonderfully. But they could not long resist the pressure of the three great powers who now united to overthrow for ever the independence they had bound themselves by treaties to protect. The Austrian forces took the town of Podgorze, which commands Cracow from the opposite bank of the Vistula; the Prussian general, De Felden, invested Cracow, and the Russian troops marched into the city, without opposition. Without opposition, because all the inhabitants had fled except the aged and children. The three protecting powers presently settled the case of Cracow among themselves. As the treaties of 1815 were entered into among themselves, they could not see that the rest of the world had anything to do with the fate of Cracow, except to hear the news; and in November, therefore, they merely announced, with a condescending exhibition of reasons, that the republic of Cracow was no more; that the treaties were revoked; and that the city and territory of Cracow were annexed to, and for ever incorporated with, the Austrian monarchy.

As he held his position by a religious as well as political tenure, it was impossible for the czar to tolerate varieties of religious faith. The Jews were made to feel this in 1843. By a ukase issued in that year, all Jews residing within fifteen leagues of

the frontier were compelled to sell their goods on the instant, and repair to the interior of the empire. All who could not convince the government that they held a position of which government was to be the judge, were sentenced to banishment to the steppes. The Jews were to be subject henceforth to recruiting for military service; and their children were held at the disposal of the emperor for the naval service. For some time, the pope and his church had met with insolent treatment from the great potentate of the Greek Church; and by this time it was clear that the pope was growing submissive through long-continued alarm. As his tone became subdued, that of the czar grew gracious; and in 1844, he restored his suspended diplomatic relations with Rome, by sending thither one of his ablest ministers from Constantinople. The chief ground of quarrel was supposed to be the persecution of the Poles by the emperor, on account of their faith, and his oppressive attempts to bring them over to the Greek Church. When there was reason to believe that the aged and timid pontiff was willing to listen submissively, the czar discovered that the air of Palermo would be good for the health of his empress; and he was presently standing before the old pope in the Vatican, giving an account of his treatment of the Latin Church in Poland, and listening to a more spirited remonstrance than it was at all his custom to hear. He wore a respectful air, knowing that the pontiff, then in his eightieth year, could not live long, and that it was inconceivable that the next pope could have equal zeal for the Church, while events were shewing that civil disturbance of every kind was in preparation. And the pope did die in the next year, leaving an inheritance of hopeless trouble to his

successor.

Pope Gregory XVI. had been pontiff since February 1831. Able as a propagandist, he was wholly unfit for civil rule; and the abuses of his realm were unreformed in his time, and so aggravated as to keep his subjects in a restive state, and all the despotic monarchs of Europe in a condition of perpetual alarm. With certain of the sovereigns he was on strange terms. We have seen something of his relations with the czar. He granted to France, most unwillingly, the liberty of dealing harshly with the Jesuits; and he enjoyed, as his recompense, the friendship of the Orleans family and cabinet. His feud with Prussia about the affair of the Archbishop of Cologne was most serious-serious enough, if the world had been three centuries younger, to have plunged all Europe in war. A more perplexing close of the controversy was avoided by the prudence of the new sovereign of Prussia. Frederick-William III. died in June 1840. His son declared an amnesty, which included the religious disputants among others. Then followed words of peace on both sides -conciliatory charges on the part of the prelatesdeclarations of satisfaction on the part of the king. The pope yielded nothing which the most zealous churchman could reproach him for; and the new King of Prussia evaded a perilous controversy with the papacy. In his civil government, Gregory XVI. was eminently unsuccessful. When the outcry about

Signor Mazzini's letters being opened was raised in England, there was a universal presentiment that popular risings in Italy might be expected. The pope had broken his promises of reform; his cardinals had governed with cruelty, as well as with their usual want of sense and knowledge of the men of their century; and the year before his death was embittered to the old pontiff by fierce insurrections throughout his dominions. The manifesto of the insurgents, exhibiting his broken promises and his acts of tyranny, must have struck upon his heart; and for a few days there seemed reason to suppose that the revolutionary party might succeed. Town after town declared against the ancient tyranny; and the papal troops went over to the liberals. But a battle at Ravenna closed the struggle, by defeating and dispersing the insurgents. All was over for this time, but everybody was aware that it was only for a time. Italy was, of all the countries of Europe, the choicest skirmishing-ground for the coming war of opinion; and the papal realm, again, the choicest within the bounds of Italy. It was no great gain to set against these perils, that Rome was once more on good terms with Portugal, and was about to be so with Spain. The frequent revolutions in these countries, and the constant state of turbulence, in which the clergy suffered dreadfully, had long ago alienated the holy see. By the mediation of Austria, Portugal was reconciled with Rome; and in 1846, it was a topic of warm discussion in the cortes whether Spain, already in friendly negotiation for the same object, might enter into a state of perfect affiliation, if the mediation of England were sought, rather than that of France accepted. It was very well that there should be peace among those courts; but all three were so profoundly weak that it mattered little to the welfare of any but themselves what terms they were on.

In Switzerland there was much confusion during this period; warfare between the aristocratic and the democratic principles, and between the Catholic and Protestant faiths. It was not conceivable that the conflict of opinion should be brought to a close there, when it was kindling in other parts of Europe. In Hanover, the king was growing tired of hearing of poor officers' widows; and he issued an ordinance regulating the love-affairs of all the officers of the Hanoverian army. They were not to betroth themselves without his permission; and the requisite permission was to be obtained by methods of application which it is astonishing that the most antique despot of our time should have dreamed of proposing to any body of men whatever. The ordinance can be regarded only as a decree for the increase of invalid marriages.-Meantime, old Bernadotte, the most successful of Napoleon's generals and monarchs, was gone. He came out of the Pyrenees as a private soldier, though a man of education. He died, in peace and beloved, the King of Sweden and Norway, leaving a son to succeed him who was more ready than he had proved himself to reform some of the grossest social and political abuses of the old feudal kingdom of Sweden, while cordially respecting the more democratic constitution of Norway. Charles John XIV. of Sweden died in

March 1844, on his eighty-first birth-day, after a reign of twenty-six years.

Thus far, the movements and events that we have briefly detailed have been those in which Great Britain was not immediately concerned. Every incident, in a time when trouble and turbulence are on the increase from year to year-even from month to month-must concern every nation in the world; but our country had only to look on in regard to the events which have been related, whereas in others she had to judge and act.

In pursuance of their object of keeping Russia in check by preserving Turkey, the governments of England and France exerted themselves vigorously, in 1839, to prevent the threatened war between Turkey and Egypt. If, as seemed very possible, the sultan should be beaten by his powerful vassal, the czar might send his ships into the Bosphorus. The thing to be done was to prevent Turkey from being so weakened as to afford a pretext for this dangerous aid. The Pacha of Egypt declared himself ready for an accommodation; but the sultan was too highly offended by the haughty assumptions of his vassal to give up the hope of punishing him; and he declared this war to be a duty required of him by his function of high-priest of Islamism. War was proclaimedthe pacha and his son declared to be deposed-and the fleet ready for sailing, early in June 1839. Syria was the field of conflict; and everything seemed to depend on whether the Syrian population would or would not rise against the Egyptians. Some observers declared that the Syrians hated the Egyptians; others, that they favoured them. The truth appears to have been, that their taxation under Egyptian rule was very oppressive, but that other causes swayed the likings of large bodies of the people; as, for instance, the toleration afforded to the Christians by Egypta toleration never to be expected from the Porte. On the first meeting of the armies, Ibrahim, the heir of the Egyptian viceroyalty, won a splendid victory. Before the news of the defeat of the Turks could reach Constantinople, the sultan was dead. His son and successor was only seventeen years of age. His accession afforded an opportunity for a change of policy. He changed his ministers and his ambassadors at the European courts; and then offered to Mohammed Ali pardon and the perpetual succession of his family to power in Egypt, if he would submit and be at peace. The pacha declared himself willing to do so if the dominion over Syria and Candia were secured to his family, as well as that of Egypt.

The five powers-England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria-here assumed the management of the affair. While their envoys consulted in London, the French and English fleets cruised in the Levant to keep the truce. The case was now much perplexed by the Turkish admiral having carried his ships to Alexandria, and put them into the power of the pacha. A suspicion was abroad that the French government encouraged the pacha to retain this fleet, when he would otherwise have given it up; and at the same time, it was whispered in London, and thence spread into other countries, that three of the five powers would make the restitution of the fleet

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and the surrender of Syria indispensable conditions of the pacha's retaining even the hereditary dominion over Egypt. However this might be, the old viceroy was active in raising troops, drilling the navy, and preparing for decisive war. The five powers were, however, so long over their work, that all the world grew tired-and especially Turkey, the party most interested. The Turks began to think that they could come to an understanding with the pacha, if they were let alone; and, as the pacha had repeatedly declared that the prime-minister at the Porte, Khosrou Pacha, was the mischief-maker who prevented an accommodation, the Turks deposed Khosrou Pacha in June 1840. The fleet was not, however, rendered up by the time four of the five powers-France being omitted-signed a convention, on the 15th of July. The pacha delayed about accepting the terms offered. The sultan grew angry, and declared him deposed; and then, very naturally, the pacha concluded that all was over, and prepared for the worst. Then the British vessels in the Levant blockaded Alexandria and the Syrian ports; and in September, they bombarded Beirout. The Egyptians lost ground everywhere; and in November, Acre fell before the attacks of the allied squadrons. Jerusalem returned to its allegiance to the Porte; and the Egyptians had no other hope than that of getting back to the Nile, with a remnant of their force. When assured that he would be secured in the viceroyalty of Egypt, if he delivered up the Turkish fleet and evacuated Syria, Mohammed Ali did so; and in return, received the firman which gave the dominion of Egypt to himself and his heirs.

Some weeks afterwards, however, the Porte sought to impose the disagreeable condition that the sultan should choose among the heirs, at the time of the death of any viceroy, the one he should prefer. The five powers protected the pacha from this encroachment, and his affairs were at last considered settled. From that time to the day of his death, he was wont to taunt European travellers with the state of Syria, and ask them if they did not wish it back in his hands. And it was quite true that, under his rule, the roads were as safe for travellers as he had made his great highway of the Nile; while in Syria there was nothing that could be called government, and the roads were infested with marauders. The Christians of the Lebanon would not settle under Turkish rule. Some heavy taxes and the conscription were gone; but now there was no security for life and property. The most curious circumstance is that different tribes of Christians in the Lebanon, who had for some time been at war with each other, were believed by the European officers stationed in Syria to be fighting out the quarrels which had risen up between England, France, and Russia, in the course of their conference on eastern affairs-the Maronites being supposed to be in the interest of France, the Druses of England, and the Greek Christians of Russia. A charge had before been brought against the British government of raising the tribes of the Lebanon against the pacha's rule-a charge emphatically denied by Lord Palmerston; and now, in 1841, the jealousies between