the French and English in Syria and Egypt were becoming as absurdly bitter as such jealousies are when indulged in so far from home, and amidst the ennui of a foreign station.

Before entering upon the controversies which arose among the five powers, we must point out to notice the remarkable self-command of the pacha in opposing no difficulty to the passage of the English through Egypt, en route for India. The injury to Great Britain would have been enormous, if this route had been closed, and she had been forced back upon her old track by the Cape. However certain it might be that Mohammed Ali would eventually have suffered by any vindictive use of his power over this passage to India, it must be regarded as a proof of a wisdom and self-command astonishing in a man of his origin and circumstances, that he never spoke a word nor lifted a finger in obstruction, but allowed the English to pass to the Red Sea as freely as if no mortal controversy were pending.

Towards the end of 1840, a leading journal at Paris is found saying: 'We have confided for ten years in the alliance of England; we confide in it no more. We stand alone, and alone are prepared to maintain, if need be, the balance of power, and independence of Europe. Paris, without defence, involves the safety of the whole country; Paris, fortified, will prove its bulwark.' Here was the subject of the fortifications revived. The occasion, or the pretext, for resuming the works was the expectation of war with England; and the occasion, or the pretext, for expecting a war with England was the difference that had arisen about the eastern question. France believed that the safety of Turkey would be best secured by putting Syria under the rule of the pacha, and that the pacha would prove quiet and trustworthy when once settled in his guaranteed dominion. The other four powers believed that the ambition of the pacha would keep him always restless, and that if he was not now kept in bounds, there might be no end to the disturbance he might cause, and the incursions he would make. Meanwhile, time pressed. The risings in the Lebanon stimulated the members of the convention. If France could not come over to their view, neither could they wait; and thus it was that the treaty of July 15 was signed by four powers, to the exclusion of France. France was jealous, and remonstrated through her minister, M. Guizot; and next, she became quick-sighted to see 'concealed menaces' in the declaration of the convention for the pacification of the Levant. She next saw, in imagination, the combined forces of the four powers-or at least the armies of England-marching into France; and hence the renewed cry for the fortification of Paris. In October, the French really believed war with England to be inevitable. M. Thiers, the primeminister of France, had instructed M. Guizot to say that France would consider it a cause of war if Mohammed Ali should be driven from Egypt as British and Turkish cannon were driving him out of Syria; and just after, the young sultan committed that foolish act of haste-declaring the deposition of Mohammed Ali. When the news reached France, the politicians and journalists of France declared

It was not

that a true casus belli had now occurred. so; for England could and did immediately prove that she was resolved to secure to the pacha the dominion of Egypt; but the war-spirit did not decline in France, in consequence of this or of any other explanation that could be afforded. The king was known to be as earnestly in favour of peace as his minister, M. Thiers, was disposed for war. Men were speculating on which would prevail, when occasion arrived for deciding the matter for the moment. The king and his minister could not agree about the speech to be delivered at the opening of the chambers. The minister desired to announce a vast new levy of troops; the king would not hear of it, and the minister resigned, with all his colleagues. In Queen Victoria's speech at the end of the preceding session, France had not been mentioned at all, though a notification had been given of the convention for the pacification of the Levant; and the French had complained bitterly of this as a slight. In the speech of the King of the French, no such slight was offered in return; for the mention of the four powers was serious enough. Amidst the deep silence of a listening auditory, as numerous as the chambers could contain, the king announced that the convention and its declaration imposed grave duties on him; that he prized the dignity of France as much as its tranquillity; that the reasons for the extraordinary credits which had been opened would be readily understood; and that he hoped, after all, that peace would be preserved.

There was no reason, indeed, why it should not. The affairs of the east were soon considered settled: 'it takes two to make a quarrel;' and none of the four powers had any present cause of war against France. If there was to be a war, France must begin. She did not begin; and all the world knew that a warlike ministry had been dismissed for a pacific one. In a little while, the chances of peace were further improved by Lord Aberdeen's entrance upon the foreign office in London, in the place of Lord Palmerston. Rightly or wrongly, Lord Palmerston was supposed to have an extraordinary talent for creating uncomfortable feelings in foreign allies, and for bringing on awkward and critical events. He was regarded as a busy, clever, imperious man, very trying to have to do with; while Lord Aberdeen was found to be the high-bred gentleman of the diplomatic world-liberal, quiet, not apt to interfere, but frank when actually engaged in affairs, as watchful as inoffensive, and, without supineness, disposed to put a good construction on the acts of allies, and to make allowance for the mere harmless irritability of weak and harassed rulers of any country less happy than our own. It was well that the ministers on both sides of the Channel were, in 1841, men of peace; for the war-party in France, which was noisy beyond all proportion to its numbers, and which had actually obtained possession of too much of the journalism of the time, was insane enough to laud a speech of a turbulent deputy, in favour of an alliance with Russia against England, and to raise this into a temporary popular demand. If such a thing could have been, the war of opinion would have presented a curious aspect indeed.

to adopt her laws in regard to the slave-trade. Hence arose the subsequent difficulties and disputes about the right of search. As the slave-trade was declared to be piracy, and those who carried it on to be guilty of felony, it naturally followed that these five powers conceded to each other the right of searching all vessels carrying their respective flags, which were under suspicion of having slaves on board. The vigilant war-party immediately declared an apprehension that the independence of the French flag might suffer; and they actually carried in the Chamber of Deputies an admonitory resolution, in favour of which the whole chamber voted, except the five ministers who sat there. The fact was, some difficulties had occurred with American vessels on the high seas, and some consequent dispute with

the United States government about the right of search; and some mistakes in practice had been made, owing, as the French ministers emphatically declared, not to the treaty of 1841, or any other treaty, but to instructions to cruisers, issued by Lord Palmerston; and these things suggested to the war-party the cry about the honour of the French flag. The debates about this question in the French chambers, on occasion of the address, in the session of 1842, merged into discussion of the value of the English alliance; when the ministers, Guizot and Soult especially, spoke so manfully in the cause of peace, reasonableness, and the English alliance, that the opposition interrupted them with cries that theirs were English speeches. Two particulars are memorable, in regard to the debate. It was declared,

without contradiction, that all practical annoyance under the provision for search had occurred during Lord Palmerston's term of office; and that, since Lord Aberdeen succeeded him, there had been none. And M. Guizot avowed that the chances of peace were improving every day; that a more just feeling towards England was beginning to prevail; and that the moderation and patience of the cabinet of London, as well as that of Paris, was constantly imparting solidity to the relations of the two countries. And yet, this was at a time when the warfare of the press was the most violent. The French journals were emulated in their spirit of animosity and their power of provoking by a London paper, the Morning Chronicle; whose tone was resented by the English public as a disgrace in which the national character ought not to be implicated. The general impression, at home and in France, was that the war articles in the Morning Chronicle were Lord Palmerston's. Whether they were his or another's, they were as mischievous as they were otherwise indefensible.

In the sessions of 1843 and 1844, the French legislators had resolved that the commerce of the country should be replaced under the sole surveillance of the national flag: in 1845, M. Guizot avowed that the provisions of the treaty against the slave-trade had lost much of their force, and tended to impair the amity of the two nations; and that he hoped that the desired end might yet be reached by means perfectly safe. In truth, the right-of-search question was by this time put out of sight by new quarrels of so fierce a character, that the king declared, in his speech before the chambers, that the good understanding of his government with England had at one time appeared in imminent danger of fatal interruption.

And yet, events had happened which seemed almost inevitably to preclude hostile feelings, and the superficial irritability of minds not sufficiently occupied. The interest of our queen and of every member of her government, and of every good heart everywhere, was engaged on behalf of the unhappy King of the French and of his family, by an event which occurred in July 1842. The Duke of Orleans, the heir of the French throne, was thrown out of a carriage and killed. The deep grief of the aged father and of the fond mother was respected throughout Europe; and all hard thoughts must have been dismissed during the mournful period when the question of the regency was in course of settlement. The Duke de Nemours, the next brother of the Duke of Orleans, was to be regent during the minority of the Count de Paris. This settled, the king prosecuted other plans for the security of the throne from which his family was so soon to pass. In 1843, two more of his children married; the Princess Clementine being united to Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke de Joinville to a Brazilian princess, sister of the Emperor of the Brazils and of the Queen of Portugal. In September of the same year, Queen Victoria and her husband visited the King and Queen of the French at their country-seat, the Chateau d'Eu; and the warmth of their demonstrations of friendship, and the fervour

with which the people cheered our young sovereign wherever she appeared, seemed to indicate that the war-spirit had either never been widely prevalent or had died out. The visit was returned in the autumn of the next year, when Louis Philippe was received with a welcome as hearty as his people had offered to our queen. The king lost no opportunity of saying-and it was as late as the 13th of October when he finally spoke the words with emphasis-that the aim and object of his policy had ever been a cordial amity with Great Britain; yet, in the royal speech of the 26th of December, the king admitted that difficulties which might have become of the most serious importance had risen up between the British government and his own. Discussions had been entered into which appeared to endanger the relations of the two states. These were gentle words indicating a perilous quarrel.

The island once called Otaheite, and thus so well known to the readers of Cook's voyages, and now called Tahiti, had for some years been a British missionary station; and the queen of the island, named Pomare, had been a religious pupil of our missionaries there. In September 1842, Queen Pomare placed her dominions under the protection of France, by a treaty dated on the 9th of that month. Her subjects were not pleased. Some said she had been coerced to do the deed, through fear of the French admiral, Dupetit Thouars, who hovered about her dominions. However this might be, the natives were vexed, and shewed hostility to the French; and the French naturally and immediately concluded that English intrigue was at the bottom of the discontent. The admiral appeared off the island in November 1843, and required Queen Pomare to hoist the French flag over her own, or instead of it; and, on her refusal to do so, he landed troops, hauled down her flag, and made proclamation that the island belonged to France. Of the indefensible character of this act there can be no doubt; and the French government lost no time in disowning it. There was, however, a party in the chamber, as well as outside, who, in the heat of animosity against England, declared that French honour would be wounded by the removal of the national flag set up by the admiral; while others alluded to the utility of having a piece of French territory in that part of the world. In the debate brought on by this party, M. Guizot defended the conduct of Queen Pomare, declared that of England to be blameless and pacific, and severely censured the French admiral. When the English ministers were questioned in parliament about the French treaty with Pomare, they had always said that they had nothing to object to it; that perfect religious liberty was assured by the treaty, and that the arrangement might probably be for the benefit of the inhabitants of the whole group of islands. Lord Aberdeen had obtained from Paris assurances that the British missionaries would meet with all possible protection and encouragement. When the news of the aggression of the French admiral arrived, there was hardly time for any speculation before the disavowal of the French government was communicated. But, on the 29th of July 1844, news was received which brought out

CHAP XII.]

stronger language from Sir R. Peel and Lord Aberdeen than they had often used in parliament.

A missionary, named Pritchard, had become British consul at Tahiti, some time before the arrival of Admiral Dupetit Thouars. When Queen Pomare was deposed, Mr Pritchard resigned his office; but there had not yet been time for his resignation to be accepted, and he acted as consul till a reply arrived from England. He was supposed by the French to have fostered the discontents of the natives; and he was outraged accordingly by the leading commanders on the station. A French sentinel having been attacked and disarmed by the natives on the night of the 2d of March, Mr Pritchard was seized in reprisal,' imprisoned, and released only on condition of his leaving the Pacific. He was carried away, without having seen his family, and reached England by way of Valparaiso. The British ministers declared in parliament that the account was scarcely credible -so impossible did it seem that such an outrage should have been offered under the circumstances; but the reply of the French government to the remonstrances of England would soon arrive, when, no doubt, it would appear that the French king and his ministers would be as eager to disavow this act as that of dethroning the Queen of Tahiti. After some little delay, the ministers announced, on the last day of the session, September 5, that the affair was satisfactorily settled-the French government being willing to make pecuniary recompense to Mr Pritchard for the wrongs he had suffered. It would have been well if all had followed the lead of Sir R. Peel in declining to discuss the merits or demerits of Mr Pritchard. Whatever his conduct might have been, whether wise or foolish, peaceable or irritating, the only question was whether he, as a British subject, had been outraged. He had; and reparation was made. But there were citizens in England and France who tried to make a cause of quarrel out of the demeanour of the man; with regard to which there could be no impartial evidence, and which had nothing to do with the affair. And again, the persons who thought France would be dishonoured by the removal of a flag which should never have been set up, were very capable of saying that French honour would suffer by making reparation to a man who was now doubly disliked because he had been injured. Thus, the state of feeling during the latter months of 1844 was such as to warrant the expressions of the king's speech in December.

Already other storm-clouds were shewing themselves on the horizon. Ever since the accession of the young Queen Isabella, there had been a rivalship between French and English influence in Spain. The regent Christina was a relation of the Orleans family, and some jealousy was excited by their friendly manners towards her. When she abdicated the regency in the autumn of 1840, leaving her daughter in the care of Espartero, she fled into France, repairing first to Marseille, as if on her way to Naples, but presently turning her face towards Paris, after receiving letters thence. She was met by the king himself outside the city, and received with military honours; and almost every newspaper in Europe detailed the particulars of a reception

707

which was supposed to signify so much; and in the French chambers the government was called to account for permitting a course of action which would throw Spain into the arms of England. M. Guizot replied that France would faithfully support, if necessary, the throne of Isabella II., but would have nothing to do with the intestinal quarrels of Spain, and would receive any refugees in the way she thought proper. It was from Paris that Queen Christina wrote, in the ensuing summer, to claim the guardianship of her children, when the cortes were in the act of appointing guardians. She had said, in a manifesto from Marseille: 'I have laid down my sceptre, and given up my daughters;' and the afterthought by which she revoked these words was believed everywhere to be a suggestion of King Louis Philippe's. That after-thought was the cause of various risings in Spain. The Madrid insurrection terrified the poor children almost to death. They were on their knees in the innermost chamber of the palace while it was besieged by night, and nothing but the bravery of the halberdiers prevented the royal children from being seized. The insurgents used the name of Christina; she at first denied their right to do so, and then prevaricated to a degree which induced a general belief that she was employing her position at Paris to overthrow the existing regency of Spain-a belief which, of course, set the English government closely on the watch.

In 1843, the regent Espartero and his party fell into adversity, amidst the changing fortunes of civil war. Espartero and his family escaped to England, where their welcome was cordial. The lord-mayor and corporation of London invited the regent to a public dinner at the Mansion-House. The King of the French did not appear to resent this. In his speech at the close of the year, he expressed his deep interest in the young Queen of Spain, on occasion of her having been declared of age while yet only thirteen years old; expressed hope that Spain would be in a more tranquil condition henceforward; and avowed that this hope was much strengthened by the perfect understanding which subsisted between the Queen of England and himself.

In January 1844, M. Guizot made disclosures of great importance in regard to the relations between France and England. After shewing that, during a recent visit of the Duke de Bordeaux to London, under the name of the Comte de Chambord, no manifestations had been made in the least unfriendly to the existing government of France, he turned to the subject of Spain. He avowed that an honest and friendly appeal had been made to the English government, which had been responded to in a manner no less honest and friendly-an appeal as to whether there was really any occasion for the rivalship of the two interests on the soil of Spain; whether there was any substantial ground for such rivalship; whether it was not in truth a struggle kept up merely as a matter of custom and tradition. This being admitted, an agreement had ensued that all considerations should henceforth give way before the great object of securing the tranquillisation and prosperity of Spain. The two cabinets had gone further still in their discussions and agreements.

They had treated of the marriage of Isabella II.; and England had consented that no prince whose connection with the Spanish throne could be injurious to France should be permitted to marry the young queen.

The first mention we meet with of the marriage of Isabella II. is in 1843, in the form of a disclaimer by the government which drove out Espartero of any intention of carrying the queen towards the Portuguese frontier, as had been reported, for the sake of marrying her to a prince of the family of Saxe-Coburg-Cohary, then on a visit to Lisbon. From the time of M. Guizot's speech of January 1844, the queen's marriage was the prominent point of all discussions on Spain. In March, Christina returned to Spain, and was met by her daughters on the road to Madrid. On the 23d, they all entered Madrid in state. A vulture had hovered over the head of Espartero, it was said, when he last quitted it. Now, when Christina was re-entering it, a dove flew into the carriage, and was taken to her bosom by the little queen. Subsequent events sadly discredited the omen. In October, when a bill for retrenching the chief safeguards and most liberal provisions of the constitution was brought forward, a clause was found in it which authorised the queen to marry without the consent of the cortes; and at the same time, rumours went forth, assuming to be from authority, that it had been settled among the royal family of Spain, that the queen should marry the Prince of Asturias, the son of Don Carlos. At the same time, again-on the 13th of OctoberChristina married the man whose mistress she had been for seven years, and by whom she had several children. Her marriage now involved questions, both political and pecuniary, of great consequence; questions as to the date at which, by this connection, she had forfeited her office of regent, and her annual allowance from the state, and her title of queenmother. The money and the title were now secured to her by special grants and decrees. But the question remained how the consent of the pope to this marriage had been obtained; and whether, in fact, it had been obtained at all. While all this was discussed, the new ministers were frightened into altering their bill so far as to continue the exclusion of the family of Don Carlos from connection with the throne of Spain; but this act was again neutralised by what the pope had done. It came out that he had permitted the marriage of Christina on certain conditions-one of which was that all laws and decrees should be annulled which excluded the family of Don Carlos; and another, that Queen Isabella should marry the Prince of Asturias. In six months more, Don Carlos had resigned all claims to the crown, in favour of his son. But this had no effect in forwarding any views as to the marriage of the prince with the queen; for, before the end of the year, all the world had heard that negotiations were proceeding for a marriage of the queen with the Prince de Trappani, brother to the King of Naples and Christina, and therefore uncle to the queen. But it soon appeared that nobody desired this marriage. The young girl herself disliked the prince; her mother opposed his

pretensions; and there was no strong feeling abroad in the nation on his behalf. It was conjectured that the queen would herself have chosen her cousin Don Enrique, the second son of Don Francisco de Paula -a spirited young naval officer; but, when the prime-minister, General Narvaez, was questioned in the cortes, in January 1846, he declared that the queen appeared to have no wish to marry, and that the subject had not come under the consideration of the government at all. Other governments were more anxious; and none involved itself so deeply as that of France.

A dispatch of M. Guizot's, written in 1842, was in existence, which declared that all that France desired, in regard to the marriage of the Queen of Spain, was that she should take a husband from the House of Bourbon. The French princes might be set aside, and welcome; an ample choice would remain among the families of the King of Naples, of Don Francisco de Paula, and Don Carlos. Only let it be a Bourbon, and that was enough. In February 1846, however, we find the same minister speaking in a very different tone to Lord Aberdeen, through the French minister in London. M. Guizot now declared that, for reasons assigned, no prince of the above-mentioned families could be the choice of the parties concerned; and he intimated that any intrigue to marry the queen to a prince of the house of Saxe-Coburg would be resisted by France. There was a prince of that house whom the French government supposed that England was plotting to get married to the queen; and henceforth the relations between France and England became so unfriendly as to threaten war more seriously than at any time since the peace. Lord Palmerston returned to the foreign office in the summer; and from that moment the controversy became painful and disgusting. It is not necessary for us to go through the disagreeable narrative, as our history closes at the date of the retirement of Lord Aberdeen. Suffice it that, blind to coming events which were soon to sweep away all the plans, and dissolve all the visions, of ambition, the French king and his ministers made a bold push to place one of their own princes in close proximity to the Spanish throne, for the chance of his issue succeeding to it, while the wretched young queen was forced into a marriage with the elder brother of the Don Enrique whom she was supposed to favour. Her younger sister, aged fourteen, was married on the same day to the Duke de Montpensier, the youngest son of the King of the French. The English newspapers were furious in their wrath, as well as strong in their indignation, at the part acted by France. The fear was lest the crowns of France and Spain should ever be found on the same head. But this could not happen by any chance short of the death of all the Duke de Montpensier's elder brothers and their children, together with failure of issue from the Queen of Spain. Events have since happened which solemuly rebuke so presumptuous a forecast into the future, by removing the young bridegroom's family from the throne of France. The fury of dissension which prevailed during the controversy looks now childish enough. The true cause for regret is the paltering