A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 24

[Sidenote: British ships fired on]

The most serious of the many embarra.s.sments inherited from the Administration of Grey was the trouble with China, that had arisen out of the East India Company's opium trade in the Far East. When the charter of the East India Company was renewed in 1834, it was shorn of its monopoly of this trade. The consequent extension of the trade in opium, so strenuously opposed by the Chinese Government, incensed Emperor Taouk-w.a.n.g. Lord Napier, the new British Commissioner, reached the Canton River in July. His instructions from Lord Palmerston were to foster the English opium trade not only at Canton, but to demand an extension of the trade to other parts of the Chinese empire. The Chinese mandarins, under instructions from the Viceroy of Canton, refused to have anything to do with Napier. He was lampooned in Chinese prints as "the foreign eye." The Viceroy issued an edict forbidding the British Commissioner to proceed up the river. At the same time all trade with English merchants was suspended. In defiance of the Chinese orders Lord Napier left Macao, and sailing up the river made his way to the English factory at Canton. There he found himself isolated.

An Imperial proclamation declared that the national dignity was at stake, and ordered all Chinese subjects to keep away from the Englishmen. The Canton factory was deserted by all of its coolies and domestic servants.

Lord Napier, ailing in health as he was, found his position untenable. He sent a final defiance to the Viceroy of Canton: "The merchants of Great Britain wish to trade with all China on principles of mutual benefit. They will never relax in their exertions until they gain this. The Viceroy will find it as easy to stop the current of the Canton River, as to carry into effect his insane determination." After this the Viceroy sent his troops into the foreign settlements, and ordered the Bogue forts to fire on any English ship that attempted to pa.s.s. On September 5, two British ships in the river were fired upon by the Chinese. The English merchants pet.i.tioned Lord Napier to retire to Macao. This he did with a futile protest against China's acts "of unprecedented tyranny and injustice." Lord Napier died, leaving to others the settlement of the difficulties which his presence had intensified.

[Sidenote: Lord Melbourne dismissed]

[Sidenote: Peel dissolves Parliament]

The death of Earl Spencer, which raised Lord Althorp, his son, to the Upper House, gave the King a chance to get rid of his new advisers. When Lord Melbourne, on November 14, submitted to the King the changes he proposed to make in the Ministry in consequence of the vacancies in the Exchequer, William IV. expressed his disapproval and called in the Duke of Wellington in his stead. The Duke advised that the task of forming a new Cabinet be intrusted to Sir Robert Peel, then in Rome. Sir Robert arrived in London on December 9, and at once accepted the task imposed on him. The opposition against his new-formed Ministry was so strong that it was decided to appeal to the country. On December 30, Parliament was dissolved.

[Sidenote: American slavery agitation]

[Sidenote: "Atherton Gag"]

[Sidenote: American events]

In North America, the contest between the Northern and Southern States in regard to slavery steadily gathered force. President Jackson, in his annual message, called attention to "the fearful excitement produced in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the slaves." The Federal postmasters of the South and in several cities of the North were encouraged in the practice of rifling the mails of possibly offensive matter. John Quincy Adams was threatened with public censure at the bar of the House for proposing to print a pet.i.tion for freedmen. All attempts to get such pet.i.tions before Congress were defeated by a standing rule known as the Atherton Gag. During this year the national debt was almost liquidated by Jackson's payment of $4,760,082. A measure was pa.s.sed through Congress establishing the value of gold and silver. Gold flowed into the Treasury through all channels of commerce. The mint was kept busy, and specie payments, which had been suspended for thirty years, were resumed. Gold and silver became the recognized currency of the land.

The President's measures against the National Bank were less successful. On March 28, the Senate debated Clay's resolution censuring the President for his removal of the government deposits. A joint resolution by both Houses of Congress was pa.s.sed, in the Senate, June 3, by a vote of 29 to 10. Other events of the year of interest to Americans were the popular riots that threw New York into a turmoil on the occasion of the first mayoralty election in that city, the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Legislature of Illinois, the establishment of the Indian Territory; and the first appearance of Bancroft's "History of the United States."

[Sidenote: Friction matches]

Of world-wide interest was the emanc.i.p.ation of all black slaves in the British West Indies, South Africa, and other colonies; the establishment of the German tariff union, including all German States except Austria; the transfer of the capital of Greece from Nauplia to the site of Athens; the foundation of the free university of Brussels, and the death of the great German theologian Schleiermacher. An innovation that was destined to add to the convenience and comfort of domestic life throughout the world was the introduction of lucifer matches during this year.

1835

[Sidenote: Irish balance of power]

[Sidenote: Gladstone's anti-Irish speech]

[Sidenote: O'Connell's reply]

On February 19, Parliament rea.s.sembled. It was found that a working majority of Tories had been returned, but the first vote on the King's speech revealed a junction of the Whigs with O'Connell's Irish party, which foreboded disaster to the government. For the first time in Parliamentary history the Irish members held the balance of power. In vain did Sir Robert Peel attempt to stave off his downfall by the introduction of welcome measures of reform. Once more it was on a question affecting Ireland that the government was defeated. This was Peel's high commutation bill. Lord Russell in reply moved that the surplus revenues of the Irish Church be used for non-ecclesiastical purposes. In the debate that followed, Gladstone spoke strongly against the measure. For this early speech, embodying as it did views so radically different from those of his later life, he was constantly reproached during his career. It ended with the words, "I hope I shall never live to see the day when such a system shall be adopted in this country; for the consequences of it to public men will be lamentable beyond all description." O'Connell said in reply: "I shall content myself with laying down the broad principle that the emoluments of a church ought not to be raised from a people who do not belong to it....

All that the Catholics of Ireland require is justice--equal and even-handed justice."

[Sidenote: Fall of Peel's Ministry]

[Sidenote: Melbourne's second Administration]

When the matter came to a vote the government was defeated by a majority of thirty-three. On April 8, the resignation of the Ministry was announced to Parliament. The King sent for Earl Grey, and, on his refusal to form a Ministry, was driven to the humiliating expedient of recalling Lord Melbourne. On April 18, a new Cabinet was formed, composed largely of the men who had been so summarily dismissed by the King a few months before.

Lord Melbourne's second Administration was marked by the elevation of the settlements of South Australia to a Crown colony. The city of Melbourne, which was founded that year, was named in his honor.

[Sidenote: Death of William Cobbett]

An extraordinary career was ended, on June 18, by the death of William Cobbett, from overwork in Parliament. With but little school education, this remarkable man succeeded in becoming not only one of the foremost prose writers of English, but the leader of a great popular party.

[Sidenote: The Orange Lodges]

[Sidenote: Duke of c.u.mberland implicated]

During the early part of Lord Melbourne's Administration, the discontent and irritation prevailing in Ireland were heightened by the agitation against the Orange lodges. The original purpose of these lodges had been to defend, against the Stuarts and their supporters, the Protestant ascendancy which had begun with the reign of William of Orange. The lodges had grown in strength until, in 1835, it was estimated that they numbered 140,000 members in Ireland, and as many as 40,000 in London alone. The Grand Master of all the Orange Lodges was no less a personage than the Duke of c.u.mberland, the King's brother. It was believed in Ireland that a conspiracy existed on the part of the Orangemen to set aside the Princess Victoria, the next heir to the throne, in favor of the Duke of c.u.mberland.

The subject was brought to the notice of Parliament by Hume and O'Connell, who drew special attention to the illegal introduction of Orangemen into the British army, under warrants signed by the Duke of c.u.mberland. The scandal grew to such an extent that the Duke of c.u.mberland hastened to dissolve the order before a resolution condemning his conduct could pa.s.s through the Commons.

[Sidenote: D'Urban in South Africa]

[Sidenote: Beginning of Boer trek]

In South Africa, another war over boundary questions broke out between the Dutch and English settlers and the Kaffirs. Sir Benjamin d'Urban advanced the frontier of Cape Colony to the Keir River. The Zulu chief, Dingaan, on the a.s.sa.s.sination of King Chaka, who had welded together a confederation of warlike tribes, succeeded to his powers. In the midst of these difficulties an advance guard of Boers, exasperated by Great Britain's abolition of the old Dutch moot courts or "Heemraden," and of slavery in Cape Colony, trekked across the Orange River and founded a colony of their own.

[Sidenote: South American disorders]

[Sidenote: Revolution of Texas]

In South America, political changes rapidly followed one upon the other.

Rocafuerte seized the reins of power in Ecuador. About the same time General Rosas had himself re-elected for fifteen years as dictator of the Argentine Republic. President Santa Cruz of Bolivia made a raid into Peru, and in his absence the State of Bolivia promptly fell a prey to internal disorders. In Mexico, General Santa Anna established his rule as dictator.

The affairs of Texas soon demanded his attention. On December 20, Texas declared itself independent of Mexico. Support came from the United States.

The revolution began with the battle of Gonzales, in which 500 Americans took part. The Mexicans were defeated. Soon afterward Goliad and the strong citadel of Bexar, known as the Alamo, were taken and the Mexican forces dispersed.

[Sidenote: Osceola in Florida]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Payne's Landing disputed]

In the meanwhile the Seminole war in Florida had a.s.sumed a serious aspect.

The chief Indian leader who opposed the removal of the Seminoles west of the Mississippi was Osceola, son of a half breed squaw and an Englishman.

His wife, the daughter of a slave, had been seized and returned to her mother's master. Thenceforth Osceola became an uncompromising enemy of the whites. The Indian controversy with the American Government turned on the interpretation of a p.r.o.noun in the treaty of Payne's Landing. President Jackson held that the word "they" in the most important clause of the treaty relating to the compensation of the despoiled Indians referred only to the deputies who executed the doc.u.ment, whereas Osceola contended that it was meant to stand for all the Indians. The continued quibbling so enraged Osceola that he drove his knife into the table exclaiming: "The next treaty I will execute is with this."

[Sidenote: American progress]

[Sidenote: New York conflagration]

[Sidenote: Death of Justice Marshall]

Among the intellectual and scientific achievements of this year in America must be reckoned Colt's invention of a revolver and the manufacture of pins. Longfellow brought out his "Outre-Mer," and Audubon published his "Birds of America." On December 16, a disastrous fire destroyed most of the commercial houses of New York City. In all 530 houses burned down and $18,000,000 worth of property was consumed. Chief Justice Marshall of the United States Supreme Court died during this year, eighty years of age. As a member of Congress, a Cabinet officer, and the foremost jurist of the United States, Marshall won lasting distinction. His ability as a writer was conspicuously displayed in his popular "Life of Washington."

[Sidenote: Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria]

[Sidenote: Wilhelm von Humboldt]

[Sidenote: Andersen's Fairy Tales]

In Europe, in the meanwhile, there had been some significant changes. On March 2, Emperor Francis of Austria died at the age of sixty-seven. The succession of Archduke Ferdinand to the throne produced no change in the national policy. Metternich was retained at the head of affairs. Almost of more moment to Germany was the death of Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt, the diplomat, and brother to Alexander, the great German explorer and philosophic writer. Besides his services as a statesman at the time of the international conferences at Paris and Vienna, he is distinguished for his philological researches in the Basque and Kauri languages. About the same time Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author, published his first collection of fairy tales. The book had an immediate success, and after its translation into German achieved a world-wide reputation. Various translations from the German version and from the original had large sales in England and America.

[Sidenote: Artistic activity in France]