HOME AFFAIRS—PUBLIC OPINION, AGITATION OF PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT.
A.D. 1855
The state of the country at the opening of the year was very peculiar. The whole population of the British Isles was deeply moved by the tidings which had arrived of the sufferings of their brethren and fellow countrymen in the Crimea. It was humiliating to the country to learn that an army within seven miles of the sea, with the most splendid fleets and transports at its service, was perishing from want of food and fuel because the abounding stores, wasting and rotting on the sea-shore, could not be conveyed to the camp. All political considerations were lost sight of in the universal desire to get rid of a cabinet so utterly incompetent to direct the affairs of the country. With some of the members of the cabinet there was general satisfaction; Lords Palmerston and Clarendon were popular, and Lord John Russell at that time shared the public favour which he was so soon destined to lose. It was against the Peelite section of the ministry, and more especially its chief, that the universal indignation arose. This led to the defeat and resignation of the Aberdeen cabinet; the circumstances which attended that result will be related when noticing the parliamentary vicissitudes of the year.
A fast was ordered in England and Ireland for the 21st of March, which was extensively and solemnly observed; and a day of thanksgiving was kept with as unanimous a spirit, when, in September, Sebastopol fell.