THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).

The Quietness of Europe—Debate on Poland—The English Prisoners in Abyssinia—Mr. Newdegate and the Encyclical—Visit of the French Fleet—Conclusion of the American War—Sherman's victorious March—Sheridan's Campaign—Lee's last Efforts—Evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg—Lee's Retreat—The Surrender at Appomattox—Grant's General Order—The Death of Lincoln—Inflated Prosperity of India—The Canadian Defences—The Maori War continues—Mr Cardwell's Policy—The Jamaica Rebellion—Grievances of the Blacks—The Trespass Laws—Governor Eyre—The First Riots—Excesses of the Negroes—Their Extent exaggerated—The Rebellion spreads—Governor Eyre proclaims Martial Law—"The Suppression"—Anderson the Informer—Colonel Hobbs—The Maroons—Elkington's Letter—Gordon Ramsay—Some typical Trials—G. W. Gordon—The Court-Martial—The Evidence produced—Gordon is hanged—The total of Deaths—Excitement in England—The Jamaica Committee—Eyre committed for Trial—The Chief Justice's Charge—The Bill thrown out—Recovery of Jamaica—Reform again—It becomes a Government Measure—The Bill of '66—Mr. Gladstone's Speech—Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman—"The Cave"—The Easter Recess—The second Reading—Lord Grosvenor's Amendment—A brilliant Debate—Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone—A Majority of Five—The Government perseveres—The Redistribution Bill—Its Details—Mr. Bouverie's Amendment—It is accepted—Captain Hayter's Amendment—Mr. Disraeli's Strategy—Lord Stanley's Attack—Mr. Walpole's Amendment—Amendments of Mr. Hunt and Lord Dunkellin—Gross Yearly Rental and Rateable Value—The Debate on the Dunkellin Proposal—Defeat of the Government—Their Resignation—Mr. Gladstone's Statement—Earl Russell and the Queen—Lord Derby's Conservative Ministry—The Refusals—Mr. Disraeli's Election Speech—Peace in Parliament—Indian Finance—Prohibition of the Hyde Park Meeting—The Procession marches—Destruction of the Railings—Mr. Walpole weeps—Discussion on his Conduct—The Queen's Speech and the Rinderpest.

IN European history the year 1865 will always be looked upon as an interregnum, a breathing time, between the two eventful years that preceded and followed it. It was the interval between two wars; and its history is the history of passions that smouldered and of intrigues that worked in secret. The underground records of diplomacy have much to tell of it; but as for events, there are none. Nor, so far as England is concerned, is there very much to record under the head of foreign policy. The dullness of such foreign debates as Parliament saw in this year contrasts sharply with the keen excitement of the debates of 1864, when Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone flung in each other's face their opposing views of what constitutes the honour of England. Schleswig and Holstein were irrevocably gone now; rightly or wrongly we had stood by and seen them taken; and it was of no use to protest after the event, or to debate about our duty. On the other hand, the quarrel about the division of the spoil had not yet broken out; so we have few despatches from Lord Russell and few scoldings by the Times. The only debate on European affairs that need be chronicled was one on a motion brought forward by Mr. Pope Hennessy on the treatment of Poland by Russia. The terms of the motion referred to Russia's palpable violation of the Treaty of 1815 and entered a protest against it. But Lord Palmerston, and the good sense of the House with him, refused to entertain the resolution; for such a resolution means less than nothing unless it means war if its request is not complied with. Neither Mr. Pope Hennessy nor any one else thought seriously of a war with Russia. In this matter of Poland, in this year at least, we escaped the blunder which we had committed so often and so ludicrously in 1864; as we did not mean to enforce our opinion, we kept it to ourselves.

It was in this year that the public began to hear stirring accounts of the British prisoners in Abyssinia, who were, a short time afterwards, to be raised to a position of such national importance. The full story of their captivity is perhaps better deferred till the time comes for treating of the Abyssinian War, set on foot to rescue them; but the points at issue may shortly be recorded here, as they were told by Lord Chelmsford in the House of Lords during this Session. In July, 1862, Captain Cameron had been sent to Abyssinia as consul, with flattering messages and presents to King Theodore, a half-savage chieftain professing a kind of spurious Christianity. He was well received by the King and treated with honour; especially when, on the breaking out of a war between Egypt and Abyssinia, he attempted to mediate in favour of King Theodore. But this mediation was ill received by the Egyptian authorities and Consul Cameron was induced to desist. This made the King very angry; especially as he had received no answer to an autograph letter that he had written to Queen Victoria on Captain Cameron's arrival in July. With the fickleness of a savage, he turned round upon the consul and began to treat him with great indignity; and matters were complicated by the action of certain missionaries, Mr. Stern and some others, whom the King and his grandees considered to have been acting against the interests of Abyssinia. One of Mr. Stern's interpreters was beaten to death; he himself was also beaten very severely; and then first he and the other missionaries and afterwards Consul Cameron himself were imprisoned and loaded with chains. So they continued for a long time: the British Foreign Office found itself in the difficult position of having either to leave British subjects to take their chance, or run the risk of rousing to fury an African chieftain renowned for his fierce temper, and of arming him against the lives of the unhappy captives. Matters had been in this position about eighteen months, when Lord Chelmsford in the House of Lords, and Sir Hugh Cairns in the Commons—both great Opposition lawyers—questioned the Government very severely about the whole circumstances of the case. Lord Russell and Mr. Layard both made the same defence of the Foreign Office—that it could literally do nothing without sending the captives to certain death. It is well known that the event proved the Foreign Office wrong. But we shall give at a later stage an account of the war of release undertaken by Mr. Disraeli's Government; and to that chapter we must defer the rest of the romantic story.

There was considerable excitement abroad at the opening of this year, especially among the clergy, concerning the Pope and the Roman Question. It will be remembered that in September, 1864, there had been a Convention between France and Italy, under which Italy guaranteed the undisturbed possession of the Pontifical Dominions to the Pope, while France on the other hand engaged to withdraw her troops from Rome. M. Thiers spoke out boldly on the subject of this convention; he saw in it the beginning of the end, and professed little faith in the guarantees of Italy. The object of the French Government was, he maintained, to appear to Italy willing to help her to the possession of Rome, while persuading all the rest of the world to the contrary. The Ultramontanes therefore were distrustful and alarmed, and—when the Encyclical Letter arrived in France, and a circular was issued by the Minister of Justice, forbidding the clergy to distribute the letter among their flocks, or to read in public the first half of it, on the plea that it contained "propositions contrary to the principles on which is founded the Constitution of the Empire,"—several of the more prominent Anti-Gallican bishops broke out into warm remonstrance. The fame of the Encyclical Letter next reached England and created some stir among the ultra-Protestant party. Mr. Newdegate, speaking in the House of Commons on the Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, said that, in his opinion, that was a singularly inopportune moment to propose any change in the test imposed upon Roman Catholic members, seeing that the French Government were just then occupied in grave discussions on the best means of dealing with the latest Papal aggression in the shape of the Pope's Encyclical Letter, which in the interests of order and peace could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. How the Encyclical Letter could affect the question of the Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, Mr. Newdegate's hearers failed to see; it was one of that gentleman's many cries of "Wolf" in Roman Catholic matters. The Convention between France and Italy had no doubt disappointed the Papacy, and the Letter may be looked upon as more or less an expression of that disappointment; but the French Government knew very well that Rome lay too much in the power of France for any serious affront to be offered, and after a little more diplomatic skirmishing they let the matter drop.

Towards the end of August in this year there was a pleasant interchange of courtesies between the French and British fleets at Portsmouth. A British squadron of six ships, five of which were ironclads, received the French Fleet at Spithead. Eleven fine screw steamships and screw frigates, headed by the Emperor's yacht, the Reine Hortense, hove in sight on the morning of the 28th, and were greeted by our ironclads with a gay display of flags, manned riggings, and a succession of deafening salutes. The Admiralty yacht, Osborne, having on board the Duke of Somerset and the other Lords of the Admiralty, went out to meet the Reine Hortense, and accompanied her into the harbour of Portsmouth, the Victory, that gallant old relic of a bygone day, saluting the yachts with nineteen guns as they passed. No sooner were they anchored than the naval grandees on board the Osborne passed over to the Reine Hortense, to pay their respects to the French Minister of Marine, M. Chasseloup-Laubat, and the French admirals accompanying him. The usual compliments were paid, the usual invitations given, after which the Minister of Marine, accompanied by his staff, Chief Almoner, Monseigneur Coquereau, and a splendid show of English vice- and rear-admirals, entered a State barge, and was landed at the King's Stairs in the dockyard. The day was spent by the French guests in paying visits to the different officers of the garrison and in inspecting some new barracks and forts close to Portsmouth; while in the evening the First Lord of the Admiralty entertained them at dinner on board the Duke of Wellington. The landsmen, not to be outdone by the sailors, illuminated Portsmouth and gave a banquet to the French officers. On the 30th of August the same round of visits and festivities was gone through. At a great dinner given at the Royal Naval College in the evening, the Duke of Somerset, after expressing the pleasure which he and his colleagues felt in being able to return the hospitalities showered by France upon the British fleet a month previously at Brest and Cherbourg, proposed the health of the Emperor and Empress, to which M. Chasseloup-Laubat responded by proposing that of the Queen in a speech marked by that French grace and ease which makes a French public dinner so much less formidable than an English one. The French Minister had hardly sat down, and the cheers were still ringing in answer to the toast of "Queen Victoria," when there was a discharge of guns and rockets from the Victory, and immediately the calm summer sea beyond the harbour was alive with thousands of twinkling lights; every ship in the allied squadron stood outlined in many-coloured fires, and hundreds of rockets, sent up from every deck, fell in showers through the clear air of an August evening. Again and again, just as the distant hulls were growing dark, the fairy-like spectacle was renewed. Nor was the town behind-hand; illuminations ran along the shore, and land and sea vied with one another. This magical scene lasted for about half an hour, then one by one the ships faded from sight, the sparkle on the water died out, and, peer as it might into the darkness gathering round Spithead, the eye could distinguish nothing but a distant group of black forms on a grey sea. The dinner was then resumed and a few more toasts and speeches followed; but the event of the evening was over and at an early hour the French guests returned to their ships. For three days more festivities were kept up, and balls, concerts, and déjeuners followed each other in quick succession. The French squadron left Portsmouth on the 2nd of September, after a visit full of pleasure and amusement to all who took part in it.

To the great relief of England the long agony of the Southern Confederation was now rapidly approaching its termination. Sherman's great march had brought him and his army of 60,000 men to Savannah, the capital of Georgia; but it did not end there. His movements were delayed by heavy rains; but on the 1st of January, 1865, he set forth, moving his army directly northward, as if Augusta were the point of attack. Suddenly turning to his right, and crossing the river Savannah, he entered the swampy fertile plains of South Carolina. Devastation marked the track of his columns. Beauregard had not a force under his orders sufficient for the defence of Columbia, and he therefore directed General Wade Hampton, who was in command there, to evacuate the city. That general did so, having first caused to be brought out into the streets and set on fire all the large stores of cotton which the place contained, lest it should fall into Federal hands. A portion only of Sherman's army entered the town, in the middle of the day on the 17th of February, but before the night it was in flames. The loss of Columbia involved the fall of Charleston, including Fort Sumter and other defences; for since the sea was closed against them from behind by the blockading fleet, no hope of ultimate escape remained for the defenders, if they waited till they were hemmed in by a superior force on the land side. From Columbia Sherman advanced on the 23rd of February, but instead of marching to the attack of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, he struck off to the right, crossed the Great Pedee River, and passing the State boundary at Sneedsboro', again concentrated his army at Fayetteville (March 11). General Johnston, who ought never to have been superseded, was now re-appointed to the command of the Confederate army opposed to Sherman. As the Federal left, under Slocum, was advancing from Fayetteville towards Goldsboro', Johnston vigorously attacked at Bentonville (March 20) hoping to envelop and crush it before it could be supported; but the success of the attempt did not correspond to his expectations. Sherman's victorious march terminated at Goldsboro', for to that point a strong Federal force under General Schofield had fought its way up from the coast just before his arrival.

GENERAL GRANT.

The last act of the great drama was now to open. The campaign in Virginia was commenced by Sheridan, who, at the head of a well-equipped and most formidable force of 10,000 cavalry, moved from Winchester in the Shenandoah valley (March 2nd) with the intention of striking Lynchburg, the town among the ranges of the Alleghanies whence Richmond now drew its principal supplies. Early met him at Waynesboro' and was utterly routed; but the intelligence that he received from his scouts led Sheridan to believe that Lynchburg was too well defended to fall to a mere cavalry force; he changed his plan, therefore, and led his troopers round the left and rear of Lee's army, intending to join Grant in his encampment before Petersburg. The Confederate arrays of cavalry, which two years before had been the terror of Pennsylvania and Washington, were now so attenuated by death and hardships that no effectual resistance could be offered to Sheridan, who, carrying blight and destruction in his train, burning bridges and stores, tearing up railways and destroying canals, moved across the enemy's country to White House on the Pamunkey river, whence he marched to the James, and reported to Grant in front of Petersburg on the 27th of March.