[Illustration: The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.]
The fall of the government was brought about by the Protectionists, who on this occasion united with their Whig opponents for the purpose of being avenged upon their old leader.
Peel bore his retirement with great dignity, and firmly refused to accept any honours either for himself or his family. Four years afterwards, he was thrown from his horse while riding up Constitution Hill, and the injuries he received caused his death in a few days. A monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. On its base are inscribed the closing words of the speech in which he announced his resignation: 'It may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.'
On the retirement of Sir Robert Peel from office in 1846, Lord John Russell became prime-minister, with Lord Palmerston as foreign secretary. No very great measures were passed by the new ministry, but the policy of free trade recently adopted by the country was steadily carried out. But, although parliament did not occupy itself with any very important reforms during his tenure of office, Lord Russell had his hands quite full in other respects. Chartism came to a head during this period; and besides this, there were fresh difficulties in Ireland in store for the new premier.
For ten years during the early part of the reign of Victoria, Chartism was like a dark shadow over the land, causing much uneasiness among peaceable and well-disposed persons. The Reform Bill of 1832 had disappointed the expectations of the working-classes. They themselves had not been enfranchised by it; and to this fact they were ready to ascribe the poverty and wretchedness which still undoubtedly existed among them.
It was not long, therefore, before an agitation was set on foot for the purpose of bringing about a further reform of parliament. At a meeting held in Birmingham (1838), the People's Charter was drawn up. It contained six 'points' which henceforward were to be the watchwords of the party, until they succeeded in carrying them into law. These points were (1) universal suffrage; (2) annual parliaments; (3) vote by ballot; (4) the right of any one to sit in parliament, irrespective of property; (5) the payment of members; and (6) the redistribution of the country into equal electoral districts.
The agitation came to a head in 1848. Britain had thus her own 'little flutter' of revolution, like so many other European countries during that memorable year. On the 10th of April, the Chartists were to muster on Kennington Common half a million strong. Headed by O'Connor, they were then to enter London in procession bearing a monster petition to parliament insisting on their six 'points.' The demonstration, however, which had called forth all these preparations, proved a miserable failure. Instead of half a million people, only some twenty or thirty thousand appeared at the place of meeting, and the peace of the capital was not in the least disturbed. From this time Chartism fell into contempt, and speedily died out. Of the six 'points,' all but the second and fifth have since that time become the law of the land, as the growing requirements of the nation have seemed to render them necessary.
CHAPTER V.
The Crimean War, 1854-55—Siege of
Sebastopol—Balaklava—Inkermann—Interest of the Queen and Prince-Consort
in the suffering Soldiers—Florence Nightingale—Distribution of Victoria
Crosses by the Queen.
For a long time the Turkish empire had been gradually falling into decay, and the possessions of the Turk—the 'sick man,' as he has been aptly termed—had excited the greed of neighbouring countries. Russia especially had made several attempts to put an end to the 'sick man' by violent means, and seize upon his rich inheritance.