FOREIGN RELATIONS.
In the East the only hostile acts required from the British government, during the year 1848, was the suppression of Chinese piracy. During the year, also, the Rif pirates gave trouble on the shores of northern Africa. Employment was also given to British cruisers in various other parts of the world in the suppression of piracy and the protection of British commerce.
THE UNITED STATES.
The measures of Sir Robert Peel’s late government in the disputes which arose between England and the United States, whatever their demerits, had the effect of preserving peace between the two countries, which, during the tumults of continental Europe, the disturbances in Ireland, and the agitations in England during 1848, was of the utmost consequence to Great Britain. The discovery of gold in California, although an American event, exercised much influence upon the commerce and monetary affairs of the British Isles, and tended still more to draw the bonds of amity close between the two great British nations.
SPAIN: DIPLOMATIC DISAGREEMENT WITH THAT COUNTRY; DISMISSION OF THE ENGLISH AMBASSADOR.
Spain, ever fruitful of internal discord, was not less so in 1848. The history of the court was one of scandal, and of the government one of weakness, fickleness, and incapacity. The year 1847 closed by a change of ministry, when the infamous Narvaez was in the ascendant, and his creatures were gathered around him in the guise of a cabinet. The queen-mother, it was declared, had been married in December, 1833, to her paramour, Munoz, within three months of the decease of the king her husband, and this was kept secret for fifteen years from the Spanish people, until, under the auspices of the new government of Narvaez, it was at last brought to light, for purposes at once venal and revolting. This disclosure incensed the Spanish people, and revived the hopes of both the republican and Carlist parties. The corrupt practices of Senor Salamanca also coming before the public, disgusted the nation with its public men. As will be seen on another page, France effected a new revolution in February. Louis Philipp was dethroned, and the republic was once more proclaimed. From the immediate contiguity of the two countries it was feared that the French republic would find some cause of quarrel with the imprudent and despotic government of Spain. England, alarmed lest she should be once more involved in a war with France for the protection of the Iberian peninsula, looked with concern upon the tyrannical and profligate conduct of the Spanish court and government; and Lord Palmerston, therefore, addressed a note to Sir H. Bulwer, the British representative at Madrid, requesting him to make such representations to the government, and offer such advice as would tend to consolidate the independence and preserve the peace of Spain. This Sir H. Bulwer performed; but the Spanish minister, the Duc de Soto Mayer, resented this interference as an insult to Spain, and the British minister was dismissed from Madrid. In England Lord Palmerston was denounced as a meddler, and a minister whose policy was provocative of foreign discord. The course of policy, however, adopted by the noble viscount was customary with all British ministers, did not exceed the right which one friendly nation has to advise another, and was based upon the actual and recognised relations of Spain and Great Britain. It afforded, however, an opportunity to ignorant declaimers, in and out of parliament, to oppose the astute yet direct and manly policy of the great English foreign minister. The interruption of diplomatic relations between the two countries continued throughout the year.