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.
DEATH OF THE CZAR.
On the 2nd of March the people of London were astonished by a telegram that the Emperor of Russia had died that morning. Seldom was so profound and general a sensation created. It was believed by nearly all persons that the war would be speedily brought to a close, as he who had created it had passed away. It was not then generally understood that the Emperor Nicholas was the representative of the feeling and opinion of the whole Russian nation. His ambition, love of conquest, aggrandizement of territory, did not pass beyond the degree in which these qualities were cherished by his people. The desire to propagate the Greek church by the sword alike possessed emperor and subjects. The war, therefore, continued, although the successor of Nicholas—Alexander II.—was, as alleged, a mild prince, more desirous to draw out the resources of his empire by peace than to extend it by war. At all events the conflict continued to rage, to the disappointment of all who hated bloodshed, and felt for the miseries of their fellow creatures.
It was alleged that the death of the Emperor Nicholas was caused by the defeat of his arms at the battle of Eupatoria. On the 17th of February, forty thousand Russians attacked the Turkish army under Omar Pasha, then quartered there. The occupation of that place by the allies was a great hindrance to the operations of the Russian armies, and was dangerous to the Crimea and its communications with the southern provinces of the Russian empire. The emperor had, therefore, ordered it to be carried at any cost. He, no doubt, felt humiliated that the Turks, whom he had so recently attacked in their own territory, should now, in their turn, be invaders, and he burned with indignation at this affront to his power. By this battle his soldiers were defeated, his ambition and his hopes blasted. He began at last to see the magnitude of the war he had provoked, and the perils with which his empire were environed. He drooped from that hour. A severe cold, taken in the persevering discharge of his high functions, hastened his dissolution.