England during this period passed through a Cabinet crisis. The popularity of Melbourne's Ministry was waning. Lord Melbourne was a typical Whig, opposed to the policy of the Tories, or, as they were beginning to be called at that time, the Conservatives. The alteration in title is Rise of English Conservatives attributed to John Wilson Croker, who, in the "Quarterly Review," referred to "what is called the Tory, but which might with more propriety be called the Conservative party." This new name was indorsed by Lord John Russell, who said, "If that is the name that pleases them, if they say that the old distinction of Whig and Tory should no longer be kept up, I am ready, in opposition to their name of Conservative, to take the name of Reformer, and to stand by that opposition." Sir Robert Peel defined Conservatism when he said, "My object for some years past has been to lay the foundation of a great party, which, existing in the House of Commons, and deriving its strength from the popular will, should diminish the risk and deaden the shock of collisions between the two branches of the legislature."
In May, the government's proposition to suspend the Constitution of Jamaica Fall of Melbourne Ministry brought about the fall of the Ministry. The measure was sustained by a majority of only five. The Queen sent for Sir Robert Peel. Her wish to retain as ladies of her household the wife and sister of two members of the last Cabinet brought forth a respectful remonstrance from Peel. The Queen replied in this wise: "The Queen having considered the proposal made to her Bedchamber question yesterday by Sir Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to a course which she considers to be contrary to usage, and is repugnant to her feelings."
This ended Peel's attempt to form a Ministry and Melbourne was recalled. The question created much discussion at the time. Lord Brougham maintained that Lord Melbourne "had sacrificed liberal principles and the interests of the country to the private feelings of the sovereign." "I thought," he said, "that we belonged to a country in which the government by the Crown and the wisdom of Parliament was everything, and the personal feelings of the sovereign were absolutely not to be named at the same time." In the Queen Victoria yields end the Queen yielded her point. A statement was put forth that "the Queen would listen to any representation from the incoming Prime Minister as to the composition of her household, and would arrange for the retirement, of their own accord, of any ladies who were so closely related to the leaders of Opposition as to render their presence inconvenient."
On behalf of the Chartists large public meetings were organized in London and in all parts of England at which violent speeches were made. On the 1st of April, at a public meeting in Edinburgh to support the Ministry, the Chartist agitation Chartists took possession of the platform, ejected the Lord Provost, and passed their own resolutions. On the same day at Devizes, in Wiltshire, Vincent entered the town at the head of about a thousand men, carrying sticks, and attempted to address them in the market-place. In May, the Chartist National Convention removed from London to Birmingham. There they were met by a mob of five thousand persons and conducted through the principal streets to the meeting-place.
Meanwhile, Great Britain was embroiled in another Oriental war. The despatch of Admiral Maitland and Captain Elliot to China to deal with the difficulties growing out of the English opium trade there only served to Chinese oppose opium trade make the situation more acute. In January, Emperor Taouk-Wang ordered Lin Tsiaseu, Viceroy of Houk Wang, to proceed to Canton to put a definite stop to the opium traffic. The peremptory instructions given to Commissioner Lin were "to cut off the fountain of evil, and if necessary to sink the British ships and to break their caldrons, since the hourly thought on the Emperor's part was to do away with opium forever." Within a week of Lin's arrival at Canton he issued an edict wherein he stigmatized the foreigners as a heartless people who thought only of trade and of making their way by stealth into the Flowery Land, whereas the laws of England, he asserted, English opium destroyed prohibited the smoking of opium in their own country. A demand was made to surrender to him all stores of opium within three days. To enforce this demand, Chinese troops were concentrated around the European settlement. Eventually more than 20,000 chests of opium were seized and dumped into the sea. After this triumph, Lin wrote a letter to Queen Victoria calling upon her government to interdict the importation of opium. At the same time a memorial was sent to England by the British merchants of Canton begging the government to protect them against "a capricious and corrupt government" and demanding compensation for the opium confiscated by the Chinese. On the part of the British Government no answer was vouchsafed to the demands of the viceroy. In China, matters took their course. Captain Elliot at Canton, British resentment on May 22, issued a notice in which he protested against the action of the Chinese Government "as utterly unjust per se," and advised all British merchants to withdraw to Hong Kong. The merchants acted on the suggestion, and the English factory at Canton, which had existed for nearly 200 years, was abandoned. The British sailors in Chinese waters threw off all restraint. Frequent collisions occurred between them and the natives. In one of them a Chinaman was killed. The Chinese viceroy denounced this act as "going to the extreme of disobedience to the laws" and demanded the Chinese orders defied surrender of the British sailor who perpetrated the murder. This demand was flatly refused. The Chinese thereupon refused to furnish further supplies to the ships and prohibited all British sailors from coming ashore on Chinese soil. The official notice said: "If any of the foreigners be found coming on shore to cause trouble, all and every one of the people are permitted to withstand and drive them back, or to make prisoners of them." The English naval officers retaliated by sending out their men to seize by Opening of hostilities force whatever they needed. A boat's crew of the British ship "Black Jack" was massacred. Thus hostilities began. Two British men-of-war exchanged shots with the forts in the Bogue. On November 3, the two frigates "Volage" and "Hyacinth" were attacked by twenty-nine junks-of-war off Chuenpee. A Sea fight off Chuenpee regular engagement was fought and four of the junks were sunk. On the news of the fight at Chuenpee, Emperor Taouk-Wang promoted the Chinese admiral. On December 6, an imperial edict prohibiting all trade with Great Britain British squadron sails for China was issued. Already a strong British squadron was on its way to China.
Simultaneously with these troubles the British had become embroiled in war with the Afghans. The ostensible purpose was to depose Dost Mohammed Khan from his usurpation of the throne of Afghanistan. In reality this chieftain had aroused the ire of England by entering into negotiations with Russia, War with Afghans after Lord Auckland had declined to call upon Runjit Singh to restore Peshawar to Afghanistan. When it was learned that a Russian mission had been received at Kabul, the British Government resolved to dethrone Dost Mohammed Khan and to restore Shah Shuja to the throne of Kabul. War was declared at Simla. Columns were sent out from Bombay and Bengal and were Fall of Kandahar united at Quetta under the command of Sir John Keene. Kandahar was captured in April. In July, Ghasni was taken by storm. It was on this occasion that Sir Henry Durand, then a young subaltern, distinguished himself by blowing British enter Kabul up the Ghasni gate. In August, the British entered Kabul. Dost Mohammed Khan fled over the Oxus into Bokhara. Shah Shuja was restored as ruler of Afghanistan under the tutelage of a British resident minister. In response to Dost Mohammed's appeals, the Russian Government sent out an expedition Failure of Russian counter move toward Khiva, in November; but the winter weather in the mountains was so severe that the expedition had to return.
Other problems engaged the attention of the British Colonial Office. A rebellion in Borneo had to be suppressed by force of arms. In Canada, the new Governor-General, Charles Pollot Thompson, later Lord Sydenham, found it difficult to carry out Durham's scheme of union. In November, martial law had to be declared again at Montreal. The reported discovery of gold British colonial problems by Count Strzelescki in New South Wales, and the discovery of copper in South Australia, drew great numbers of emigrants thither. New Zealand was incorporated in New South Wales. The wild financial speculations engendered by these changes plunged almost all of Australia into bankruptcy. In Cape Colony the public school system was introduced by Sir W. Herschel.
In England, it was a period of material advances in civilization. Postal reforms were introduced by Sir Roland Hill. In July, a bill for penny Industrial development postage was introduced in Parliament, resulting in a new postage law providing a uniform rate of fourpence per letter. New speed records were made on land and on water. While the steam packet "Britannia" crossed from Halifax to Liverpool in ten days, the locomotive "North Star" accomplished a run of thirty-seven miles in one hour. Wheatstone perfected his invention Charles Darwin of a telegraph clock. A patent was obtained for the process of obtaining water gas. Charles Darwin, having returned from his scientific travels on H.M.S. "Beagle," published his "Journal of Researches."
Death of Schelling A loss to German philosophic literature was the death of Joseph Schelling, whose theories formed the main inspiration of the romantic poet Novalis. Agassiz, the naturalist, published his original researches on fresh-water fishes.
Agassiz
It was then that Dr. Theodore Schwann, stimulated in his microscopic researches by the previous discoveries of Robert Brown, Johannes Müller and Schleiden, propounded the famous cell theory in his work, "Microscopic Schwann's cell theory Researches Concerning the Unity in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants." Schwann's book became a scientific classic almost from the moment of its publication. It was Schwann, too, who, simultaneously with Cagniard la Tour, discovered the active principle of gastric juice to be the substance which he named pepsin. The cell theory was for some time combated by the most eminent German men of science. Thus Liebig, in apparent Liebig's theory of fermentation agreement with Helmholtz, took a firm stand against the new doctrine with his famous "theory of fermentation" promulgated this same year.