The Queen approves the intended increase of Artillery and Sappers and Miners; but hopes that these will be taken from the nominal and not the existing strength of the Army.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
TO CHAPTER XXV
After two years' duration, the Crimean War was terminated in March 1856, at a Conference of the Powers assembled at Paris, by a treaty the principal terms of which provided for the integrity of Turkey, and her due participation in the public law and system of Europe, the neutralisation of the Black Sea, and the opening of its waters to commerce (with the interdiction, except in a limited degree, of the flag of war of any nation, and of the erection by either Russia or Turkey of arsenals), free navigation of the Danube, cession of a portion of Bessarabia by Russia, and the reciprocal evacuation of invaded territories; the Principalities to be continued in their existing privileges under the suzerainty of the Porte and a guarantee of the Contracting Powers. No European protectorate was to be established over the Sultan's Christian subjects. Certain general principles of International Law were also agreed upon. In the course of the summer, the Guards made a public re-entry into London; and the Crimea was finally evacuated; great reviews of the returned troops taking place at Aldershot. The thanks of Parliament were accorded to the soldiers and sailors engaged, and peace-rejoicings celebrated on a great scale.
The Commissioners who had been sent out, nearly a year before, to the Crimea, to investigate the causes of the breakdown in various military departments, presented a Report, censuring several high officials; a Military Commission was accordingly appointed to investigate the Report, and after sitting for some months at Chelsea, completely exonerated the officials in question.
The Government having resolved to strengthen the administration of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, Letters Patent were made out purporting to create Sir James Parke, an ex-Judge, a Baron for his life, under the title of Lord Wensleydale. After frequent and protracted debates on this question, the Peers decided that such a patent conferred no right to sit and vote in Parliament. The Government gave up the contest by creating Sir James (who had no son) a hereditary peer.
The Czar Alexander was crowned at Moscow in September with great ceremonial, the Sultan being duly represented, while Lord Granville was present as special Ambassador for the Queen. The discovery of the cruelty with which political offenders were being treated in Neapolitan prisons led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between England in union with France on the one hand, and King Ferdinand on the other; while a dispute as to the enlistment of recruits for the English Army in the United States led to the dismissal of the British Minister at Washington, and to temporary friction between the two countries.
The provisions of the Treaty of Paris were not carried out without considerable procrastination on the part of Russia, which, by its method of evacuating Kars and surrendering Ismail and Reni, and by laying claim to Serpent's Island at the mouth of the Danube, compelled England to send a fleet to the Black Sea, to enforce strict observance of the Treaty. By the end of the year the matter was arranged, though in the meantime the possibility of Great Britain being represented at the Czar's coronation had been imperilled.
The abuses which had long existed in the Government of Oudh induced the Governor-General of India, early in the year, to issue a proclamation placing that kingdom permanently under the authority of the British Crown. Lord Dalhousie at this time retired from the office (which he had held for eight years) of Governor-General, and was succeeded by Lord Canning. It fell to the lot of the latter to announce the commencement of hostilities between this country and Persia, on the ground that the latter was endeavouring, in defiance of Treaties, to subvert the independence of Herat. The Shah had laid siege to the town, when, in December, the English fleet, under Admiral Sir Henry Leeke, attacked and captured Bushire on the Persian Gulf. Soon afterwards, Sir James Outram arrived on the scene from Bombay, and assumed the command.