[77] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 230-231.
[78] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 230.
[79] This great inventor and armourer had been offered £10,000 a year for life by Napoleon III. if he would go to France and manufacture his new cannon exclusively for the French. The offer was refused from patriotic motives, which was perhaps the reason why the British Government never could be got to behave as fairly to Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Whitworth’s guns as to those produced by the engineers in the employment of Mr. (afterwards Sir W.) Armstrong at Elswick.
[80] The growth of the Volunteer Force was striking. The army sneered at it, and in December, 1859, it was in a sickly condition. In March, 1860, to the surprise and delight of the Queen it had grown to be 70,000 strong, and at a levee she held for volunteer officers, 2,500 were presented to her. Before the end of the summer the force had increased to 180,000 men, and at the close of the year it had grown to be 200,000, and this, too, in spite of the fact that the recruits had to make their first acquaintance with military duties in a spring and summer notable for stormy and inclement weather.
[81] Canada had fitted out a regiment of infantry for the war.
[82] William IV. was pressed hard by his illegitimate son, the Earl of Munster, to make him Governor-General of Australasia. He always refused, for dynastic reasons—alleging that it was not prudent to create princely viceroys.
[83] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVIII.
[84] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, ibid.
[85] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CI.
[86] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVI.