[304] Wilberforce was subsequently promoted to the See of Winchester. But Chelmsford’s sneer was unjust. Wilberforce thought honestly that the nation having decided the question of immediate Disestablishment and Disendowment, delay would simply damage the interests of the Irish Church, and provoke a futile conflict with the people. Hence he voted against this amendment.—See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., pp. 287-289, and Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 408.
[305] It is not generally known that the repeal of the shilling duty on corn, as indeed many of the ideas on which Mr. Lowe based his Budget were suggested to him by the late Mr. Stanley Jevons. “Having been consulted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” writes Mrs. Jevons, “as to the pressure of taxation upon different classes of the people, Mr. Jevons sent to him on the 13th of March a report which he had prepared with much care. The result of his inquiries was, that the artisan, with only a moderate use of beer and tobacco, was less heavily taxed than the classes above or below him, but that the labourer, if he only moderately indulged in stimulants, was rather the most heavily taxed of any class in proportion to his income. Mr. Jevons, therefore, recommended the repeal of the remaining duty of a shilling a quarter on corn, which he believed formed an appreciable burden of about one per cent. of income upon the very poorest class on the borders of pauperism.” Another proposal of Mr. Lowe’s for re-coining the gold currency, owing to the defective weight of the coins in circulation, was also suggested by Mr. Jevons.—See Letters and Journals of W. Stanley Jevons, edited by his Wife (Macmillan, 1886), pp. 245-248.
[306] According to Lord Hartington’s measure the purchase-money came to £6,750,000.
[307] They even retreated from the position of Lord Russell, who very properly refused to admit to arbitration any question as to the right of England to recognise the South as a belligerent Power—a concession which was not only an abject surrender of Sovereign rights, but ultra vires on the part of any Minister.
[308] It was to some extent ignored at the time that for much of the damage done to American commerce the Federal Navy was to blame. It afforded the most meagre protection to the American mercantile marine. Though it was known a few days after its escape that the Sumter was roaming in West Indian waters, yet off none of the ports it visited during the next two months was there a Federal war-ship waiting to sink it. The Alabama did most damage at the points which one would have thought would be swarming with prowling Federal cruisers, namely, the Azores, the crossing of the Gulf Stream, the Brazilian Coast, the “calm belts,” where ships from the South cross the tropics at the Cape, and in the China seas. Yet in none of these quarters was Captain Semmes attacked or waited for. Captain Semmes admits in “My Adventures Afloat,” that but for the gross negligence and incompetence of the United States Naval Department he could not have done the damage he did. The admission discounts much of the argument in favour of supplying swift, unarmoured cruisers in war time.
[309] The Senate was to be assembled to pass Bills which the Opposition had demanded. The Legislative Body was to control the Budget. Independent Members were to be allowed to initiate Bills. Ministers, though not responsible actually to the Legislature, would be allowed to sit in it.
[310] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 211.
[311] Carlyle’s Life in London, by J. A. Froude, Vol. III., p. 380.
[312] The speeches on this occasion were all good or eccentric. Mr. Motley, the United States Minister, for example, said of Mr. Peabody, “That fortunate as well as most generous of men has discovered a secret for which misers might sigh in vain—the art of keeping a great fortune for himself through all time. For I have often thought in this connection of that famous epitaph inscribed on the monument of an old Earl of Devonshire commonly called the Good Earl of Devonshire—‘What I spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave away remains with me.’” When Mr. Story’s turn came to address the company he pointed to his statue, and merely said “That is my speech.”
[313] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 221. For a detailed description of the excursions, see More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands, pp. 116-147.