to the Rappahannock, undertook to advance on Richmond—a movement which was partly forced on him by the Government at Washington, in order to redeem the prestige it had lost through McClellan’s failures. On the 13th of December he was defeated by Lee with great slaughter at Fredericksburg, the news of this victory creating much excitement in England. This ended the campaign for the year. New Orleans was all that the Federals had to show for two years’ campaigns. Their invasion of Virginia was rolled back, and the partisans of the Southern States in England pointed to this fact as a proof that the Union could never be restored by force. In the Northern States the Abolitionist faction had now absorbed the Republican Party. Slavery was abolished in the district of Columbia, and Lincoln was induced to say that he was now ready to restore the Union with or without slavery. Finally he issued his proclamation on the 22nd of September, declaring that he would recommend Congress to pass a Bill to free all slaves in rebel States. In England the proclamation was sneered at as an act of confiscation, and Lord Russell sent a despatch to Lord Lyons, scoffing at it with ill-concealed malice as “a measure of war, and a measure of war of a very questionable character.” The naval operations of the belligerents also gave Lord Russell several opportunities for controversy. He waxed very indignant over the blockade of Charleston harbour, where the Federals had sunk ships loaded with ballast. In January the Confederate cruiser Nashville, after preying on American commerce, ran into Southampton Water for repairs. Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, warned Lord Russell that her conduct had been almost piratical, to which Lord Russell replied that as she bore the commission of a recognised belligerent she would be allowed to make such necessary repairs as would not increase her fighting power, and that care would be taken to prevent the Foreign Enlistment Act from being infringed. The excitement created by the Trent affair was dying out, when the country was startled to find a United States cruiser, Tuscarora, moored in Itchen Creek, and watching the Nashville. Her officers and men were accused of prowling suspiciously close to the Nashville, and people began to ask if the Government was going to tolerate such an outrage as a naval engagement in an English creek. Lord Russell warned Mr. Adams that Captain Craven of the Tuscarora must respect our neutrality, and that whichever ship left first must have twenty-four hours’ “law” before the other was allowed to follow. H.M.S. Dauntless and Shannon were sent to Southampton to overawe Captain Craven, who ultimately put to sea. The Nashville followed, and thus escaped her antagonist.
A more romantic and perplexing case was that of a British ship, the Emilie St. Pierre. She had sailed from Calcutta for St. John’s, New Brunswick, and had gone to Charleston to see if the port was blockaded. The Federal cruiser, James Adger, seized her, and put a prize crew on board. The skipper of the Emilie St. Pierre—a Scotsman called Wilson—aided by the cook and steward, one morning overpowered the prize crew and their officers by a clever stratagem, and after escaping many dangers brought the ship safely into Liverpool on the 31st of April. Wilson for the moment was the idol of the seafaring population, and Mr. Adams, somewhat nettled at the defeat of the prize crew, demanded the surrender of the vessel. Lord Russell refused, alleging that the Government had no legal power to seize her, or “interfere with her owners in relation to their property in her.”
These controversies rather embittered the relations between Americans and Englishmen in this country. It was therefore most gratifying to the Queen to learn that a kind-hearted citizen of the United States, whose princely charity has endeared his memory to the English-speaking race, had bestowed on the poor of London a gift of surpassing munificence. Mr. George Peabody had a high reputation as a merchant in the City, where his generosity and courageous use of his credit had saved many firms from ruin in the financial crisis of 1857. In the spring of 1862 he made over to Trustees the sum of £150,000, to be applied for the benefit of the poor of London, his only stipulation being, that the management and application of the fund should be free from all sectarian bias. He did not limit the discretion of the Trustees, though he suggested that they would best spend the money in providing improved dwellings for the people. His ideas were not quite carried out, for the blocks of buildings erected by the Peabody Trustees were soon occupied, not by the poor of London, but by the lower middle class, who were not meant by Mr. Peabody to participate in the benefits of his gift.
The 1st of May had been fixed for the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862, and the ceremony was a somewhat mournful one. The sable liveries of the lackeys who appeared in the grand procession served to remind the people of the late Prince Consort, who had been the life and soul of the project. His place was taken by the Duke of Cambridge and the Crown Prince of Prussia, who was associated with him by the special request of the Queen, as one of her representatives. South Kensington was crowded with sightseers, and it was admitted that the ceremonial was one of the most imposing pageants that had ever been witnessed. To the daïs, where the formal business of inauguration was transacted, none but persons in uniform were admitted, and the scene was therefore bright with rich masses of colour, glittering with the flashing jewels of knightly Orders and military decorations. When the Duke of Cambridge and the other Special Commissioners had taken their seats, the National Anthem was sung, and Earl Granville, as the representative of the Exhibition Commissioners, placed an address to the Queen in the hands of his Royal Highness. To this the Duke replied, alluding in touching terms to the death of the Prince Consort, and to the affliction which had prostrated the Queen with sorrow. The brilliant procession then slowly filed down from the daïs to the eastern dome, where Meyerbeer’s Overture en forme de Marche, written for the occasion, was performed, and Tennyson’s fine ode, set to music by Professor Sterndale Bennett, was given. Its allusions to Prince Albert went home to every heart:—
“O silent father of our Kings to be,
Mourn’d in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee!
The world-compelling plan was thine,
And lo! the long laborious miles
Of Palace: lo! the giant aisles,
Rich in model and design”—
were lines that gave expression to the feeling of the country with rare felicity and power. It was admitted on all hands that the building of the new Exhibition was far grander and far larger than that of 1851. But on the other hand the witchery of the Palace, with its walls of crystal and its strong flood of diffused light, had vanished. The roof and walls of the new building were solid, and these and the windows “factory-patterned,” as a singer in Punch called them, destroyed the sensation of unconfined space which one felt on entering the Crystal Palace of 1851, and which gave to that structure its magical charm.
THE EXHIBITION BUILDING OF 1862.
On the 14th of June the Prince of Wales, who had completed the Eastern tour that had been planned for him by his father, returned to England. He had left Osborne on the 6th of February with General Bruce and a carefully selected suite, of whom Dr. A. P. Stanley (afterwards Dean of Westminster), who joined him at Alexandria, was a member. On the 1st of March he landed at Alexandria, where, despite his incognito as Baron Renfrew, he was saluted with Royal honours. At Cairo he enjoyed the hospitality of the Viceroy of Egypt, and on the 4th of March left the city for the Pyramids, which were reached just as the mysterious outline of the Sphinx was vanishing in the fading light of sunset. At dawn the Prince ascended the Great Pyramid without assistance, much to the amazement of the Bedouins, who asked, sceptically, “Is that the Governor? If so, why does he go alone?” The party then went up the Nile as far as the First Cataract, viewing the Temple at Esneh by torchlight. After Assouan and its antiquities were explored, the Prince returned down the river, halting three days at Thebes, where he met the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg. On the 21st of March a tournament between some Arnauts and Arab chiefs was held; then Memphis was visited, and Cairo again reached on the 23rd. After some other excursions the Prince proceeded to Jerusalem, which he entered on the 31st of March. He was received by the