Two other personal questions marked the history of Parliament during the year. Lord Robert Cecil carried a resolution virtually censuring Mr. Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke), the Vice-President of the Council, for cutting out of the Reports of Inspectors of Schools all views which were not in accordance with his own. Mr. Lowe resigned, Mr. H. A. Bruce being appointed in his place. But subsequently the report of a Committee exculpated Mr. Lowe, and the Resolution which censured him, was, on Lord Palmerston’s motion, rescinded. The other personal discussion arose out of a curious oversight by which five under-secretaries were placed in the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli showed very clearly that, according to law, only four Secretaries of State and four under-secretaries could sit in the Representative Chamber, and the Prime Minister had in consequence to redistribute the Ministerial offices so as to meet the requirements of the Statute. A Select Committee reported that this breach of the law did not vacate the seats of any of these officials, but the House passed a Bill of Indemnity releasing them from any penalty that might possibly attach to the violation of the established practice.
Parliament was prorogued by Commission on the 29th of July, and it left the country satisfied with its relations to Foreign Powers and in a state of expectancy as to domestic reforms. The Eastern Question was virtually in abeyance in 1864, the ruler of the Danubian principalities having formed a government on the basis of a revolution organised on a Napoleonic model. The Ionian Islands were formally ceded by England to Greece. Russia was stamping out the last embers of the Polish insurrection, and she had still further ingratiated herself with the Polish peasants by the Imperial Ukase of the 6th of March, which released them from the oppressive rights of their landlords. Circassia was annexed, and the tide of Russian expansion was beginning to set in the direction of Central Asia. France and Italy by a convention signed at Paris, had come to an agreement, first, that French troops should quit Rome, and that Italy should pledge herself to respect the territory of the Holy See. At the same time Italy resolved to transfer her capital from Turin to Florence, the reason being that Florence was less exposed to an attack from France or Austria. The French Emperor had the good fortune in the course of the year to see his protégé, the Archduke Maximilian crowned in the Mexican capital, and the Latin Empire of the West recognised by the chief European Powers. The Government of the United States withheld its recognition, but the House of Representatives at Washington on the 5th of April passed a resolution declaring that the people of the United States would never recognise a Monarchy under the protection of a European Power, which had been established in the Western Hemisphere on the ruins of an American Republic.
But the truth is, that after the defeat of the War Party on the Danish Question, the English people in 1864 felt little interest in any foreign affairs save the Civil War in the United States, which is, however, hardly a foreign nation to Englishmen. They followed every phase of that struggle as closely as if it had been one of their own. The commercial community had good reason for doing so. Cotton was the favourite article for gambling with, and, when prices had risen to their highest point, suddenly rumours flew round to the effect that the war was coming to an end. Both sides were said to be tired of strife, and even Republican organs and orators began to hint that the end of Mr. Lincoln’s term of office in March, 1865, and the election of a new President in November, 1864, offered a good opportunity for a truce to hostilities. The Democratic Party were in favour of assembling a Convention of all the States to argue the points at issue between North and South, and everybody began to talk as if the Southern ports would soon be open. The price of cotton and the prices of other staples that had risen with it fell at once, and speculators for the rise were ruined. In September the pressure on the Money Market was enormously increased. The Leeds Bank failed; general distrust prevailed as to all financial institutions; and the Bank of England raised its rate of discount to 9 per cent. But when the weak and unstable firms were eliminated, low prices began to rule and attract buyers once again, and at the end of the year confidence revived, and the Bank rate dropped to 6 per cent. The wavering and tortuous policy of the Cabinet during the Danish Conference certainly produced one panic in the City during the early part of the year. Till spring let loose the dogs of war in America, the Northern and Southern armies were inactive. In April the rank of Lieutenant-General was conferred by Congress on General Grant, who took supreme command of all the Federal forces. He resolved to conduct the campaign in Virginia, while to General Sherman was entrusted the command of the Western army on the southern frontier of Tennessee. In the beginning of May both forces made their first move. On the 3rd of May Grant resolved to strike at Richmond, and he sent Meade with his main body over the Rapidan, so that he might gain the shelter of the wooded country south of Chancellorsville before General Lee, who covered Richmond, could attack him. Lee, however, foiled this movement by his prompt attack of the 5th and 6th of May, during which days the battle of Chancellorsville raged without ceasing. The Confederate Generals Longstreet and Jenkins fell in this fight, the result of which was not quite decisive. On former occasions, when Burnside and Hooker met with such an attack, they had shrunk from proceeding farther on the road to Richmond. But Grant was undaunted by the losses he had suffered, and persistently pressed Lee by flanking movements, which drove him back step by step. In Grant’s
THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND.
own words, he kept “pegging away” till, on the 19th of May, Lee, by an artful feigned attack on the Federal right, was able to effect a retreat with his main army to a position twenty miles in front of Richmond. Grant’s losses during these ten days were enormous. On the 16th of May 33,800 of his wounded were under treatment in the hospitals in various parts of the country. Lee’s position on the right was covered by a swamp, and on the left by a rivulet. His front was defended by a curved line of works, the convexity of which projected forward. Grant’s object was now to get between Lee and Richmond. Lee’s object was to compel Grant to attack him before he could reach Richmond, and, as he could always move on a smaller arc than that on which Grant had to manœuvre, the strategic advantage was with Lee. He could always keep his face to the foe, and have the lines of Richmond in his rear as a refuge. On the line of the Chickahominy, attack followed counter-attack, but it was observed that in every instance the attacking party failed, for the configuration of the country enabled troops to entrench themselves easily. In June Grant suddenly changed his plans, and
GENERAL SHERMAN.