Lord Palmerston’s funeral took place in Westminster Abbey, accompanied by every mark of respect and honour. The arrangements made for filling up the vacancies in the Cabinet which were caused by his death were simple. Earl Russell was called upon by the Queen to assume the post of Premier. The Earl of Clarendon, then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Chichester Fortescue was made Secretary for Ireland in place of Sir Robert Peel, who had always warned his colleagues he would join the Tories after Palmerston’s death. The office of Under-Secretary for the Colonies was conferred upon Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P. for Bradford. Mr. Heath resigned the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade, in which he was succeeded by Mr. Goschen. The important position of Leader of the Government in the House of Commons devolved upon Mr. Gladstone, who had found a seat in Lancashire. His financial genius had vastly added to the prestige of Lord Palmerston’s Ministry, and his commanding intellect and fascinating oratorical power had long before marked him out for the leadership.
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, DUBLIN (1865).
Two evil incidents marred the latter portion of the year. These were the outbreak of the cattle disease which became known as “rinderpest,” in England and Scotland, and the development of the Fenian conspiracy in Ireland. Down to the middle of December 5,000 cases of “rinderpest” had occurred, and most of them had ended fatally. The plague, it is true, was disappearing in some districts, but in others its ravages were increasing, and a Royal Commission recommended that all movement of cattle in the country should be stopped for a time. Local authorities in many cases suspended fairs and markets.
The history of Ireland after the resignation of Lord Aberdeen was summed up in the administration of Coercion Acts that were rendered necessary by outrages which a peasantry infuriated by land clearances and rack-rents perpetrated. For a time the policy of eviction and emigration went on unresisted. In 1854 the rebels of ’48 were amnestied, but when they came back they found that Irishmen regarded them rather as reactionaries than rebels. As had always been the case in Ireland, the pendulum of public opinion had now swung over from Anti-Unionism to Separatism. The failure of ’48, the triumph of the evicting landlords, the progressive poverty of the people, the treachery of leaders like Sadlier and Keogh, who were bought up by the Whigs, disgusted Irishmen with Parliamentary agitation. The Fenian conspiracy was the outcome of this feeling. It originated among victims of the famine clearances, and among some of the men of ’48. It was introduced into Ireland during the Indian Mutiny by Mr. James Stephen, when it was known as the Phœnix Society. One of his first converts was a Jeremiah Donovan, of Skibbereen, who afterwards dubbed himself O’Donovan Rossa. He in turn, induced ninety out of the hundred members of the Skibbereen Club to join his band. That Society could hardly have conducted its proceedings with much secrecy at this time, for it was soon denounced from every altar in the country. The Lord-Lieutenant, however, proclaimed it, and there and then elevated the Phœnix plotters to the dignity of national heroes. The leaders were arrested, and on pleading guilty were released with admonition. But over the Atlantic the Society had taken firmer root among the victims of evicting landlords, as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. Yet even there it would have probably perished from the opposition of the priests and the advocates of open agitation, but for the cleverness with which its leaders made capital out of the famous McManus funeral. McManus, one of the most amiable and highly respected members of the Young Ireland Party, had, after his escape from Van Diemen’s Land, settled in California, where he died. It was resolved by his compatriots to exhume his body and convey it to Ireland for burial. The route of the funeral, from San Francisco to Dublin, was naturally at every stage the scene of a patriotic Irish demonstration, and by adroit management the Fenian leaders had contrived to get control of all the arrangements, so that the reflected prestige of this impressive and imposing demonstration of Irish nationalism went to their credit. In Ireland the Society was soon considered to be the only one that had any real power to help the people, and after the McManus funeral it grew apace. In 1862 it announced at Chicago its intention of establishing Irish independence by armed force, and its organ—the Irish People—was founded in Dublin by Messrs. John O’Leary, Thomas Clark Luby, and Charles James Kickham. For two years the Society was permitted to carry on its propaganda. Then in September, 1865, Luby, O’Leary, Kickham, and Stephens were arrested. Ten days after their capture Stephens escaped from jail by aid of his gaolers, who were also Fenians. In November the others were tried for treason-felony, and sentenced to penal servitude for terms varying from ten to twenty years. The organisation then became a small club in New York, whose leaders quarrelled amongst themselves. They enjoyed a fictitious importance for a time, because the Democratic Party and partisans of the Southern States, invariably professed Fenian sympathies when contesting State elections.
Two Colonial disputes gave the Government of the day some trouble before the end of the year. The Assembly of Victoria tried to pass a Protective Tariff over the veto of the Council, by tacking it on to the Bill granting the supplies for the year. The Council held to its veto. The Government was thus left without money for the public service, and affairs came to a deadlock. In the circumstances the Governor, Sir Charles Darling, cut the knot of the difficulty by allowing his Ministers to raise money under the sanction of resolutions passed by the Assembly, or representative branch of the Legislature. He also entered into an ingenious arrangement with a bank in Melbourne. The law forbade voluntary payments from the Treasury which were not authorised by an Appropriation Bill. But the bank made advances to the Treasury, and then sued it for recovery. The Treasury of course confessed judgment when sued, and thus the law was evaded.
An outbreak of negroes in Jamaica had been suppressed with great vigour by Governor Eyre. But it was soon suspected that he had mistaken a riot for a revolution, and that the local authorities had acted in violation of law, and with callous disregard of the dictates of humanity. Eyre was suspended, and a Royal Commission was sent out at the end of the year to report on the occurrence.
Though the Queen remained in close seclusion during 1865, she gave more than one token of the vigilance with which she watched popular interests. The year 1864 was famous for the number and the serious character of its railway accidents, and yet it was hopeless to expect a Palmerstonian Parliament to compel the railway companies to improve their management. In the circumstances, it occurred to the Queen that she might effect some good by using her moral influence on behalf of the travelling public, and she accordingly directed the following letter to be sent to the chief companies just as the year opened:—
“Sir Charles Phipps has received the commands of her Majesty the Queen to call the attention of the directors of the —— to the increasing number of accidents which have lately occurred upon different lines of railroad, and to express her Majesty’s warmest hope that the directors of the —— will carefully consider every means of guarding against these misfortunes, which are not at all the necessary accompaniments of railway travelling. It is not for her own safety that the Queen has wished to provide in thus calling the attention of the Company to the late disasters. Her Majesty is aware that when she travels extraordinary precautions are taken, but it is on account of her family, of those travelling upon her service, and of her