The successful ambition of Louis Napoleon and his power over the French army, began to excite the fears of Europe with regard to French aggression, and a renewal of the desolating wars of the beginning of the century; before the talk about the Exhibition and the triumphs of peace had well died on men's lips. The Government was anxious to fall back on the old resource of calling out the militia, with certain modifications and changes—brought before Parliament in the form of a Militia Bill. It did not meet with the approval of the members any more than of the Duke of Wellington, whose experience gave his opinion much weight. Lord Palmerston spoke with great ability against the measure. The end was that the Government suffered a defeat, and the Ministry resigned office in February, 1852. This time Lord Derby was successful in forming a new Cabinet, in which Mr. Disraeli was Chancellor of the Exchequer. A fresh Militia Bill was brought forward and carried by the new Government, after it had received the warm advocacy of the Duke of Wellington. The old man spoke in its favour with an amount of vigour and clear-headedness which showed that however his bodily strength might be failing, his mental power remained untouched.
CHAPTER XXI.
DISASTERS—YACHTING TRIPS—THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
The month of February, 1852, was unhappily distinguished by three great English calamities, accompanied by extensive loss of life. The first was the destruction of the West India mail steamer Amazon by fire, as she was entering the Bay of Biscay, in which a hundred and forty persons perished, among them Eliot Warburton, the accomplished traveller and author.
The second was the wreck of her Majesty's troop-ship Birkenhead near the Cape of Good Hope, with the loss of upwards of four hundred lives, in circumstances when the discipline and devotion of the men were of the noblest description. The third was the bursting of the Bilberry Reservoir in midland England, with the sacrifice of nearly a hundred lives and a large amount of property.
When the season commenced, and it was this year, as last, particularly gay, a reflection of the general prosperity of the country, with the high hopes inspired by the Australian gold-fields, the Queen wrote to the King of the Belgians in order to re-assure him with regard to a fear which seems to have arisen in the elderly man's mind, that she whom he remembered at the beginning of her reign as fond of pleasure and untiring in her amusements, might be swept away in the tide. "Allow me just to say one word about the London season. The London season for us consists of two State balls and two concerts. (The State balls and concerts are given to this day, though her Majesty, since her widowhood, has ceased to attend them. The Queen's place and that of Prince Albert in these social gaieties, have been naturally taken by the Prince and Princess of Wales.) We are hardly ever later than twelve o'clock at night, and our only dissipation is going three or four times a week to the play or opera, which is a great amusement and relaxation to us both. As for going out as people do here every night, to balls and parties, and to breakfasts and teas all day long besides, I am sure no one would stand it worse than I should; so you see, dearest uncle, that in fact the London season is nothing to us."
So much higher, and more solid and lasting, as they should have been, were the pursuits and gratifications of the woman, the wife and mother, than of the young girl.
The Queen added that the only one who was fagged was the Prince, and that from business and not pleasure, a result which made her often anxious and unhappy. Indeed, this suspicion of precarious health on Prince Albert's part was the cloud the size of a man's hand that kept hovering on the horizon in the summer sky.
Parliament was prorogued and dissolved at the same time at an unusually early date, the first of July, so that the season itself came to a speedy end.
Before the Queen left London, she was present at the baptism and stood sponsor for the young Hindoo Princess Gouromma, the pale, dark, slender girl whose picture looks down on the visitor at Buckingham Palace. She had been brought to England by her father, the Rajah of Coorg, a high-caste Hindoo, who desired that she should be brought up a Christian. He was one of the princes of Northern India, whose inheritance had become a British possession. He lived at Benares under the control of the East India Company, and had an allowance from Government as well as a large private fortune. The little princess was the same age as the Princess Royal, eleven years. She was the daughter of the Rajah's favourite wife, who had died immediately after the infant's birth. The ceremony took place in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace. The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated. Besides the Queen, the sponsors were Lady Hardinge, Mr. Drummond, and Sir James Weir Hogg, the chairman of the East India Company. The little girl received the name "Victoria." The Rajah returned soon afterwards to India.