ALBERT MEMORIAL, KENSINGTON GARDENS.
This monument, which is of marble, gold, bronze, and mosaic work, was designed by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, R.A., and is 175 feet high. The statue of the Prince, of bronze gilt, is by Foley. Above the arches runs this inscription: “Queen Victoria and her people to the memory of Albert, Prince Consort, as a tribute of their gratitude for a life devoted to the public good.” The cost of the Memorial exceeded £130,000.
|The Cruiser “Alabama.”|
ROYAL ALBERT HALL, KENSINGTON GORE.
So named in memory of the Prince Consort, whose Memorial it faces. It was opened by the Queen in 1871. The Hall itself is oval, 200 feet by 160 feet, and 140 feet high to the dome. It accommodates 10,000 persons, and cost £200,000.
The next controversy endangering friendly relations between the Governments of Queen Victoria and President Lincoln arose out of Confederate privateering. Many of the private dockyards of Great Britain were turning out vessels as fast as they could to sell to the Confederate leaders. One of these ships, the Alabama, built in Messrs. Laird’s yard at Birkenhead, became the terror of Federal commerce, having captured between sixty and seventy merchantmen in two years. At last she was sunk by the Federal ship-of-war Kearsarge, but her fame did not perish with her; it was the cause of an important alteration in international law. The fact is, the Alabama was, for all intents and purposes, an English pirate. Built and armed in England, most of her crew and all her gunners were English, some of the latter being actually in English pay, as belonging to the Royal Naval Reserve. She approached her prizes flying the British colours at her peak, and only hauled them down when her prey could not escape. She was constantly in English harbours, and never in a Confederate one. While she was being built at Birkenhead, the American Minister appealed in vain to the British Government to detain her under the Foreign Enlistment Act; she was allowed to go to sea. Later on, two ironclads were on the point of leaving the Mersey for the Confederate service. Again Mr. Adams, the American Minister, demanded their detention, adding in his letter to Lord Russell, “it would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war.” The ironclads were detained, but President Lincoln, Earl Russell, and Lord Palmerston had all passed away before the dispute about the Alabama was brought to a close. The American civil war had ended, General Grant was President of the United States, and Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister of England, when the question came up for final settlement. When it had been raised first, Lord Palmerston’s Government had refused to admit any responsibility; then followed Lord Derby’s third administration in 1866, and Lord Stanley as Foreign Secretary consented to the proposal for arbitration. But the introduction of various claims on the part of private individuals, arising out of events long antecedent to the civil war caused the postponement of any agreement until the year 1871. Each nation then appointed a Commission to meet at Washington to discuss all the subjects of international controversy, of which the Alabama claims were the principal. The British Commissioners were Earl de Grey (the present Marquis of Ripon), Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Earl of Iddesleigh), Mr. Montague Bernard, Sir Edward Thornton, British Ambassador at Washington, and Sir John Macdonald, Prime Minister of the Canadian Parliament. The Conference resulted in the Treaty of Washington, of which the opening clause gave occasion to considerable resentment in the minds of the British public. It was no less than an apology—dignified but explicit—on the part of the Queen’s Government, for having permitted the escape of the Alabama and other cruisers from British ports, to the injury of American commerce. England, it was loudly protested, had never apologised to any other Power; she would never had been so humiliated had “Old Pam” remained at the head of affairs; the whole British case had been given away before the matter got to the stage of arbitration. So said the British Press, and so said a large section of the public. However, Great Britain having professed herself ready to pay something to secure the friendship of President Grant’s Government, the claims went before a tribunal of five arbitrators, of whom one was appointed by Queen Victoria, and one each by President Grant, the King of Italy, the Emperor of Brazil, and the President of the Swiss Confederation. This tribunal assembled at Geneva in 1872, and decreed that Great Britain should pay an indemnity of £3,250,000 for the acts of the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers. The fine was paid, but the impression produced on the minds of the British people cannot be said to have been favourable to the doctrine of arbitration. It was felt that John Bull had been made to “knuckle down” to Brother Jonathan, and the amicable intentions of the British Commissioners at Washington of promoting cordial relations between the British and American peoples were frustrated almost as thoroughly as they might have been had the dispute been fought out in the ordinary way.
