The Peninsula of Aden was added to Her Majesty’s dominions by conquest in 1839. Its situation at the mouth of the Red Sea, on the direct route to India and the East, makes it invaluable as a coaling-station both for naval and mercantile purposes. In this district rain falls only about once in three years. The town is supplied with wells and storage tanks cut in the solid rock, the construction of which cost over £1,000,000.
In November 1839 the miners of the Newport district of Monmouthshire assembled to the number of 10,000 under a tradesman called Frost and attempted to release from gaol one Vincent, who had been imprisoned for using seditious language. |Riots at Newport and elsewhere.| The mayor and magistrates of Newport, with a handful of soldiers, offered a gallant resistance; the rioters were dispersed with a loss of ten killed and fifty wounded, the mayor, Mr. Phillips, receiving two gunshot wounds. Frost and two others were afterwards convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. But the dawn of milder methods of government had begun: the death sentence was commuted by the Royal mercy to one of transportation for life: even that was subsequently relaxed, and Frost was allowed to return to England some years later to find himself and the Chartists an unquiet memory of the past.
But in spite of the punishment of the Newport rioters, and hundreds of others in different places, Chartism continued to spread until it became merged in the more intelligent and fruitful agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Hume Nisbet.]
“WILLIAM FAWCETT,” THE FIRST P. & O. STEAMSHIP, IN THE GUT OF GIBRALTAR, 1837.
This was the first steamer employed in carrying mails to the Peninsular ports in 1837. Tonnage, 206; horse-power, 60.
This great question was brought under the consideration of Parliament, in the session of 1839, by Lord Brougham in the Lords on February 18, and the following day by Mr. Charles Villiers in the Commons; but the motion for inquiry was negatived without a division in the former and by a majority of 189 in the latter. Both Parliament and country, however, were to hear plenty about the Corn Duties in the next few years.
The Whig Ministry were now approaching the end of their second year of office, and steadily losing favour in the country. They had earned the enmity of the Chartists by their apathy to further reform; and the novel advantage of Royal confidence in and affection for a Whig Prime Minister did not affect the general drift of middle-class opinion. Meanwhile, Peel was indefatigable on the platform securing popular support for the new Conservatism.
Drifting thus helplessly in the doldrums of unpopularity the Government suddenly foundered on April 9, the immediate cause being a Bill for the suspension of the Constitution of Jamaica. |Fall of the Ministry.| The second reading was carried, indeed, by a majority of five; but the resignation of the Ministry was immediately placed in Her Majesty’s hands and accepted. It put an end to an intolerable situation. Three days before the division Greville wrote in his diary: “The Government is at its last gasp: the result of the debate next week may possibly prolong its existence, as a cordial does that of a dying man, but it cannot go on. They are disunited, dissatisfied, and disgusted in the Cabinet.”