tion. Comparing Lord Palmerston with Mr. Disraeli, he thought the latter would be quite as desirable upon the Treasury bench.

The veteran Premier defended himself against this vehement attack with the skill and adroitness which his thorough knowledge of Parliament, his tact, bonhomie, and cheerful elasticity of temper, rendered habitual and natural to him. He urged that if his zeal in the cause of Reform appeared to have grown somewhat cold, he was therein only reflecting faithfully the general feeling of the House, while the House no less faithfully reflected the general feeling in the country. As to economy, he could, of course, urge the continual rise in the costliness of national armaments, owing to the invention of new engines of destruction, and maintain that to spend money on fortifying the points where it was vulnerable to attack, was, in fact, a nation's best and truest economy. On the delicate question of the state of parties and Conservative support he said little, and that little was eminently judicious and discreet.

About this time the Alabama escaped from the Mersey through a want of vigilance on the part of the British authorities; and, inasmuch as her evasion led to such momentous consequences, we propose to narrate in some detail the circumstances connected with that event. There can be no doubt that, on the part of those who ordered and paid for her, the Alabama was intended from the first for a Confederate vessel of war. She was a steamer of about 900 tons burden, with long raking masts, and engines of 300 horse-power, being evidently designed rather as a scourge of Federal commerce than to encounter Federal cruisers. Her armament consisted of eight guns—six 32-pounders in broadside, and two pivot guns amidships, one of which was a rifled 100-pounder Blakeley gun. She was built in the yard of the Messrs. Laird, Birkenhead. Of course, her armament was not put into her till after she had left the Mersey. But that she was being built and fitted for a vessel of war no one who knew anything about naval architecture could doubt. Indeed, the matter was notorious at Liverpool, where the sympathies of the mercantile community ran strongly in favour of the Confederates. While she was building much correspondence passed between the Federal consul at Liverpool and his Government and the American minister in London; but Mr. Adams desired to wait until he could lay before Earl Russell sufficient evidence to justify him in attaching the vessel and prosecuting the builders under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Meantime, on the 15th May, the vessel was launched under the name of the "290."

On the 23rd June, Mr. Adams thought that he had acquired sufficient proof. On that day he wrote to Earl Russell, saying that a new and powerful vessel was being fitted out at Liverpool "for the especial and manifest object of carrying on hostilities by sea," and soliciting such action as might "tend either to stop the projected expedition, or to establish the fact that its purpose is not inimical to the people of the United States." Before replying, Earl Russell obtained a report on the subject from the Customs department at Liverpool, which, on the 4th

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July, he inclosed to Mr. Adams. The report stated that there had been no attempt on the part of the builders of the "290" "to disguise, what is most apparent, that she is intended for a ship of war." It proceeded to recommend that the American consul at Liverpool should submit such evidence as he could obtain to the collector there, who would, thereupon, take such measures as the Foreign Enlistment Act would require, and concluded by saying that the officers at Liverpool would keep a strict watch on the vessel. Mr. Adams then instructed the consul to follow the course indicated in the Customs' report. The consul accordingly submitted a statement on the 9th July, but the collector replied that the details given were not, in a legal point of view, sufficient to justify him in taking upon himself the responsibility of the detention of the ship. Mr. Dudley (the consul) then directed his utmost endeavours to obtaining direct legal proof, and in this he at last succeeded, laying it, in the form of affidavits, before the collector on the 21st July. The affidavits were on the same day transmitted by the collector to the Board of Customs at London, with a request for instructions by telegraph, "as the ship appeared to be ready for sea, and might leave any hour."

Up to this point, if the action of our authorities had not been all that the Federal Government might have desired, at any rate, it had been neither unfriendly nor inefficient. The collector at Liverpool could not proceed to detain the vessel without legal evidence; but as soon as such evidence was supplied, he immediately sent it to the head of his department, and, while requesting instructions, indicated the extreme urgency of the case. But now there unfortunately occurred an act of gross administrative laches, of which the American Government and people had just reason to complain.

From the Board of Customs at London, the affidavits and the collector's letter were sent to the Treasury. This must have been done-at any rate, ought to have been done on the 22nd July, and the Treasury, seeing the urgency of the case, should, if unwilling to act on its own responsibility, have laid the affidavits immediately before the law officers of the Crown, and requested their opinion. Nor was it by this channel only that the affidavits showing the true character of the Alabama reached our Government. Copies of the most material among them were sent by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell on the 22nd July, and again on the 24th. One would have thought that here again, either immediate action would have been taken or the opinion of the law officers obtained with all practicable expedition. But what happened? The affidavits were considered by the law officers of the Crown on the 28th July, six days after the letter from Liverpool had reached London, stating that the vessel might leave any hour. They soon made up their minds, and their report was in Earl Russell's hands on the morning of the 29th. Orders were then immediately sent to Liverpool to stop the vessel. But it would appear that in some mysterious manner intelligence of the intention of the Government to detain the vessel had reached the persons at Liverpool who had charge of her. The Customs department at Liverpool, on receiving the order for detention, tele

In a conversation with Mr. Adams, two days afterwards, at the Foreign Office, Earl Russell remarked that a delay in determining upon the case of the "290" "had most unexpectedly been caused by the sudden development of a malady in the Queen's advocate, Sir John D. Harding, totally incapacitating him for the transaction of business. This had made it necessary to call in other parties, whose opinion had at last been given for the detention of the gunboat, but before the order got down to Liverpool the vessel was gone." Such an excuse could not be expected to satisfy the American Government, but neither is it satisfactory from the English point of view. The matter being known to be urgent, if, on its being referred to Sir John Harding, that official was found to be incapacitated by ill health or any other cause, what was done ultimately should have been done at first-viz., "other parties' should have been called in. This too easy-going, laissez aller mode of conducting public business on the part of Government departments in 1862 cost us three millions sterling in 1873.

more guns.

The Alabama steamed down the Mersey, and proceeded to Moelfra Bay, on the coast of Anglesey, where she lay two days. The American Government considered,* and it is difficult to contravene their opinion, that there was culpable negligence somewhere in permitting a ship, the seizure of which had been ordered, to lie unmolested in British waters for two whole days. From Moelfra Bay the vessel proceeded to the Azores, and remained at Terceira till the arrival of a vessel from London, having on board six guns, ammunition, coals, &c., for the new cruiser. Two days afterwards, the screw-steamer Bahama arrived, having on board Commander Raphael Semmes, of the Confederate navy, and other officers, besides two The transfer of the guns and stores having been completed without hindrance from any one, Captain Semmes hoisted his flag on the 24th August, and the Alabama, now first known by that name, sailed from Terceira with twenty-six officers and eighty-five men. Parliament was prorogued on the 7th August, and home affairs went on as quietly as usual for the remain der of the year. Pauperism increased, owing to the collapse of industry in Lancashire; nevertheless, the population was greater by a quarter of a million at the end of the year than it had been at the beginning of it. But a number of persons equivalent to about one half of this increase emigrated in the course of the year. In the autumn, the honest and law-abiding citizens of London were alarmed by the outbreak and rapid increase of a new species of crime, the "garotte robbery." The villains who introduced it did not observe an absolutely uniform practice, but the usual modus operandi was this:-the victim who had been marked out for attack was seized from behind round the throat by one of the confederates; at the same instant another coming up in front dealt him a violent blow in the stomach; he was then thrown violently down on his back, thus being rendered insensible, and in this

"Case of the United States," p. 377. London, 1372.

kicks being freely administered in case of any symptom of returning consciousness. After many cases of garotte robbery had occurred, in some of which the victims had died of the injuries received, while in all the constitution and health were permanently shaken, the garotting of a member of Parliament, Mr. Pilkington, drew the special attention of the Home Secretary to the condition of the streets. The police became suddenly active, and arrested a number of known criminals on suspicion; these were tried en masse by Baron Bramwell, and all who were identified as having been implicated in garotte robberies were sentenced to heavy terms of penal servitude. The class of ferocious human wolves to which the condemned persons belonged was partly dispersed, partly cowed, by this judicious severity.

The benevolent act of a philanthropic American merchant, Mr. George Peabody, who, in March, 1862, made a free gift of £150,000 to the London poor, must not be passed over in silence.

The admirers of Garibaldi in this country witnessed with sorrow the failure of a rash enterprise made by him in August, the object of which was the conquest of Rome. M. Thouvenel, writing to the French ambassador at Rome, in this very year, in the name of the Emperor, had again declared in positive terms that "the capital of Catholicism could never at the same time become, with the consent of France, the capital of Italy;" and Rattazzi, who had succeeded Ricasoli as Italian premier in February, had declared that his Ministry, while remaining faithful to the vote of the Chambers asserting Rome to be the capital of the Italian kingdom, "would go to Rome by moral and diplomatic means, always hand in hand with France." In spite of these public and official declarations, Garibaldi resolved to try whether the Rome-ward progress of the revolution could not be accelerated. Having raised a band of volunteers, he landed in Sicily, and at Palermo, on the 26th July, issued one of those turgid manifestoes for which he was notorious, calling upon the Hungarians to rise in arms, and, having disposed of the "ferocious despotism" of the Hapsburgs, join the Italian revolutionists in effecting the complete liberation of Italy. But the Hungarians, led by the wise Deak, were at that time engaged in those struggles, within the pale of the laws and the constitution, which have since resulted for them in such a splendid recognition of their national integrity and dignity. In a calmly reasoned letter, General Klapka replied to the revolutionary rhetoric of Garibaldi, pointing out the folly of his enterprise, and the want of true patriotism which he was exhibiting.

Crossing to Melito, Garibaldi made a fruitless attempt on Reggio, and then commenced his march northwards. But the Italian Government was on the alert, and had given orders to Cialdini to put the thing down. That general detached Colonel Pallavicino, who, having come on Garibaldi's track, pursued and overtook him, on the 29th August, at Aspromonte. His followers were dispersed with little difficulty, and Garibaldi himself was wounded in the foot and taken prisoner. The Italian Government behaved with great leniency; Garibaldi him

self was released, and a decree of amnesty issued to all his followers, except those who belonged to the Italian

army or navy.

A revolution, more akin to the ridiculous than to the sublime, took place this year in Greece. In October, while King Otho and his queen were absent from Athens, the people rose, the troops mutinied, the Bavarian dynasty was declared to have ceased to reign, and a provisional Government installed itself in office, with Demetri Bulgari at its head. From the vaguely grandiloquent phrases of the manifesto published by the provisional Government, it would not be easy to discover what was the misconduct alleged against Otho, or whether there was any misconduct at all. It seems that he was not considered faithful to the "grande idée," on which the imagination and ambitious hopes of every true Greek are fed-the idea of the extension of the frontiers of the Hellenic state, and the deliverance of the millions of their countrymen who still groan under Turkish misrule. In a word, the crime of Otho was that he was unpatriotic. A plébiscite was decreed, in humble imitation of the Napoleonic prototype, for the election of a king of Greece; every Greek above twenty years of age was to have a vote. The result of the voting was, that Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, was chosen king by an overwhelming majority. But it had been previously agreed between the plenipotentiaries of the protecting Powers, England, France, and Russia, that all members of the reigning families of those nations should be excluded from the Greek succession. The election of Prince Alfred was thus nullified. The further progress of the Greek revolution belongs to a later year; nevertheless, it will be convenient to give at this place a connected view of the whole series of transactions, so that it will be unnecessary hereafter to return to the subject. At the end of December, 1862, Mr. H. Elliot was commissioned by our Government to make it known to the provisional Government at Athens, that England was disposed to cede the Ionian Islands (over which she had exercised a protectorate since the Congress of Vienna) to Greece, provided that the form of government remained monarchical; that Greece abstained from aggression against neighbouring states; that the king selected were a prince "against whom no well-founded objection could be raised;" lastly, that the cession were shown to be in accordance with the unanimous, or nearly unanimous, wish of the Ionian population. The Greeks and Ionians accepted the proffered terms with enthusiasm. After long consideration and discussion, a suitable occupant for the throne was found in Prince George, son of the King of Denmark, and brother to the Princess of Wales. A Greek deputation, proceeding to Copenhagen in June, 1863, tendered the crown to Prince George, who graciously accepted it, and soon afterwards proceeded to Greece, where he was received with general enthusiasm. England, thoroughly satisfied with this selection, proceeded to carry out her promise. Sir Henry Storks, the Lord High Commissioner, dissolved the Ionian Parliament in August, and summoned a new one, on which the express mandate should devolve of taking into consideration the con

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The new

templated re-union of the islands to Greece. Parliament met, and unanimously ratified the cession. One difficulty, however, still remained. Greece was a weak state; Corfu possessed a capacious and important harbour, and, by the care of the protecting state, had been converted into a formidable fortress; were the fortifications handed over intact, it might be apprehended that, in some future European war, a great Power allying itself to Greece would employ the fortifications of Corfu for the purpose of strengthening its own position in the Mediterranean. The British Government therefore, in concert with the four other great Powers, decided that the Ionian Islands (Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Santa Maura, Ithaca, Cerigo, and Paxo) should, from the time of their cession to Greece, enjoy the advantages of a perpetual neutrality," and that the fortifications which had been constructed in Corfu, as no longer required after the concession of such neutrality, should be demolished previously to the evacuation of the island by the British garrison. This was in November, 1863; the demolition was at once proceeded with; but it was not till far on in 1864 that the troops finally quitted the island, and the annexation to Greece was consummated.

A fierce struggle raged during the whole of this year between the Federals and Confederates in America. Into the details of this struggle the historian of England is not called upon to enter, but he may justly be expected to make his readers acquainted with its general features, since it was a strife which, in determining for a long period the destinies of the most important portion of the northern continent, affected powerfully the position of England in the world, no less than the interests of millions of British and Irish emigrants, in this and future generations. If the Confederates had broken up the Union, it is hard to believe that an English Ministry, however unwarlike, would have courted humiliation, as in the Treaty of Washington and its preliminaries; or knowingly so framed an arbitration as to lose an island belonging to us by the clearest right, as in the case of San Juan.

The operations to be described fall under the head of military and naval-the first embracing the minor contests in Tennessee and Arkansas, together with the great struggle in Virginia; the second comprising the operations of the Federal fleets on different points of the Confederate coast, the battle of the Merrimac and the Monitor, and Farragut's gallant capture of New Orleans.

1. The state of Tennessee, which had been one of the last to secede, was not left long in the hands of the Confederates. Lying along the southern border of Kentucky, open to the Mississippi, and watered by navigable rivers which run into the Ohio, it was peculiarly open to attack from those who held the upper course of the former, and the whole basin of the latter river. Its capital, Nashville, on the river Cumberland, was secured, the Confederates hoped, by the erection of two forts, Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the one on the Tennessee river, the other on the Cumberland, at a point in Kentucky where the streams approach within twenty miles. But, in February, a strong force, under the command of General

Ulysses Grant, moving up from the Ohio, captured both forts with little difficulty. Nashville, being thus left defenceless, fell into the hands of the Federals soon after, and the major part of the state was recovered. A desperate attempt to reverse the course of fortune was made by the Confederates in April, when, under their ablest general, Albert Sidney Johnston, they attacked in force the scattered divisions of Grant around Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee. On the first day of the conflict, the Confederates were successful along the whole

troops presently came into line, and the exhausted Confederates, disappointed of a victory that was just within their grasp, retired towards the frontier of Mississippi. The loss of the Federals in this bloody and critical engagement was 14,000 men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners; that of the Confederates 11,000.

In the state of Arkansas, west of the Mississippi, a battle was fought at Pea Ridge, in March, between the Federal general Curtis and the Confederate Van Dorn; and another at Prairie Grove, in December, between the

line; Grant's army was driven so close to the bluff overhanging the river, that one resolute charge seemed all that was wanted to push them in headlong rout into and across the river. On the next day, news arrived that General Buell was hurrying up to the aid of Grant with reinforcements; Johnston, however, still pressed on, and was making preparation for the final charge, when the bursting of a single shell changed the fate of the battle, and decided the destiny of the West. Johnston fell mortally wounded: the command devolved upon Beauregard; there was an interval of fatal indecision; the "native hue of resolution was sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;" the Confederate general began to concentrate his guns, instead of advancing his masses; and the Federals, feeling themselves no longer pressed, recovered courage. Buell's

forces under the command of Blunt and Hindman. Neither action was decisive, but the general course of the year's campaign in this state was unfavourable to the Confederates.

But the great blow was struck-the gigantic failure sustained-in Virginia. Since the resignation of Scott, the new general, M'Lellan, had been labouring incessantly to augment the number and perfect the discipline of the army. When a force had been collected of nearly 200,000 men, the most efficacious mode of employing it had to be considered. The attempt to march to Richmond the year before had been baffled within a few miles of Washington by the catastrophe of Bull Run; and although M'Lellan knew by his scouts that the Confederates were no longer in force on that line, the thought of crossing so many rivers, and transporting his stores along so