increased estimates for the purpose of increas- With these conclusions, however, Mr. Gladstone and some other influential members of the new administration did not agree, or at all events they felt that they could not now consistently consent to an inquiry which they had previously affirmed was not only unnecessary but impolitic. They were opposed to the inquiry, at such a juncture, as a breach of constitutional principle and a dangerous precedent. Sir James Graham said that he could not consent to the appointment of a committee which included no member of the government, and he was also opposed to a select committee. If secret, its investigations could not be checked by public opinion; and if open, the evidence taken would be immediately made public and canvassed in a manner injurious to the public service. Mr. Sidney Herbert declared that as a vote of censure the motion for the committee was valueless, while as an inquiry it would be a mere sham. Mr. Gladstone significantly represented that the committee, being neither for punishment nor remedy, must be for government, and could not fail to deprive the executive of its most important functions. All three, therefore, announced their intention to retire from the ministry, and they were followed by Mr. Cardwell; so that the Palmerston government was at the outset considerably shaken; but it was felt that it had become necessary to keep it together on the best terms possible, for another serious crisis would have been mischievous while negotiations were supposed to be pending, and yet it was necessary to prepare for a vigorous prosecution of the war. On this subject-the success of negotiation or the continuance of war-opinion was divided; but most people seemed to share Lord Palmerston's doubts of the good faith of the czar, and were for increased armaments. Mr. Bright and those who agreed with him, however, were of a different opinion, and thought that they saw in the proposed negotiations at Vienna an opportunity which the Emperor of Russia would accept for bringing hostilities to a close. During the debate which followed the explanations of the retiring ministers, he made a fervent, an impassioned appeal to the house and to Lord Palmerston to stay the war. "You are not pretending to conquer territory," he said; "you are not pretending to hold fortified or unfortified towns; you have offered terms of peace, which, as I understand them, I do not say are not moderate; and breathes there a man in this house, or in this country, whose appetite for blood is so insatiable that even when terms of peace have been offered and accepted, he pines for that assault in which, of Russian, Turk, French, and English, as sure as one man dies, 20,000 corpses will strew the streets of Sebastopol? I say I should like to ask the noble lord-and I am sure that he will feel, and that this house will feel, that I am speaking in no unfriendly manner towards the government of which he is at the head. I should like to know, and I venture to hope that it is so, if the noble lord, the member for London, has power at the earliest stage of these proceedings at Vienna at which it can properly be done-and I should think that it might properly be done at a very early stage—to adopt a course by which all further waste of human life may be put an end to, and further animosity between three great nations be, as far as possible, prevented? I appeal to the noble lord at the head of the government and to this house; I am not now complaining of the terms of peace nor, indeed, of anything that has been done; but I wish to suggest to this house what, I believe, thousands and tens of thousands of the most educated and of the most Christian portion of the people of this country are feeling upon this subject, although, indeed, in the midst of a certain clamour in the country, they do not give public expression to their feelings. I cannot but notice in speaking to gentlemen who sit on either side of this house, or in speaking to any one I meet between this house and any of those localities we frequent when this house is up-I cannot, I say, but notice that an uneasy feeling exists as to the news which may arrive by the very next mail from the East. I do not suppose that your troops are to be beaten in actual conflict with the foe, or that they will be driven into the sea; but DEATH OF THE CZAR NICHOLAS. I am certain that many homes in England, in which there now exists a fond hope that the distant one may return; many such homes may be rendered desolate when the next mail shall arrive. The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal. I tell the noble lord, that if he be ready honestly and frankly to endeavour, by the negotiations about to be opened at Vienna, to put an end to this war, no word of mine, no vote of mine, will be given to shake his power for one single moment, or to change his position in this house. I am sure that the noble lord is not inaccessible to appeals made to him from honest motives, and with no unfriendly feeling. The noble lord has been for more than forty years a member of this house. Before I was born he sat upon the treasury bench, and he has spent his life in the service of his country. He is no longer young, and his life has extended almost to the term allotted to man. I would ask, I would entreat the noble lord to take a course which, when he looks back upon his whole political careerwhatever he may therein find to be pleased with, whatever to regret-cannot but be a source of gratification to him. By adopting that course he would have the satisfaction of reflecting that, having obtained the object of his laudable ambition-having become the foremost subject of the crown, the director of, it may be, the destinies of his country and the presiding genius in her councils-he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition: that he had returned the sword to the scabbard-that at his word torrents of blood had ceased to flow-that he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this country from the indescribable calamities of war." The effect of the appeal on the critical sense of the house was very great, and the impressive peroration, as fine a piece of oratory as 155 had ever been heard in the House of Commons, was listened to with a profound and impressive silence which was almost painful in its intensity, and might by a less able or less earnest speaker have been too easily turned into a laugh by some misplaced word. Such silence is often only relieved by some half hysterical outburst; but on this occasion it was deep and unbroken. "The beating of the wings" seemed for a moment possible, for in that almost breathless hush the house seemed to be listening for something even beyond the words of him who addressed them. The new trial to the ministry was sharp, but it was short; and the concession of Lord Palmerston to what he believed to be the demand of the country having been made for the purpose of avoiding the inconvenience and danger of the government being again in abeyance, it was necessary to fill up the vacant places without delay. Sir G. C. Lewis therefore succeeded Mr. Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer. Sir C. Wood replaced Sir James Graham at the admiralty; Mr. Vernon Smith went to the board of control, and Lord Stanley of Alderley to the board of trade. At the same time Sir Robert Peel (the son of the repealer of the corn-laws) was made a lord of the admiralty, and Mr. Harrison became secretary for Ireland. Lord John Russell was nominated colonial secretary in place of Mr. Sidney Herbert, the appointment reaching him as he was on his way to Vienna. Before the conferences could be commenced, and while the new government was settling into its place, and perhaps reckoning the advantages that had been gained by the victory of Omar Pasha, who, aided by the British fleet, had repelled and defeated the attack made by 40,000 Russians under General Liprandi on the Turkish position at Eupatoria; an event happened which startled and impressed Europe, and gave a new direction to the hopes of those who were most anxious for the conclusion of a lasting peace. On the 2d of March the Czar Nicholas of Russia lay dead. It almost seemed as though he could not survive the intelligence that a smaller force of the despised Turks had beaten back his regiments at Eupatoria. Soon after that news reached him he became delirious; | frost continued. "Sire," said one of his but it is not therefore to be assumed that his fatal illness was attributable to reverses, which, in spite of the continued hold upon Sebastopol, had befallen the Russian arms. In another sense, however, he may be said to have hazarded his life in the war and lost it. General February had not proved to be an ally. The weather, inclement and rigorous in the Crimea, was almost insupportable at St. Petersburg to anybody who was exposed to its severity, especially to one who had been suffering from influenza, and refused to take even ordinary precautions for preventing a worse disorder. The chief anxiety of the Emperor Nicholas, with regard to his own health, was to observe a regimen which would prevent corpulency, of which he had a peculiar dread; and this may account for many of his active and almost restless habits, as well as for his usual abstemiousness. He had during the bitterest weather persisted in attending reviews of the troops and inspecting defences. He had been on the ice to examine the fortifications of Cronstadt, and, in fact, gave himself no leisure and no repose in preparing for the exigencies of the conflict which he had challenged. He even seemed to have a presentiment of death, occasioned either by his gloomy reception of the news of repeated defeat in the Crimea, or from a sense of departing strength; but he would relax no exertion even though the affection of the chest, from which he had begun to suffer, became more serious. It was not till Dr. Mandt expressed an earnest desire for a second physician to be summoned that he consented to consult Dr. Karell, his physician-in-ordinary, and agreed to remain in bed. The health of the empress was at this time so feeble that she also was confined to her own apartment, so that the emperor was without the consolation which her presence might have afforded him. He daily grew worse, he was sleepless, and his cough was incessant. He could not tolerate a condition which imposed inactivity, and announced his determination to review a corps of infantry of the guard which was on its way to Lithuania. weather was still intensely cold, and a hard The ""Tis physicians, "there is not in the whole army a military surgeon who would permit a common soldier to quit the hospital in the state in which you are, for he would be sure that his patient would re-enter it still worse." well, gentlemen," answered the emperor; "you have done your duty, now I am going to do mine;" and upon this he entered the sledge. In passing along the ranks of his soldiers his air of suffering and continual cough betrayed his condition. On his return he said, “I am bathed in perspiration." Before going home he called upon Prince Dolgorouki, the minister of war, who was ill, and, more prudent for him than for himself, he urged him not to go out too soon. He passed the evening with the empress, but complained of cold and kept on his cloak. The result of his imprudent excursion was a serious relapse, which compelled him to remain in the small room which was his working cabinet, whence for some days he continued to issue orders respecting the defence of Sebastopol and the disposition of the army; but it was evident that his brain had become affected. The empress left her own apartments to attend upon him; but he continued, by the exercise of a powerful will, to fight against increasing weakness, and during the first days of Lent attended the religious services of the season in the usual manner. But after three or four days he was compelled to absent himself; and the empress, who was borne down with distress, then suggested to him the serious nature of his illness by proposing that he should receive the sacraments. For some time he did not or would not realize his dangerous condition; but at last, noticing the deep grief of the empress, he began to comprehend it, and having dismissed his physician, sent for the hereditary prince and told him that his recovery was hopeless. He then sent for his confessor, the archpriest Bajanoff, with whom, after having blessed the empress and the prince, who remained during the preliminary prayers, he was left alone, the empress and the czarowitch returning afterwards, when he took the communion. He then sent for all the members of his family, of whom he THE CZAR ALEXANDER III.-SUSPICION OF HIS POLICY. took leave, giving them his blessing. His ministers were then summoned, and finally he took leave of his servants. He himself gave directions for the funeral ceremonies, which were to be conducted without unnecessary display, since no expenditure was to be incurred when it could be so ill spared from the requirements of the war. On the 2d of March, at noon, after having been unable for more than an hour to articulate a syllable, he recovered for a few minutes the power of speech, and bade his son Alexander thank the garrison of Sebastopol in his name. His anxiety that Prussia should continue in the policy which it had, to so great an extent, observed, was manifest in what were almost his last words: “Dites à Fritz (his brother-in-law the King of Prussia) de rester le même pour la Russie et de ne pas oublier les paroles de papa."1 Thus died Nicholas of Russia at the age of 59, and after reigning 29 years. He had lived longer than his predecessors on the throne, and had already noticed that fact when he seemed to have a premonition that his end was approaching. The cause of his death was said to be pulmonary apoplexy, but of course poison was hinted at, though there appears to have been no foundation for any suspicion that he had died from other than natural causes. It was also asserted that the disease of which he died was either caused or accelerated by the violent fits of passion which overmastered him when he received intelligence of the reverses of his troops, the last having been occasioned by the news of Sardinia joining the allies; but it was pointed out at the time that these uncontrollable or uncontrolled outbreaks of fury, may have been a result rather than a cause of serious cerebral disorder. The news of the death of the czar took the government and the country by surprise. It was solemnly announced in parliament, and was received by the public without unseemly exultation, but rather with a sense of awe and with deep seriousness. One of the most striking notices of the event in the public The words referred to were an injunction to maintain under all contingencies the principles of the "Holy Alliance." 157 press took the form of a cartoon in Punch by the famous John Leech. It was entitled "General Fevrier turned Traitor," and represented a skeleton in the uniform of a Russian officer laying his icy hand on the breast of the prostrate emperor. This picture caused a great sensation, and was afterwards referred to as a new example of the deep and often solemn significance, which had become an element even in some of the so-called lighter literature of the time. It was everywhere being asked, What will be the effect of the death of the czar in relation to the war? Shall we be obliged to continue hostilities to the bitter end, or will an opportunity be afforded for such negotiations on the "four points" as will lead to a pacific arrangement? It was generally believed that the Grand - duke Alexander, who had succeeded to the imperial throne under the name of Alexander II. Nicolaiewitch, was of a milder nature than his father, that he was very popular, and inherited neither the character nor the obstinacy of Nicholas. It was generally hoped that he would be willing to accede to peaceable overtures. But nobody knew what were the last instructions given by the late emperor to his heir, and the manifesto made by the latter at his accession was little less ambiguous than such declarations usually are. It was understood that he would be actuated by the same sentiments as those which animated his father. That might mean that he would prosecute the war without receding from former demands. He swore to regard the welfare of the empire as his only object, and expressed his desire to maintain Russia on the highest standard of power and glory, and in his own person accomplish the incessant wishes of Peter, of Catherine, of Alexander, and of his father. That might be still more significant. The only course which could be taken by England would be to continue pushing on preparations for a final blow at the power of Russia, and at the same time to send Lord John Russell to Vienna to see whether the proposed terms would be favourably received. These were the opinions of the government, and probably of the large ma jority of the nation. of the good faith of little altered by the accession of the Grandduke Alexander to the throne, and most people shared his doubts, and regarded the appeals of Bright and Cobden at the best as mere sentimental delusions, and at the worst as mean-spirited truckling to a base, cowardly, and huckstering policy. There was no longer any slackness on the part of the government in sending supplies to the Crimea, and recruiting was carried on with renewed energy. The hospitals were still full of the sick and wounded, while numbers of men suffered severely from frost-bite occasioned by the intense cold and the arduous duties they had to fulfil amidst ice and snow. There was too little disposition on the part of some of the commanding officers to give their men the full benefit of the suitable clothing sent out to them, and in many instances a return to the regulation uniform was insisted on. There was even a whisper when some of the regiments were reorganized that they were to return to the complete regimentals, including the stiff military stock. The Highlanders were made to abandon the comfortable fur caps with which they had been provided, and to resume the Scotch bonnets, which left their ears exposed to the cutting wind. The siege was being carried on with increasing effect, and the victory at Eupatoria released the Turkish contingent, which was ordered to march southward towards the north of Sebastopol, in order either to cut off the Russian supplies, or make it necessary for the enemy to keep a large body of men to prevent their communications from being intercepted. Palmerston's suspicion Russia was apparently The arrival of a number of our wounded soldiers who had been sent home to England had some effect in maintaining rather than in mitigating the desire to pursue the war until a more definite result had been achieved. The queen lost no time in giving practical expression to her sympathy with the brave men who had suffered so much during the terrible campaign, from which they had returned maimed or mutilated. Accompanied by the prince consort she visited the hospital at Chatham, and went through the wards, speaking to the men who were lying there disabled, or to those who, being less seriously hurt or nearer to convalescence, were drawn up for her inspection. It was a pitiful spectacle; but the soldiers were so touched by the interest shown by the sovereign that before she left the building they raised a cheer; the ghost of a cheer,—so feeble was its tone as compared to the sound that had rung out many a time during the heat and ardour of battle, but full of meaning. At Buckingham Palace the wounded and disabled guards were mustered, that her majesty might speak to each man and inquire how he was wounded, and what were his hopes of regaining strength. Many who could not walk from the barracks were conveyed to the palace in an omnibus. There were strange stories to be told, and it was a sad sight to see so many fine fellows permanently injured by the loss of limbs, or by wounds which would leave them unfit for further duty. But most of them were still capable of following some occupations which were afterwards found for them, as care-takers in warehouses, gatekeepers, private watchmen, light porters at public buildings, and such comparatively easy callings as required discipline, punctuality, and order. Many situations of this kind were offered to those least seriously disabled, and the appeal made in their behalf may be said to have originated the organization which has since become so useful under the name of the Corps of Commissionaires. The suspicions that the attempt to restore peace by a congress of the great powers at Vienna had altogether failed were too quickly justified. No basis of negotiations could be agreed upon. The proposed limitation of the preponderance of the power of Russia in the Black Sea was the rock upon which diplomacy split. M. Drouyn de Lhuys inquired whether Russia would consider her rights of sovereignty infringed if she deprived herself of the liberty of building an unlimited number of ships of war in the Black Sea. This question was asked on the 19th of March, and after taking forty-eight hours to think it over Prince Gortschakoff replied that Russia would not consent to the strength of her navy being |