Part 7

“I made a resolution with myself that, having got Lord Derby into power, we would, if it were possible, screw out of him a real reform of Parliament. It always appeared to me that the Whigs never could carry a second Reform Bill. I stated so in 1859. I was hooted and yelled at in this very town because I so stated. Then came Lord Derby again, and then I recollected my old determination. ‘If ever a Reform Bill is carried,’ I said to myself, ‘it will be by those men, and so sure as they bring it in, I will support them.’ I steadily supported that Bill, and what has been the result? We have got a more Liberal Bill than ever Whig proposed. We have got a Bill that has frightened, I believe, the very persons who proposed it. It has not frightened me. I believe we shall now find what the people of England really mean. I have great confidence in the right-heartedness of my own countrymen. I have no dread of the future.... We have got a great deal more good out of the Tory administration than out of anybody else. This Reform Bill is before us. We have now to work it.... I am sure there can be no harm to England while we have a free Press, a free people; but with that Press and constant inter-communication of thought, it will render the passing of the Reform Bill one of the greatest boons ever conferred upon the people of this country.”

On the question of the three-cornered constituencies, Mr. Roebuck subsequently explained his course in the following letter:

TO A CONSTITUENT.

19, ASHLEY PLACE, S.W.

The story of the three members’ constituencies is a simple one and can soon be told. Many attempts to stop and destroy the Reform Bill were made under the guise of liberality. The project respecting the three members was one of them. It was thought that Mr. Disraeli had got to the length of his tether, that his party would go no further, and that if at this time they could be induced to recalcitrate, the Liberals who had hitherto supported the Government must vote with the real enemies of the Bill, that the Government would be put into a minority, must go out, and that the Bill would then be defeated. Mr. Disraeli said in the debate that the Government could not accede to the proposal, and that the defeat of the Government in the motion would seriously endanger the Bill. We knew what this meant--viz., that his party could not be induced to go further in the way of concession. Seeing this we said: “We will not throw away the good we have attained for the purpose of adding six members to large constituencies, and taking away six from small ones. This benefit, if it should be desired, can easily be obtained from the new Parliament when it meets. In the meantime we will insure the Bill.” We voted for the Government, put them into a majority, and saved the Bill. But Mr. Disraeli, upon consulting his party again, found that they deemed the trouble of the contest a greater evil than yielding the point, and they yielded so far as four members were concerned. I complained of this, and strove for Sheffield; but I was told that the party of Mr. Disraeli would go no further than four members, and so, according to my own expression, Sheffield was left out in the cold. This is the plain history of the case. It is a story that could be told of many other similar attempts to defeat the Bill, which attempts were defeated by our steady determination to carry the Bill, spite of calumny, spite of threats, spite of abuse. The Bill is now law, and is law because a number of Liberals were more far-sighted, ay, and more disinterested, than those who called themselves leaders of the Liberal party.

ABYSSINIAN CAPTIVES (1867).

=Source.=--_The Times_, July 9, 1867.

LETTER RECEIVED BY MRS. STERN FROM HER HUSBAND, ONE OF THE CAPTIVES IN ABYSSINIA.

MAGDALA, _May 1, 1867_.

Another month has passed since I wrote to you, a month like all the rest in this miserable prison life, full of anxious care and wearisome inactivity. Sometimes I squat down and try to beguile the tedious hours by writing sketches of sermons, and by diffusing on closely written pages the varied incidents of our painful captivity.... In our immediate neighbourhood matters have not mended much since my last. The King is still pursuing his work of devastation in the provinces that are subject to his doubtful sway. The rebels, too, with the disaffected peasantry for their allies, are doing their utmost to resent the cruelties of their lately owned ruler and acknowledged chief. The ruthless ferocity of the King has exhausted the patience of the most timid and servile, and all appear now to be animated by one deep and ardent passion--viz., the overthrow of the tyrant. The army he once had at his behest is scattered in bands of rebels all over the country; and as he can never recruit again his incredibly diminished hordes, he will be forced to make this Amba his last asylum and tomb, or, followed by a few faithful adherents and the most valuable captives, seek a home in the marshy jungles and entangled feverish villages of the lowlands. Whatever the issue of the contest may be, our prospects, humanly speaking, are anything but bright. We have friends near and around us, but in this land cupidity and avarice dissolve every bond, even the most tender and sacred; and after all that has transpired, the pettiest and most contemptible chieftain, if he gets us into his power, may think that by retaining in his clutches a few defenceless Europeans he will make his fortune.... About a fortnight ago all the European employés, with the exception of two old men, were, together with their wives and children and their property, with Mrs. Rosenthal and Mrs. Flad, seized. The motives which prompted His Majesty to adopt such measures of severity towards individuals who have always been most subservient and obsequious to his whims is still a mystery. The King brought various trumpery charges against them, which they repelled with energy. Their property has been partially restored to them, but they are confined in Debra Tabir, where they are guarded, but not chained. It is said that the report of Mr. Flad’s returning without the artisans, etc., furnished the ostensible cause for their imprisonment. This outburst of unprovoked resentment augurs nothing auspicious for us, and probably our position, as the majority of us expected, will not be enhanced by Mr. Flad’s return. Negotiations and delays might have averted the storm, but now as it seems looming nearer and nearer, we say, “Thy will be done.” You and all interested in our liberation, notwithstanding all that has been written from hence, must have been grievously deceived about the character of the King. Presents with another man might have effected our deliverance, but King Theodorus, though not loath to accept the one, wants the hostages as well--a security, as he imagines, for ever-increasing concessions.

_May 2._

I just add a line to my letter of yesterday, as it is doubtful whether the opportunity for writing will not before many days have elapsed become exceedingly difficult, if not utterly impossible. The return of Mr. Flad, the disappointment of the King in not obtaining the requested accession to his white victims, and the consciousness that neither intrigue nor cunning will avail him to extort fresh concessions from the British Government, or the generosity of the British Christians, all, I believe, combine to bring before long our melancholy and doleful history to a crisis. Every day, nay, every hour, we expect to be transferred to the common prison, and to get hand-chains again. Only a week ago upwards of 200 prisoners, among whom are many persons of high rank, were ordered to be executed. This indiscriminate massacre, which has probably been prompted by the want of guards to protect them, indicates no improvement in the tyrant’s temper. We fear that wilful, wicked misrepresentations, and cruel, unpardonable selfishness united in concealing the true state of our position and the well-known designs of the King....

HENRY A. STERN.

DISRAELI’S “MAUNDY THURSDAY” LETTER (1868).

=Source.=--_The Times_, April 14, 1868.

_The following letter, addressed to the Rev. Arthur Baker, was sent to the “Times” for publication_:

HUGHENDEN MANOR, _Maundy Thursday, 1868_.

REVEREND SIR,

I have just received your letter, in which, as one of my constituents, you justify your right to ask for some explanation of my alleged assertion that the High Church Ritualists had been long in secret combination, and were now in open confederacy with Irish Romanists for the destruction of the union between Church and State....

You are under a misapprehension if you suppose that I intended to cast any slur upon the High Church party. I have the highest respect for the High Church party; I believe there is no body of men in this country to which we have been more indebted, from the days of Queen Anne to the days of Queen Victoria, for the maintenance of the orthodox faith, the rights of the Crown, and the liberties of the people.

In saying this I have no wish to intimate that the obligations of the country to the other great party in the Church are not equally significant. I have never looked upon the existence of parties in the Church as a calamity; I look upon them as a necessity, and as a beneficent necessity. They are the natural and inevitable consequences of the mild and liberal principles of our ecclesiastical polity, and of the varying and opposite elements of the human mind and character.

When I spoke, I referred to an extreme faction in the Church, of very modern date, that does not conceal its ambition to destroy the connection between Church and State, and which I have reason to believe has been for some time in secret combination, and is now in open confederacy, with the Irish Romanists for the purpose.

The Liberation Society, with its shallow and short-sighted fanaticism, is a mere instrument in the hands of this confederacy, and will probably be the first victim of the spiritual despotism the Liberation Society is now blindly working to establish.

As I hold that the dissolution of the union between Church and State will cause permanently a greater revolution in this country than foreign conquest, I shall use my utmost energies to defeat these fatal machinations.

Believe me, Rev. Sir, your faithful member and servant,

B. DISRAELI.

THE REV. ARTHUR BAKER, A.M., RECTOR OF ADDINGTON.

ABYSSINIAN WAR: CAPTURE OF MAGDALA (1868).

=Source.=--_The Times_, April 28, 1868.

DESPATCHES FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF (SIR ROBERT NAPIER).

_Without date._

1. An Engagement took place before Magdala on Good Friday between our troops and the army of Theodore, in which the latter was defeated with heavy loss.

Casualties on our side--Captain Roberts, fourth Foot, wounded in the arm, and fifteen rank and file wounded.

No one killed.

On the two following days Theodore sent into our camp every European that he had in his power, both captives and employés.

Theodore has not yet surrendered himself, according to my demand. He has been given twenty-four hours to decide. The King’s troops are completely demoralised.

ROBERT NAPIER.

_April 14._

2. Theodore’s army much disheartened by the severe losses of the 10th instant.

A portion of the chiefs surrendered the most formidable position of Shilasse(?), and many thousand fighting men laid down their arms.

Theodore retired to Magdala with all who remained faithful.

Magdala taken by assault on the 13th under cover of Armstrong steel guns, eight-inch mortars, and rocket battery.

Ascent to gates most formidable. Theodore killed, defending to the last; our loss small.

Army will return immediately. About--guns and mortars taken.

ROBERT NAPIER.

DESPATCHES FROM “TIMES” SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

_April 12._

King Theodore attacked the First Brigade near Magdala on Good Friday, but was repulsed with heavy loss--about 500 men being killed.... Darkness stopped the pursuit.

The enemy left their wounded on the field. On Saturday King Theodore sent in a flag of truce and offered to treat for unconditional surrender of the English prisoners. The captives have joined the camp.

It is believed the remaining Europeans will be surrendered.

The Abyssinian troops are utterly disheartened.

Theodore has attempted suicide.

_April 14._

Magdala was stormed yesterday. Theodore was deserted by nearly all his army, but made a desperate resistance with a few devoted followers.

Theodore killed himself with his pistol as the British troops approached him.

The British loss was about ten men wounded....

DESPATCH FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF “NEW YORK HERALD.”

MAGDALA, _April 13_.

The truce ended this morning. King Theodore had not surrendered. Fallas Fellasse(?) Islange had surrendered at once without fighting. Theodore had retreated to Magdala. He planted five guns at the base of the ascent. When General Napier came in sight, the King opened fire. The English replied with ten-pounder Armstrong guns, and seven-pounder rockets. The King left his guns, barricaded the sally-ports, and opened with musketry. He gave no signs of surrendering. The bombardment lasted three hours. An assault was then ordered. The fortress was carried after vigorous resistance. The Abyssinian loss, is 68 killed and 200 wounded. The English loss is 15 wounded, rank and file. King Theodore was found dead, shot in the head. His body was recognized by the Europeans who had been released. Some say he was killed in battle, and others that he committed suicide. His two sons have been taken prisoners. The fortress presents many evidences of barbaric splendour. Among the trophies taken are 4 gold crowns, 20,000 dollars, 1,000 silver plates, many jewels and other articles, 5,000 stands of arms, 28 pieces of artillery, 10,000 shields and 10,000 spears. The European prisoners [numbering 60 men, women, and children] will depart for the sea-coast to-morrow. The army will depart immediately.

DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH (1868).

=Source.=--_Speeches of John Bright_, edited by J. E. Thorold Rogers, pp. 219, 220. (Macmillan and Co., 1869.)

SPEECH ON MR. GLADSTONE’S RESOLUTIONS FOR DISESTABLISHING THE IRISH CHURCH.

Now I challenge any hon. gentleman on the other side to deny this: that out of half a million Episcopalians in Ireland there are many--there are some in the Irish nobility, some landed proprietors, some magistrates, even some of the clergy, a great many Irishmen--who believe at this moment that it is of the very first importance that the proposition of the right hon. gentleman, the Member for South Lancashire, should be carried. I am not going to overstate my case. I do not say that all of them are of that opinion. Of that half-million say that one-fourth--I will state no number--but of this I am quite certain, that there is an influential, a considerable, and, as I believe, a wise minority, who are in favour of distinct and decided action on the part of Parliament with regard to this question. But if you ask the whole Roman Catholic population of Ireland, be they nobles, or landed proprietors, or merchants, or farmers, or labourers--the whole number of the Catholic population in Ireland being, I suppose, eight or nine times the number of Episcopalians--these are probably, without exception, of opinion that it would be greatly advantageous and just to their country if the proposition submitted on this side of the House should receive the sanction of Parliament. Now, if some Protestants and all Catholics are agreed that we should remove this Church, what would happen if Ireland were 1,000 miles away and we were discussing it as we might discuss the same state of affairs in Canada? If we were to have in Canada and in Australia all this disloyalty among the Roman Catholic population owing to the existence of a State Church there, the House would be unanimous that the State Church in those Colonies should be abolished, and that perfect freedom in religion should be given.

But there is a fear in the mind of the right hon. gentleman the Home Secretary that the malady which would exist in Ireland might cross the Channel and appear in England; that, in fact, the disorder of Voluntaryism, as he deems it, in Ireland, like any other contagious disorder, might cross the Channel by force of the west wind, lodging first in Scotland, and then crossing the Tweed and coming south to England. I think the right hon. gentleman went so far as to say that he was so much in favour of religious equality that if you went so far as to disestablish the Church in Ireland, he would recommend the same policy for England. Now, with regard to that, I will give you an anecdote which has reference to Scotland. Some years ago I had the pleasure of spending some days in Scotland at the house of the late Earl of Aberdeen after he had ceased to be Prime Minister. He was talking of the disruption of the Church of Scotland, and he said that nothing in the course of his public life had given him so much pain as the disruption and the establishment of the Free Church in that country; but he said he had lived long enough to discover that it was one of the greatest blessings that had ever come to Scotland. He said that they had a vast increase in the number of churches, a corresponding increase in the number of manses or ministers’ houses, and that schools had increased, also, to an extraordinary extent; that there had been imparted to the Established Church a vitality and energy which it had not known for a long period; and that education, morality, and religion had received a great advancement in Scotland in consequence of that change. Therefore, after all, it is not the most dreadful thing in the world--not so bad as a great earthquake--or as many other things that have happened. I am not quite sure that the Scottish people themselves may not some day ask you--if you do not yourselves introduce and pass it without their asking--to allow their State Church to be disestablished.

I met only the other day a most intelligent gentleman from the north of Scotland, and he told me that the minister of the church he frequented had £250 a year from the Establishment Funds, which he thought very much too little, and he felt certain that if the Establishment were abolished and the Church made into a Free Church, the salary of the minister would be immediately advanced to at least £500 a year. That is a very good argument for the ministers, and we shall see, by-and-by, if the conversion of Scotland proceeds much further, that you may be asked to disestablish their Church.

THE IRISH CHURCH BILL: CRITICAL DAYS (1869).

=Source.=--Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii., pp. 273–276. (Macmillan and Co.)

On July 16, the Bill, restored substantially to its first shape, was again back on the table of the Lords, and shipwreck seemed for five days to be inevitable. On July 20, at eleven o’clock, by a majority of 175 to 93, the Lords once more excluded from the preamble the words that the Commons had placed and replaced there, in order to declare the policy of Parliament on matters ecclesiastical in Ireland. This involved a meaning which Mr. Gladstone declared that no power on earth could induce the Commons to accept. The crisis was of unsurpassed anxiety for the Prime Minister. He has left his own record of its phases:

_Saturday, July 17._--By desire of the Cabinet I went to Windsor in the afternoon and represented to H. M. what it was in our power to do--namely, although we had done all we could do upon the merits, yet, for the sake of peace and of the House of Lords, [we were willing] (_a_) to make some one further pecuniary concession to the Church of sensible though not very large amount; (_b_) to make a further concession as to curates, slight in itself; (_c_) to amend the residue clause so as to give to Parliament the future control, and to be content with simply declaring the principle on which the property should be distributed....

The further pecuniary concession we were prepared to recommend would be some £170,000 or £180,000.

_Sunday, July 18._--In the afternoon Lord Granville called on me and brought me a confidential memorandum, containing an overture which Mr. Disraeli had placed in the hands of Lord Bessborough for communication to us.... While the contention as to the residue was abandoned, and pecuniary concessions alone were sought, the demand amounted, according to our computation, to between £900,000 and £1,000,000. This it was evident was utterly inadmissible. I saw no possibility of approach to it, and considered that a further quarter of a million or thereabouts was all that the House of Commons could be expected or asked further to concede.

_Monday, July 19._--Those members of the Government who had acted as a sort of Committee in the Irish Church question met in the afternoon. We were all agreed in opinion that the Disraeli overture must be rejected, though without closing the door, and a reply was prepared in this sense, which Lord Granville undertook to send. [Draft in the above sense that no sum approaching £1,000,000 could be entertained].

_Tuesday, July 20._--The Archbishop (Dr. Tait), who had communicated with Lord Cairns in the interval, came to me early to-day and brought a memorandum as a basis of agreement, which, to my surprise, demanded higher terms than those of Mr. Disraeli. I told the Archbishop the terms in which we had already expressed ourselves to Mr. Disraeli. Meanwhile an answer had come from Mr. Disraeli stating that he could not do more. Then followed the meeting of the opposition peers at the Duke of Marlborough’s.

_Wednesday, July 21._--The Cabinet met at eleven, and I went to it in the mind of last night. [Not to abandon the Bill absolutely, but only to suspend the Government’s responsibility for it, leaving the Opposition to work their own will, and with the intention, when this had been done, of considering the matter further]. We discussed, however, at great lengths all possible methods of proceeding that occurred to us. The course adopted was to go through the endowment amendments, and if they were carried adversely, then to drop their responsibility.

_Thursday, July 22._--I was laid up to-day and the transactions were carried on by Lord Granville, in communication with me from time to time at my house.

The proceedings of this critical day are narrated by Lord Granville in a memorandum to Mr. Gladstone dated August 4.