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India, but was to be assisted by a Council. India now has nine provinces, each under its own civil government, and independent of the others, but all subordinate to the authority of the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the government of the Company, the famed John Company,' formally ceased on September 1, 1858; and the Queen was proclaimed throughout India in the following November, with Lord Canning for her first Viceroy. It was but fitting that the man who had borne the strain of that terrible crisis, who had brought our Indian Empire safely through it all, and who had had to endure so much obloquy and to live down so much calumny, should have his name consigned to history as that of the first of the line of British Viceroys in India.

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THE last chapter has told us that Lord Palmerston introduced a measure to transfer to the Crown the government of India, but that unexpected events in the meanwhile compelled him to resign office, and called Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to power. These events had nothing to do directly with the general policy of Palmerston or Lord Derby. At midday of January 14, 1858, Lord Palmerston seemed to be as popular and as strong as a minister well could be. But on the evening of January 14, Felice Orsini, an Italian exile, made his memorable attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French. Orsini lost himself, and he drew the English Government down at the same time. Felice Orsini was well known in England. He was a handsome soldierly-looking man, with intensely dark eyes and dark beard, whose one great object was to endeavour to rouse up the English people to some policy of intervention on behalf of Italy against Austria. After a while, however, he found out that England would do nothing. The English Liberals, with the exception of a very few enthusiasts, were just as much opposed to the principle of intervention in the affairs of other States as the Conservatives. But Orsini set himself to devise some explanation for what was simply the prudent and just determination of all the statesmen and leading politicians of the country. He found the explanation in the subtle influence of the Emperor of the French, and he appears then to have

allowed the idea to get possession of him that the removal of the Emperor of the French from the scene was an indispensable preliminary to any policy having for its object the emancipation of Italy from Austrian rule. He brooded on this idea until it became a project and a passion. It transformed a soldier and a patriot into an assassin.

On January 14, Orsini and his fellow-conspirators made their attempt in the Rue Lepelletier in Paris. As the Emperor and Empress of the French were driving up to the door of the Opera-house in that street, Orsini and his companions flung at and into the carriage three shells or bombs shaped like a pear, and filled with detonating powder. The shells exploded, and killed and wounded many persons. So minute were the fragments in which the bombs burst that 516 wounds, great and little, were inflicted by the explosion. Ten persons were killed, 156 were wounded. It was said at the time that the Orsini plot frightened the Emperor of the French into taking up the cause of Italy. Historical revelations made at a later period show that this is altogether a mistake. We now know that at the time of the Congress of Paris Count Cavour had virtually arranged with the Emperor the plans of policy which were afterwards carried out, and that even before that time Cavour was satisfied in his own mind as to the ultimate certainty of Louis Napoleon's co-operation. Those who are glad to see Italy a nation, may be glad to know that Orsini's bombs had nothing to do with her success. Four persons were put on trial as participators in the attempt, three of them having actually thrown the bombs. Only two, however, were executed, Orsini and Pierri; the other two were sentenced to penal servitude for life.

In France an outburst of anger followed the attempt in the Rue Lepelletier; but the anger was not so much against Orsini as against England. One of the persons charged along with Orsini, although he was not tried in Paris, for he could not be found there, was a Frenchman, Simon Bernard, who had long been living in London. It was certain that many of the arrangements for the plot were made in London. The bombs were manufactured in Birmingham, and were ordered for Orsini by an Englishman. It was known that Orsini had many friends and admirers in this country. The Imperialists in France at once assumed that England was a country where assassination of foreign sovereigns was encouraged by the population, and not discouraged by the laws. The French Minister for Foreign

Affairs, Count Walewski, wrote a despatch, in which he asked whether England considered that hospitality was due to assassins. The Duc de Persigny, then Ambassador of France in England, made a very foolish and unfortunate reply to a deputation from the Corporation of London, in which he took on himself to point out that if the law of England was strong enough to put down conspiracies for assassination it ought to be put in motion, and if it were not, it ought to be made stronger. Addresses of congratulation were poured in upon the Emperor from the French army, and many of them were full of insulting allusions to England as the sheltering-ground of assassination. A semi-official pamphlet, published in Paris, and entitled The Emperor Napoleon the Third and England,' actually went the ridiculous length of describing an obscure debating club in a Fleet Street public-house, where a few dozen honest fellows smoked their pipes of a night and talked hazy politics, as a formidable political institution where regicide was nightly preached to fanatical desperadoes.

Thus we had the public excited on both sides. The feeling of anger on this side was intensified by the conviction that France was insulting us because she thought England was crippled by her troubles in India, and had no power to resent an insult. It was while men here were smarting under this sense of wrong that Lord Palmerston introduced his famous measure for the suppression and punishment of conspiracies to murder. The bill was introduced in consequence of the despatch of Count Walewski. In that despatch it was suggested to the English Government that they ought to do something to strengthen their law. The words were very civil. Nor was the request they contained in itself unreasonable. Long afterwards this country had to acknowledge, in reply to the demand of the United States, that a nation cannot get rid of her responsibility to a foreign people by pleading that her municipal legislation does not provide for this or that emergency. The natural rejoinder is, Then you had better make such a law; you are not to injure us and get off by saying your laws allow us to be injured.' But the conditions under which the request was made by France had put England in the worst possible mood for acceding to it. Ominous questions were put to the Government in both Houses of Parment. In the House of Commons Mr. Roebuck asked whether any communications had passed between the Governments of England and France with respect to the Alien Act or any

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portion of our criminal code. Lord Palmerston answered by mentioning Count Walewski's despatch, which he said should be laid before the House. He added a few words about the addresses of the French regiments, and pleaded that allowance should be made for the irritation caused by the attempt on the life of the Emperor. He was asked a significant question-had the Government sent any answer to Count Walewski's despatch? No, was the reply; her Majesty's Government had not answered it; not yet.

Two or three days after Lord Palmerston moved for leave to bring in the Conspiracy to Murder Bill. The chief object of the measure was to make conspiracy to murder a felony instead of a mere misdemeanour, as it had been in England, and to render it liable to penal servitude for any period varying from five years to a whole life. Lord Palmerston made a feeble and formal attempt to prove that his bill was introduced simply as a measure of needed reform in our criminal legislation, and without special reference to anything that had happened in France. The law against conspiracy to murder was very light in England, he showed, and was very severe in Ireland. It was now proposed to make the law the same in both countries-that was all. Of course no one was deceived by this explanation. The bill itself was as much of a sham as the explanation. Such a measure would not have been of any account whatever as regarded the offences against which it was particularly directed. Lord Palmerston, we may be sure, did not put the slightest faith in the efficacy of the piece of legislation he had undertaken to recommend to Parliament. He was compelled to believe that the Government would have to do something; and he came, after a while, to the conclusion that the most harmless measure would be the best. Mr. Kinglake moved an amendment, formally expressing the sympathy of the House with the French people, on account of the attempt made against the Emperor, but declaring it inexpedient to legislate in compliance with the demand made in Count Walewski's despatch of January 20, until further information is before it of the communications of the two Governments subsequent to the date of that despatch.' Mr. Disraeli voted for the bringing in of the bill, and made a cautious speech, in which he showed himself in favour of some sort of legislation, but did not commit himself to approval of that particular measure. The bill was read a first time. Two hundred and ninety-nine votes were for it; only ninety-nine against.

But before it came on for a second reading public opinion was beginning to declare ominously against it. The fact that the Government had not answered the despatch of Count Walewski told heavily against them. It was afterwards explained that Lord Cowley had been instructed to answer it orally, and that Lord Palmerston thought this course the more prudent, and the more likely to avoid an increase of irritation between the two countries. But public opinion in England was not now to be propitiated by counsels of moderation. The idea had gone abroad that Lord Palmerston was truckling to the Emperor of the French, and that the very right of asylum which England had so long afforded to the exiles of all nations, was to be sacrificed at the bidding of one who had been glad to avail himself of it in his hour of need.

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This idea received support from the arrest of Dr. Simon Bernard, a French refugee, who was immediately put on trial as an accomplice in Orsini's plot. Bernard was a native of the South of France, a surgeon by profession, and had lived a long time in England. The arrest of Bernard may have been a very proper thing, but it came in with most untimely effect upon the Government. It was understood to have been made by virtue of information sent over from Paris, and no one could have failed to observe that the loosest accusations of that kind were always coming from the French capital. Many persons were influenced in their belief of Bernard's innocence by the fact, which does assuredly count for something, that Orsini himself had almost with his dying breath declared that Bernard knew nothing of the intended assassination. Not a few made up their minds that he was innocent because the French Government accused him of guilt; and still more declared that innocent or guilty he ought not to be arrested by English authorities at the bidding of a French Emperor. The debate was over and the Conspiracy Bill disposed of before the Bernard trial came to an end; but we may anticipate by a few days, and finish the Bernard story. Bernard was tried at the Central Criminal Court under existing law; he was defended by Mr. Edwin James, a well-known criminal lawyer, and he was acquitted. The trial was a practical illustration of the inutility of such special legislation as that which Lord Palmerston attempted to introduce. A new law of conspiracy could not have furnished any new evidence against Bernard, or persuaded a jury to convict him on such evidence as there was. In the prevailing temper of the public

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