Leo, or the Gipsy, 1809.
Walter Savage Landor, b.
Austen Henry Layard, b.
idwin Lankester, b. 1814.
-'775-
1817.
Natural History.
Poems, 1795.
Nineveh and its Remains,
R. G. Latham, b. 1812.
Imaginary Conversations,
1847.
Varieties of Mankind,
1824 29.
George H. Lewes, b. 1817.
1850.
Mark Lemon, b. 1809.
Biographical History o)
Sir G. Cornnwall Lewis, b.
The Drama ; Editor of
Philosophy, 1845.
1806.
Punch.
David Livingstone, b. 1817.
Influence of Authority in
Samuel Lover, b. 1797.
RoryO'More, 1831.
Missionary Travels and Re-
searches in South Africa,
Matters of Opinion, 1849.
John Lindley, b. 1799.
Legends and Stories oi
1857.
Monographia Rosarium,
Ireland.
George Long, b. 1800.
1820.
Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton, b.
Civil Wars of Rome, 1844
Alexander WilhamCrawford,
1805.
48.
Lord Lindsay, b. 1812.
Falkland, 1827.
Editor of Penny Cyclopaedia.
History of Christian Art,
The Caxtons, 1849.
1847.
Lives of the Lindsays, 1849.
J. R. Maculloch, b. 1790.
Sir Charles Lyell, b. 1797-
Charles Mackay, b. 1813.
Principles of Political Econ-
Principles of Geology,
Poems ; Life and Liberty in
omy, 1825.
1833-
America.
Sir Frederick Madden, b.
F. D. Maurice, b. 1805.
Gerald Massey, b. 1828.
1801.
The Kingdom of Christ,
Poems.
Layamon's Brut, 1847.
1841.
H. H.Milman, b. 1791.
Fazio, a Tragedy, 1815.
History of Christianity,i84o.
Wycliffe's Bible, 1850-
Samuel Roffey Maitland, b.
1792.
Religions of the World.
Theological Essays, 1853.
Henry Melvill.
R. Monckton Milnes, b. 1809.
The Dark Ages, 1844.
Sermons, 1833.
Poms : Life of John Keats,
Essays on the Reformation
Edward Miall, b. 1809.
1848.
Dinah Maria Mulock, b. 1826
in England.
Harriet Martineau. t>. 1802.
Voluntary Education.
Ethics of Nonconformity.
John Halifax, Gentleman
Illustrations of Politica
John Stuart Mill, b. 1806.
1856. '
Economy, 1834.
System of Logic, 1843.
History of the Thirty Years
Principles of Political
Peace, 1850.
Economy, 1848.
David Masson, b. 1822.
William Allen Miller, b.
Life of Milton, 1859.
1817.
Henry Mayhew. b. 1812.
Elements of Chemistry,
London Labour and the
1857.
London Poor.
Sir R. I. Murchison, b. 1792.
Silurian System, 1839.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF BRITISH WRITERS.
335
IMAGINATION.
FACT.
SPECULATIVE & SCIENTIFIC.
Hon. Mrs. Norton, b. 1808.
Francis W. Newman, b.
The Undying One, and other
1805.
Poems, 1830.
Phases of Faith, 1850.
History of the Hebrew
Monarchy, 1847.
John Henry Newman, b.
1801. '
Tracts for the Times, 1833
Religious Development.
Catholicism in England.
Richard Owen, b. 1804.
Directions for preparing
Animals and Parts of
Animals for Anatomical
Bryan Waller Procter, b.
1770. (Barry Cornwall.)
Dramatic Scenes, and other
James Robinson, Planch^, b.
1796.
History of British Costume,
purposes, 1835.
John Philipps, b. 1800.
Treatise on Geology, 1837
Poems, 1819.
1834.
39-
Dramas.
Rivers of Yorkshire, 1853.
E. B. Pusey, b. I 8oo.
Leitch Ritchie, b. 1800.
W. Howard Russell, b. 1821.
Tracts for the Times, 1833
Novels and Tales.
War in the Crimea, 1855.
36.
Sir H. C. Rawlinson, b.
1 8 10.
Philology.
Charles Richardson, b. 1775.
Dictionary of the English
*
Language, 1837.
Henry Rogers, b. 1806.
Life of John Howe, 1836.
Contributions to Edinburgh
Review.
Peter Mark Roget, b. 1780-
Animal and Vegetable
Physiology, 1834.
J. Forbes Royle.
Flora of the Himalayan
Mountains, 1839.
Catherine Sinclair, b. 1800.
Beatrice ; or, the Unknown
Earl Stanhope CLord Mahon),
b. 1805.
John Ruskin, b. 1819.
Modern Painters, 1843.
Relatives, 1852.
History of the War of Suc-
Edward Sabine, b. 1790.
cession in Spain, 1832.
Terrestrial Magnetism.
History of England, 1836.
Adam Sedgwick, b. 1786.
Sir James Stephen, b, 1790.
Geology,
Ecclesiastical Biography.
Samuel Smiles.
William Stirling, b. 1818.
Self Help, 1859.
Annals of the Artists of
William Smith, b. 1814.
Spain, 1848.
Dictionary of Greek and
Agnes Strickland, b. 1805.
Roman Antiquities, 1842.
Lives of the Queens of
Mary Somerville, b. 1790.
England, 1840 51.
Mechanism of the Heavens,
Letters of Mary Queen of
1832.
Scots, 1842.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley.
Sinai and Palestine in con-
nection with their His-
tory, 1856.
John Bird Sumner, b. 1780.
Henry Taylor.
Isaac Comnenus, a Play,
Sir James Emerson Tennent,
b. 1804.
Records of Creation, 1816.
Isaac Taylor, b. 1787.
1827.
Alfred Tennyson, b. 1810.
Poems, 1830.
History of Modern Greece,
1830.
Ceylon, an Account of the
Elements of Thought, 1824.
Alfred SwaineTaylor,b. 1808-
On Poisons in Relation to
Island, 1859.
Medical Jurisprudence
and Medicine, 1848.
33 6
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF BRITISH WRITERS.
IMAGINATION.
SPECULATIVE & SCIENTIFIC,
W. M. Thackeray, b. 1811
Paris Sketch Book, by
Michael Angelo Titmarsh,
1840.
Frances Trollope, b. 1790.
The Abbess, 1832.
Martin Farquhar Tupper, b.
1810.
Proverbial Philosophy, 1839.
Samuel Warren, b. 1807.
Passages from the Diary of a
Late Physician, 1830 38.
Alaric A. Watts, b. 1799.
Poems, 1822.
William Henry Wills, b. 1810.
Old Leaves gathered from
Household Words, 1860.
Connop Thirl wall, b, 1797.
History of Greece, 1845-52.
William "j. Thorns, b. 1803.
Early Prose Romances, 1828.
Editor of Notes and Queries
James Thome, b. 1815.
Rambles by Rivers, 1844.
John Timbs, b. 1801.
Laconics, 1825-26 ;
Year Book of Facts, 1839.
Robert Vaughan. b. 1800.
Life of Wycliffe, 1828.
Sir J. G. Wilkinson, b. 1798.
MateriaHieroglyphica, 1828.
Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Egyptians, 1836.
Christopher Wordsworth, b.
1808-
Athens and Attica, 1836.
Greece : Pictorial, Descrip-
tive, and Historical.
Thomas Wright, b. 1810.
Queen Elizabeth and her
Times, 1838-
The Celt, the Roman, and
the Saxon, 1853.
Matthew Digby Wyatt, b. 1820.
Specimens of the Geometri-
cal Mosaics of the Middle
Ages, 1848.
Tom Taylor, b. 1817.
Life of Haydon, 1853.
R. C. Trench, b. 1807.
Notes on the Miracles, 1846.
Philology.
Archbishop Whately, b. 1787.
Bampton Lectures, 1822.
Elements of Logic, 1826.
Charles Wheatstone, b. 1802.
Binocular Vision ;
Electric Telegraph.
William Whewell, b. 1795.
Bridgewater Treatise on
Astronomy, 1833.
Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop
of Oxford, b. 1805.
Life of William Wilber-
force, 1838.
Sermons.
Robert Willis, b. 1800,
Architecture of the Middle
Ages, 1835.
Principles of Mechanics,
1841.
Forbes Winslow, b. 1811.
Application of the Princi-
ples of Phrenology to
the Elucidation and Cure
of Insanity, 1831.
Nicholas Wiseman, b. 1802.
Lectures on the Doctrines
and Practices of the
Catholic Church, 1836.
Ralph Nicholson Wornum,
b. 1812.
History of Painting, 1847.
Analysis of Ornament,
1856.
SIR ROBERT PEEL, PRIME MINISTER. 337
CHAPTER XV.
Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister. Commercial Distress. Birth of the Prince of Wales.
Agitation against the Corn-Laws. Sir Robert Peel's Bill fora Sliding Scale.
Lord John Russell's Proposal of a Fixed Duty. Income Tax renewed. Reduction
of the Tariff. Petition for the People's Charter. Assaults on the Queen. Parlia-
ment prorogued. Relations with France. Treaty of Washington settling the Boun-
dary Question. Disturbances in the Manufacturing Districts. Opening of Parlia-
ment, 1843. Debate on the Depression of Manufactures. Mr. Cobden and sir Robert
Peel. Corn-Law Debate. Mr. Charles Buller's Speech on Systematic Coloniza-
tion. Monster Meetings for Repeal of the Union. Arrest of O'Connell. The
Scotch Church. Secession of Ministers to constitute the Free Church. New Dis-
trict Churches in England. The Rebecca Riots. Suppression of the Disturbances
in Wales.
THE ministerial arrangements of sir Robert Peel were com-
pleted ; the members of the House of Commons who had accepted
office were all re-elected. On the i6th of September, 1841, the
Prime Minister made a declaration of his policy in the most explicit
terms, which policy amounted to this, that not a word would he utter
of what he intended to do. He asked for the confidence of the
.House, whilst he considered the mode in which the great financial
evil of the previous seven years could be removed. Being pressed
upon the subject of the Corn-Laws, he said, in a subsequent debate,
he should have thought it reasonable that on returning to power
after a lapse of ten years, he should not have been called upon
within a month to propose an alteration of the law in respect to the
trade in corn. If he were to be responsible for not instantly pro-
posing a measure on the Corn-Laws, what must be thought of that
government that had held office for five years, and never, until the
month of May, 1841, had intimated an united opinion on that sub-
ject (* During the remainder of the Session, from all the manufac-
turing districts came the most afflicting statements of the depres-
sion of trade and of the sufferings of the operative classes. Again
and again it was said that the Corn-Laws were the principal cause
of this commercial distress, and sir Robert Peel was urged not to
let parliament separate without making some disclosure of the
measures which he contemplated for the settlement of this ques-
tion. The prorogation took place on the yth of October. During
these three weeks of continued debate not a syllable could be ex-
tracted in either house of parliament from any member of the gov
VOL. VIII. 22
338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
eminent, as to the course to be pursued, by which hope might be
afforded to those who suffered, and discontent might be deprived
of some of its power of stirring up a starving population into mad-
ness. The Royal Speech, delivered by Commission, was as vague
and mysterious as the individual declarations of members of the
Cabinet. The difficulties of sir Robert Peel arose, as we have
already seen, not only from the distrust of his political opponents,
but from the almost impossibility of reconciling some members of
his own administration to any large change of financial and com-
mercial policy opposed to their own class interests, and to the prin-
ciples which had so long held them together as a great party.
On Tuesday the 9th of November the " London Gazette Ex-
traordinary " announced the birth that morning of a Prince. By
letters patent of the 8th of December the Queen created "our most
dear son, the Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland (Duke of Saxony, Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay. Earl of
Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward
of Scotland), Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester." On the fol-
lowing 25th of January the baptism of the Prince of Wales was
performed in the royal chapel of St. George at Windsor, the King
of Prussia, who had visited England for this especial occasion,
being one of the sponsors.
After four months of anxious speculation on the part of the
public as to the course that the ministry would pursue upon the"
two great questions of finance and trade, the Queen opened the
Session of Parliament on the 3rd of February, 1842. The King of
Prussia accompanied the Queen to witness this ceremonial. A
great personal interest was given to the speech by its opening sen-
tence : " I cannot meet you in parliament assembled without mak-
ing a public acknowledgment of my gratitude to Almighty God on
account of the birth of the Prince, my son ; an event which has
completed the measure of my domestic happiness." The state of
the finances and of the expenditure of the country was recom-
mended to the immediate attention of parliament ; and so also was
recommended " the state of the laws which affect the importation
of corn and of other articles the produce of foreign countries."
There was no amendment to the Address. It was announced on
the 3rd by sir Robert Peel that on the pth he should move for a
Committee of the whole House for the purpose of considering the
laws which affected the import of foreign corn. When the day
arrived great was the excitement in and around the House of Com-
mons. Six hundred Anti-Corn-Law delegates had gone in proces-
sion to Palace Yard and had there taken their station, crying out
AGITATION AGAINST CORN-LAWS. 339
from time to time, as members passed them, " Total Repeal,"
Fixed Duty," " No Sliding Scale." The plan which sir Robert
Peel developed in his speech was in no degree calculated to allay
the commercial discontent with regard to the trade in corn. He
maintained the existing principle of the sliding scale of duties on
the importation of foreign corn, but he lowered the protection
afforded, and introduced a more liberal method of fixing the aver-
ages. To no party was the minister's scheme satisfactory. The
Whigs, by lord John Russell, proposed, instead of the sliding scale,
a fixed duty of eight shillings per quarter. Mr. Villiers and Mr.
Cobden insisted upon that total repeal of all duties on corn which
they had long so strenuously and consistently advocated. The
ultra-Protectionists demanded that a higher rate of duties should
be adopted at every move in the sliding scale. The debates upon
each and all of these various principles were carried on without
intermission till the bill introduced by sir Robert Peel passed the
House of Commons on the 7th of April. For four nights lord
John Russell's proposition of a fixed duty was debated, and it was
rejected by a majority of a hundred and twenty-three.' During five
nights the motion of Mr. Villiers for the abolition of all duties on
corn was discussed, and it was rejected by a majority of three hun-
dred and ninety-three. The higher Protectionist scale proposed
by Mr. Christopher was rejected by a majority of three hundred
and six. In defending his proposal sir Robert Peel maintained
that it was of the utmost importance to the interests of the country
that we should be as far as possible independent of foreign supply ;
that the main sources of the supply of corn should be derived from
domestic agriculture ; but that all foreign supplies should be for
the purpose of making up deficiencies, rather than as the chief
sources of subsistence. There was a tone, however, in the speech
of sir Robert Peel which indicated to some of the Protectionists
that the minister was not the man to carry out their extreme views.
" I should not consider myself," he said, " a friend to the agricul-
turalist if I asked for a protection with a view of propping up rents,
or for the purpose of defending his interest or the interest of any
particular class." Lord Palmerston, in a speech at the close of the
Session, in which he reviewed the measures of the late and present
ministers, congratulated the government upon having come into
office fully imbued with those sound princijjles, " the enunciation
of which has excited so much admiration on this side of the House,
and has created so much surprise and alarm on the other." * Sir
Robert Peel retorted in allusion to lord Palmerston's support of
* Hansard, vol. Ixv. col. 1237.
34
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
the Reform Bill after his opposition to all reform in the time of
Mr. Canning that harsh and intolerant criticisms on the versatile
opinions of others proceeded with a very bad grace from the noble
lord. It was insinuated that he had deluded his supporters by the
extent and importance of the alterations he had made in the Corn-
Laws. There might have been shades of difference there might
have been occasional dissatisfaction and complaint but he had the
firm belief that the conduct of himself and his colleagues in office
had not abated one jot of that confidence on the part of their
friends which cheered and encouraged them in the blank regions
of Opposition. Subsequent revelations have shown how materi-
ally sir Robert Peel was hampered by the suspicions of his party.
In his own Memoirs, published by the Trustees of his papers, he
says, " During the discussions in parliament on the Corn-Law of
1842 I was more than once pressed to give a guarantee (so far as
a minister could give it) that the amount of protection established
by that law should be permanently adhered to; but although I did
not then contemplate the necessity for further change, I uniformly
refused to fetter the discretion of the government by any such
assurances as those that were required from me." *
The measure propounded by sir Robert Peel upon the Corn-
Laws was that halting between two opinions which it was evident
he himself could not regard as a final settlement of the question :
" I did not then contemplate the necessity for further change."
This measure, like most compromises, required something like a
tone of apology both to his friends and his opponents. But the
minister was on far safer ground when he came forward with his
great financial measure. When he proposed the renewal of the
property-tax for the purpose of sweeping away a host of vexatious
and embarrassing duties upon foreign commerce, he had not to
defy the opposition of a great class-interest such as that of the landed
proprietors and the agriculturists. He would make many of the
tax-payers indignant, especially those who saw in direct taxation
according to their means, the closing of that door of escape from
the general burden of the community of which many of the rich
could avail themselves by parsimony or absenteeism. The minis-
terial proposition was tax upon all incomes above i$ol. a year, not
to exceed sevenpence in the pound, for the limited period of three
years. The tax, he said, would not only supply the deficit occa-
sioned by the excess of expenditure over revenue, but would justify
such a large reduction of commercial taxation as would, in regard
to the expenditure of most individuals, indirectly make up the dif-
* " Memoirs by Sir Robert Peel," vol. ii. p. joj.
INCOME TAX RENEWED. 341
ference that was taken from them by direct taxation. Out of a
tariff of twelve hundred articles sir Robert proposed to reduce the
duty on seven hundred and fifty. " We have sought," he declared,
" to remove all absolute prohibitions upon the import of foreign
articles, and we have endeavoured to reduce duties which are so
high as to be prohibitory, to such a scale as may admit of fair com-
petition with domestic produce. In cases where that principle has
been departed from, and prohibitory duties maintained, we justify
our departure from the rule by the special circumstances of the
case. With respect to raw materials, which constitute the elements
of our manufactures, our object, speaking generally, has been to
reduce the duties on them to almost a nominal amount. In half-
manufactured articles, which enter almost as much as the raw
material into our domestic manufacture, we have reduced the duty
to a moderate amount. And with regard to completely manufactured
articles, our design has been to remove prohibition, and to reduce
prohibitory duties, so that the manufactures of foreign countries
may enter into a fair competition with our own." That part of the
financial measure which revived the obnoxious war tax upon income
with all its original inquisitorial character, and its unequal opera-
tion upon permanent and upon uncertain revenues was strenuously
opposed in both Houses. But the necessity for some bold measure
for putting the finances of the country upon a solid foundation,
bore down all opposition whether in or out of parliament. The
commercial and manufacturing interests could not regard the new
tariff with any feeling but that of satisfaction. The actual amount
of the seven hundred and fifty reductions would not much exceed
a quarter of a million sterling, but an immense number of vexatious
custom-house restrictions were at once swept away, and an example
was held up to foreign nations which sir Robert Peel believed
would ultimately prevail. The agriculturists were in a fearful state
of alarm. Salted and fresh meat, oxen, sheep, and cows, were to
be admitted at reduced rates of duty. There was a wide-spread
panic, raised upon prophecies that it would be impossible to com-
pete with the foreign grazier ; that meat would be reduced to three-
pence per pound ; and that all who had stock had better sell it as
fast as possible. This senseless alarm, which we can laugh at in
1862, was only a foretaste of the terror which would prevail when
a bolder approach should be made to those principles of free
trade which, during the twenty years before sir Robert Peel's
opening administration, had been slowly advancing, and which in
the succeeding twenty years have changed the whole character of
English industry, giving an impulse to every employment of capital
342
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
and laoour beyond what the most sanguine of economists could
have contemplated as so immediate and so permanent a result of
legislation. After many debates in both Houses, the financial prop-
ositions of sir Robert Peel were carried with little alteration. The
government had done something in its advance towards a sound
commercial policy ; it had done nothing, as some had expected, to
go back to antiquated principles, or to halt altogether on the road
of improvement.
Whilst the House of Commons was in committee on the Income
Tax Bill, its attention was diverted from the minute details in-
volved in its numerous clauses by the presentation of a very remark-
able petition. On the 2nd of May a long procession of working
men, escorting sixteen of their number bearing a heavy burden,
entered the lobby of the House of Commons. The load which
required for its support this aggregate amount of human strength
was a petition, signed, it was alleged, by three millions of people.
The document was too large to pass through the folding doors of
the House of Commons, and it was necessary to unroll it to carry
it into the House. When unrolled it spread over a great part of
the floor, and rose above the level of the Table. The petition set
forth many evils of which the petitioners complained, and they
demanded that the House of Commons "do immediately without
alteration, deduction, or addition, pass into a law the document
entitled ' The People's Charter.'" Mr. Thomas Duncombe pre-
sented the petition, and the next day he moved that the petitioners
should be heard at the bar of the House in support of their allega*
tions. The debate on this occasion was interesting. Probably its
greatest interest was a speech of Mr. Macaulay. Of the six points
of the Charter, he said, there was one for which he had voted the
ballot and he saw no reason to change his opinion on that subject.
There was another point of which he decidedly approved the
abolition of the pecuniary qualification for members of that House.
He differed from the Chartists in their demand for annual parlia-
ments, as he differed also as to the expediency of paying repre-
sentatives of the people, and of dividing the country into electoral
districts. He did not consider these matters as vital. They were
subordinate questions when compared with that one question which
still remained to be considered. " The essence of the Charter is
Universal Suffrage. If you withhold that, it matters not very much
what else you grant. If you grant that, it matters not at all what
else you withhold. If you grant that the country is lost
My firm conviction is, that in our country universal suffrage is
Vncompatible, not with this or that form of government, but with all
ASSAULTS ON THE QUEEN. 343
forms of government, and with everything for the sake of which
forms of government exist; that it is incompatible with property,
and that it is consequently incompatible with civilization." * The
motion of Mr. Duncombe was rejected by two hundred and eighty-
seven votes to forty-nine.
It was in this Session that, after considerable debate in both
Houses lord Ashley's bill for restraining the employment of women
and children in mines and collieries was passed. f In this Session
important alterations were made in the constitution of Courts of
Bankruptcy. The Court of Review was formed of one judge
instead of three judges ; and District Courts of Bankruptcy were