XLI. 1843. CHAP. which was everywhere most favourably received, reported in favour of a general consolidation of the turnpike trusts through South Wales; and a bill passed both houses of Parliament in the next session, founded on their recommendation.* Thus the Rebecca insurrection terminated in the entire success of the objects for which it was originally undertaken; and it leads to the melancholy reflection, that all the disorders and suffering consequent on it might lxxvi. 1954; have been avoided if the Government and Legislature had 1843, 262; at once redressed the real injustice complained of, and 1843, 1036; paid that attention to provincial grievances at a distance 1 Parl. Deb. Ann. Reg. Spectator, Mart. ii. 525, 526. 85. from the seat of power, which they seldom fail to do to metropolitan, at its door.1 Although the symptoms of amendment in several The Chart branches of manufacture was very apparent in the latter istand Anti- part of 1843, yet the general distress was still so great as movements. to encourage both the Chartists and Anti-Corn-Law Corn-Law League to continue in their respective spheres the agitation of the public mind. Such was the activity of the former class of agitators, that they got up a petition, which was presented to the House of Commons, praying for the establishment of the six points of the Charter and the abolition of all monopolies, and which was said to contain 3,500,000 signatures! From the manner in which these petitions * There is no reform in domestic administration more loudly called for than a general consolidation of road trusts, at least in every county, so that a ticket given at one bar shall be available at any other bar within five miles. This would be attended with equal benefit to the public, the road trustees, and those who have advanced money for them, for it would diminish essentially the expense of management. In the county of Mid-Lothian, where the produce of the tolls is £42,000 a-year, no less than £7000 annually has been saved by consolidating the trusts, while the public have obtained the great advantage of paying only one toll in five miles in any direction. Were a similar system adopted in the county of Lanark, it would probably, with a similar advantage to the community, effect a saving of £20,000 a-year; in that of York, of £80,000. The real obstacle to this great reform, as to most others, is the interested views of the surveyors and law agents on the several trusts, who would be affected by the change, and whose resistance to it has hitherto proved insurmountable from the influence they have acquired over the country gentlemen who nominally direct the affairs of the trusts. So powerful is this influence that it will probably never be overcome but by a general national movement, aided by the whole weight of Government. XLI. 1843. were at that time got up by the popular agitators, it is CHAP. probable the real number of signatures was not half so great, but still the number was immense. It was brought to the House by a long procession of working men, and it required sixteen men to carry it into the House. Mr Duncombe, who presented it, asserted that, after deducting those of youths and females, the signatures of 1,300,000 heads of families were appended to the petition. It made a great sensation, and Sir James Graham, on the part of Government, admitted the reality and wide extent of the distress of which the petitioners complained. From the emphatic manner in which "monopolies" were denounced in the petition, it was evident that the Anti-Corn-Law agitators had got the direction of the movement, or that a coalition had been entered into between the two sets of agitation. This impression was increased by a mournful event which occurred in January 1843, when Mr Drum- Jan. 21. mond, private secretary to Sir R. Peel, was murdered near the Salopian Coffee-house, in Parliament Street, by an assassin, who mistook him for Sir R. Peel. It was proved at the trial that he was insane, and he was sentenced to confinement for life; but in the mean time the obnoxious act excited a very great degree of consternation, from an apprehension that it was the work of one or other of the great combinations by which the country was now convulsed. To such a length did this feeling go, that most vehement debate took place soon after in Parliament, 6,7; Chron.; in the course of which Sir R. Peel declared that he held lxvii. 143; Mr Cobden " formally responsible" for the misery of the 527, 528. people.1 Feb. 17. Ann. Reg. a 1842, 152, 153-1843, Parl. Deb. Mart. ii. 86. with Ame The distressed state of Great Britain ever since the monetary crisis of 1839, led, as it always does, to disputes Differences with foreign powers, who sought to take advantage of our rica. distresses to advance pretensions, or make acquisitions at our expense for themselves. The Americans had never got over the check they had received in their attempts to revolutionise Canada during the troubles of 1838; and, XLI. 1843. CHAP. in particular, they retained a very sore recollection of the catastrophe of the "Caroline," by which Sir Allan M‘Nab had so signally defeated them. Matters were very near being brought to a crisis by the arrest of Mr M'Leod, a British subject, who was seized when transacting business in New York, on a charge of being implicated in that affair, and as the person who had slain one of the men who had perished on the occasion. The magistrates before whom he was brought, were about to discharge the prisoner on bail, seeing the offence, if offence it was, had been committed on British territory; but a mob got up and prevented his liberation, and this led to a report of a committee of Congress, to whom the matter had been referred, so extremely hostile, that it amounted to little short of a declaration of war. M'Leod, accordingly, was detained for trial, and this led to an unjustifiable incursion of some zealous Canadians into the American territory to get hold of a hostage for M'Leod, where they seized Colonel Grogan, an American subject, accused of incendiary acts in Canada. Fortunately M'Leod was able to Ann. Reg. bring such overwhelming evidence of an alibi, that after a Mr Fox's very impartial charge from the judge, he was acquitted; and the wisdom of the British Government at once ordered the liberation of Grogan, so that the danger, which had been very great, passed away for the present.1 1841, 317; Note, March 12, 1841; Mart. ii. 653. 87. the right of search. . The feelings of rancour on both sides, which these events Question of had produced, did not, however, yet subside. A more serious cause of dispute soon after arose, founded on the right which the British Government claimed, and its cruisers exercised, of stopping American vessels, and searching them, with a view to ascertain whether they were British vessels carrying on the slave-trade under the American flag. This was quite a different right from that of searching neutral vessels during war to ascertain whether they were conveying articles contraband of war, so much the object of dispute during the revolutionary contest, and was grounded, not on an alleged right to search the American vessels XLI. 1843. as neutrals, but the right to examine whether or not they CHAP. were British vessels engaged in an illegal traffic. The Americans, however, maintained that this right of mutual search applied only to States which had signed treaties permitting it to prevent the Slave Trade, and that, as they were not parties to these treaties, they could not permit their vessels to be searched on the ground of looking for slaves, or on any other pretence. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, while admitting that the Americans were no parties to these treaties, maintained that a right to stop American merchantmen, and call for production of their papers to see whether they were not British vessels. carrying on the slave trade in disguise, was indispensable to prevent that odious traffic being carried on to an unlimited extent under neutral flags. The discussion had gone on for some time, when the Whigs went out of office, and then wore a very unpromising aspect; for the feelings of large bodies of men, the slave-owners in America, on the one side, and the British emancipators on the other, were involved in the contest, and neither Government could venture openly to resist their demands. Matters, too, had been much complicated by an insurrection of some slaves on board the American brig " Creole," which had sailed from New Orleans in October 1841, which proved successful, and ended in the slaves killing one man and wounding the captain, after which they brought the vessel to the British harbour of Nassau, in New Providence. The whole negroes, 133 in number, were liberated by the British authorities, under the directions of Government, upon the ground that every slave became free as soon as 1842, 309 he touched the British soil, and that there was no law 1843, 318; authorising the detention even of those charged with the 1x. 320; mutiny and murder committed, not in the British domi- 654, 655. nions, but on the high seas.1 The indignation of the Americans was loudly excited by this untoward event. The slave States of the Union immediately took fire; denunciations of piracy and abet 1 Ann. Reg. Parl. Deb. Mart. ii. XLI. 1843. 88. tion is set Aberdeen. CHAP. ting murder were loudly hurled at the British government, and blood and fire were openly threatened in return. But never was a truer maxim than that it requires the The ques- consent of two persons to make a quarrel. A soft word, tled by Lord a seasonable explanation, often turns aside wrath, and sometimes prevents the most serious wars that threaten to devastate the world. When Lord Aberdeen succeeded to the Foreign Office in September 1841, he spared no pains to explain to the American Government the real nature of the right for which the British contended, and to soften the demand by the offer of reparation in all cases where injury had really been sustained, and a full exposition of the orders given to the British cruisers, which were of the most forbearing description. Fortunately for the peace of the world, these explanations, conceived in the most mild and conciliatory spirit, were met with similar dispositions on the part of the American minister in London, Mr Stevenson, who laboured not less assiduously to explain to his Government the real nature of the British pretensions and the spirit of moderation by which their Government was actuated. The result was an amicable adjustment of this most delicate and dangerous question, without any loss of character or honour on either side. The British Government disclaimed all right to stop or search American vessels as such during peace, or to do more than merely require production of their papers, to see whether or not they really belonged to the nation whose flag they bore, with a view to discovering whether they had slaves on board, and then only under such restrictions and responsibilities as effectually guarded against abuse; and the American admitted that "the apparent difference between the two governments was one of definition rather than principle, and that a right to be exercised only under such restric1 Ann. Reg. tions, can scarcely be considered as anything more than a privilege asked for and either conceded or withheld on the usual principles of international co-unity."1 Thus was the question, once so threatening, satisfactorily adjusted, and it 1842, 309 1843, 318; President's |