The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume I Part 51

Count Buol on his part disclaimed all aggressive tendencies in respect of Turkey, and stated emphatically that the views and conduct of Austria in her Eastern policy were in the strictest sense conservative.

Embarking at Trieste on the wars.h.i.+p _Terrible_, Nov. 21, and after a delightful voyage down the Adriatic, five days after leaving Vienna (Nov. 24th) Mr. Gladstone found himself at Corfu--the famous island of which he had read such memorable things in Thucydides and Xenophon, the harbour where the Athenians had fitted out the expedition to Syracuse, so disastrous to Greek democracy; where the young Octavian had rallied his fleet before the battle of Actium, so critical for the foundation of the empire of the Caesars; and whence Don John had sallied forth for the victory of Lepanto, so fatal to the conquering might of the Ottoman Turks. It was from Corfu that the brothers Bandiera had started on their tragic enterprise for the deliverance of Italy fourteen years before.

Mr. Gladstone landed under a salute of seventeen guns, and was received with all ceremony and honour by the lord high commissioner and his officers.

ARRIVAL AT CORFU

He was not long in discovering what mischief the stolen despatch had done, and may well have suspected from the first in his inner mind that his efforts to undo it would bear little fruit. The morning after his arrival the ten members for Corfu came to him in a body with a pet.i.tion to the Queen denouncing the plan of making their island a British colony, and praying for union with Greece. The munic.i.p.ality followed suit in the evening. The whole sequel was in keeping. Mr. Gladstone with Young's approval made a speech to the senate, in which he threw over the despatch, severed his mission wholly from any purpose or object in the way of annexation, and dwelt much upon a circular addressed by the foreign office in London to all its ministers abroad disclaiming any designs of that kind. He held levees, he called upon the archbishop, he received senators and representatives, and everywhere he held the same emphatic language. He soon saw enough to convince him of the harm done to British credit and influence by the severities in Cephalonia; by the small regard and frequent contempt shown by many Englishmen for the religion of the people for whose government they were responsible; by the diatribes in the London press against the Ionians as brigands, pirates, and barbarians; and by the absence in high commissioners and others 'of tact, good sense, and good feeling in the sense in which it is least common in England, the sense namely in which it includes a disposition to enter into and up to a certain point sympathise with, those who differ with us in race, language, and creed.' Perhaps his penetrating eye early discovered to him that forty years of bad rule had so embittered feeling, that even without the stolen despatch, he had little chance.

He made a cruise round the islands. His visit shook him a good deal with respect to two of the points--Corfu and Ithaca--on which it has been customary to dwell as proving Homer's precise local knowledge. The rain poured in torrents for most of the time, but it cleared up for a s.p.a.ce to reveal the loveliness of Ithaca. In the island of Ulysses and Penelope he danced at a ball given in his honour. In Cephalonia he was received by a tumultuous mob of a thousand persons, whom neither the drenching rains nor the unexpected manner of his approach across the hills could baffle. They greeted him with incessant cries for union with Greece, thrust disaffected papers into his carriage, and here and there indulged in cries of [Greek: kato e prostasia], down with the protectorate, down with the tyranny of fifty years. This exceptional disrespect he ascribed to what he leniently called the history of Cephalonia, meaning the savage dose of martial law nine years before. He justly took it for a marked symbol of the state of excitement at which under various influences the popular mind had arrived. Age and infirmity prevented the archbishop from coming to offer his respects, so after his levee Mr.

Gladstone with his suite repaired to the archbishop. 'We found him,'

says Mr. Gordon, 'seated on a sofa dressed in his most gorgeous robes of gold and purple, over which flowed down a long white beard.... Behind him stood a little court of black-robed, black-bearded, black-capped, dark-faced priests. He is eighty-six years old, and his manners and appearance were dignified in the extreme. Speaking slowly and distinctly he began to tell Gladstone that the sole wish of Cephalonia was to be united to Greece, and there was something very exciting and affecting in the tremulous tones of the old man saying over and over again, "_questa infelice isola, questa isola infelice_," as the tears streamed down his cheeks and long silvery beard. It was like a scene in a play.'

At Zante (Dec. 15), the surface was smoother. A concourse of several thousands awaited him; Greek flags were flying on all sides in the strong morning sea-breeze; the town bands played Greek national tunes; the bells were all ringing; the harbour was covered with boats full of gaily dressed people; and the air resounded with loud shouts [Greek: zeto ho philellen Gladston, zeto he henosis meta tes h.e.l.lados], Long live Gladstone the Philh.e.l.lene, hurrah for union with Greece.

Every room and pa.s.sage in the residency, Mr. Gordon writes to Lord Aberdeen, was already thronged.... Upstairs the excitement was great, and as soon as Gladstone had taken his place, in swept Gerasimus the bishop (followed by scores of swarthy priests in their picturesque black robes) and tendered to him the pet.i.tion for union. But before he could deliver it, Gladstone stopped him and addressed to him and to the a.s.sembly a speech in excellent Italian.

Never did I hear his beautiful voice ring out more clear or more thrillingly than when he said, '_Ecco l' inganno_.'... It was a scene not to be forgotten. The priests, with eye and hand and gesture, expressed in lively pantomime to each other the effect produced by each sentence, in what we should think a most exaggerated way, like a chorus on the stage, but the effect was most picturesque.

VISITS ATHENS

He attended a banquet one night, went to the theatre the next, where he was greeted with l.u.s.ty zetos, and at midnight embarked on the _Terrible_ on his way to Athens. His stay in the immortal city only lasted for three or four days, and I find no record of his impressions.

They were probably those of most travellers educated enough to feel the spell of the Violet Crown. Illusions as to the eternal summer with which poets have blessed the Isles of Greece vanished as they found deep snow in the streets, icicles on the Acropolis, and snow-balling in the Parthenon. He had a reception only a shade less cordial than if he were Demosthenes come back. He dined with King Otho, and went to a _Te Deum_ in honour of the Queen's birthday. Finlay, the learned man who had more of the true spirit of history than most historians then alive, took him to a meeting of the legislature; he beheld some of the survivors of the war of independence, and made friends with one valiant lover of freedom, the veteran General Church. Though, thanks to the generosity of an Englishman, they had a university of their own at Corfu, the Ionians preferred to send their sons to Athens, and the Athenian students immediately presented a memorial to Mr. Gladstone with the usual prayer for union with the h.e.l.lenic kingdom. On the special object of his visit, he came away from Athens with the impression that opinion in Greece was much divided on the question of immediate union with the Ionian islands.

In truth his position had been a false one. Everybody was profoundly deferential, but n.o.body was quite sure whether he had come to pave the way for union, or to invite the Athenian government to check it, and when Rangabe, the foreign minister, found him without credentials or instructions, and staved off all discussion, Mr. Gladstone must have felt that though he had seen one of the two or three most wondrous historic sites on the globe, that was all.

IN ALBANIA

Of a jaunt to wilder scenes a letter of Mr. Arthur Gordon's gives a pleasant glimpse:--

You will like an account of an expedition the whole party made yesterday to Albania to pay a visit to an old lady, a great proprietress, who lives in a large ruinous castle at a place called Filates. She is about the greatest personage in these regions, and it was thought that the lord high commissioner should pay her a visit if he wished to see Albania.... It was a lovely morning, and breakfast was laid on the balcony of the private apartments looking over the garden and commanding the loveliest of views across the strait. Gladstone was in the highest spirits, full of talk and _romping boyishly_. After breakfast the L.H.C.'s barge and the cutters of the _Terrible_ conveyed us on board the pretty little gunboat.

We reached Sayada in about two hours, and were received on landing by the governor of the province, who had ridden down from Filates to meet us. We went to the house of the English vice-consul, whilst the long train of horses was preparing to start, but after a few minutes' stay there Gladstone became irrepressibly restless, and insisted on setting off to walk--I of course walked too. The old steward also went with us, and a guard of eight white-kilted palikari on foot. The rest of the party rode, and from a slight hill which we soon reached, it was very pretty to look back at the long procession starting from Sayada and proceeding along the narrow causeway running parallel to our path, the figures silhouetted against the sea. Filates is about 12 miles from Sayada, perhaps more, the path is rugged and mountainous, and commands some fine views. Our palikari guards fired off their long Afghan-looking guns in every direction, greatly to Gladstone's annoyance, but there was no stopping them.

Scouts on the hills gave warning of our approach, and at the entrance to Filates we were met by the whole population. First the Valideh's retainers, then the elders, then the moolahs in their great green turbans, the Christian community, and finally, on the top of the hill, the Valideh's little grandson, gorgeously dressed, and attended by his tutor and a number of black slaves. The little boy salaamed to Gladstone with much grace and self-possession, and then conducted us to the castle, in front of which all the townsfolk who were not engaged in receiving us were congregated in picturesque groups on the smooth gra.s.sy lawns and under the great plane trees. The castle is a large ruinous enclosure of walls and towers, with buildings of all sorts and ages within. The Valideh herself, attired in green silk and a fur pelisse, her train held by two negro female slaves, received us at the head of the stairs and ushered us into a large room with a divan round three sides of it.

Sweetmeats and water and pipes and coffee were brought as usual, some of the cups and their filigree stands very handsome. We went out to see the town, preceded by a tall black slave in a gorgeous blue velvet jacket, with a great silver stick in his hand. Under his guidance we visited the khans, the bazaar, and the mosque; not only were we allowed to enter the mosque with our shoes on, but on Gladstone expressing a wish to hear the call to prayer, the muezzin was sent up to the top of the minaret to call the azan two hours before the proper time. The sight of the green-turbaned imam crying the azan for a Frank was most singular, and the endless variety of costume displayed by the crowds who thronged the verandahs which surround the mosque was most picturesque. The gateway of the castle too was a picturesque scene. Retainers and guards, slaves and soldiers, and even women, were lounging about, and a beautiful tame little pet roedeer played with the pretty children in bright coloured dresses, cl.u.s.tering under the cavernous archway.

We had dinner in another large room. I counted thirty-two dishes, or I may say courses, for each dish at a Turkish dinner is brought in separately, and it is rude not to eat of all! The most picturesque part of the dinner, and most unusual, was the way the room was lighted. Eight tall, grand Albanians stood like statues behind us, each holding a candle. It reminded me of the torch-bearers who won the laird his bet in the _Legend of Montrose_.

After dinner there was a long and somewhat tedious interval of smoking and story-telling in the dark, and we called upon Lacaita to recite Italian poetry, which he did with much effect, pouring out sonnet after sonnet of Petrarch, including that which my father thinks the most beautiful in the Italian language, that which has in it the 'Campeggiar del angelico riso.' This showed me how easy it was to fall into the habits of a country. Gladstone is as unoriental as any man well can be, yet his calling on Lacaita to recite was really just the same thing that every Pasha does after dinner, when he orders his tale-teller to repeat a story. The ladies meanwhile were packed off to the harem for the night, Lady Bowen acting as their interpreter. My L.H.C., his two secretaries, his three aide-de-camps, Captains Blomfield and Clanricarde, and the vice-consul, all slept in the same room, and that not a large one, and we were packed tight on the floor, under quilts of Brusa silk and gold, tucked up round us by gorgeous Albanians. Gladstone amused himself with speculating whether or no we were in contravention of the provisions of Lord Shaftesbury's lodging-house act!

After a month of cloudless suns.h.i.+ne it took it into its head to rain this night of all nights in the year, and rain as it only does in these regions. Gladstone and I walked down again despite of wind, rain, and mud, and our palikari guard--to keep up their spirits, I suppose--chanted wild choruses all the way. We nearly got stuck altogether in the muddy flat near Sayada, and got on board the _Osprey_ wet through, my hands so chilled I could hardly steer the boat. Of course we had far outwalked the riding party, so we had to wait. What a breakfast we ate! that is those of us who could eat, for the pa.s.sage was rough and Gladstone and the ladies flat on their backs and very sorry for themselves.

Mr. Gladstone's comment in his diary is brief: 'The whole impression is saddening; it is all indolence, decay, stagnation; the image of G.o.d seems as if it were nowhere. But there is much of wild and picturesque.'

The English in the island, both civil and military, adopted the tone of unfriendly journals in London, and the garrison went so far as not even to invite Mr. Gladstone to mess, a compliment never omitted before. The Ionians, on the other hand, like people in most other badly governed countries did not show in the n.o.blest colours. There were pet.i.tions, letters, memorials, as to which Mr. Gladstone mildly notes that he has to 'lament a spirit of exaggeration and obvious errors of fact.' There was a stream of demands from hosts of Spiridiones, Christodulos, Euphrosunes, for government employ, and the memorial survives, attested by bishop and clergy, of a man with a daughter to marry, who being too poor to find a dowry 'had decided on reverting to your Excellency's well-known philh.e.l.lenism, and with tears in his eyes besought that your Excellency,' et cetera.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH BULWER

One incident was much disliked at home, as having the fearsome flavour of the Puseyite. It had been customary at levees for the lord high commissioner to bow to everybody, but also to shake hands with the bishops and sundry other high persons. Mr. Gladstone stooped and actually kissed the bishop's hand. Sir Edward Lytton inquired if the story were true, as a question might be asked in parliament. It is true, said Mr. Gladstone (February 7), but 'I hope Sir E. L. will not in his consideration for me entangle himself in such a matter, but as he knows nothing now, will continue to know nothing, and will say that the subject did not enter into his instructions, and that he presumes I shall be at home in two or three more weeks to answer for all my misdeeds.'[378]

The secretary of state and his potent emissary--the radical who had turned tory and the tory who was on the verge of formally turning liberal--got on excellently together. Though he was not exact in business, the minister's despatches and letters show shrewdness, good sense, and right feeling, with a copious garnish of flummery. Demagogy, he says to Mr. Gladstone, will continue to be a trade and the most fascinating of all trades, because animated by personal vanity, and its venality disguised even to the demagogue himself by the love of country, by which it may be really accompanied. The Ionian const.i.tution should certainly be mended, for 'my convictions tell me that there is nothing so impracticable as the Unreal.' He comforts his commissioner by the reminder that a population after all has one great human heart, and a great human heart is that which chiefly exalts the Man of Genius over the mere Man of Talent, so that when a Man of Genius with practical experience of the principles of sound government comes face to face with a people whose interest it is to be governed well, the chances are that they will understand each other.

IV

Mr. Gladstone applied himself with the utmost gravity to the affairs of a pygmy state with a total population under 250,000. His imagination did its work. While you seem, he said most truly, to be dealing only with a few specks scarcely visible on the map of Europe, you are engaged in solving a problem as delicate and difficult as if it arose on a far more conspicuous stage. The people he found to be eminently gifted by nature with that subtlety which is apt to degenerate into sophistry, and p.r.o.ne to be both rather light-minded and extremely suspicious. The permanent officials in Downing Street, with less polite a.n.a.lysis, had been accustomed to regard the islanders more bluntly as a 'pack of scamps.'

This was what had done the mischief. The material condition of the cultivators was in some respects not bad, but Mr. Gladstone laid down a profound and solid principle when he said that 'no method of dealing with a civilised community can be satisfactory which does not make provision for its political action as well as its social state.'[379]

The idea of political reform had for a time made head against the idea of union with the Greek kingdom, but for some years past the whole stream of popular tendency and feeling set strongly towards union, and disdained contentment with anything else. Mankind turn naturally to the solutions that seem the simplest. Mr. Gladstone condemned the existing system as bad for us and bad for them. Circ.u.mstances made it impossible for him to suggest amendment by throwing the burden bodily off our shoulders, and at that time he undoubtedly regarded union with Greece as in itself undesirable for the Ionians. Circ.u.mstances and his own love of freedom made it equally impossible to recommend the violent suppression of the const.i.tution. The only course left open was to turn the mockery of free government into a reality, and this operation he proposed to carry out with a bold hand. The details of this enlargement of popular rights and privileges, and the accompanying financial purgation, do not now concern us. Whether the case either demanded or permitted originality in the way of construction I need not discuss. The manufacture of a const.i.tution is always the easiest thing in the world.

The question is whether the people concerned will work it, and in spite of that buoyant optimism which never in any circ.u.mstances deserted him in respect of whatever business he might have in hand, Mr. Gladstone must have doubted whether his islanders would ever pretend to accept what they did not seek, as a subst.i.tute for what they did seek but were not allowed to have. Before anybody knew the scope of his plan, the six newspapers flew to arms with a vivacity that, whether it was Italian or was Greek, was in either case a fatal sign of the public temper. What, they cried, did the treaty of 1815 mean by describing the Ionian state as free and independent? What was a protectorate, and what the rights of the protector? Was there no difference between a protector and a sovereign? What could be more arrogant and absurd than that the protector, who was not sovereign, should talk about 'conceding' reforms to a free and independent state? All these questions were in themselves not very easy to answer, but what was a more serious obstacle than the argumentative puzzles of partisans was a want of moral and political courage; was the sycophancy of one cla.s.s, and the greediness of others.[380]

CONSt.i.tUTIONAL REFORM

Closely connected with the recommendations of const.i.tutional reform was the question by whom the necessary communications with the a.s.sembly were to be conducted. Sir John Young was obviously impossible, though he was not at once brought to face the fact. Mr. Gladstone upon this made to the colonial secretary (December 27) an offer that if he had already determined on Young's recall, and if he thought reform would stand a better chance if introduced by Mr. Gladstone himself, he was willing to serve as lord high commissioner for the very limited time that might be necessary. We may be sure that the government lost not an hour in making up their minds on a plan that went still further both in the way of bringing Mr. Gladstone into still closer connection with them, and towards relieving themselves of a responsibility which they never from the first had any business to devolve upon Mr. Gladstone or anybody else. The answer came by telegraph (January 11), 'The Queen accepts.

Your commission is being made out.'

All other embarra.s.sments were now infinitely aggravated by the sudden discovery from the lawyers that acceptance of the new office not only vacated the seat in parliament, but also rendered Mr. Gladstone incapable of election until he had ceased to hold the office. 'This, I must confess,' he told Sir Edward, 'is a great blow. The difficulty and the detriment are serious' (January 17). If some enemy on the meeting of the House in February should choose to move the writ for the vacant seat at Oxford, the election would necessarily take place at a date too early for the completion of the business at Corfu, and Mr. Gladstone still at work as high commissioner would still therefore be ineligible. n.o.body was ever by const.i.tution more averse than Mr. Gladstone to turning backward, and in this case he felt himself especially bound to go forward not only by the logic of the Ionian situation at the moment, but for the reason which was also characteristic of him, that the Queen in approving his appointment (January 7) had described his conduct as both patriotic and most opportune, and therefore he thought there would be unspeakable shabbiness in turning round upon her by a hurried withdrawal. The Oxford entanglement thus became almost desperate.

Resolved not to disturb the settled order of proceeding with his a.s.sembly, Mr. Gladstone with a thoroughly characteristic union of ingenuity and tenacity tried various ways of extrication. To complete the mortifications of the position, the telegraph broke down.

QUESTION OF THE OXFORD SEAT

The sc.r.a.pe was nearly as hara.s.sing to his friends at home as to himself. Politicians above all men can never safely count on the charity that thinketh no evil. Lord John Russell told Lord Aberdeen that it was clear that Gladstone was staying away to avoid a discussion on the coming Reform bill. There was a violent attack upon him in the _Times_ (January 13) as having supplanted Young. The writers of leading articles looked up Greek history from the days of the visit of Ulysses to Alcinous downwards, and they mocked his respect for the countrymen of Miltiades, and his reverence for the church of Chrysostom and Athanasius. The satirists of the cleverest journal of the day admitted his greatness, the brilliance and originality of his finance, the incomparable splendour of his eloquence, and a courage equal to any undertaking, that quailed before no opposition and suffered no abatement in defeat, and they only marvelled the more that a statesman of the first rank should accept at the hands of an insidious rival a fifth-rate mission--insidious rival not named but easy to identify. The fact that Mr. Gladstone had hired a house at Corfu was the foundation of a transcendent story that Mr. Disraeli wished to make him the king of the Ionian islands. 'I hardly think it needful to a.s.sure you,' Mr. Gladstone told Lytton, 'that I have never attached the smallest weight to any of the insinuations which it seems people have thought worth while to launch at some member or members of your government with respect to my mission.' Though Mr. Gladstone was never by any means unconscious of the hum and buzz of paltriness and malice that often surrounds conspicuous public men, n.o.body was ever more regally indifferent. Graham predicted that though Gladstone would always be the first man in the House of Commons, he would not again be what he was before the Ionian business.

They all thought that he would be attacked on his return. '_Ah_,' said Aberdeen, '_but he is terrible in the rebound_.'

After much perplexity and running to and fro in London, it was arranged between the secretary of state and Mr. Gladstone's friends, including Phillimore princ.i.p.ally, and then Northcote and M. Bernard, that a course of proceeding should be followed, which Mr. Gladstone when he knew it thought unfortunate. A new commission naming a successor was issued, and Mr. Gladstone then became _ipso facto_ liberated. Sir Henry Storks was the officer chosen, and as soon as his commission was formally received by him, he was to execute a warrant under which he deputed all powers to Mr. Gladstone until his arrival. Whether Mr. Gladstone was lord high commissioner when he came to propose his reform is a moot point. So intricate was the puzzle that the under-secretary addressed a letter to Mr. Gladstone by his name and not by the style of his official dignity, because he could not be at all sure what that official dignity really was. What is certain is that Mr. Gladstone, though it was never his way to quarrel with other people's action taken in good faith on his behalf, did not perceive the necessity for proceeding so rapidly to the appointment of his successor, and thought it decidedly injurious to such chances as his reforms might have possessed.[381]

The a.s.sembly that had been convoked by Sir John Young for an extraordinary session (January 25), at once showed that its labours would bear no fruit. Mr. Gladstone as lord high commissioner opened the session with a message that they had met to consider proposals for reform which he desired to lay before them as soon as possible. The game began with the pa.s.sing of a resolution that it was the single and unanimous _will_ ([Greek: thelesis]) of the Ionian people that the seven islands should be united to Greece. Mr. Gladstone fought like a lion for scholar's authority to treat the word as only meaning wish or disposition, and he took for touchstone the question whether men could speak of the [Greek: thelesis] of the Almighty; the word in the Lord's Prayer was found to be [Greek: thelema]. As Finlay truly says, it would have been much more to the point to accept the word as it was meant by those who used it. As to that no mistake was possible. Some say that he ought plainly to have told them they had violated the const.i.tution, to have dissolved them, and above all to have stopped their pay. Instead of this he informed them that they must put their wishes into the shape of a pet.i.tion to the Queen. The idea was seized with alacrity (January 29).

Oligarchs and demagogues were equally pleased to fall in with it, the former because they hoped it would throw their rivals into deeper discredit with their common master, the latter because they knew it would endear them to their const.i.tuents.

OPENING OF THE IONIAN SESSION

The Corfiotes received the declaration of the a.s.sembly and the address to the Queen with enthusiasm. Great crowds followed the members to their homes with joyous acclamations, all the bells of the town were set ringing, there was a grand illumination for two nights, and the archbishop ordered a _Te Deum_. Neither te-deums nor prayers melted the heart of the British cabinet, aware of the truth impressed at the time on Mr. Gladstone by Lytton, that neither the English public nor the English parliament likes any policy that '_gives anything up_.' The Queen was advised to reply that she could neither consent to abandon the obligations she had undertaken, nor could permit any application from the islands to other Powers in furtherance of any similar design.

Then at last came the grand plan for const.i.tutional reconstruction. Mr.

Gladstone after first stating the reply of the Queen, read an eloquent address to the a.s.sembly (February 4) in Italian, adjuring them to reject all attempts to evade by any indirect devices the duty of p.r.o.nouncing a clear and intelligible judgment on the propositions now laid before them. His appeal was useless, and it was received exactly as plans for a.s.similating Irish administration to English used to be. The nationalists knew that reform would be a difficulty the more in the way of separation, the retrogrades knew it would be a spoke in the wheel of their own jobbery. Mr. Gladstone professed extreme and truly characteristic astonishment in respect of the address to the Queen, that they should regard the permission to ask as identical with the promise to grant, and the right to pet.i.tion as equivalent to the right to demand. If the affair had been less practically vexatious, we can imagine the Socratic satisfaction with which Mr. Gladstone would have revelled in pressing all these and many other distinctions on those who boasted of being Socrates' fellow-countrymen.

From day to day anxiously did Mr. Gladstone watch what he called the dodges of the a.s.sembly. Abundant reason as there was to complain of the conduct of the Ionians in all these proceedings, it is well to record the existence of a number of sincere patriots and enlightened men like the two brothers Themistocles, Napoleon Zambelli, and Sir Peter Braila, afterwards Greek minister in London. This small band of royal adherents gave Mr. Gladstone all the help they could in preparing his scheme of reform, and after the scheme was launched, they strained every nerve to induce the a.s.sembly to a.s.sent to it in spite of the pressure from the people. Their efforts were necessarily unavailing. The great majority, composed as usual of the friends of England who trembled for their own jobs, joining hands with the demagogues, was hostile to the changes proposed, and only flinched from a peremptory vote from doubt as to its reception among the people. Prompt.i.tude and force were not to be expected in either way from men in such a frame of mind. 'On a preliminary debate,' Mr. Gladstone wrote mournfully to Phillimore, 'without any motion whatever, one man has spoken for nearly the whole of two days.' Strong language about the proposals as cheating and fraudulent was freely used, but nothing that in Mr. Gladstone's view justified one of those high-handed prorogations after the manner of the Stuarts, that had been the usual expedient in quarrels between the high commissioner and a recalcitrant a.s.sembly. These doings had brought English rule over the islands to a level in the opinion of Southern Europe with Austrian rule at Venice and the reign of the cardinals in the pontifical states.

PROCEEDINGS IN a.s.sEMBLY

Sir Henry Storks arrived on the 16th of February, and the same day the a.s.sembly which before had been working for delay, in a great hurry gave a vote against the proposals, which, though in form preliminary, was in substance decisive; there were only seven dissentients. Mr. Gladstone sums up the case in a private letter to Sidney Herbert.

_Corfu, 17th Feb. 1859._--This decision is not convenient for me personally, nor for the government at home; but as a whole I cannot regret it so far as England is concerned. I think the proposals give here almost for the first time a perfectly honourable and tenable position in the face of the islands. The first set of manoeuvres was directed to preventing them from being made; and that made me really uneasy. The only point of real importance was to get them out.... Do not hamper yourself in this affair with me. Let me sink or swim. I have been labouring for truth and justice, and am sufficiently happy in the consciousness of it, to be little distressed either with the prospect of blame, or with the more serious question whether I acted rightly or wrongly in putting myself in the place of L.H.C. to propose these reforms,--a step which has of course been much damaged by the early nomination of Sir H. Storks, done out of mere consideration for me in another point of view. Lytton's conduct throughout has been such that I could have expected no more from the oldest and most confiding friend.

To Lytton himself he writes (Feb. 7, 1859):--

I sincerely wish that I could have repaid your generous confidence and admirable support with recommendations suited to the immediate convenience of your government. But in sending me, you grappled with a difficulty which you might have postponed, and I could not but do the same. Whether it was right that I should come, I do not feel very certain. Yet (stolen despatch and all) I do not regret it. For my feelings are those you have so admirably described; and I really do not know for what it is that political life is worth the living, if it be not for an opportunity of endeavouring to redeem in the face of the world the character of our country wherever, it matters not on how small a scale, that character has been compromised.

Language like this, as sincere as it was lofty, supplies the true test by which to judge Mr. Gladstone's conduct both in the Ionian transaction and many another. From the point of personal and selfish interest any simpleton might see that he made a mistake, but measured by his own standard of public virtue, how is he to be blamed, how is he not to be applauded, for undertaking a mission that, but for an unforeseen accident, might have redounded to the honour and the credit of the British power?

V

On February 19 he quitted the scene of so many anxieties and such strenuous effort as we have seen. The _Terrible_ fell into a strong north-easter in the Adriatic, and took thirty-six hours to Pola. There they sought shelter and got across with a smooth sea to Venice on the 23rd. He saw the Austrian archduke whom he found kind, intelligent, earnest, pleasing. At Turin a few days later (March 23), he had an interview with Cavour, for whom at that moment the crowning scenes of his great career were just opening. 'At Vicenza,' the diary records (Feb. 28), 'we had cavalry and artillery at the station about to march; more cavalry on the road with a van and pickets, some with drawn swords; at Verona regiments in review; at Milan pickets in the streets; as I write I hear the tread of horse patrolling the streets. Dark omens!' The war with Austria was close at hand.