242 RUSSIA, AUSTRIA, AND TURKEY. 1849 France. It was given promptly and in the most effective form. The English Government addressed a remonstrance to Russia, appealing to the Emperor's generosity and good faith in language, conciliatory indeed, but which showed unmistakeably that they would not shrink from supporting their appeal by force. As it proved, the Emperor of Russia had withdrawn his demand even before this appeal reached him. But his indignation was roused on finding that, without waiting to see its effect, our Mediterranean fleet had been directed to move towards the Dardanelles, to be ready to act, if called on, in support of Turkey. In carrying out these instructions, too, it had violated a treaty of July, 1841, by which foreign ships of war were forbidden to enter the Dardanelles while the Porte was at peace-a mistake, if mistake it was, which was not mended by the excuse afterwards set up in apology, that the fleet had been driven within the forbidden limits by stress of weather. For this plea, it was well known, there was no foundation; and the Emperor of Russia, if so disposed, might no doubt have treated the action of our fleet as a casus belli. He did not, however, do so. The feeling of the English people spoke out strongly in favour of the action of the Government. Neither Russia nor Austria were in a position to push matters to extremity. The demand for the surrender of the fugitives was withdrawn, and in its stead a request made, that Turkey should keep them in confinement and not permit them to leave the country. Some of them, Bem and Dembinski among the number, solved the difficulty by becoming Mussulmans. Nearly two years elapsed before Kossuth and some others of the most conspicuous exiles were allowed to emigrate to other countries; and the Emperor of Russia, wounded to the quick by the prompt movement of our fleet to the support of Turkey, cherished a bitter remembrance of a 1850 PREPARATIONS FOR GREAT EXHIBITION. 243 somewhat too eager defiance of his power, which henceforth coloured his political relations to this country. The severe strain of the last two years had at this time begun to affect the Prince's health. On the 25th of January the Queen writes from Windsor to Baron Stockmar, who had come to England in November: 'The Prince's sleep is again as bad as ever, and he looks very ill of an evening.' His doctor advised a complete change of scene, of life and air, as the only thing to set him right. This, the Queen thought, might be effected by a short trip to Brussels. For the sake of his health,' Her Majesty adds, which I assure you is the cause of my shaken nerves, I could quite bear this sacrifice. He must be set right before we go to London, or God knows how ill he may get.' 6 But Parliament was on the point of reassembling, which it did upon the 31st of January: the Queen's health was for the moment delicate, and the Prince had so much upon his hands requiring his constant attention, that he would not entertain the idea of even the briefest holiday. Every day was now showing how formidable was the task he had undertaken in reference to the Exhibition of 1851. An Executive Committee had to be organised, and communications had to be established with all parts of the civilised world, to ensure their contributions within good time. The question of the extent of the building to be erected, and of how the space was to be allotted among the different countries, was still undetermined. The all-important problem, how the necessary funds were to be obtained, was becoming daily more difficult. Public attention had to be arrested and public sympathy secured, meetings to be organised, and distinguished men to be pressed into the service to make the speeches, to remove misgivings, and to canvass for support. All who were embarked in the enterprise felt that 244 LETTER FROM M. QUETELET. 1850 it was to the Prince they must turn for guidance at every point. On the 8th of March we find Lord Granville writing to the Prince's secretary: In any case, I am afraid that there must be a great tax on the attention and time of his Royal Highness, who appears to be almost the only person who has considered the subject both as a whole and in its details. The whole thing would fall to pieces, if he left it to itself." That it did not do so, it is, however, but justice to say, was due in no small degree to the unwearied assistance given to the Prince by Lord Granville himself, and by Mr. (now Sir) Stafford Northcote. Meanwhile, amid all the difficulties and impediments which were inseparable from an enterprise so novel and of such vast proportions, the Prince was encouraged to persevere by the warm support of those on whose opinions he set the highest value. His old instructor and friend, M. Quetelet, wrote to him in January from Brussels: 'Assuredly I shall not fail to go to England, and to be present, if I can, in that vast arena, which you have opened to the industry of all nations. These are the tournaments of our modern times; they are less poetical perhaps than those of ancient times, but they also have their character of grandeur. Your Royal Highness has thoroughly apprehended the social transformation which is now in progress, and in placing yourself at the head of this great movement, you give a fresh proof of your sagacity and a fresh guarantee for the order and prosperity of the country of your adoption.' On the 21st of February the first of the great public meetings on the subject was held in Willis's Rooms. Among the speakers, France was represented by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, Prussia by the Chevalier Bunsen, America by Mr. Lawrence, Belgium by M. Van de Weyer, while Lord Brougham and the Bishop of Oxford helped with others to 1850 SPEECH BY LORD MORPETH. 245 sustain the discussion at a level far beyond that of most public meetings. The speech, able throughout, of Lord Morpeth, afterwards Lord Carlisle, who presided, was much admired at the time for the happy reference to his favourite poet, with which it concluded: 'I cannot,' he said, 'better sum up all that may be said, than in words written nearly a century and a half ago by a poet who always expresses himself with more point and completeness than any other man. I refer to Alexander Pope. He says: "For me the balm shall bleed, the amber flow, The coral redden, and the ruby glow; The pearly shell its lucid globe unfold, And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold; 'Listen, ladies and gentlemen, and see if Pope was not almost as good a prophet as he was a poet: "The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, writes to the 'Morpeth,' the Duchess of Sutherland Queen the same day, 'never spoke better, and his prophetic quotation from Pope's beautiful passage on the Thames was enthusiastically cheered.' The time had now come for the Prince to place before The Prince had no warmer admirer than this accomplished and most estimable lady. In a letter to Baron Stockmar about this time (16th March) the Queen writes: 'I must ever love the Duchess of Sutherland for her very great and very sincere admiration of the Prince, which comes out on all occasions. There is not a work he undertakes, nor a thing he does or says, which she does not follow with the greatest interest, being herself so anxious to do good, so liberal-minded, so superior to prejudice, and so eager to learn, and improve herself and others.' 246 SPEECH BY THE PRINCE 1850 the world in his own words his conception of the scope and purpose of the proposed Exhibition. The opportunity for doing so was afforded by a banquet given upon a magnificent scale at the Mansion House on the 21st of March, to which the chief officers of State, the Foreign Ambassadors, the Royal Commissioners for the Exhibition, and the chief magistrates of more than two hundred towns, had been invited. The Prince had by this time accustomed the public to expect much from his addresses; but in broad and comprehensive grasp of view and in condensed fulness and vigour of expression, none of them was superior to the speech which he now made. The prospect which it shadowed out of the great family of man, drawn together by the bond of mutual helpfulness and enlightened emulation in the arts of civilised life, had been the dream of poets and sages. No one knew better than the Prince, profoundly versed as he was in the history of the past, and still more in the stormy politics of the present, that this must long continue to be a climax, seen only in prophetic vision, of the throes and struggles of the human race, and that the halcyon days of universal peace were certainly not to be looked for in the present epoch, nor it might be for many generations to come. But his eminently practical genius saw that the time had arrived to give such an impulse towards this desirable result, as might greatly accelerate its arrival, and that it was from England this impulse might most fitly come. 'England's mission, duty, and interest,' he had written to Lord John Russell on the 5th of September, 1847, is to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilisation and the attainment of liberty.' She might lose some of her material advantages, by teaching other nations the arts and methods by which she had developed her internal resources, and commanded the See his letter printed ante, vol. i. p. 433. |