CHAPTER XLV. THE state of Europe at the beginning of 1852 was well calculated to dissipate the fanciful visions of an era of peace, which had been woven by imaginative journalists under the excitement of the Great Exhibition of 1851. To these the Prince had given no countenance. That era, he well knew, was yet far off, however much people might be taught to think kindlier of each other by being brought together in the peaceful rivalry of which the Exhibition was the arena. The days had long gone by in which, as Gibbon says, 'the nations of the earth were brought together by the pursuits of piracy, or the practices of pilgrimage.' Rapine, if sometimes it went only masked in the guise of commerce, had been in the main replaced by the give and take of equitable barter and exchange; while religious enthusiasm no longer went forth to propagate the Gospel of peace with corselet and sword under the crusader's mantle. But the selfish passions, by which the spirit of enterprise is swayed, the aspirations and jealousies which fire the hearts of nations, were likely for many a day to be the fertile cause of warfare in the future, as they had been in the past. The Exhibition might do much to give a quickening impulse to the humanising influence of national intercourse, and to make men feel and understand the blessings of peace. It might bring home to their minds how much can be done for the good of mankind by the interchange of the commodities and the manufactures of countries far remote, and still more by giving to the less 1852 WAR ALARMS. 431 favoured races some of the benefits, which the genius and industry, the culture and refinement, of the more favoured had achieved for themselves. But it left untouched the passions and the interests out of which wars take their rise; and that these had lost none of their power for mischief was very soon made clear. We had at this moment at the Cape one of those little wars on our hands which are at once distressing and inglorious. It had been going on for upwards of eighteen months it had cost, and was yet to cost, the lives of many brave men; and it took from England a body of soldiers whom at this period she could ill spare. More than a year was yet to elapse before the Caffre war was brought to a close, and one of our most valuable Colonial possessions was to be made secure by the successful operations of General Cathcart. But a greater source of uneasiness lay nearer home. All the old apprehensions of French invasion were kindled afresh by what had taken place in Paris. A Napoleon, confirmed by the votes of the nation in the despotic power which he had seized, was sure, it was thought, to follow in the footsteps of his great predecessor, and to seek by active employment for his army to ensure their devotion to his person, while at the same time he flattered the ambition of a people, who, untaught by the lessons of the past, still associated the name of Napoleon with the thought of nations prostrate at their feet. In what direction he might move his forces, who might tell? Switzerland was menaced; the extension of a frontier to the Rhine was darkly hinted at; and Belgium, in alarm at what it had some reason to fear might happen, was strengthening her defences, and appealing to the Great Powers by which her neutrality was guaranteed to let it be understood at the Elysée, that they were determined to make their guarantee effective. But a move in any of these 432 DISTRUST OF FRANCE. 1852 directions was little likely to be made, for it would have brought against France the united forces of all the great Continental Powers. Was it certain, however, that they would move a step to oppose any attempt upon EnglandEngland, whom the reactionary Sovereigns had no reason to love, being as it was the stronghold of Constitutional freedom and the sanctuary of refuge to the most dreaded partisans of the late revolutionary movement? It was on this side that our danger lay; and the violence of many of our public writers and speakers was calculated to provoke rather than to avert it. Day by day the English press hurled invectives at the deviser and the agents of the coup-d'état, which they found it hard to bear, and not they alone, but a large section of the French people as well, who, naturally enough, smarted under a constant fire of contumely, directed by foreigners against a government which they were themselves contented to accept. Nations, like individuals, are never more ready to resent imputations on their self-respect, than when they are themselves not altogether sure that they have maintained it; and the remembrance of the great defeat of 1815 was still sufficiently stinging to be serviceable to those who wished to provoke a rupture in reviving an animosity, which not all the friendly intercourse of recent years had been able wholly to extinguish. Diplomacy was never more active than it was at this moment in its special business of preventing war. From hour to hour new combinations and new possibilities arose for consideration. No wonder then, if the Prince, who had long cured himself of his early dislike for politics, threw himself with redoubled energy into the study of the political chart. Albert,' the Queen writes to King Leopold (3rd February) 'grows daily fonder and fonder of politics and business, and is wonderfully fit for both-showing such perspicuity and such courage-and I grow daily to dislike them 1852 NATIONAL DEFENCES. 433 both more and more. We women are not made for governing; and, if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations! But these are times which force one to take interest in them, mal gré bon gré, and of course therefore I feel this interest now intensely.' It was under these circumstances that the country again woke up in its wonted spasmodic way to the fact that the national defences were inadequate. A sudden descent upon our shores might have enabled an invader to inflict serious disaster and still more serious shame. We had been warned of this again and again; but now the danger of an attack must be counted on, if the distrust of the head of the French Government were as well founded as it was widely felt and clamorously proclaimed. A general cry was heard, that the time had come, not merely to augment our naval force, in which we were at this time run very close by the French, but also to strengthen our inner line of defence. A spontaneous movement for the establishment of a force of Volunteers was encouraged by the Government, and ultimately led to what has now become a permanent institution. The Government also resolved to satisfy the prevailing demand for further security by bringing before Parliament a scheme for the reestablishment of a Militia. On the eve of the meeting of Parliament the outline of this scheme was submitted to the Queen in the usual way. The subject had already engaged the anxious thought both of Her Majesty and the Prince-how thoroughly and to what effect, will be seen by the following letter from the Prince to Lord John Russell : 'My dear Lord John,--The Queen wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday, and in returning you the outline of the Plan for the Local Militia, adopted by the Cabinet, to transmit to you, and through you to the Cabi 434 ANXIETY OF THE QUEEN 1852 net, the considerations which have arisen in her mind with reference to our defences in general, and to the specific measure now proposed. This is the third time during the Queen's reign that an apprehension of war and consequent panic about invasion have seized the public mind of this country. The Queen has witnessed on the previous occasions, that under the pressure of this panic hasty measures had been prepared by the Government and introduced into Parliament, but that before they had passed through the necessary parliamentary stages, the panic had materially subsided, and the Government had consequently gradually arrived at the determination to leave the measures thus proposed inoperative. The Queen conceives that the same thing may happen in the present instance. She would seriously lament this, as she is of opinion that it is most detrimental and dangerous to the interests of the country, that our defences should not be at all times in such a state as to place the empire in security from sudden attack; and that delay in making our preparations for defence till the moment when the apprehension of danger arises exposes us to a twofold disadvantage. 1st. The measures will be necessarily imperfect and expensive as taken under the pressure of the emergency and under the influence of a feeling which operates against the exercise of a cool and sound judgment. 2nd. Our preparations will have to be made at a time when it is most important, for the preservation of peace, neither to produce alarm at home, nor by our armaments to provoke the Power with which we apprehend a rupture. In order to avoid this disadvantage, the Queen thinks that the measures now to be proposed to Parliament ought to combine the following requisites: 1st. That they shall be really sufficient for the security |