LITMIR.BIZ

      VIEW IN CANTON: THE BRITISH CONSULATE.

      was then discovered, however, that his cap had been shot off, that his coat had four bullet holes in it, and that the palisade on which he had perched was riddled with bullets. The success of our arms was followed by the immediate submission of the rebel chiefs. This was notified in a proclamation issued by Governor Grey on the 23rd of January, in which he granted a free pardon “to all concerned in the late rebellion, who may now return in peace and safety to their houses, where, so long as they conduct themselves properly, they shall remain unmolested in their persons and properties.”

      In South Africa a Caffre war or rising broke out in April, 1846, the natives attacking Graham’s Town with remarkable audacity. A sharp struggle for the possession of the frontier of the Cape Colony raged for some time, but the Caffres were finally beaten in an engagement at Fish River, and, though they continued to be troublesome, they were throughout the year successfully held in check by Colonial levies.

      Early in the year the Sultan of Borneo, acting under bad advice, caused an attack to be made on his uncles, Muda Hassim and Bimdureen, who were the leaders of what might be called the Anglophile or British party in the State. They were murdered along with their families and dependents. The Sultan immediately began to prepare to defend his territory against any English troops that might come to avenge the death of our allies. Sir Thomas Cochrane accordingly determined to proceed to Brunai, the capital of Borneo, to demand reparation from the Sultan. Accompanied by Mr. James Brooke (Rajah of Sarawak), H.M.SS. Spiteful and Phlegethon, with Mr. Brooke’s schooner Royalist, Sir T. Cochrane, after a somewhat severe engagement, forced his way past the forts that guarded the river leading to Brunai. He then landed a party of marines, who took possession of the town. The Sultan and most of the inhabitants fled into the interior. An expedition sent to capture him failed, but, before leaving for China, Sir T. Cochrane issued a proclamation to the people warning them that the Sultan was at the mercy of the British, and declaring it to be our intention to return “and act with the extreme of vigour should he ever again evince hostility to Great Britain.” Sir Thomas Cochrane next sailed for China, where the turbulent Cantonese were annoying the European community at Hong Kong. The disturbances in Canton, news of which reached England in September, were, however, easily quelled. About the same time her Majesty’s Government was informed that all questions as to the completion of the Treaty by which the Chinese war had been settled had been peacefully adjusted. The right of entry to Canton, which that Treaty had guaranteed to us, had been withheld by the Chinese, who now formally conceded it peacefully. On our side preparations were at once made to give up Chusan, which we retained in pawn so long as the Government at Pekin denied our right to enter Canton.

      In 1846 the foreign policy of Great Britain brought much anxiety to the Queen. It was the irony of fate that her Government was drifting into unfriendliness with France, though the Queen personally entertained sentiments of warm friendship and admiration for King Louis Philippe and his sons and daughters. But in Switzerland and South America the policy of England and France was antagonistic. In Portugal a French faction was striving to undermine British influence, and in Spain the question of the marriage of Queen Isabella produced a serious estrangement between the two nations.

      Among those who aspired to the hand of the Spanish Queen was the Count of Trapani, youngest brother of the King of Naples and the Queen Dowager Christina, and therefore uncle of Queen Isabella. The Queen Dowager opposed his pretensions; the young Queen herself, like the great mass of her people, was also averse from an alliance with him. Another suitor had therefore to be found. England objected to a French prince being chosen, her traditional policy being hostile to whatever might bring France and Spain under one crown. France was willing to respect this objection, provided no prince but a prince of the House of Bourbon was selected as the Queen’s consort. Here came the difficulty. Of those princes his Highness of Lucca was ineligible, because he was married already; the Count of Trapani was ineligible, because the Queen and her subjects disliked him; the sons of the Don Francisco de Paula, her Majesty’s uncle—the Duke of Cadiz and the Duke of Seville—were ineligible because they were both disagreeable to the Queen, and, according to M. Guizot, compromised by their intimacy with the Radicals;55 and Count Montemolin, the son of Don Carlos, was ineligible, first, because everybody detested him, and, secondly, because he was formally excluded from the succession by the Spanish Constitution. How, then, was the French demand that the Queen of Spain should marry one of the descendants of Philip V. to be satisfied? M. Guizot admitted, in a despatch to M. de St. Aulaire, that these difficulties were incontestable; but he added that the Court of Lisbon was the centre of an intrigue to promote a marriage between the Queen and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whose connection with the Royal Family of England rendered him objectionable to France. If this project were further developed, M. Guizot cunningly argued, France would be freed from the pledge she had given to England, and might then demand the hand of the Queen of Spain or her sister the Infanta, for a French prince of the House of Bourbon; in other words, for the Duc de Montpensier. It was on the perfectly gratuitous and absolutely erroneous assumption that England was promoting the candidature of the Prince Leopold, that M. Guizot made ready to play the diplomatic trick which ultimately destroyed the cordial feeling between England and France. Louis Philippe had given his Royal word to Queen Victoria at Eu in September, 1845, that in no case should the Duc de Montpensier marry the Infanta till the Queen of Spain was herself married, and had children who might assure the direct succession to her throne. But suddenly, in the autumn of 1846, it was announced that the Queen of Spain was about to marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, and that her sister, the Infanta, was at the same time to marry the Duc de Montpensier. Technically, it does not appear that England had a right to complain of this double marriage as a breach of the Treaty of Utrecht. It was, no doubt, meant to evade and defeat the provisions of that instrument; but the Treaty itself had never been construed, as Lord Palmerston seemed to imagine, as a positive prohibition of all intermarriages between the Royal Families of France and Spain. For example, in 1721 King Louis I. of Spain married Louisa Elizabeth of Orleans, Mademoiselle de Montpensier and fourth daughter of the Regent of France. In 1739 Don Philip, Duke of Parma, a son of Philip V., married Louisa Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV. of France. In 1745 the Dauphin of France, as all the world knows, married Maria Theresa Antonia, Infanta of Spain, and a daughter of Philip V. In truth, it must be conceded that the Treaty of Utrecht simply stipulated that the crowns of France and Spain should not rest on the head of the same sovereign. Even if the Queen’s marriage were without issue, and a child or descendant of her sister and the Duc de Montpensier had fallen heir to the French and Spanish crowns—a somewhat problematical event—the Treaty of Utrecht would have obviously operated as a bar against his claim. It would have compelled him to elect which country he should rule over. The intrigue that ended in this double marriage was regarded by England—nay, by Europe—as a piece of diplomatic knavery, and both Louis Philippe and M. Guizot suffered in character and in prestige accordingly.

      The Queen was naturally more highly incensed than the nation, because from her position and her vigilant study of foreign policy she knew more than her people of the secret history of the affair.

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