Part 16

An extraordinary career was ended, on June 18, by the death of William Cobbett, from overwork in Parliament. With but little school education, this remarkable man succeeded in becoming not only one of the foremost prose writers of English, but the leader of a great popular party.

During the early part of Lord Melbourne's Administration, the discontent and irritation prevailing in Ireland were heightened by the agitation against the Orange lodges. The original purpose of these lodges had been to defend, against the Stuarts and their supporters, the Protestant ascendancy which had begun with the reign of William of Orange. The lodges had grown in strength until, in 1835, it was estimated that they numbered 140,000 members in Ireland, and as many as 40,000 in London alone. The Grand Master of all the Orange Lodges was no less a personage than the Duke of Cumberland, the King's brother. It was believed in Ireland that a conspiracy existed on the part of the Orangemen to set aside the Princess Victoria, the next heir to the throne, in favor of the Duke of Cumberland. The subject was brought to the notice of Parliament by Hume and O'Connell, who drew special attention to the illegal introduction of Orangemen into the British army, under warrants signed by the Duke of Cumberland. The scandal grew to such an extent that the Duke of Cumberland hastened to dissolve the order before a resolution condemning his conduct could pass through the Commons.

In South Africa, another war over boundary questions broke out between the Dutch and English settlers and the Kaffirs. Sir Benjamin d'Urban advanced the frontier of Cape Colony to the Keir River. The Zulu chief, Dingaan, on the assassination of King Chaka, who had welded together a confederation of warlike tribes, succeeded to his powers. In the midst of these difficulties an advance guard of Boers, exasperated by Great Britain's abolition of the old Dutch moot courts or "Heemraden," and of slavery in Cape Colony, trekked across the Orange River and founded a colony of their own.

In South America, political changes rapidly followed one upon the other. Rocafuerte seized the reins of power in Ecuador. About the same time General Rosas had himself re-elected for fifteen years as dictator of the Argentine Republic. President Santa Cruz of Bolivia made a raid into Peru, and in his absence the State of Bolivia promptly fell a prey to internal disorders. In Mexico, General Santa Anna established his rule as dictator. The affairs of Texas soon demanded his attention. On December 20, Texas declared itself independent of Mexico. Support came from the United States. The revolution began with the battle of Gonzales, in which 500 Americans took part. The Mexicans were defeated. Soon afterward Goliad and the strong citadel of Bexar, known as the Alamo, were taken and the Mexican forces dispersed.

In the meanwhile the Seminole war in Florida had assumed a serious aspect. The chief Indian leader who opposed the removal of the Seminoles west of the Mississippi was Osceola, son of a half breed squaw and an Englishman. His wife, the daughter of a slave, had been seized and returned to her mother's master. Thenceforth Osceola became an uncompromising enemy of the whites. The Indian controversy with the American Government turned on the interpretation of a pronoun in the treaty of Payne's Landing. President Jackson held that the word "they" in the most important clause of the treaty relating to the compensation of the despoiled Indians referred only to the deputies who executed the document, whereas Osceola contended that it was meant to stand for all the Indians. The continued quibbling so enraged Osceola that he drove his knife into the table exclaiming: "The next treaty I will execute is with this."

Among the intellectual and scientific achievements of this year in America must be reckoned Colt's invention of a revolver and the manufacture of pins. Longfellow brought out his "Outre-Mer," and Audubon published his "Birds of America." On December 16, a disastrous fire destroyed most of the commercial houses of New York City. In all 530 houses burned down and $18,000,000 worth of property was consumed. Chief Justice Marshall of the United States Supreme Court died during this year, eighty years of age. As a member of Congress, a Cabinet officer, and the foremost jurist of the United States, Marshall won lasting distinction. His ability as a writer was conspicuously displayed in his popular "Life of Washington."

In Europe, in the meanwhile, there had been some significant changes. On March 2, Emperor Francis of Austria died at the age of sixty-seven. The succession of Archduke Ferdinand to the throne produced no change in the national policy. Metternich was retained at the head of affairs. Almost of more moment to Germany was the death of Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt, the diplomat, and brother to Alexander, the great German explorer and philosophic writer. Besides his services as a statesman at the time of the international conferences at Paris and Vienna, he is distinguished for his philological researches in the Basque and Kauri languages. About the same time Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author, published his first collection of fairy tales. The book had an immediate success, and after its translation into German achieved a world-wide reputation. Various translations from the German version and from the original had large sales in England and America.

In France, too, notwithstanding political disturbances, fine arts and letters flourished. New creations appeared from the pens of Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Balzac, De Vigny and Alfred De Musset. Théophile Gautier brought out his masterpiece "Mademoiselle de Maupin." Among the musicians at Paris, Meyerbeer, Auber, Berlioz, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Spontini, and Schapa were at the height of their activity. Politically it was a year of disturbances for France. The opening of the State trial of last year's conspirators before the Chamber of Peers was followed by diatribes in the press. The liberties of the press were further restricted. Riots again broke out in May. After all, but one man was condemned to death. Most of those who were implicated were sentenced to transportation. New laws for the repression of sedition were proposed by the Cabinet. Then it was that the first serious attempt was made on the life of Louis Philippe. Already seven projects of assassination had been discovered and frustrated, when a grand review of the National Guards, on July 28, gave an opportunity for a telling stroke. At the moment when the royal procession arrived on the Boulevard Temple, an infernal machine was set off by a Corsican named Fieschi. The King was saved only by the fact that he had bent down from his horse to receive a petition when the machine was discharged. Among those that were struck down were the Dukes of Orleans and Broglie, Marshal Mortier, General Verigny, and Captain Vilate. The perpetrators of the crime were put to death. In French foreign affairs a renewed uprising of Arab tribes under Abd-el-Kader necessitated another military campaign in Algeria.

In Greece, King Otto, having come of age on June 1, dissolved the Bavarian regency and assumed his full royal powers at Athens. His reign, lacking though it was in national spirit or sympathies, assured to Greece an era of undisturbed peace and tranquillity.

Toward the close of the year, the American Government's attempt to remove the Seminole Indians from their hunting grounds in Florida resulted in a sanguinary Indian war. Micanopy the Seminole Sachem and Osceola were the Indian leaders. Osceola opened hostilities with a master stroke. On December 28, he surprised General Wiley Thompson at Fort King. Thompson had wantonly laid Osceola in chains some time before. Now Osceola scalped his enemy with his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp. Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a bloody fight on the banks of the Big Withlacoochee.

1836

Throughout this year the Seminole War in Florida dragged on. Gaines's command was assailed by the Indians near the old battleground of the Withlacoochee on February 27. In May, the Creeks aided the Seminoles in Florida, by attacking the white settlers within their domain. Success made them bold, and they attacked mail carriers, stages, river barges and outlying settlements in Georgia and Alabama, until thousands of white people were fleeing for their lives from the savages. General Scott was now in chief command in the South, and he prosecuted the war with vigor. The Creeks were finally subdued, and during the summer several thousand of them were forcibly removed to their designated homes beyond the Mississippi. Governor Call of Georgia marched against the Seminoles with some two thousand men in October. A detachment of five hundred of these had a severe contest (November 21) with the Indians at Wahoo swamp, near the scene of Dade's massacre. As in so many other engagements with the Seminoles in their swampy fastnesses, both sides claimed the victory.

In Europe, early during 1836, the conclusions reached by the long-sitting Diet of Hungary opened the eyes of the new Emperor of Austria and of Metternich to the changed spirit within their own dominions. For many years during the long period when the government did not dare to convoke the Diet, the Hungarians in their county assemblies had opposed a steady resistance to the usurpations of the crown. These county assemblies, rejoicing as they did in the right of free discussion, and the appointment of local officials, were one of the hardiest relics of home rule existing anywhere in Europe, comparable only to the democratic government of the Swiss cantons and to the old English town meetings reconstituted in New England. By banishing political discussion from the Diet to the county sessions, Metternich only intensified the provincial spirit of opposition which he thought to quell. When the Hungarian Diet reassembled at Pressburg at last, the new spirit showed itself in the demand of the Magyars for the substitution of their own language, in all public debates, for the older customary Latin. The government speakers, who attempted to address the deputies in Latin, were howled down by the Magyars. When the government forbade the publication of all Magyar speeches, Kossuth, one of the youngest of the deputies, circulated them in manuscript. After the dissolution of the Diet, in summer, he was punished for this act of defiance by a three years' imprisonment. The foremost leader of the Hungarian Liberals at this time was Count Scechenyi, a Magyar magnate of note. He it was that opened the Danube to steam navigation by the destruction of the rocks at Orsova, known as the Iron Grates, and to him, too, Hungary owes the bridge over the Danube that unites its double capital of Budapesth and Ofen. Of the Hungarian noblemen he was one of the few who recognized the injustice of the anomalous institution which restricted Parliamentary representation to the noblemen, and absolved them at the same time from taxation. The new liberal spirit thus manifested was turned into revolutionary channels by Metternich himself. The dissolution of the Hungarian Diet and the subsequent imprisonment of deputies whose persons should have been inviolable aroused bad blood among the Magyars. This was made worse by the peremptory dissolution of the Transylvanian Diet, where the Magyar element likewise predominated. The leader of the Transylvanian opposition, Count Vesselenyi, a magnate in Hungary, betook himself to his own county session and there inveighed against the government. He was arrested and brought to trial before an Austrian court on charges of high treason. His plea of privilege was supported by the Hungarian county sessions as involving one of their oldest established rights. In the face of this agitation Count Vesselenyi was convicted and sentenced to exile. Henceforth opposition to the government and hostility to all things Austrian were synonymous with patriotism in Hungary.

The discontent in Hungary and the Slav provinces of Austria was fomented by a keen sympathy with the misfortunes of Poland groaning under the yoke of Russia. Notwithstanding Austria's official conference with Russia, Polish refugees were received with open arms in Galicia, Bohemia and Hungary.

In various other parts of the world the spirit of revolution would not be quelled. More Dutch settlers in South Africa sought relief from British interference with their customs and the institution of slavery by emigrating into the virgin veldt lying to the north of their former settlements. It was in vain that the British authorities of Cape Colony tried to stop this "great trek." Rather than submit to British domination, the Boers preferred to renew the inevitable struggle with the wild beasts and the savages of the African wilderness. While one part of the emigrant body remained in the Transvaal and Northern Free State, the foretrekkers passed over the Drakensberg Mountains into Natal, under the leadership of Piet Retief. The land of Natal was at that time practically unpopulated. Chaka and his warriors had swept the country clean of its native inhabitants, so Dingaan considered it within his sphere of influence. The Boers accordingly made overtures to Dingaan, Chaka's successor, who resided at his kraal on the White Umvolosi, a hundred miles distant in Zululand, for the right to trek into this country. This was granted after the Boers had undertaken to restore some cattle of the Zulus stolen by the Basutos. A thousand prairie wagons containing Boer families trekked over the Drakensberg into Natal, and scattered over the unpeopled country along the banks of the Upper Tugela and Mooi Rivers. Piet Retief, with sixty-five followers, went to visit Dingaan in his kraal. They were made welcome. A solemn treaty of peace and friendship was drawn up by one Owens, an English missionary with the Zulus. During a feast, the Boers, disarmed and wholly unprepared for an attack, were suddenly seized and massacred to a man. Then the Zulus, numbering some ten thousand warriors, swept out into the veldt to attack the Boer settlements. Near Colenso, at a spot called Weenen (weeping), in remembrance of the tragedy there enacted, the Zulus overwhelmed the largest of the Boer laagers, and slaughtered all its inmates--41 men, 56 women, 185 children and 250 Kaffir slaves. In spite of this and other battles the Boers held their ground.

The Englishmen likewise extended their colonial conquests. The unsettled Bushland of South Australia was colonized by Captain Hindmarsh and his followers. They founded the city of Adelaide, named after the consort of William IV. A wrecked British ship having been plundered by Arabs, the Sultan of Aden, under a threat of British retaliation, was made to cede Aden to Great Britain. New claims for territory were preferred by Great Britain against the Republic of Honduras, in Central America.

The neighboring republic of Mexico, under the dictatorship of Santa Anna, at last succeeded in having its independence formally acknowledged by Spain. On March 6, Santa Anna, having raised a new force of 8,000 men, marched on Fort Alamo, which had been left in charge of a small garrison of Americans under Colonel Jim Bowie. All night they fought. Every man fell at his post but seven, and these were killed while asking quarter. Here died David Crockett, the famous American frontiersman, whose exploits had made him so popular in Tennessee, that, though unable to read, he was thrice elected to Congress. Joaquin Miller, the American poet, based on this encounter his stirring ballad on "The Defence of the Alamo":

Santa Anna came storming, as a storm might come; There was rumble of cannon; there was rattle of blade; There was cavalry, infantry, bugle and drum,-- Full seven thousand, in pomp and parade, The chivalry, flower of Mexico; And a gaunt two hundred in the Alamo!

On April 21 was fought the decisive battle of San Jacinto, in which Santa Anna with 1500 men was defeated by 800 Texans under Sam Houston. On the next day General Santa Anna was captured. He was compelled to acknowledge the independence of Texas, but the people of Mexico refused to ratify his act. Nonetheless serious hostilities against the Texans were abandoned.

The abolition of slavery in Bolivia gave a new impetus to the government of that republic. President Santa Cruz of Bolivia felt encouraged by this to attempt to carry out his pet project of the amalgamation of Peru with Bolivia. A prolonged guerilla war was the result.

The example of these movements in Central and South America encouraged the revolutionists of Cuba to keep up their struggle against the rule of Spain. Unfortunately for them, the apparent weakness of the Spanish constitutional government at Madrid did not extend to the more distant possessions of Spain. The only result of the rising of Manuel Quesada was that Cuba was deprived of her representation in the Spanish Cortes. In the Philippine Islands, Spanish rule was extended to the Island of Sulu. On the Peninsula, on the other hand, matters went from bad to worse. The Carlist war continued unabated. On May 5, General Evans, commanding the constitutional troops and foreign volunteers, won a victory over the Carlists at Vigo, but within a few months he was himself defeated at San Sebastian. On Christmas Day, another crushing defeat was inflicted on the Constitutionalists by the Carlist leader Espertero at Bilboa. In Portugal the marriage of Princess Maria II. to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was followed by fresh disorders. Revolution broke out at Lisbon, on August 9, and could be subdued only by the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1832. On November 8 came another popular rising. It was a sign of the times and of a more liberal turn of affairs at Lisbon that one of the first measures of the new government was a total abolition of Portuguese slave trading.

Reform of all kinds had become popular in England under the dexterous resistance of O'Connell, who held the balance in Parliament. The government was induced to bring in a corporation reform bill for Ireland. An official register of births, deaths, and marriages was conceded to the dissenters. Next came the abolition of one of the most barbarous practices of English and Irish law courts. Up to this time prisoners accused of felony were not allowed to be defended by counsel. At the instance of Lord Lyndhurst this was now changed. Another gain for humanity was made by the abolition of the law which required that persons convicted of murder should be executed on the next day but one. On the other hand a bill for the abolition of imprisonment for debt miscarried. The most potent plea against the abuses of this particular relic of barbarism in England was put forth by Charles Dickens in his "Pickwick Papers." These serial papers relating the humorous adventures of Mr. Pickwick and his body servant Sam Weller, when brought in conflict with the English laws governing breach of marital promise and debt, had an immense success in England and all English-speaking countries. Already Dickens had published a series of "Sketches of London," under the pseudonym of Boz, while working as a Parliamentary reporter for the "Morning Chronicle." The success of the "Pickwick Papers" was such that he felt encouraged to emerge from his pseudonym and to devote himself entirely to literature. Other literary events of the year in England were the publication of the initial volumes of Lockhart's "Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott," of Captain Marryat's "Mr. Midshipman Easy," and "The Pirate and the Three Cutters," and of Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia." The first Shakespeare jubilee was celebrated at Stratford-on-Avon in the spring. A loss to English letters was the death of James Mill, the great political economist, in his sixty-third year. About this time Wheatstone constructed his electro-magnetic apparatus by which he could send signals over nearly four miles of wire. The Irish composer Balfe began his brilliant career as a composer of English operas with the "Siege of Rochelle," produced at Drury Lane in London. About the same time Mendelssohn brought out his "St. Paul" in Düsseldorf.

Maria Felicitá Malibran, the great contralto singer of the early part of the Nineteenth Century, died on September 23, at Manchester, in her twenty-eighth year. Taken from Paris to Naples at the age of three, she made her first appearance as a public singer in her fifth year. Two years later she studied solfeggio with Panseron. At the age of sixteen she made her début as Rosina in "Barbiere di Seville" at London. The success of her first appearance was so great that she was at once engaged for the season. Next she appeared in New York, where she was a popular favorite for two years, singing in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," in "Tancred," "Romeo and Juliet," and two of her father's operas. Here she married a French merchant, Malibran. After her separation from him she returned to Paris, where she was engaged as prima donna at a salary of 50,000 francs. Thereafter she sang at every season in Paris, London, Milan, Rome and Naples. For one engagement of forty nights in Naples she received 100,000 francs. Both as a singer and woman she exercised an extraordinary fascination over her contemporaries. Only a few months before her death she married the violinist De Beriot. In England she suffered a severe fall from her horse, which shattered her health. After this she literally sang herself to death. Her loss was mourned most of all in France, where her death has been commemorated by Alfred de Musset's beautiful threnody ending with the lines:

Die, then. Thy death is sweet, thy goal is won; What is called genius by men here below Is the great cry for Love; all else is but show; And since, soon or late, human love is undone, It is for great hearts and great voices like thine To die as thou didst--for Love all-divine.

In France, great strides had been made in music, art and literature. Giacomo Meyerbeer, whose real name was Jacob Beer, surpassed the success of his "Robert le Diable" with his greatest opera "Les Huguenots," produced on February 20, at the Paris Opera House. The success of this masterpiece so disheartened Rossini that he resolved to write no more operas, and withdrew to Bologna. Charles François Gounod, on the other hand, now began his musical career by entering the Paris Conservatory. Frederick Chopin, the Polish composer, at this time was at the height of his vogue as the most recherché pianist of Paris. He was the favorite of a circle of friends consisting of Meyerbeer, Bellini, Berlioz, Liszt, Balzac, and Heine. It was during this year that Liszt introduced Chopin to Madame Dudevant, better known as Georges Sand, the famous French novelist. Their attachment was the talk of Paris. André Marie Ampère, the noted French mathematician and physicist, died during this year at sixty-one years of age. He was the inventor of the electrical unit of measure which bears his name.

Politically it was a turbulent year for France. On the question of the budget the Ministry was defeated in January and had to resign. The new Ministry called in went to pieces on February 22, when Guizot and De Broglie retired from the Cabinet. Thiers was placed at the helm. On June 26, another attempt to assassinate the King was made by Louis Alibaud, a former soldier of the south who had taken part in the revolution of July. The military expedition to Algeria under Marshal Clauzel and the Duke of Orleans first met with distinguished success. The French army occupied Mascera. But later the unfortunate issue of an expedition against the town of Constantine caused the retirement of Marshal Clauzel as Governor-General of Algeria. Commander Changarnier at the head of a French battalion was beaten back step by step by an overwhelming body of Achmet Bey's cavalry of the desert. The question of French intervention in Spain resulted in the downfall of the Ministry of Thiers. King Louis Philippe, ever since Lord Palmerston's chilling reply to his overtures for joint intervention, was opposed to such a project. "Let us aid the Spaniards from a distance," said he, "but never let us enter the same boat with them. Once there we should have to take the helm, and God knows where that would bring us." He demanded the retirement of the French corps of observation in the Pyrenees. Thiers was utterly opposed to this: "Nothing can bring the King to intervention," said he, "and nothing can make me renounce it." On September 6, the Cabinet resigned, having been in power but six months. Count Molé was charged with forming a new Ministry. A new cause of disquietude was given late in October by Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte at Strasburg. On the last day of that month, Louis Napoleon, with no other support than that of Persigny and Colonel Vauterey, paraded the streets of that town and presented himself at the barracks of the 4th regiment of artillery. He was received with the cry "Vive l'Empereur." An attempt to win over the soldiers of the other barracks failed. The young prince was arrested. Ex-Queen Hortense interceded in his behalf. The attempt to regain the Napoleonic crown had been so manifest a fiasco that Louis Philippe thought he could afford to be generous. Louis Napoleon was permitted to take himself off to the United States of America with an annuity of fifteen thousand francs from the royal purse. His adherents were taken before the court at Colmar and were all acquitted by the jury. A simultaneous military mutiny at Vendome was treated with like leniency. After the death of ex-King Charles X., Prince Polignac and other of his Ministers who had come to grief after the revolution of 1830 were sent out of the country. A general amnesty was announced.

The arrival of Prince Louis Napoleon created little stir in the United States. The people there were in the midst of a Presidential election. President Jackson wished Vice-President Van Buren to be his successor. He therefore recommended that the Democratic nomination should be by national convention. The National Republicans had by this time generally adopted the name of Whigs. They supported William H. Harrison and John McLaine of Ohio with Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. The opposition hoped to throw the Presidential election into the House, but did not succeed in doing so. A majority of Van Buren electors were chosen by 761,549 votes against 736,656 divided among the other candidates. Congress met on December 5. Arkansas and Michigan were admitted as new States of the Union. Before this Jackson's Administration had won a complete success over his opponents. The President gave his sanction to a Congressional resolution in favor of the South, that "all petitions, memorials, and resolutions relating to slavery shall be laid on the table, and no further action whatever shall be had thereon." A select committee resolved that "Congress cannot constitutionally interfere with slavery in the United States and it ought not to do so." The so-called "Gag Law" was adopted by 117 over 68 votes. About this same time Congress accepted the bequest of James Smithson, an Englishman, who left $515,169 to be expended in America "for the general diffusion of knowledge among men." After the fall of the United States Bank, a number of State banks were formed, many of which were without adequate capital. Their notes were used in large quantities for the purchase of public lands from the United States. Thereupon President Jackson issued the so-called specie circular, ordering federal agents to receive no other money but gold and silver. This caused such a demand for specie that many of these minor banks fell into difficulties. By the close of the year bank failures had become so numerous that a financial crisis was at hand.

Ex-President James Madison died this year at the ripe age of eighty-five. His entire career was such as to make him one of the great line of Southern Presidents of Virginian stock: Washington, Jefferson and Monroe.