A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 33

A compromise tariff measure, advocated by Clay, provided for an upward scale of duties, to reach their maximum during the following year. The bill was vetoed by the President. Another important measure was that for the rechartering of the National Bank. It pa.s.sed both Houses by a close vote, but Tyler vetoed it, to the consternation of the Whigs. On the second vote the necessary two-thirds majority was not obtained. Thus the second attempt to resuscitate the old United States Bank resulted in failure. After this the Whigs withdrew their support from the Administration they had put into office.

During this year, in America, the grain drill was patented. Wilkes explored the coast of California. Graham's Magazine was published--one of the first American literary magazines of high pretensions. Among its earliest contributors was Edgar Allan Poe. At the same time Longfellow published his ballads, Cooper his "Deerslayer," and Ralph Waldo Emerson brought out his philosophical lectures in essay form.

[Sidenote: Close of Seminole War]

War with the Seminoles continued unabated. In the spring, General William J. Worth had been appointed to succeed Armisted. During the summer, Worth dispersed his troops into small parties, which ascended the rivers and penetrated the swamps to the islands to which the Indians had retired.

Worth brought Chief Coacoochee to Tampa in irons. To secure peace, Worth bade him name five of his fellow chieftains, who were to return to the Indians and inform them that unless they should appear at Tampa within a given time and give themselves up, Coacoochee and his fellow prisoners would forthwith be hanged. The Indians came within the appointed time. As one band after another surrendered they were sent West to Mississippi. The cost of the war from first to last had been $40,000,000, which was twice the sum paid for the Territories of Louisiana and Florida together. It was estimated that for each black slave brought back from Florida to his owners, three white men had lost their lives, and $80,000 had been expended.

[Sidenote: Latin-American upheavals]

In Mexico, the Presidency of Bustamente was superseded by that of General Santa Anna. The northern States of Mexico maintained their independent att.i.tude. The State of Costa Rica attempted to withdraw from the ascendant influence of Guatemala. About the same time the city of Cartago was destroyed by an earthquake. In Colombia, Marquez maintained himself as President against his opponents. The States of Panama and Veragua seceded from the Colombian Union, but the President prevailed upon them to return to the confederation. In South America, an expedition from Peru invaded Bolivia and laid siege to La Paz, only to be driven back. Peru was now invaded by an army from Bolivia, but General Bolnes, the newly elected President of Chile, interfered on behalf of Peru.

[Sidenote: Revolts in Spain]

In Spain, General Espartero throughout this year continued his precarious rule. In October, Generals O'Donnel and Concha headed a rising at Pambulna in behalf of the former Queen-Regent Christina. The Queen's guard repelled an attack of Don Diego Leon on the palace. On October 15, Don Diego was captured and shot. One week later O'Donnel fled to France. On the same day, General Zurbano gained possession of the citadel and port of Bilbao. He declared himself in favor of the Queen-Regent.

[Sidenote: French Algerian victories]

On the other side of the Pyrenees the restoration of the French _entente cordiale_ with England and the other European Powers was manifested in the conclusion of the International Convention of Alexandria in July, and the quintuple treaty for suppression of the slave trade proposed by the British Government. The French cry for the forcible recovery of the Rhine frontier died down and public funds rose accordingly. Alfred de Musset's second invective poem on "Le Rhin Allemand" scarcely raised a stir. All desire for military conquests was satisfied for the moment by the exploits of French arms under General Bugeaud and the Duc d'Aumale in Algeria. For once the Arab chiefs of the Desert were cowed into submission. The effect of the Duc d'Aumale's triumphal return was spoiled somewhat by the attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate him on September 13. Under Guizot's guidance the French Chambers showed their appreciation of the flouris.h.i.+ng state of literature in France by their amendments to the copyright law, extending the provisions of copyright to a period of thirty years after an author's death.

[Sidenote: Death of Lermontov]

[Sidenote: Lermontov's work]

Michel Jurgevitch Lermontov, the Russian poet, died on July 27, as the result of a duel in the Caucasus. His romance, "A Hero of Our Time," was the immediate cause of the duel. This poet was the Russian spokesman of the so-called Weltschmerz (world-sorrow) which had come into vogue with the "Sorrows of Werther." Following in the wake of Chateaubriand and Byron, Lermontov wrote epic poems in a pessimistic, cynical strain, without attaining quite the bitterness of spirit of a Byron or Heine, nor the melancholy lyric beauty of a Lenau or Leopardi. Pre-eminent, on the other hand, are his poetical descriptions of the scenery and wild national traits of the Caucasus, which furnished the background for almost all of his poems. Noteworthy among his epics are "The Circa.s.sian Boy," "Ismail Bey,"

"Valerik," "Hadshy-Abrak," and "The Demon." Under Czar Nicholas, Lermontov's works were forbidden in Russia. After having been banished to the Caucasus, for demanding revenge for Pushkin's death, the poet published his last brilliant epic, "Song of Czar Ivan Vasilyevitch," under a pseudonym.

[Sidenote: German letters]

[Sidenote: Prussian General Estates]

In Germany, too, letters and arts were flouris.h.i.+ng. In Vienna, Nikolaus Lenau (Baron Strehlenau) and his friend, Anastasius Gruen (Count Auersperg), were the leaders of a literary movement which found its counterpart in the so-called "Young German" movement of the north, where Ferdinand Freiligrath, Laube, Gutzkow, and Emanuel Geibel came under the ban of the German Bundesrath. The great political event of the year was the meeting of the first General Estates, convoked at Berlin. The new king's hostile att.i.tude toward their popular demands for const.i.tutional rights and larger liberties soon destroyed the hopes of liberal Germans for a change of spirit in the government of Prussia. A more material advance in civilization was a.s.sured by the opening of the first railway from Berlin to Magdeburg.

[Sidenote: Cornelius]

Peter von Cornelius, one of the leaders of the religious Catholic movement in art which had followed the cla.s.sicism of the first decade of the century, was commissioned by the King to decorate the cemetery at Berlin.

These decorations afterward, as well as the mural paintings in the Church of Saint Louis at Munich, proved to be his masterpieces.

[Sidenote: Defence of Jellalabad]

The British occupation of Afghanistan had continued since the last year.

The expenses of the occupation were so heavy that economy was imperative.

As soon as the British Resident cut down the subsidies paid to Shah Shuja the situation took a sinister turn. In October, Sir Robert Sale left Kabul with a brigade of British troops to reopen communications with Jellalabad, which had been interrupted by hostile mountain tribes. He got to Jellalabad only after a desperate struggle and heavy losses. His subsequent defence of that stronghold against the Afghans is one of the heroic traditions of British India.

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of Kabul]

[Sidenote: Afghans up in arms]

At Kabul, in the meanwhile, the garrison had been removed from the citadel of Bala Hasir to open cantonments outside of the city. Sir William MacNaghten, the British Resident, had been appointed Governor of Bombay, and was about to be succeeded by Sir Alexander Byrnes. Byrnes took up his abode in the centre of the city amid the turbulent bazaars. On November 2, the people of Kabul rose against the English. Byrnes barricaded his house and sent to MacNaghten for help. On the advice of General Elphinstone, MacNaghten decided to wait for further information before acting. The delay was fatal for Byrnes. He held out with thirty-two others from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon. Then the ammunition gave out. The mob rushed in and tore the house to pieces. Byrnes and twenty-three of his followers were ma.s.sacred. One hour later a British relief corps tried to enter the city. All Kabul turned against them. The British were forced to retire. The news of this set Afghanistan wild. Thousands of armed mountaineers flocked to Kabul, and the whole nation rose against the foreigners. The British troops were cut off from all supplies. They maintained their precarious position only by lavish promises of ransom. At length, after many parleys, a meeting was arranged, for December 23, between MacNaghten and the Afghan chiefs. When the English envoy walked into the meeting the Afghans fell upon him, and he was slain by Akbar Khan.

1842

[Sidenote: MacNaghten's murder unavenged]

[Sidenote: The retreat from Kabul]

[Sidenote: Disaster of Khaibar Pa.s.s]

The situation of the British in Afghanistan was so critical that they could not avenge the murder of their countrymen. Negotiations were actually renewed with Akbar Khan upon his statement that he had not meant to murder the British envoy, but had been goaded into the act by the taunts of MacNaghten. Promises of safe conduct were obtained. In January the British forces began their retreat from Kabul. Then followed a series of treacheries and mutual breaches of faith. Akbar Khan and his hordes of Afghans dogged the retreating column exacting further concessions. The English women and children were demanded as hostages. From the heights of the Khaibar Pa.s.s, the Ghilzai mountaineers poured a destructive fire into the Englishmen. Akbar Khan's followers made common cause with them.

Thousands of Englishmen were slain, or perished in the deep snows of the Khaibar Pa.s.s. The wounded and those who fell behind were butchered by the Afghans. A fortnight sufficed to cut the whole column to pieces. Of the entire force of 4,000 soldiers and 12,000 followers, one single survivor succeeded in reaching Jellalabad. He was a British surgeon named Brydon, who dragged himself on all fours out of reach of the Afghans; but he lived to tell the tale for more than thirty years afterward.

Colonel Stoddart and Captain Connelly had been sent as British emissaries to Bokhara. When the news of the British ma.s.sacre at Kabul reached Bokhara, both men were promptly thrown into prison. Later, when the news of the British disaster in the Khaibar Pa.s.s reached Bokhara, the Ameer had the two envoys taken from their dungeons. They were publicly beheaded in the market-place of Bokhara.

[Sidenote: Lord Ellenborough in India]

[Sidenote: Jellalabad relieved]

[Sidenote: Recapture of Kabul]

[Sidenote: British vandalism]

Such was the state of affairs in India when Lord Ellenborough landed at Calcutta in February, to succeed Lord Auckland as Governor-General. The first trying need was to rescue the remaining British garrisons at Jellalabad and Kandahar. General Pollock, with a strong force of Sepoys, was sent through the Punjab and Peshawar. In April, he pushed his way through the Khaibar Pa.s.s, in the face of fierce resistance from the mountaineers. The relieving force reached Jellalabad none too soon. General Sale and his garrison were fighting for time. In a last sortie they had just inflicted a telling defeat on Akbar Khan and his besieging army. From Kabul the boy sovereign of the Afghans fled out of Akbar Khan's reach and put himself under the protection of General Pollock. Akbar Khan now wrote to General Pollock, offering to deliver up his British prisoners and hostages if he would withdraw from Afghanistan. Lord Ellenborough showed himself inclined to accept this proposition. The British officers at the front were furious. General Pollock wrote to Nott at Kandahar not to move until further instructions, while he himself reported to headquarters that he could not retire to Jellalabad for want of transports. Eventually, Lord Ellenborough consented to modify his instructions. Without waiting for this, General Nott was already marching on Kabul. Pollock, accompanied by Sale, left Jellalabad to support Nott's advance. In the Tezeen Valley the British came upon the scene of one of the bloodiest ma.s.sacres of the retreat from Kabul. The sight of the murdered bodies of their comrades exasperated the soldiers. The heights around were bristling with Akbar Khan's men. In the face of a murderous fire from their matchlocks, the British stormed the heights and gave no quarter. Akbar Khan fled into the northern hills. In September, Nott's column took Kabul and hoisted the British flag over the Bala Ha.s.sar. The English captives managed to bribe their keepers and to join the rescuing army, amid general rejoicings. The British conquest of Afghanistan was followed by barbarous deeds of vandalism. The great bazaar of Kabul, one of the handsomest stone structures of Central Asia, was blown up by gunpowder. The city itself was turned over to loot and ma.s.sacre. The bloodcurdling atrocities of the white men on that occasion kept alive the fierce hatred of all things British in Afghanistan for years to come. By the express orders of Lord Ellenborough the sacred sandalwood gates of Somnath, which had adorned the tomb of Mahmud of Ghasni since the Eleventh Century, were brought away as trophies of war.

[Sidenote: Boers driven from Natal]

[Sidenote: Foundation of Transvaal]

In South Africa, too, the seeds of enduring hatred were sown at this time.

Scarcely had the new Boer community in Zululand become well settled when a proclamation was issued in Cape Town, declaring that Natal should become a British territory. Soldiers were despatched to Durban to support this claim. After some sharp fighting the Boers were driven out of the seaport.

When the British Commissioner arrived at Pietermaritzburg, a stormy ma.s.s meeting was held. For two hours Erasmus Smith, the Boer predicant, argued in vain in behalf of his flock. In the end the Boer women pa.s.sed a unanimous resolution that rather than submit to English rule they would emigrate once more. Pointing to the Drakensberg Mountains, the oldest of the women said: "We go across those mountains to freedom or to death." Over these mountains almost the whole population of Natal trekked their way into the uninhabited regions beyond. Only 300 families remained, the ancestors of some 10,000 Afrikanders of Natal in later days. On the other side of the Orange and Vaal Rivers the Boer emigrants founded once more their commonwealth, known later as the Transvaal, or South African Republic.

In Australia the first representative const.i.tution was granted to the English colonists of New South Wales. Almost simultaneously with this began the agitation for separating Victoria from New South Wales.

[Sidenote: "The Sliding Scale"]

[Sidenote: British Income Tax]

In England, early in the Parliamentary session, Sir Robert Peel on behalf of the government moved his famous bill for a sliding scale of the duties on corn. In the debate that followed, the most notable speeches were made by Cobden and Macaulay, who advocated complete free trade. In spite of all opposition, the bill in an unamended form reached its third reading and was pa.s.sed on the 5th of April. The most serious difficulty confronting the government was a financial deficit of 2,570,000, to which had to be added the heavy expenditures for the wars in India and China. To fill up this deficiency, Peel resorted to the levy of an income tax. To make this unpopular tax more acceptable a number of minor mischievous taxes were abolished. Thus rendered palatable, this bill, too, was carried through Parliament with tolerable speed, and was pa.s.sed with handsome majorities by both Houses. It called for a tax of sevenpence on every pound of annual income above 150.

[Sidenote: Copyright reform]

[Sidenote: "Lays of Ancient Rome"]

[Sidenote: "Locksley Hall"]