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and having done all the mischief which they could, they begin to write silly letters to their constituents. What can be done in parliamentary parties if every man is to pursue his own little game? A costermonger and donkey would take a week to travel from here to London; and yet, by running athwart the London and North-Western line, they might bring to total destruction a great express train; and so, very small men, who during their whole political lives have not advanced the question of reform by one hair's-breadth or by one moment of time, can in a critical hour like this throw themselves athwart the objects of a great party, and mar, it may be, a great measure that sought to affect the interests of the country beneficially for all time.'

Few speeches that have ever been made have told with greater effect than this address. The downright truth and justice of Mr. Bright's censures carried with them a weight that made them to be felt by men who, professing to desire a real extension of the franchise, were yet adopting a course which was nullifying that object, and were placing at the disposal of the minority of the house a power which ought to be exercised by the majority. When we consider the manner in which this question had been dealt with over and over again, we are forced to the conclusion, that many of those who had obtained their seats in the House of Commons by professing zeal for reform were its worst enemies, and were secretly using all their influence to prevent a really efficient measure from being carried.

We must now return from this digression to follow the fortunes of the representation bill on its way through committee. The discussion of Mr. Gladstone's first resolution showed that a very great confusion of opinion existed in the ranks both of the ministerialists and of their opponents; for while Sir William Heathcote, Lord Cranbourne, and Mr. Beresford Hope, all stanch conservatives, strongly assailed the government and denounced its measure, that measure was supported by Mr. Roebuck and several advanced radicals, who hoped, and, as the result showed, not without reason, that they would be able to transform it into such a measure as they desired.

After the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's first resolution, the house adjourned for the Easter vacation; the supporters

those who had suffered in conformity with the sentence of his 'court.' It ought to be added, that he subsequently apologised in the fullest and handsomest manner to Mr. Buxton. There was nothing in his conduct that affected his character as an officer and a gentleman; but there was much to disqualify him from sitting in judgment in a trial for life and death. The view we have taken of Governor Eyre's conduct was, we believe, that of an overwhelming majority of the people of this country; but it is only just to the governor to set against the general condemnation of the very characteristic apology of one whose opinions are always entitled to respectful consideration.

'All the light,' wrote Thomas Carlyle, 'that has yet reached me on Mr. Eyre and his history in the world goes steadily to establish the conclusion that he is a just, humane, and valiant man, faithful to his trusts everywhere, and with no ordinary faculty for executing them; and his late services in Jamaica were of great, perhaps incalculable value, as certainly they were of perilous and appalling difficulty; somewhat like the case of "fire" suddenly reported in the ship's powder-room in mid ocean, where the moments mean the ages, and life and death hang on the use or misuse of the moments; and, in short, that penalty and clamour are not the things the governor merits from any of us, but honour and thanks, and wise imitation, should similar emergencies arise, on the great scale or on the small, in whatever we are governing. The English nation has never loved anarchy, nor was wont to spend its sympathy on miserable mad seditions, especially of this inhuman and half-brutish type; but always loved order and the prompt suppression of seditions, and reserved its tears for something worthier than the promoters of such delirious and fatal enterprises who had got their wages for their industry. Has the English nation, then, changed altogether? I flatter myself it has not-not yet quite; but only that certain loose and superficial portions of it have become a great deal louder, and not any wiser, than they formerly used to be. At any rate, though much averse at any time, and at this time in particular, to figure on committees or to run into public noises without call, I do at once feel that as a British citizen I should and must make you welcome to my name for your committee, and to whatever good it can do you; with the hope only that many other British men

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GOVERNOR EYRE.

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of much more significance in such a matter will at once or gradually do the like; and that, in fine, by wise effort and persistence, a blind and disgraceful act of public injustice may be prevented, and an egregious folly as well; not to say, for none can say or compute, what a vital detriment throughout the British empire is such an example set to all colonies and governors the British empire has.'

The reply we have to make to this apology for Governor Eyre is, that the feelings of the English people were not drawn out towards those who were guilty of participating in the insurrection and the enormities by which it was attended, but towards those who were, or at any rate who might have been innocent. They did not sympathize with proved guilt, but they feared that many might be condemned by young officers like Lieutenant Brand on mere loose suspicion; on evidence which might have been rebutted by contradictory evidence, if opportunity had been afforded for its production. They did not think it right that any one man, however black his skin, should suffer unjustly or without full proof of his guilt. And as for the analogy of the fire breaking out in the powder-room, that did not apply to Mr. Gordon, who had voluntarily yielded himself up to justice; who was as well secured on board the Wolverine as if he had been in an English prison; and who therefore without any danger at all might have been reserved for fair trial, and deliberate execution, if on such trial he was found to have deserved it. Meanwhile funds were raised on the one hand for the prosecution of Mr. Eyre, and on the other hand for his defence; and in due time the case was brought before the court of Queen's Bench, where Mr. Justice Blackburn delivered a charge which induced the grand jury not to find the bill; but Lord Chief-Justice Cockburn subsequently stated that if he had been aware that the law would have been laid down as it was understood to have been stated, he should have felt it his duty to attend in his place in court and to have declared his views of the law to the jury. He added, and Justice Blackburn assented to the truth of the assertion, that almost on the eve of the delivery of the charge Mr. Justice Blackburn had been of opinion that the removal of Mr. Gordon was unjustifiable; though in the charge itself he had given a different opinion.

Some other ineffectual attempts were made to procure the legal condemnation of the act of Governor Eyre, and as he had been put to considerable expense in consequence of these proceedings, the conservative government decided that he should be reimbursed from the public funds. This determination was perhaps justifiable, inasmuch as the charges against Mr. Eyre had fallen to the ground; for it would be hardly fair to allow a person in his position to be put to heavy and perhaps ruinous expenses on account of acts which the great tribunals of this country had decided not to be illegal, and which therefore must be regarded by the government as warrantable, whatever their private opinion as to their lawfulness might be.

The year 1866 was signalised by a great scientific exploit -the successful laying of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic ocean. The Great Eastern steamship, accompanied by the screw steamers Albany and Medway, was employed to carry the cable from the island of Valentia, situated on the western coast of Ireland. Every precaution that the experience of the previous attempts furnished had been taken to insure success. For the first six days all went well; the sea was calm, the cable ran out steadily, the electric tests were perfect, and messages passed backwards and forwards between the land and the Great Eastern as she proceeded. On the 18th of July, when the vessel was about six hundred miles from her port of departure and one thousand from Newfoundland, a ‘foul fluke' or entanglement of the cable appeared. Fortunately it was discovered in time. The running-out of the cable was stopped before the fluke entered the paying-out machinery. The knot was carefully and patiently disentangled amidst heavy rain and a strong wind blowing; and after some delay the vessel proceeded on her voyage, and safely reached Newfoundland on the 29th of July; the cable having been laid down in good order, and transmitting messages sent by it in a quite satisfactory manner. Having thus accomplished the main object of her voyage, the great ship next proceeded, with the assistance of the vessels that had attended her, to endeavour to pick up the cable which had previously been laid, to splice it, and then carry it forward to the place where the other had been landed. Some idea may be formed of the skill, patience, and perse

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THE THIRD READING.

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made by the minister for extending to the counties the system of voting by papers, which had already been adopted for the universities, was also rejected.

Mr. Horsfall, one of the representatives for Liverpool, having brought forward a motion for giving a third member each to Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, the proposal was opposed in the first instance by the government, but was at length conceded by Mr. Disraeli, who at the same time added Leeds to the list of towns to which a third member was to be given. This concession increased the hostility with which the ministry and their measure were regarded by Lord Cranbourne and those that thought with him, who now sat below the gangway, on the ministerial side of the house, and led General Peel to say, that after this concession he should conclude that there was 'nothing with less vitality than a vital point, nothing so insecure as the securities that the bill offered, and nothing so elastic as the conscience of a cabinet minister.' And well he and his friends might complain when they saw the so-called securities swept away one after another, and the bill introduced by the conservative ministry transformed with their consent into a measure which Mr. Bright himself might have introduced, and which, if it did not altogether satisfy the wishes of the members of the Reform League, certainly surpassed their expectations. The House of Commons, thoroughly weary of their work, and finding themselves now in the month of July, hurried through the later clauses of the bill, tossed overboard without consideration amendments of all kinds, loudly called for the schedules, rapidly passed them; and so at last the bill, after having been thirteen weeks in committee, came before the house for the third reading. Mr. Disraeli was then compelled to listen to taunts and sarcasms as severe as those which he had heaped on Sir Robert Peel, and complaints of betrayal from the conservative party as bitter as those he had himself uttered against the illustrious statesman who led that party when he was an obscure member of it. Lord Cranbourne said, 'I should deeply regret to find that the House of Commons has applauded a policy of legerdemain; and I should above all things regret that this great gift to the people, if gift you think it, should have been purchased at the cost of a political betrayal which has no

VOL. III.

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