Sixty Years a Queen Part 33

Arabi held a strongly-fortified position at Tel-el-Kebir. On September 9 he attempted a reconnaissance, with 8,000 men and twenty-four guns, but was driven back with the loss of some of his guns. Tel-el-Kebir offered a front to the British advance of about four miles of earthworks, with redoubts at intervals carrying guns. The flanks were protected by similar works. Wolseley struck his camp on the evening of September 12, and advanced during the night with 2,000 cavalry, 11,000 infantry, and sixty guns. At dawn on the 13th General Graham's Brigade on the right, and Sir Archibald Alison's Highland Brigade on the left, were within a quarter of a mile of the Egyptian lines. An irregular fire was opened upon them; they dashed forward to the a.s.sault, scaled the outer defences, bayonetted the gunners, paused to re-form, and advanced against the inner and stronger works. It remains a question of honourable rivalry which were first inside the Egyptian position, the Highlanders on the left or Graham's infantry on the right. At all events, within half an hour the whole of Arabi's defences were captured, his army was routed and flying under pressure of the British cavalry.

The British loss in this well-managed affair was very slight, considering the strength of the position and the strength of Arabi's army, supposed to amount to about 25,000 men. Eleven officers and forty-three men were killed, and twenty-two officers and 320 men wounded. The Egyptian loss was believed to be about 1,000; of prisoners, 3,000 were taken, with sixty guns. The campaign was practically over.

Arabi's troops disbanded themselves, and Arabi himself was arrested in Cairo. Being brought to trial as a rebel, he pleaded guilty, and sentence of death was pa.s.sed on him. This sentence was commuted immediately by the Khedive for one of perpetual banishment from Egypt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Linley Sambourne._} {_From "Punch."_

FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT WOLSELEY.

Son of Major Garnet Wolseley. Born near Dublin in 1833. Commanded the Red River Expedition of 1870 and the Ashanti Expedition of 1873, and was sent out in 1879 as Governor of Natal and the Transvaal, and High Commissioner. He commanded the forces in Egypt in 1882 and again in 1884-5.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _R. Caton Woodville._} {_From the Royal Collection.

Reproduced by permission of the Artist._

THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT AT THE BATTLE OF TEL-EL-KEBIR.]

The net result of these events was the withdrawal of the _condominium_ or dual control by England and France, the restoration of the Khedive's authority, and the reconstruction of the administrative and social system. But the British continued to occupy Egypt as security for the pacific fulfilment of the reforms insisted on by the English Plenipotentiary, Lord Dufferin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lady Butler._} {_By permission of the Artist, and of Messrs. Graves, Publishers of the large Engraving._

AFTER THE BATTLE: ARRIVAL OF LORD WOLSELEY AND STAFF AT THE BRIDGE OF TEL-EL-KEBIR.]

CHAPTER XVI.

1881-1887.

Imprisonment of Irish Members of Parliament--a.s.sa.s.sination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke--Prevalence of Outrages in Ireland--A New Coercion Bill--Trial and Execution of the Phoenix Park Murderers--The Dynamite Conspiracy--Corrupt Practices Act--The Affairs of Egypt--General Gordon sent to Khartoum--Gordon Besieged--Inaction of the Government--Relief of Khartoum Undertaken--Too Late!--Death of Gordon--Lord Wolseley's Campaign--Abandonment of the Soudan--Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill--The Question of Redistribution of Seats--The Frontier Question in Afghanistan--Defeat of Ministers on the Budget and their Resignation--Lord Salisbury's First Administration--Dissolution of Parliament--The Irish Party and the Balance of Power--Mr. Gladstone's Third Administration--His Conversion to Home Rule--Rupture of the Liberal Party--The Home Rule Bill Rejected--Dissolution of Parliament--Unionist Victory--Lord Salisbury's Second Administration--Lord Randolph Churchill Resigns--The Round Table Conference.

[Sidenote: Imprisonment of Irish Members.]

The effort made by the Government to conciliate the hostility of the people of Ireland by the Land Act did not at first offer much prospect of success. There was no diminution in the tyranny of the Land League or in the number of cruel outrages traceable to that organisation. A Cabinet Council was summoned hurriedly early in October 1881, the result of which was the arrest of Mr. Parnell and two other members of Parliament under the Protection of Life and Property Act, and their imprisonment in Kilmainham. They remained in confinement as "suspects"

until May 2, 1882, when they were released unconditionally, a step which led to the immediate resignation of Earl Cowper, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his Chief Secretary, Mr. Forster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Elliott & Fry._

HERBERT SPENCER.

Born in Derby 1820. Educated as a Civil Engineer, but abandoned that profession in favour of literature and philosophy. He was one of the earliest exponents of the doctrine of evolution.]

[Sidenote: a.s.sa.s.sination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke.]

There was great jubilation over this among the Nationalists. It was a distinct surrender on the part of the Government to the party of separation: and the suppressed Land League was revived openly under the name of the National League. The response to the new policy of conciliation and condonement came in terrible fas.h.i.+on. Earl Cowper and Mr. Forster had been succeeded in the Lord Lieutenancy and Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p by Earl Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish. On May 6 the last-named gentleman, a brother of the present Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, after attending the installation of his chief, took a car to drive out to the Chief Secretary's Lodge. Overtaking Mr. Burke, a permanent official at the Castle, Lord Frederick dismissed his car and walked on with him through the Phoenix Park. It was a fine spring evening, between seven and eight o'clock; just as they were pa.s.sing an opening in the trees on their right, giving a view of the Viceregal Lodge, two men came along the path to meet them. One of them, Brady, a man of immense size and strength, stooped down as if to tie his shoe-lace. As the two gentlemen pa.s.sed him, he sprang erect, gripped Mr. Burke by the waist, and stabbed him in the back. The other ruffian, Kelly, slashed Burke across the throat as he fell. Lord Frederick, attempting to defend his friend with an umbrella, received a fatal thrust in the breast from Brady's knife, and fell dead also.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Orlando Norrie._} {_From the Royal Collection._

DISTRIBUTION OF EGYPTIAN WAR MEDALS BY HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN AT WINDSOR, November 21, 1882.]

On the 8th of the following month a gentleman called Walter Bourke, riding with a soldier as escort near Gort, was shot at, and both were killed; and in like manner, on the 29th, Mr. Blake, a land agent, and his steward, Mr. Keene, were murdered by concealed a.s.sa.s.sins near Lough Rea. Ireland had come to a desperate condition; it was garrisoned with not less than 20,000 cavalry and infantry and 20,000 mounted constabulary, yet the Executive seemed powerless to cope with an almost universal conspiracy against life and property. The murdered Cavendish was succeeded as Chief Secretary by Mr. G. O. Trevelyan, and the first act of the Government was to introduce a fresh Coercion Bill, of extraordinary severity, creating special tribunals for the trial of suspects and criminals, conferring rights of search on the police, and giving further powers for dealing with incitement to crime. The Bill was vehemently opposed by Mr. Parnell and his party; nevertheless, the Government pursued their apparently hopeless policy of conciliation by introducing and carrying through the Arrears of Rent Bill, whereby about two millions of money was applied to release Irish tenants of a moiety of the liabilities which the Land League had forbidden them to fulfil, and the balance of arrears was wiped out at the expense of landlords.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir J. D. Linton, P.R.I._} {_From the Royal Collection._

1. The Queen.

2, 3. The Bride and Bridegroom.

4. Prince of Wales.

5. Grand Duke of Hesse.

6. Princess Beatrice.

7. Princess of Wales with her three daughters.

8, 9. Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh.

10, 11. Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Teck.

12. Duke of Cambridge.

13. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar.

14. Princess Victoria of Hesse.

15. Archbishop of Canterbury.

16. Dean Wellesley.

17. King of the Netherlands.

18, 19. The Bride's Parents.

20. Queen of the Netherlands.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF ALBANY AND PRINCESS HELEN OF WALDECK AND PYRMONT AT ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, April 27, 1882.]

[Sidenote: Trial and Execution of the Phoenix Park Murderers.]

The additional powers conferred on the police by the Crimes Act of 1882 resulted in the capture of the gang who had planned and carried out the murders in the Phoenix Park. In January 1883 seventeen persons were arrested in Dublin, and on one of them, Farrell, turning informer, it came out that they were members of a secret society. Their princ.i.p.al object had been to make away with Mr. W. E. Forster when he was Chief Secretary, and on various occasions he had escaped a.s.sa.s.sination by what seemed the narrowest chances. Among those arrested was James Carey, who had given the signal for the murder of Burke by raising a white handkerchief, and who turned Queen's evidence. He was allowed to go free after the trial, while five of his gang were hanged, the remainder being sentenced to various terms of penal servitude. Finally, this b.l.o.o.d.y chapter was brought to a close in the murder of Carey himself, by a man named O'Donnell, who had travelled in the same s.h.i.+p with him to Cape Town. O'Donnell was brought home to England and hanged early in December.

[Sidenote: The Dynamite Conspiracy.]

While the trial of the Phoenix Park a.s.sa.s.sins was proceeding, another formidable conspiracy was brought to light. A gang of Irish-Americans had come to this country with the object of terrorising the Government by a series of explosions of nitro-glycerine. On the evening of March 15, 1883, part of the Local Government Board Offices in Whitehall was wrecked by the explosion of a canister of dynamite placed inside one of the bal.u.s.trades. Simultaneously, another explosion took place at the office of the _Times_, in Printing House Square. By the help of informers, the police were enabled to arrest a number of persons in London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, all of whom were brought to trial, and most of them proved to be active agents in a heinous conspiracy against life and property. The formidable power which modern explosives had brought within the reach of secret societies made it necessary to make the law dealing with such crimes more stringent, and Sir William Harcourt, the Home Secretary, on April 9, introduced a Bill to cope with what he termed "the pirates of the human race." He a.s.sured the House that the danger was so grave and imminent that the Bill must pa.s.s through all its stages on that day. It was read a first, a second time, pa.s.sed through Committee, and was read a third time, all within little more than an hour. Taken up to the Lords on the same evening, it was dispatched there with equal prompt.i.tude, and received the Royal a.s.sent next day--an example of rapid legislation almost without parallel.

[Sidenote: Corrupt Practices Act.]

A much-needed boon was conferred this year (1883) upon Parliamentary candidates in the pa.s.sage of the Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill.

The old and evil electioneering traditions were put an end to now by the statutory measure introduced by the Attorney-General, Sir Henry James (now Lord James of Hereford); a statutory and moderate limit to candidates' expenses, based on the number of electors in each const.i.tuency, was fixed, which might not be exceeded on pain of voiding the election.

[Sidenote: The Affairs of Egypt.]

The Government were called upon early in 1884 to realise the full weight of the responsibility they had a.s.sumed in regard to Egyptian affairs.

The Mahomedan Arabs of the Soudan had been brought under Egyptian rule in 1870; gross misgovernment had brought about bitter disaffection, and the troubles of Lower Egypt before and during Arabi's revolt, afforded these wild tribes an opportunity for throwing off the yoke. Mohamed Ahmed appeared among them as the Mahdi, or Redeemer, who, besides being a religious enthusiast, was a daring and skilful commander in the field.

In 1883 the Egyptian Government sent an army of about 11,000 men under command of Colonel Hicks, a retired officer of the Indian army, to restore the Khedive's authority in the Equatorial Provinces. This force was attacked on November 1 in a rocky defile; for three days they defended themselves; on the fourth their ammunition was all spent, and every man in the Egyptian army, with many British officers, perished. Of course, this tremendous victory was accepted by the Arabs as complete proof of the Mahdi's divine mission: the insurrection spread like wildfire, and the Khedive, acting under advice of the British Government, decided not to attempt the re-conquest of these provinces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARINE ENGINES IN THE ERECTING SHOP AT CLYDEBANK.

The Clydebank works cover an area of 75 acres, and employ 6,500 workmen.]

[Sidenote: General Gordon sent to Khartoum.]