458 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



England by Rev. Henry "Ward Beecher, in Au- 

 gust aud September, and the wide diffusion of 

 pamphlets and documents, coupled with the 

 eloquent speeches and essays of John Bright, 

 Richard Cobden, J. Stuart Mill, Prof. Newman, 

 Goodwin Smith, J. E. Cairnes, and others, have 

 effected a decided change of feeling in that 

 country, in favor of the United States, and have 

 rendered it probable now at least that a majority 

 of the people of England are our friends. The 

 bitterness with which, for the last six months, 

 Mr. Jefferson Davis has denounced the British 

 Government, and the spirit of mortification 

 and resentment which his ambassador, Mr. John 

 Mason, manifested on leaving England, on find- 

 ing that he could not hope to be received in any 

 official character, fully corroborate the extent 

 of this change. 



The Polish question occupied much of the 

 attention of the ministry and the two Houses 

 of Parliament during the first half of the year. 

 As early as the 20th of February, in the House 

 of Lords, and on the 27th of the same month, 

 in the House of Commons, the subject was in- 

 troduced, and addresses to the crown asked 

 for. The ministers avowed their sympathy 

 with the Poles, and their belief that the treaty 

 of Vienna had been violated systematically. 

 The British Government subsequently united 

 with France, Austria, and Prussia in a joint 

 note to the Government of Russia, covering 

 several propositions for the relief of Poland and 

 the cessation of the civil war ; these proposi- 

 tions were declined by Russia (see RUSSIA and 

 POLAND), and France subsequently proposed a 

 European Congress to settle this and other 

 European questions ; to this congress England 

 declined becoming a party. Late in the year 

 another troublesome foreign question arose, by 

 which the British Government was placed in a 

 condition of great embarrassment and diffi- 

 culty, viz., the Schleswig-Holstein affair. This 

 eventually resulted in a war, in which Prussia 

 and Austria, forestalling the action of the 

 German Diet, were the attacking party (see 

 ScHi.ESwio-HoLSTEiN) ; and the war is still in 

 progress (May, 1864). The royal family of Great 

 Britain were intimately connected by marriage 

 with both the belligerents, the princess royal, 

 Victoria Adelaide, being the wife of the Prince 

 of Prussia, heir apparent to the Prussian throne, 

 while Prince Albert Edward, the heir apparent 

 to the British throne, had married Alexandra, 

 eldest daughter of the King of Denmark. The 

 British Government had moreover been one of 

 the three powers (Austria and Russia being the 

 other two) which had by a treaty or agreement 

 in 1852, guaranteed to the new King of Den- 

 mark, Christian IX., the government of the 

 two duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. Thus 

 situated, the efforts of the British ministry 

 were directed to the prevention of hostilities, 

 and failing in this, they have sought to settle 

 the difficulty by a conference of European pow- 

 ers, but thus far without much success. 



The protectorate of Great Britain over the 



Ionian Islands was relinquished in October, 

 1863, and in the same month those Elands 

 were annexed to the kingdom of Greece. The 

 Conservatives in Parliament objected to the 

 relinquishment of the important port of Corfu, 

 but the ministers deemed it sufficient reply to 

 say that the people of the Ionian Islands were 

 averse to the British protectorate, and desired to 

 unite with Greece, and that it was not in con- 

 formity with the national policy to retain un- 

 willing subjects under its sway. 



Mr. Richardson, connected with the British 

 embassy to Japan, having been murdered by 

 the adherents of the Prince of Satsuma, in Sep- 

 tember, 1862, and no complete satisfaction 

 having been obtained either from the Tycoon 

 or the Mikado (the temporal and spiritual 

 emperors), and the Prince of Satsuma having 

 withdrawn to his principality, a British squad- 

 ron was despatched under Admiral Knper, to 

 reduce his fortified town of Kagosima. The 

 bombardment was commenced on the 15th of 

 August, and the forts at first replied vigorously, 

 but by dusk the town was in fl.imes, and three 

 of the forts silenced ; on the following day the 

 attack was renewed, the town was reduced to 

 a mass of ruins ; the palace, arsenal, factories, 

 and three steam vessels utterly destroyed. The 

 British lost two captains and eleven seamen 

 killed and thirty-nine wounded. 



The difficulties with the Brazilian Govern- 

 ment in consequence of the arrest of some 

 British naval officers while in undress uniform, 

 were referred to the arbitration of Leopold, 

 King of Belgium, who decided "that in the 

 mode in which the laws of Brazil have been 

 applied toward the English officers, there was 

 neither premeditation of offence, nor offence 

 to the British navy." 



In the internal affairs of the kingdom, the 

 topic of most interest was the condition of the 

 operatives in the cotton-manufacturing dis- 

 tricts, of whose deplorable sufferings some ac- 

 count was given in the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA 

 for 1862. The suffering seems to have reached 

 its maximum intensity in December, 1862, and 

 from the first week in December it gradually 

 though slowly declined, till, at the close of Sep- 

 tember, 1863, the number receiving relief from 

 the Poor Law Guardians and local committees, 

 was 184,265, against 456,786 who had received 

 aid in January, 1863. The moderate influx of 

 cotton from India, Egypt, Turkey, the West 

 Indies, South America, Central America, and 

 small quantities from the United States, coupled 

 with the high prices of fabrics, enabled most, 

 of the manufacturers to resume work, and tin- 

 great pressure of want ceased. The number 

 receiving relief was, however, as will appear 

 from the following table (which we copy 

 from the "National Almanac" for 1864), in 

 September, 1863, more than three times as 

 many as in times of ordinary prosperity, or on 

 an average about one fourteenth of the entire* 

 population. 



In this table the first column of figures gives 



