GREAT BRITAIN. 



870 



it which Ill-did ni >t live to complete, 

 limnoiiiiciMl l>y competent li: 

 mi. pulled iu our lanirnau'c f'-r chaste 



:l simplii-itv and c|iii.'t pathos. 

 CUK AT i;!:ir.\l\. or ill,- I'MIKD Ki\ 



i . \\M. Area by the 

 -/'.I Kii.irlish square miles. 

 , by the census of 1861,29,821,288. 

 ;i>titutional monarchy. Qu !!, 

 i i !., horn isl'.i, crowned ls;!8. llcir- 

 apparent, Albert Kdward, born November, 1841, 

 married March, 1803, to tlie Princess Alexandra, 

 daughter of the present King of Denmark. 

 ['In.- Cabinet, whicli is the actual governing pow- 

 ; lie nation in most particulars, was during 

 Conservative, being that 



\vhii-h a-Mimed office July 6, 1866, though a 

 iiangi"; in its subordinate members were 

 in the course of the year. It consisted, 

 in the summer of 1867, of the Earl of Derby, 

 Premier, and First .Lord of the Treasury ; Lord 

 >.'l'i>rd. Lord High Chancellor; the Duko 

 i rlborougli, Lord President of the Council ; 

 : irl of Malmcsburv, Lord Privy Seal ; 

 Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the 

 pier; Right Hon. Gathorne Hardy, Sec- 

 >tate; Lord Stanley (eldest son of 

 irl of Derby), Secretary of State for For- 

 Aifairs; the Duke of Buckingham, Secre- 

 tary of State for the Colonies, Sir Stafford North- 

 cote, Secretary of State for India; Right lion. 

 Sir John Pakington, Secretary of State for 

 War; RL'ht Hon. Henry Thomas Lo wry Corry, 

 Lord of the Admiralty; the Duke of Rich- 

 mond, President of the Board of Trade; the 

 l>uke of Montrose, Postmaster-General; Right 

 Hon. Colonel John Wilson Patten, Chancellor 

 of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Earl of 

 Devon, President of the Poor-Law Board. 



The Alabama claims of the United States 

 still remained unsettled at the close of the 

 though there had been considerable 

 diplomatic correspondence in regard to them, 

 between Lord Stanley and Secretary Seward, 

 through the ministers of the two countries; 

 a better and more conciliatory spirit, on the 

 part of the British secretary, was manifested 

 in the later portions of the correspondence, 

 the influence, perhaps, in part, of the change of 

 circumstances in the tiro nations; arbitration, 

 which the former administration had refused, 

 was now proposed by Lord Stanley, but with 

 the reservation that the rightfulness of the 

 n '3 recognition of the so-called Southern 

 Confederacy as belligerents should not be 

 among the matters submitted for arbitration. 

 (iiditiou the American secretary refused 

 to accept, and the correspondence for the time 

 was closed, though with a fair prospect of the 

 eventual adju>tnient of the difficulty. (See 



Ill'I.oM VUi! CORKESPONDEXCK.) 



The l-Ym:in> were throughout the year a con- 



of anxiety and alarm to the !!riti-h 



Government. Their attempts to obtain possession 



of some portions of Canada were not repeated, 



the watchfulness of the American Government 



havim: prevented any such action; but in Eng- 

 land and In-land there was a constant succes- 

 sion of alarms, from tin- npri-ing of small bodies 

 of the lri>h adlu-n-i,- ni-m, cither to 



obtain possession of armories and deposits of 

 ammunition, to rescue some of their men who 

 had been taken prisoner-, to capture and hold 

 stroii'_ p positions, or to destroy prisons, etc., in 

 which some of their men had been confined, 

 and to make demonstrations on account of tin- 

 execution of such as had been tried for riot 

 and murder. From the llth of February, 1867, 

 when the first movement to attack and capture 

 the castle of Chester, the plot for which was 

 prematurely disclosed by an accomplice, up to 

 the close of the year, the repetition of these 

 Fenian outbreaks occurred almost every week. 

 A number of these were accompanied with 

 bloodshed. On the 13th of February a party 

 of about 800 Fenians assembled at Cahirciveen, 

 County Kerry, Ireland, attacked and sacked a 

 coast-guard station at Kells, shot a mounted 

 policeman, cut the telegraph-wires, and, being 

 pursued, retreated to the mountains. On the 

 5th of March they appeared in considerable 

 force near Cork; at Tallaght, near Dublin, 

 where there were 200 of them, who had a con- 

 flict with the police, and five of the Fenians 

 were wounded and eighty-five taken prisoners ; 

 at Drogheda, where a thousand of them fought 

 with the police for the possession of the mar- 

 ket-house, and 40 were taken prisoners; at 

 Kilmnlloch, where they attacked the police 

 station, three of them being killed and fourteen 

 taken prisoners ; at Dennore near Kilrush ; and 

 at Holy Cross. Some of these prisoners were 

 tried at Dublin in April and May, and two of 

 the leaders sentenced to death, and the remain- 

 der to various terms of imprisonment. The 

 sentence of the leaders was subsequently com- 

 muted to penal servitude. Ireland was still in 

 a ferment, and the constabulary force made 

 numerous arrests during the summer months. 

 On the 18th of September a daring attack was 

 made in Manchester on the police van which 

 was conveying two Fenians to jail : about fifty 

 men assembled, many of them armed with re- 

 volvers, shot the horses, knocked the driver 

 from his seat, dispersed the policemen who 

 were guarding the van, shot the policeman in- 

 side, broke open the van and released the pris- 

 oners, who made their escape. Twenty-three 

 of those engaged in this attack were arrested, 

 and on the 5th of October committed for trial. 

 Five, viz., Allen, Larkin, Gould, Maguire, and 

 Shore, were found ' guilty, and sentenced to 

 death. Two of these, Maguire and Shore, were 

 subsequently pardoned through the intervention 

 of the American consul, it being proved that they 

 had been convicted on false testimony; the 

 other three^Allen, Larkin, and Gotdd, were ex- 

 ecuted on the 23d of November. Of the other 

 eighteen prisoners, a part proved an alibi, and 

 others were convicted, but sentence deferred. 

 On the 13th of December a portion of the wall 

 of Clerkenwell Prison was blown up by gun- 



