RUSSELL, JOHN. 



RUSSIA. 



741 



opposition and several changes of ministry, it 

 finally became a la\v on June 7, 1832. Lord 

 John Russell went out with the Melbourne 

 Ministry in 1834 on the Irish Church question ; 

 but, on its return to power in 1835, he became 

 Home Secretary. This place he held until 

 1839, when he became Secretary of State for 

 War and the Colonies. In 1841 he again went 

 out of office with Lord Melbourne, and for five 

 years led the opposition in the House of Com- 

 mons. The corn-law agitation becoming the 

 most important feature of the times, in 1841 

 Lord John was returned as a member for the 

 city of London upon the principles of free 

 trade. He supported the Peel Ministry in all 

 questions relating to free trade, the improve- 

 ment of the condition of the working classes, 

 and the preservation of order in Ireland. After 

 Peel's retirement in 1846 he was intrusted with 

 the formation of a new Cabinet, in which he 

 took the office of First Lord of the Treasu- 

 ry. He resigned office temporarily in 1851, 

 on the question of the county franchise, and 

 in 1852 went out with the whole Ministry. 

 In the succeeding Aberdeen Ministry he be- 

 came Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 

 and afterward Lord President of the Council. 

 He left the Aberdeen Ministry in 1855, and 

 soon after became Colonial Secretary in the 

 Palmerston Cabinet. Soon afterward he was 

 appointed British plenipotentiary at the Vi- 

 enna Conference occasioned by the Crimean 

 war. The results of his negotiations were 

 rejected at home, and in June, 1855, he re- 

 signed office. In 1859 he was appointed Sec- 

 retary of State for Foreign Affairs under Lord 

 Palmerston, and in 1861 he was raised to the 

 peerage as Earl Russell. In the natural order 

 of succession, Earl Russell became Premier 

 when Lord Palmerston died in October, 1865, 

 and it was immediately understood that there 

 would be another reform bill. The fate of the 

 Government was boldly staked upon the bill, 

 and the success of Lord Dunkellin's amend- 

 ment left the Ministers, as Mr. Gladstone em- 

 phatically said, no alternative but resignation. 

 "With this act Earl Russell's active career as a 

 statesman closed, although he afterward put 

 forth numerous letters, speeches, and pam- 

 phlets on the leading questions of the day. 

 He married in 1835 the widow of Lord Rib- 

 blesdale, who died in 1838, leaving two daugh- 

 ters. In 1841 he married Lady Frances Elliot, 

 daughter of the second Lord Minto. By this 

 later marriage Earl Russell had three sons and 

 a daughter. His oldest son, Viscount Amber- 

 ley, died in 1876, and the title therefore passed 



to his grandson, John Francis Stanley, born 

 August 12, 1865. Besides the numerous pam- 

 phlets and letters he left behind, he published 

 a large number of valuable works, of which 

 the most important were: "Essay on the His- 

 tory of the English Government and Constitu- 

 tion" (1823; new edition, 1865); "Memoirs 

 of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of 

 Utrecht" (2 vols., 1824-'29); "Establishment 

 of the Turks in Europe" (1828) ; "Causes of 

 the French Revolution" (1832); "Rise and 

 Progress of the Christian Religion in the West 

 of Europe" (1873); "Recollections and Sug- 

 gestions, 1813-'73 " (1875) ; and lives of Charles 

 James Fox and Thomas Moore, with their cor- 

 respondence, etc. 



RUSSIA (EMPIRE OF ALL THE RUSSIAS), an 

 empire in Europe and Asia. The Emperor, 

 Alexander II., born April 29, 1818, succeeded 

 his father, Nicholas I., March 2, 1855. The 

 heir apparent is the Grand Duke Alexander, 

 born March 10, 1845.* 



By the treaty of Berlin, Russia added to its 

 territories the province of Bessarabia, retro- 

 ceded to it by Roumania, and the districts of 

 Ardahan, Kars, and Batoum in Asia Minor, 

 detached from the Turkish Empire and pro- 

 visionally formed into the government of Kars. 

 With these additions, the area and population 

 of the great divisions were in 1878 estimated 

 as follows : 



The population of Finland at the close of 

 1876 was as follows : 



The religious statistics of other parts of the 

 Russian Empire, according to the St. Peters- 

 burg " Kalender " for 1877, were as follows : 



* For a fuller account of the Imperial family, see " Annual Cyclopedia" for 1877, article RsrA. 



t Martin's ' Statesman's Yearbook" for 1879 gives the area as only 5,670 square miles. The figure given above i 



| FoVSaifed statistics oflhe several Christian denominations, see " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 1877, p. 6S5. 



