one.

having taken little or no part in it. From this fact we might learn, he observed, two things-first, that we should carefully avoid giving the natives any reason to believe that there was a design to attack their religious prejudices; secondly, that we ought not to maintain so large a native force as before. The question as to the amount of force required in India was a very difficult The military expenditure before the mutiny being £12,000,000 and the present expenditure £21,000,000, the difference being £9,000,000, there was room for a very large reduction upon this item of expenditure, and he thought the reduction might extend to £3,000,000 or £4,000,000. It was impossible, however, to say how soon this reduction could take place, but the utmost care would be taken to keep down this branch of the expenditure. With regard to the augmentation of the revenue, authority had been sent to the government of India to raise the salt duty in Madras, Bombay, and the North-west Provinces, and to impose stamp duties and a tax upon licences; and possibly a succession duty. He could not, of course, form an estimate of the probable amount which these duties would produce; but when all was done that we could hope to do, there must still be for a year or two a considerable deficiency that must be supplied, and £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 would have to be provided by parliament. It was the intention of the government to select a person versed in finance to be sent to India, to take the revenue and financial department under his charge. In conclusion, he showed that there had been a progressive improvement in the revenues of India, and declared he by no means despaired of its future. He moved a resolution enabling the government to raise in the United Kingdom for the service of the government of India £5,000,000, to meet the demands of the present year.

The proposals of the India office were discussed with great variety of opinions, Lord Stanley and Mr. Bright making speeches of the most statesmanlike character, and of rare eloquence. The latter hon. gentleman struck at the whole principle and policy of our English administration, and confidently foretold a collapse of our Indian rule, unless there was an end to the extravagance and waste then going on.

The bill for the Indian loan was carried.

Towards the close of the session, there was another Indian bill introduced by the same minister, which was of much importance. The object was to limit the number of European troops to serve in India. The bill defined the number to be for future service 30,000. A speech of Sir De Lacey Evans, then member for Westminster, threw much light upon the subject, and enabled the house to come to an early and clear decision. In India, however, the English were rapidly strengthening their rule. The great rebel Tantia Topee was tried by court-martial on the 15th of May, and hung on the 18th.

So ended the career of this celebrated marauder; but so striking is his history and so thoroughly Asiatic was the course thus consummated, that some closing notice of its incidents has been fairly earned. It has been found impossible to ascertain with any precision the extraction, quality, or even name of a man who, for nearly two years had been successful either in defying our arms or eluding our pursuit. Tantia Topee was undoubtedly a Brahmin; but beyond this distinction of caste, his position was attended by no advantages. He is said to have been born somewhere in the Mahratta country, and to have been at some period of his life in the service of the British government; but his history is altogether obscure, until at the outbreak of the mutiny he appears, probably as a retainer of Nana Sahib, at Cawnpore. From this moment his rise commenced. He left Cawnpore for Calpee, where he acquired a considerable command in the Gwalior Contingent, and was conspicuous among the leaders of that famous force at the battle of the Jumna, when General

Не

Wyndham was so hardly pressed. After the defeat of the Contingent, he succeeded, by one of the boldest strokes of the war, in turning repulse into victory, for he made his way to Gwalior, and by dint of corruption and intrigue turned Scindiah's troops against him, and obtained actual possession of his capital city. Dislodged from this marvellous elevation by the vigorous proceedings of Sir Hugh Rose, he took to the open country, and for nearly a year defied our utmost power. raised armies as fast as we could disperse them, took up one position after another to our infinite annoyance, and led us a chase which, despite of unexampled efforts on the part of our soldiers, seemed to be really endless. Our troops pursued him without intermission, contrived more than once to surprise him, repeatedly captured his artillery and scattered his troops, but could never deprive him entirely of followers or guns. He seemed to summon forces from the earth as if by magic. As the pursuit grew hotter and hotter he mounted his men on ponies and camels, and marched, it is said, at the average rate of sixty miles a-day. Wherever we found him he had always cavalry and guns, and these he posted with remarkable skill. It is alleged, as a climax of these almost incredible exploits, that this military genius and popular hero was deficient in the commonest of all qualities-that of personal bravery; nor is the assertion disproved by the intrepidity with which he met his end. It is a known trait of Hindoo character, that men whom no persuasions could induce to face a battery or conduct a charge, will await inevitable death with fortitude and composure.

CHAPTER II.

Formation of the National Rifle Association-Remarkable Trials-Decease of Eminent Persons-The Treaty of Commerce with France-Fate of Sir John Franklin and his Crew-The Army: the Victoria CrossCession of Savoy and Nice to France.

FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE

ASSOCIATION.

HE National Rifle Association was formed

A.D. 1859-60. and gentlemen, warm supporters of the volunteer movement, with the expressed object of "encouraging volunteer rifle corps, and promoting rifleshooting throughout the kingdom." Their aim was, in fact, two-fold; first, to ensure the permanence and to give increased life and vigour to the volunteer force, by presenting to it some central object of distinct and universal interest; and next, to render the use of the rifle as familiar to our population generally as was the use of the long bow in the days of the Plantagenets, and thereby to secure our country from the possibility of invasion. That such objects are attainable by an address to the patriotic feelings of a people is evidenced by the universal interest taken by the inhabitants of Switzerland in their Tir Fédéral and Tirs Cantonneaux, and the independence thereby secured to a small nation inhabiting a strong country surrounded by great military states. It was with the view of establishing a national meeting for competition in rifle-shooting, and thereby encouraging county meetings for the same purpose, that this association was formed. The association was constituted under the most favourable auspices. Mr. Sidney Herbert, the secretary of state for war, accepted the office of president; the Prince Consort brought it into immediate connection with the sovereign by becoming the patron; and her Majesty immediately announced her intention of founding a prize of £250, to be annually competed for by Volunteers; and the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief of the regular army, not only became a member, but promised an annual prize. The first meeting of the association for prize shooting took place in July, 1860, a full account of which will be found in the next chapter.

Tin November by a number of noblemen

REMARKABLE TRIALS.

In the Court of Common Pleas, the judges decided against the claim set up by the new Earl of Shrewsbury to the estates which had heretofore descended with the title. Bertram Arthur, the last Earl of Shrewsbury, of the Roman Catholic line, conceiving himself to be relieved from the disabilities imposed by the conditions and limitations contained in the deeds before referred to, went through the legal form of "suffering a recovery," executed a disentailing deed, and by his will devised his estates to trustees in trust for various persons, but chiefly for a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. The Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot sought to recover the estates from the trustees by an action of ejectment in the Court of Common Pleas, asserting the subsistence and continuing validity of the restraints on alienation imposed by the parliamentary settlement, and denying the validity of the act of the deceased earl. Since the proceedings on the claim to the earldom had established that Earl Talbot was the heir in tail male of the first earl, and, therefore, now Earl of Shrewsbury, the controversy was reduced to the legal question of the validity and effect of the several deeds and settlements. A formal verdict was, therefore, taken for the plaintiff, with leave reserved to the defendants to move the court to enter the verdict for them after cause shown.

Another extraordinary lawsuit illustrated the character of the age, and even of the age that preceded it. This was known as the Thellusson Will Case. There was one great good to which it led, an alteration by the legislature of the power of persons leaving property, to permit it to accumulate beyond twenty-one years-this was the statute of 39-40 George III., cap. 98. One of the ablest essayists of the period, freeing the narrative from the jargon of the law, thus related it :

"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of vanity, and pursue with eagerness the phantom of a name, attend to the history of one richer than Rasselas -even to the history of one Peter Thellusson, late of the city of London, merchant.

"It is now sixty-two years since Peter Thellusson took stock of his worldly possessions, and found that he had £600,000 in money, and land of the annual value of £4,500. Peter Thellusson had satisfied the ordinary ambition of an English bourgeois-he had founded a family. Peter Isaac, the son of his youth, and the prop of his house, was heir to £35,000 a year in money and land, and might claim to be a born gentleman. Peers and peeresses might hereafter spring in intermediate succession from the loins of that denizen of a dingy little back-parlour behind the Bank. The best men upon Change envied the rich and prosperous Peter Thellusson, who had no object of ambition unsatisfied. Peter was of a different mind; he had not nearly money enough. Let other mert be satisfied to found one family: Peter was lucky enough to have three sons, and he would found three families. It was not that he loved his sons, or his sons' sons; but it was the hope and desire of this magnificently posthumous miser to associate his name in future generations with three colossal fortunes. If he did not love his sons, he did not hate them; he was simply indifferent to everything except to his one cherished object. Peter Thellusson took the very best legal advice, and made a will. He left a few trifling legacies, probably to show that no unnatural antipathy to his children tainted that will with mania. But his great fortune was all conveyed to trustees. It was to accumulate until every man, woman, and child of the offspring of Peter, and alive or begotten at the moment of Peter's death, should also be defunct. No one of the children or grandchildren who had ever looked Peter in the face, or trembled in his presence, or squalled at the sound of his harsh, hard voice, should ever be the richer for Peter's wealth. And the rich man also died.' Twelve months after making this will,

and sixty-one years from the present time, Peter was gathered to his unknown fathers. The will was opened, and created sensations which vibrated through the land in widening circles. Our law books picture to us the blank disappointment of the then living relatives, the gentle cachinnations of a past generation of lawyers, and the gaping wonder of the general public. There were three sons and six grandsons of this malignant old merchant then alive-all destined to live the life of Tantalus; to see this great pagoda-tree growing up before them, yet never to pluck one unit of its fruit. The terms of the will enjoined, that when the last survivor of all the nine children and grandchildren should yield up his breath, then the charm was to end: the great mountain of accumulated wealth was to be divided into three portions, and one-third was to be given to each of the eldest male lineal descendants' of his three sons. Having thus done what he liked with his own, and excluded all his living progeny from all benefit, he ends with a whine to the legislature worthy of Shylock appealing against mercy-he had earned his money with honesty and industry, and he hoped the legislature would not alter his will. Of course, the first thing that followed was a chancery suit of the fattest bulk. The common-sense view of the case would have been to set aside the will, as a product of a diseased mind--a mind rendered morbid as to its disposing powers by dwelling upon an irrational object. But Lords Loughborough and Alvanley and Eldon, and judges of kindred sympathies, seem to have been led by their love of art to admire the skill with which the technicalities of our blessed real property law had been adapted to the object of this old trader. Perhaps, also, they saw something eminently sane and matter-of-fact in this good old sordid vice of accumulation, or were excited to admiration by seeing the meanest vice of man expanded into something like sublimity in its gigantesque proportions. The litigation went up to the House of Lords, and the will was confirmed. This affair naturally made a great noise. The legislature took it up, and, although they would not set aside the will by an ex post facto law, they branded Peter Thellusson's memory with the imputation of 'vanity, illiberality, and folly;' and enacted by statute, 39th and 40th of George III., cap. 98, that the power of devising property for the purpose of accumulation shall be restrained in general to twenty-one years after the death of the testator. Persons of an arithmetical and statistical turn of mind also occupied themselves with the matter, and, with the aid of life-insurance tables and Cocker, they calculated that this fund, accumulating at compound interest, could not amount to less than nineteen millions at the moment of distribution, and would very probably reach the tremendous figure of thirty-two millions. But nothing is so false as facts, except figures.' The calculators had forgotten to take account of that unknown quantity which must, in practical matters, be represented, not by the letter,' but by the word litigation.' Contemporaneously with the chancery suit to set aside the will there was a cross-suit to have the trusts of the will performed under the direction of the Court of Chancery. That suit is now sixty years old, and, although children and grandchildren are dead, the suit is as hale and lively as it was in their earliest youth. That suit was the true heir to Peter Thellusson, and it is still spending his money like a frolicksome young cornet.

"The last survivor of the nine lives died in February, 1856, and four new bills were immediately filed. The property is now to be divided, not into thirds, but into moieties. There is, however, a question raised as to who is entitled. Who were the eldest male lineal descendants of old Peter Thellusson in February, 1856? There are two who are eldest in point of lineage, and two who are eldest in point of personal age. This point is still sub judice. It would not be very difficult

were his intimate associates. His intellect was of a high order, and his purposes persistent, intelligent, and open. Zachary Macaulay left England for Jamaica while yet young, in order to qualify himself, by connection and experience, for the business of a West India merchant. He there formed the antipathy against negro slavery which, guided by principle and intelligence, animated through life his opposition to that system. From Jamaica he went to Sierra Leone, mainly, perhaps exclusively, for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the blacks there, and aiding the objects for which the colony was formed. The Government ultimately nominated him Governor, which extended his opportunities of benevolence and usefulness.

"After many years of good service to England, Sierra Leone, and to humanity, he returned home, and threw in his whole energy and influence with the Anti-Slavery party, then exercising most strenuous efforts for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade all over the world. He became editor of the Christian Observer,' the abolition organ,' which he directed with great energy and ability; there was no aspect of the great question which was not discussed with extraordinary intelligence and discreet zeal in the columns of the 'Christian Observer.' Zachary Macaulay married the daughter of a bookseller in Bristol, named Mills, who was a zealous member of the 'Anti-Slavery' party. Zachary laboured to his death in the cause of charity, mercy, justice, and freedom, winning the approbation of the good of all classes and denominations, and the gratitude and respect of his country. A monument in Westminster Abbey was accorded to him as well as to Wilberforce.

"A sister of Zachary Macaulay married an eminent merchant named Thomas Babington, after whom the great littérateur was called. Thomas Babington was one of the clique of Anti-Slavery apostles, at first derided, then heard, then almost worshipped by the community. Zachary Macaulay had other children, besides the late lamented poet; one son married a daughter of Lord Denman, and a daughter married Sir Charles Trevelyan, late Governor of Madras, and celebrated for his financial and administrative ability.

"Thomas Babington Macaulay was born on October the 25th, 1800, at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire. As a boy, he was healthy, even robust, and intellectually most precocious, without losing anything of the simplicity and gaiety belonging to childhood and youth. His early education was conducted at home, under the strict religious superintendence of parental piety and vigilance. Previous to his being sent to college, however, he was placed under the tuition of a Mr. Preston, at Shelford, in Cambridgeshire.

"In the dawn of youth, he gave decided indications of literary taste and power. At twelve years of age, he wrote verses which show at least three qualitiesharmony, fire, and ingenuity. A speculative tendency was soon after indicated in his mental life and certain literary efforts, which were beyond his years in power of analysis and in reflection. In 1813, he wrote some verses complimentary of Pitt, which showed singular metrical and artistic skill for one so young. His activity of mind was extraordinary, and his taste for the aesthetical predominated; when a mere boy he is Baid to have entertained the ambition of writing a great epic poem.

"It is remarkable, and in accordance with the developments of his after life, that the boy gave no signs of a taste for mathematical studies, either at home or at school. He was not clever at arithmetic; he had a repugnance to algebra; Euclid's elements had no charm for him; nothing merely mechanical interested him; he could make nothing, and had no aptness of hand such as boys often possess and delight in; even the higher regions of scientific pursuit, to which mathematics conduct, or the study of which they subserve, had no

6

attractions for him; he was not an astronomer, a geologist, a chemist; whatever the scope of his imagination, it rather swept along the tide of life, and amidst the doings and phenomena of humanity, than soared to the material universe above, or the higher spiritual. With all his perception of beauty, he did not linger amidst shells, or gems, or flowers; he was neither a conchologist, mineralogist, or botanist. He could, in riper years, and even in youth, describe the mountain and the vale, the pasture and the forest, the river, and the abyss of waters whose bosom it seeks, but he was not a student of natural philosophy. He, in his ripest years, just knew as much of general science as a tolerably well-educated gentleman and a man of ability might be supposed to know, who took no special interest in any of its departments. As a boy, he preferred conjugating Latin verbs to solving a problem in mathematics; he would be more at home with 'Hooke's Diversions of Purley' than with 'Bonycastle's Practical Geometry.' In this respect the boy was father to the man,' for neither in college nor in the pursuits of advanced manhood did he make progress in material science. Men, their interests, habits, government, destinies, nations, their policies and histories; ages and times, remote or proximate, in their quaintness, poverty, splendour, barbarity, civilization, modes of thought; letters, as expressive of human progress, passion, and the perception of the grand or beautiful; these were the subjects welcome to his study, and over the relations of which his pen would move, glowing with the light of his lustrous imagination, and wielding the power of his vigorous thought. In his very boyhood he was poet, orator, historian, descriptive writer, and politician; in his manhood, he was all these in perfection, but little more. He is called a statesman, and in this direction he had some ability, but as a party politician and a party advocate he was distinguished. He had the spirit of poesy, the epic fire, the historian's grasp and range of topic. The artistic power to group and segregate; to portray peoples and individualities; to trace political sequences from their necessary antecedents, and the converse of this; to analyse character and events, and open them up in picturesque delineation; to bring visibly and vividly before the mind thronging peoples, gorgeous assemblages, embattled armies, fields, floods, forests, the grandeur of nature in convulsion or repose; and to perceive and seize, and bring out to the admiration of others, the beautiful every where-from the flower which lays its fairy gem by the giant tree, to the vastest area of peopled or unpeopled realms-was the especial calling and supreme gift of Macaulay.

"At eighteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. During his college course he especially studied poetry. Nature had made him a poet, and he cultivated his gift. In the first year at Trinity, he gained the Chancellor's medal for a prize poem, the subject of which was Pompeii.' It was graceful, classic in style and conception, and showed that the writer had already stored his mind with the richer writings of antiquity. There was a genuine poetic spirit revealed throughout. He was a second time successful in gaining the Chancellor's medal, by a poem on 'Evening.' He was then of age. This production was softer and sweeter in tone, and, although more mature, was less ambitious. About a year later, he composed A Radical War Song.' these contributions to poetic literature were published soon after they were written, and won an early fame for their author. At that time it appeared as if a great poet had arisen, who was likely to devote his life to the muse. His taste, however, was more decidedly in favour of prose composition. History, biography, politics, and speculative philosophy drew away his attention from poesy. He did not forsake the realm of verse, but he did not choose it as the home of his spirit.

All

"After winning his second prize for poetry, he gained the Craven Scholarship, and, in 1822, took his degree