The Express.
London, England, 1857-12-31 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 31, 1867.

liament yru summoned to meet for

despatch of important business on the 3rd of
February; and on that day the session was opene4
by commission. The Chinese debate came on in thi
Lords on the 21th, and in the Commons on the 26th
of February, and, after repeated adjournments, the
House of Commons exhibited a majority of 84
against the government, on Mr. Cobdeu's resolution
that satisfactory cause for the recent hostilities had

not been shown. The immediate result was an
appeal to the country; and it will hardly be dis-
puted now that seldom has such an appeal been so
discreditably urged. An ambassador was sent out to
Pekin, Lord Elgin having taken his departure, with
full powers, on the 21st of April, and landed at
Hong Kong on the 2nd of July, ha% ing consulted
with the French government on his way. The
mutiny in India caused a necessity for the employ-
, ment there of the troops sent out to China, and
Lord Elgin anticipated the desires of the government
and people at home by going to Calcutta with
such forces as had ern% ed. His ready self-sacrifice,
and the ability with which he rendered his aid, to
the injury of his own function, and the postpone-
ment of his special aims, has scarcely been aa yet
appreciated by either government or people ; but
his patriotism must be fully recognised sooner or
later. In truth, the Ministers have every reason to
desire the longest possible lull of the popular excite-
ment about China ; and the people have lost their
interest in the subject since they began to discover
how they had been misled bj an electioneering cry.
The latest known attitude of affairs in China was
that the ambassadors of England, France, Russia,
and the United States were assembled; and that an
attack on Canton by the British naval force was ex-

pected. Meantime, the Emperor had refused to re-
ceive any European envoys, and was gone int) Tar-
tary to avoid remonstrance ; and, on the other hand,
no land forces had arrived to hold Canton ; so that
when it wee taken it remains to be seen whether it
could be effectually held by • force of seamen and
marines.

The domestic life of the nation was meantime
proceeding quietly enough. The most prominent
circumstance, perhaps, was the distress of large
classes of working men in London during the winter,
owing to the high price of materials and subsistence,
and certain incidents of the financial world which
checked enterprise, especially in the way of building
and other improvements—throwing a multitude of
people out of work. As the season advanced, how-
ever, the evil lessened and disappeared : the winter
and spring were seasonable, and promised well for
the crops; and the summer was superb. Such a
year for weather—for winter frost and yammer
shine, and wind and rain in season—can entroely
be remembered by the existing generation.
While we were unconscious of what was prepar-
ing for as in the East, we were occupied and amused
with incidents which now, seen through a long vista
of calamity, seem to have happened in some oil year
almost forgotten. The new Order of Valour, the
Victoria Cross (carrying a pension of 10/. a year),
was in March conferred for the first time on a noble
company of brave Crimean soldiers, sailors, and
marines. On the 3th of January the first cargo of
Art-treasures was received at the Manchester Exhi-
bition, and the enterprise was a topic of conversation
through the 'spring till the building was opened by
Prince Albert on the 3th of May, disclosing such an
assemblage of art-treasures as has never been seen,
except in Paris before the dispersion of the Napoleon
collection. Through all the public and private
sorrows of the long summer and autumn
which followed, the Manchester Exhibition yielded
solace and delight to a multitude of visitors:
it closed in honour, without the occur-
rence of any serious disaster whatever ;

it closed at the appointed time, in order to keep faith
strictly with the contributors, though there were
strong temptations to protract the profitable plea-
sure. At the end of the year it was resolved by the
trustees to send to every contributor of any art
object a special acknowledgment, in which the con-
tribution should be specified; and a record is thus
furnished which must be valuable to a future gene-
ration. The Queen visited the Exhibition in June,
having been prevented on the earlier occasion by the
birth of a princess, which took place on the 14th of
April. Another popular interest of the time was
consequence of the arrival in London, in the pre-
ceding December, of Dr. Livingstone, the missionary
and geographical discoverer in Africa. The interest
aroused by the disclosures of this excellent man
was various, and all good. No one has acted and
spoken so wisely on the first of his list of great sub-
jects, the redemption of Africa from barbarism ; he
has also supplied the most valuable evidence
of recent date as to the state and operation
of the slave trade in the interior of Africa; he opens
the most encouraging prospect' of an extensive
and civiliaing oteanswes these, and especially
of an abundant cottort4apply-411 object of first-

rate importance to oar mandutures and commerce;
and his geographical discoveries are of the highest
order of value. He was listened to with as deep an
interest at the end as at the beginning of his visit to
England; and there could be no yetr which would
not be honoured by the return of such a citizen, with
such a budget of intelligence. Hie exertions have
borne their natural fruit ; and he goes out again,
wanmisaioned by government to ascend the Zambesi,
and try what he can do towards opening a civilising

• _
commerce with the interior and eastern coast of
South Africa. As for the rest, we watched the pro-
gram of the Emperor of Austria through his Italian
dominions, and chafed under all the intelligence that
reached us of the cruelties perpetrated by the insane
tyrant at Naples, and noted the progress of the
panic about insurrection in the Slave States of
America, and were eager about our spring elections,
and curious as to the new Speaker, and the new
element in the House, and rejoiced in the prospect
of the abolition of the Sound dues in one direc-
tion, and in the rectification of the Liverpool
dues and the conservancy of the Mersey in
another. The treaty with Denmark about the
Sound dues, by which the toll was got rid of by a
payment of 1,125,2061., was signed at Copenhagen
os the 14th of March; and, in the other case, the
irresponsible and much-abused power long exercised
over our shipping interests by the Liverpool Town
Council, for local purposes, was abolished, and the
levy of dues and care of the harbour lodged in more
fitting hands.

There were other topics of interest : as the inau-
guration address of the new American President—
.s. all and conservative in the eyes of superficial
waders, but, to the more experienced in American
cabs, clearly foreshowiog the destructive tenden-
cies whilliere new seen to be breaking up the skim-
rage FRY ; the great subject of Russian rail-
ways, involving the chances and fates of future En-
ema—the failure of the project amens the
alias of Europe beings& striking as the audacity
which invited their support; the probability of a
pestilence among our cattle, introduced from
countries where a murrain prevailed, and guarded
against by an Order in Council in April prohibiting
the importation of cattle; the public appearances
and frequent levers of the royal family of Oude, and
the provincial journeys in which they now began to
exhibit themselves; the visit of the Grand Duke
Constantine of Russia to the royal families of France
red England ; the judgment of the Privy Council in
he St. Paul and St. Barnabu cases, in which men
sad grown as fierce and bitter about altar-cloths and
tredence-tables as if there was a dearth of serious
nterests in State or Church; the death of the aged
hicheu of Gloucester, the last survivor of the family
4' George Ill.; the opening of Exeter-hall on Sun-
ray evenings, for popular religious services, by the
lishop of London, and other eminent divines of the
murch of England ; the founding of a free public
Ibrary at Liverpool by the munificence of a citizen,
William Brown, member for South Lancashire ; and
, tle opening at Birmingham by the Duke of Cern-
, lxidge of Calthorpe Park, the gift of Lord Culthorpc;
; de birth of the Queen's ninth child, and the grant by
intent of tho title of Prince Consort to her husband ;
the betrothal of the Prince's Royal to Prince
, Ftederick William of Prussia, and the announcement

to parliament of the intended marriage ; the critical
stele of affairs in Belgium, in consequence of the ae-
rial party in the chambers having pushed their
clams to a revolutionary point—a peril which has
&idly wrought well, but was very threatening at
thetirae ; the educational conference held in London
und,r the presidency of the Prince Consort ; the ap-
pretension of the Directors of the British Bank, and
the miserable figure they cuh and the magnitude of
the min they caused ; and, finally, the looking out
for the great comet, which was to burn us all up toge-
ther, with all our quarrels and our courtesies, our
prosperity and our ruin, our hopes and our fears.
These were among the topics which interested and
amused the nation, while unconsciously awaiting the
stroke of almost intolerable calamity which was soon
to fall.

We had long been talking of the railway and the
telegraph in India, and of the fine things that
would happen when we should hear of every com-
municable event in a few hours or minutes, and
might transport our soldiers or workmen in large
bodies and with speed, wherever we desired, over
that great peninsula. But we were too slow ; our
misfortune overtook us before we were prepared;
and almost every family in England is in mourning
in cowiegaence. While we were pursuing our busi-
ness and our pleasure in the winter and spring,
things were passing in India which the telegraph
was sorely wanted to tell, and the railways to cheek.
On the 21th of January there was a mutiny among
the native soldiers at Barrackpore, 17 miles from
Calcutta, indicating a persuasion among the soldiers
that the authorities were plotting to defile their caste
and destroy their religion. Mysterious symptoms of
a revolutionary understanding had been noticed and
reported before ; and many of us at home were not
without misgivings of impending disaster. In
India successive mutinous acts were treated with ex-
traordinary levity and indecision ; and when incen-
diarism began, and from settlement to settlement the
nightly sky was red with the horning of military
huts, barracks, and storehouses, the Commander-in-
Chief went up the hills, beyond the telegraph, to
shoot. While he was at Simla, fires broke out, from
night to night, at Umhalla, within a few hours of
him; but while everything was said, nothing was
done. While the doors of the Manchester Exhibi-
tion were thrown open, and the rash of the first
week was taking place, no one there dreamed of
what was happening to some, very dear to many

present. At Meerut, native •oldies had refused
to use the cartridges we have all heard
so much of ; they were tried, convicted,
and sentenced to • very severe punishment—

long and hard imprisonment. It ;as on Satur-
day, the 9th of May, that the officer who pre-
sided at the court-martial wrote—" Those fellows

have got ten years apiece. You will hear of no
more mutinies." The next day, the 10th of May,
which will be one of the most dreary dates in our

history, all was over between England and her
Bepoy army. By the middle of June we were
aware that serious mutiny had occurred at Meerut ;
but Ministers made light of the news. For some
time after the gravest apprehensions were avowed
at the India House, the President of the Board of
Control, the Premier, and other ministers treated
the subject with a scepticism and levity which first
perplexed and then disgusted the nation deeply and
permanently. We had to endure such a succession
of fearful tidings as can hardly ever before have
tried the nerve and force of any civilised people.
We lost l)elhi on the 11th of May, amidst

- -
horrors which are too deeply mosaven os all /warts
to need recording, here or elsewhere. There, and at

Cawnpore, and at many another place, our country-
men and countrywomen, and their children of all
ages, had to suffer what it did not enter into our
imaginations could ever be suffered in a world where
civilisation had spread so widely. They found them-
selves plunged into the lowest hell of human bar-
barism, in which men are discovered to be half beast
and half fiend ; and we at home have been driven by

an unimaginable shock out of our habitual idea and
feelings, and exposed to a horror and anguish which
we had supposed to have been left far behind in the
course of ages. This is enough to may while we are
all suffering together, and feeling in common about
the tidings of the last dreary summer.
We heard of the accession of a King of Delhi, and
of the proclamation throughout Northern India, of
the overthrow of our raj or empire. If any of
US believed that our empire was over in India, it

was but for a moment. Hindostan was more scantily
supplied with European troops than ever before ;
and if the whole population should rise against us,
it was incredible that our comparative handful of
soldiers could hold out till reinforced. The popula-
tion did not rise against us ; and our country men
have not only held out, but conquered on every
hand. The lit half of the year has been occupied
by our anxieties, our efforts, and our reassurance. It
was long before Delhi could be taken but it was
taken, and before reinforcements arrived. Month
after month Lucknow remained beleaguered—was
temporarily relieved by the gallant Iluelick on the
26th of September, and guarded by Outram till Sir
Colin Campbell, as-commander-in-chief, released its
heroic garrison, and a crowd of women and chil-
dren, on the l'lth of November. The news arrived
to gladden our Christmas.
From point to point the rebellion kindled and
spread, and when only two regiments were left
of our whole Bengal army, one of them lapsed,
after defeat had overtaken the mutineers in all di-
rections. Thus our anxieties have been perpetually

renewed; but so has been the glow of our national
pride. From month to month our national honour
has grown brighter, while we have heard of suffer-
ing and death to an extent that would move the
most selfish heart. Thus passed the summer and
autumn. At first, the sanguine temper of the Mi-
nisters proved insuperable ; and the delays they
caused were aggravated by a lack of sense and
knowledge too like the deficiencies which disgraced
and afflicted us daring the Crimean war. But when
the extent of the calumity could no longer be dis-
puted, very great and successful efforts were made
on all hands to despatch adequate forces to India,
The nation has been compelled to form an unfavour-
able opinion of the government at Calcutta for its con-
duct daring the earlier weeks or months of the
mutiny: but the military department has shown
" " ' • '

itself, under the at congest possible test, exactly what
we have desired our armies to be—not only composed
of a brave, enduring, and active soldiery, but excel-
lently commanded and provided for. From home
we have watched the whole movement, from the
Punjanb under Sir John Lawrence at one end, to
Assam, preserved to us by splendid skill and courage.
at the other; and we hove seen that our gallant
troops have been (however overworked from neces-
sity) well fed, well armed and provided, well led,
sod enabled thereby to exalt our military reputation
to as lofty a point as a civilised nation in the nine-
teenth century can desire. As for the particular in-
cidents—the preservation of the Punjaub, the pacifi-
cation of the Bombay Presidency, the order and help-
fulness of the Madras Presidency ; the siege and cap-
ture of Delhi ; the siege, reinforcement, renewed siege
and release of the Lucknow residency, and the main
concentration of the struggle in Oude, there is no
need to say more than that we have watched and
waited through weeks and months, which now seem
like months and years. Well they may, as they will
be a subject of contemplation for centuries. In this
single simmer, Generals Anson and Barnard died
before Delhi, General Reid retired in ill health, and
General Wilson took the city. Sir Hugh Wheeler
died of his wounds at Cawnpore, and Sir Henry
Lawrence at Lucknow. Our heroes have been
almost as numerous as our soldiers, and many •

gallant deed will be related in all narratives of this
unparalleled war; but we can only say here that
the heart and eyes of the nation have followed

—first the Lawret;oin and Wheeler in their respec-
tive provinces, and afterwards the commanders
who marched to field duty—Nicholson from
the Punjaub, and Neill from Madras—Wit-
-.

son before Delhi, and Havelock and Ontram—
the one landing on his way to China, and the other
returning from Persia, and both restoring our em-
pire from step to step on their gallant march into
the heart of Oude. There are Greathed and Showers,

too, clearing the country of the Delhi fugitives, and
gaining victories from day to day on their way to
Oude and through Itohilcund; and Grant upholding
the honour of the Indian army ; and, at length, Sir
Colin Campbell appe►ring in the field as commander-
in-chief, and finishing the work at Luckuow t—a
group of splendid soldiers to command the destinies
of the coming year! At home, we have reoraited
very largely, and obtained effectual aid from the
militia, and witnessed the departure of a noble army
from our shores, while the military strength re-
maining behind is equal to all conceivable con•
tiagencies. We have raised large funds for
the relief of sufferers in and by the ca-
lamity in India : we hare received one ship's com-
pany after another of suffering fugitives—widowed,
orphaned, sick, mutilated, and impoverished, and are
doing what we can to soothe and help them. We
have paid our tribute of honour to our heroes by our
representatives in Parliament ; and we have found
some consolation in our efforts, be they great or