ge of a Bill which, while compensating the owners (who
received L20,000,000), set 800,000 human beings free (1833).

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CHAPTER XIII

William IV. died at Windsor Castle, and at 5 o'clock on the morning of
June 20th, 1837 (just 58 years from the day this is written), a young
girl of eighteen was awakened to be told she was Queen of Great Britain
and Ireland. Victoria was the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent,
brother of William IV. Her marriage in 1840 with her cousin, Prince
Albert of Saxe-Coburg, was one of deep affection, and secured for her a
wise and prudent counsellor.

On account of the high price of corn, Ireland had for years subsisted
entirely upon potatoes. The failure of this crop for several
successive seasons, in 1846 produced a famine of such appalling
dimensions that the old and the new world came to the rescue of the
starving people. Parliament voted L10,000,000 for food. But before
{160} relief could reach them, two millions, one-fourth of the
population of Ireland, had perished. The anti-corn measures,
championed by Richard Cobden and John Bright, which had been bitterly
opposed by the Tories under the leadership of Disraeli, were thus
reinforced by unexpected argument; foreign breadstuffs were permitted
free access and free trade was accepted as the policy of England.

Nicholas, the Czar of Russia, was, after the fashion of his
predecessors (and his successors), always waiting for the right moment
to sweep down upon Constantinople. England had become only a land of
shopkeepers, France was absorbed with her new Empire, and with trying
on her fresh imperial trappings. The time seemed favorable for a move.
The pious soul of Nicholas was suddenly stirred by certain restrictions
laid by the Sultan upon the Christians in Palestine. He demanded that
he be made the Protector of Christianity in the Turkish Empire, by an
arrangement which would in fact transfer the Sovereignty from
Constantinople to St. Petersburg.

{161}

That mass of Oriental corruption known as the Ottoman Empire, held
together by no vital forces, was ready to fall into ruin at one
vigorous touch. It was an anachronism in modern Europe, where its
cruelty was only limited by its weakness. That such an odious,
treacherous despotism should so strongly appeal to the sympathies of
England that she was willing to enter upon a life-and-death struggle
for its maintenance, let those believe who can.--Her rushing to the