her at Weedon, and liked her, all but her age however, he was wrong about that; she's not more than nine, I know."

"Isn't she really?" said I, getting interested.

"I'll show you her mouth in a minute." Cropper opened a stabledoor. "There she is, the beauty! cheap, now, I call her, at a hundred; only bought her this morning, so Charley and I christened her May-Queen. Now, doesn't she put you in mind of Rosalie ?-look at her forehand."

I was so fairly taken aback that I had not even presence of mind enough to keep my own counsel. "Bless me!" I exclaimed, "it's a mare!"

They both burst into a roar of laughter. "Of course it is," said Charley. "Well done, old Damon ! he expected May-queen' to be a horse!"

I expected nothing of the kind; but I didn't tell them so. I might have guessed there was but one subject upon which Cropper was likely to be enthusiastic. No wonder I didn't remember Rosalie; who ever is to remember four-legged brutes by their Christian names? but to think

of finding my May-Queen at last in a barrack-stable!

We soon adjourned to the messroom, and thence to Cropper's quarters, and spent such an evening as only old friends can spend together, who meet after long parting. If I may be allowed a last quotation from Tennyson-slightly altered

"Our joyous memories did not shun

The foaming grape of Eastern France." Even Cropper admitted that, when explained to him, to be real poetry. We found the true Arcadia in Coventry barracks.

And I have laid down a few rules for my private guidance in keeping festival on May 1, 1859, which I recommend to the consideration of my friends and the public generally :1. Don't be called early.

2. Put on your warmest clothes. 3. If you take a walk, choose a turnpike road, or a well-beaten footpath.

4. Keep up a blazing fire.

5. Ask two or three old friends to dinner.

And then you will be sure to spend -as I did eventually-a very pleasant English May-day.

THE Factions have made their grand attack, and have failed notably. They held their field-day at the expense of our Indian Empire and the British Constitution; and now, thoroughly beaten and humiliated, they stand self-condemned at the bar of the country.

It is a strange retrospect, that of the last few weeks. We know not whether to be most amazed at the unblushing audacity of the Factions -at the judicial blindness which tempted them to base their grand attack upon a quicksand-or at the tremendous overthrow and unredeemable disaster which have overtaken them. It has been a month without a parallel in our parliamentary annals. The men who betrayed the honour of their country before they were ejected from office three months ago, have now, in their efforts to get back, madly sought to degrade the British Parliament in the eyes of Europe, as well as to rock to its basis the whole fabric of British power in the East. Alas, that while revolting every honest mind, and disgusting the feelings of the general public at home, the CambridgeHouse Faction should have also furnished the Absolutist Governments of the Continent with fresh arguments against free institutions, and done their best to render government of any kind amongst us impossible. The attack which has so fatally recoiled upon themselves was only a culmination of the factious policy which they have acted upon ever since the accession of Lord Derby's Government. It was nothing in the eyes of that faction that Lord Derby's was the strongest and only united party in the House. They and their journals ceaselessly taunted the Government with weakness, because it could not command an absolute party-majority in the Commons,although it was notorious that the Whigs themselves could still less muster any such majority. What was simply a necessity of the times, they

imputed as a heinous fault to the Ministry. Lord Derby had not sought office: he took it simply because the working of our parliamentary system had left no other party but his own in a position to carry on the government. He did not deceive himself-he did not seek to deceive the country. He knew that his was not what is called a powerful Government, but it was more powerful than any other that could be formed. That should have sufficed with all parties, and that certainly sufficed in the estimation of the country. For the rest, Lord Derby relied upon integrity of principle and ability of administration to secure for his Government that constitutional support which even the most daring faction might hesitate to withhold.

But the ousted factions were not to be appeased. Ravening for office, and seeing that if they did not regain their places immediately, they would have to share them with others, the Whigs did not scruple to make the country's extremity their special opportunity. It is a just boast of the Conservatives that they have never withheld a constitutional support from any Liberal Ministry, that they have never when in opposition refused their votes to a measure which they supported when in office, for the sake of embarrassing their rivals. Again and again did they support Lord Palmerston's Ministry when placed in jeopardy by the factions of the Liberal party. It was their votes that gave him his majorities on the County Franchise, the Ballot, Church-Rates, and also on many most important questions of foreign politics; and without their support on such occasions his Cabinet never could have gone on. all this was forgotten by the thankless Whigs as soon as they found themselves once more in the "cold shade" of the Opposition benches. A Whig out of office is a miserable being, and not least so in his own eyes! Bred in the notion that office

But

pertains to them as if by right indefeasible, the various branches of the great Whig Tree could not bear to see the goodly offices of the Treasury filled by Conservatives, while So many promising young men of their own party were thrown idle on the town, and their veteran chiefs sat growling at each other in Brookes's or the Reform. So, from the first hour of the new Ministry's entering upon office, the "official" Whigs, who clung to Palmerston as the most likely chief to lead them back to office, have rested neither day nor night in inventing manœuvres to bring the Ministry into discredit, or in hatching plots to overthrow it. They resolved to stick at nothing -and they have kept their resolve. Witness their conduct on Mr Monsell's motion with respect to the admission of cadets to Woolwich, when the members of the late Ministry either stayed away or voted against certain regulations which they themselves had enacted only a few weeks before they left office! On the ChurchRates question they acted in similar fashion; and, still more shamelessly, they repeated the same tactics on Mr Locke King's motion for lowering the County franchise!--which consequently, instead of being rejected as usual, has this year been allowed for the first time to obtain a success.

Such are the Whigs when in opposition. Hitherto the country has been too blind to their reckless factiousness when out of office, or too forgetful of it; but this time the limits of endurance have been overpassed, and by a large section even of the Liberal party the recent place-hunting of the Whigs will neither be forgotten nor forgiven, The country, too, will remember it. Whig faction has gone its full length, and is producing a reaction against itself. For the last three months, so unscrupulous have been the tactics of the Opposition, the British House of Commons has well-nigh been brought down to the level of the defunct Chambers of France, or the caballoving Cortes of Spain. Everything -from the government of India to the Woolwich regulations has been degraded to the purposes of faction; and in their last desperate rally, the

ex-Ministerialists have not scrupled to imperil the very existence of our Eastern empire, and cover with everlasting shame the principles of British rule. Mr Cardwell's motion will have assigned to it a most miserable notoriety. Political history fails to supply a parallel to it. Faction, indeed, has never at any time been quite dead; but in the present instance, the spirit of faction has been as strong as at any time during the last century, while the interests imperilled by it are of greater magnitude than ever before. Fox's India Bill is still remembered as a synonym for Whig jobbery and self-seeking of old. But the India of that day was but an atom of the gigantic empire which now owns our sway; and if the British nation swept from their places the men who then wished to make the Indian Government a mere appanage of party, how much heavier judgment will not the country now pronounce upon those who have trifled with our Indian Empire when it is twenty times larger, and who have been ready to imperil its very existence for the meanest purposes of party?

Never before, indeed, has faction wrested to its purposes a more momentous subject, or a more critical time. For a year past, our stately empire in the East has been rocking to its base under the pressure of a gigantic military revolt, backed by a most widespread disaffection in certain provinces. England, though not exempt from the possibility of being attacked at her own gates, drained herself of every spare regiment, and has almost exhausted her powers of recruitment, in order to rescue her cherished empire. Nevertheless, when the Conservative Ministers took their post at the helm of affairs, it was hard to say whether the crisis of the storm were not still to come. Delhi had fallen, but the army which defended it had escaped. Oude, studded with its two hundred and fifty mud-forts, and with every large building of its palatial capital converted into a fortress, was one vast camp of the foe. Gwalior, Bundelcund, and Rajpootana, with all the places of strength from Kotah to Calpee, were held by the enemy's forces. All Rohilcund was in arms, and from

Bareilly, as his headquarters, a leader of the rebels had organised a government, and was exercising the powers of royalty. Nearly all our available troops were already in India; and, whatever popular opinion might complacently imagine, good judges of military affairs knew that our Indian army was numerically inadequate for the work before it. The hot season was at hand,—deaths in the hospital, and on the march, would be double those in actual battle,-before autumn, despite Sir Colin's care of his men, our army would be reduced to a few skeleton battalions; and how were we to replace it by a new one? Political, not less than military, considerations showed the gravity of the crisis. Every month the revolt continued, the natives were learning their own strength; every month, from all quarters of India, their eyes turned more and more to the standards of revolt kept flying in central Hindostan; the war for "religion and independence" was becoming common talk from Cashmere to Ceylon,-and what but disaffection could spread with it? Moreover, isolated as is the position of our Indian empire, the perils to which it is exposed are not all internal. If the revolt be not crushed in the second campaign, said Mr Disraeli ten months ago, we shall find another enemy than the rebels in the field against us. That second campaign had begun when the new Ministry entered upon their duties, and what did the archives of office tell them? Like all the world, they knew of the circumstances which connected Persia with the first plans of the revolt; probably they knew much more. They knew also what their predecessors dared not acknowledge, that, turning to account our present helplessness, Persia refuses to implement the treaty which she concluded with us, and still maintains her suzerainté over Herat; and that our ambassador at Teheran would have again struck his flag and withdrawn, but for instructions from home, desiring him to temporise, as we were not strong enough to assert our rights! What did all this suggest? Plainly, that if the Sepoy revolt were not crushed in this campaign, the end of the year might see

the Russians at Herat, and the Persians, Affghans, and mountain-tribes, swarming down the passes to the Indus. In the face of such a contingency, who could answer for the continued fidelity of the Sikhs, or guarantee that our Indian empire would not crumble to pieces under the disintegrating forces of internal revolt and external attack?

The supreme object to be aimed at in our Indian policy, therefore, plainly was, to get the rebellion suppressed as fast as possible, lest by delay the danger might outgrow our means of meeting it. Moreover, policy as well as justice required that the means of suppression to be employed should not, by their over-severity, be such as to perpetuate rancour towards us on the part of the natives, and sow the seeds of future revolts. Lord Ellenborough, the new Indian Minister, was prepared to act upon these principles. No statesman was so fitted to cope with the crisis. Unquestioned genius and grasp of thought are in him combined with an unsurpassed knowledge of Indian affairs, and an eye for military strategy which any ordinary general might envy. Chivalrous and generous in spirit, it was known that he would heartily cooperate with and support to the uttermost every officer in the rightful discharge of duty; bold, self-reliant, and of the highest moral courage, he would not tolerate that the policy of the Government should be thwarted by subordinates, nor permit any one, however high in station, to do the wrong thing unchallenged. At the beginning of March, when the Earl anew became President of the Board of Control, Sir Colin Campbell was advancing upon Lucknow,-which city it could hardly be doubted would soon be in possession of our troops. But Oude would thereafter remain to be subdued; its whole population was in arms against us, and everything depended upon our manner of dealing with them, whether these formidable levies would lay down their arms peaceably, or engage despairingly in a contest that would convert Oude into " a sea of fire," and perilously protract the war. In these circumstances, on the 24th March, Lord Ellenborough sent off to the

Governor-General a despatch counselling that the people of Oude be dealt with on the principles of clemency and generosity. Wherever open resistance shall have ceased," he said, "it will be prudent, in awarding punishment, rather to follow the practice which prevails after the conquest of a country which has defended itself to the last extremity, than that which may perhaps be lawfully adopted after the suppression of mutiny and rebellion." Crimes," observed the despatch, "have been committed against us, which it would be a crime to forgive," and "such acts are always to be exempted from forgiveness or mitigation of punishment as have exceeded the license of legitimate hostilities;" but with these exceptions Lord Canning was exhorted to act towards the people with generosity as well as justice. Acting in this spirit," concluded the despatch," you may rely upon our unqualified support." Though forwarded through the Secret Committee, this despatch was made public in this country, in compliance with an order of Parliament, and both its publication and its contents met the approbation of all parties. Besides the general feeling of the expediency as well as justice of exercising moderation towards the vanquished, it was felt that the population of Oude were entitled in a peculiar degree to forbearance.

The

policy of our annexation of Oude was a moot point, upon which some of our ablest statesmen disagreed; and it was also known to those conversant with Indian affairs that, since the annexation, the landsettlement in that province had been carried out in so arbitrary and rigorous a manner as to have occasioned great exasperation on the part of the landowners. They knew also that the annexation of that kingdom, whether justifiable or not, had, by the distrust it begat in the mind of the natives, contributed to produce the present revolt. The Rev. Dr Duff, of Calcutta, who has collated the opinions of "natives of rank and influence, who are not ill-affected towards us, but have ever assisted us materially in our recent difficulties," states this decidedly. In re

cently setting forth the causes of the existing widespread disaffection to our rule, he gives special prominence to our violation of "hereditary interests invested in the land or the land-revenue," and also to the annexation of Oude. This latter proceeding is pointedly levelled at in his statement of the grievances complained of by the natives, as follows:-"3. The annexation and suppression of native states, not as the result of war and conquest, which would be intelligible to all, but in times of peace, and under the operation of principles which to natives appear either incomprehensible or unjust; such as the concealment, in one case, [that of Oude], of the fact that a treaty, signed by the native prince and our Governor-General, had not been ratified in England; and the deposition of a sovereign who is alleged to have done us no wrong, and who, if confessedly cruel, vicious, and unjust, was so not towards our subjects, but his own-a proceeding which, however warranted on grounds of general philanthropy, does violence to native ideas, and fills the minds of remaining chiefs with feelings of painful uncertainty, suspicion, and distrust." It is important to note this; for some of our M.P.'s, in their ignorance of India, seem to think, with Lord John Russell, that the legality of our right to annex Oude was undreamt of in India, and would be heard of for the first time on the publication in extenso of Lord Ellenborough's despatch of 26th April! On the contrary, as Dr Duff and all men conversant with India know, our whole proceedings towards Oude are familiar to the better class of natives everywhere, and, even by those friendly to us, are bitterly criticised.

Since the revolt commenced, Lord Canning had always evinced a leaning to the side of clemency; and it was with a desire to strengthen his hands in this course, and enable him to overcome "obstructions from those who, maddened by the scenes they have witnessed, desire to substitute their own policy for that of the Government," that Lord Ellenborough's despatch was written. When made public in this country, no one doubted