Chapter LXIII: {victoria. 1851} (3)

Francis Catani, a priest, also gave evidence, to a certain extent, to the same effect, and added, “that he had heard that if the Englishman had not had his hat on his head he would have been killed on the spot, for it was that which alone protected him.”

And the Senator Giuseppe Vai states that “the young Englishman went aside quickly towards the end of my house, the Casa Marchesini, or perhaps rather under it, and at the same time I heard that a few words were rapidly exchanged between them, which I did not understand, because I was too high up to be able to distinguish them (he was at an upper window of his house), and also because the band was making a noise, and at the same moment I saw that the said officer, raising his sabre, gave the young man a blow on the forehead with it, using the cutting edge, by which the latter fell down upon the step by the wall of’ the Casa Marchesini, but with almost the rapidity of lightning he got up again, and when he was standing I saw the blood was flowing from the place where he was struck.... Because this act produced upon me a disagreeable impression I withdrew from the window.”

These extracts of evidence demonstrate the guilty nature of the outrage, and the careful and truthful statement of the young Englishman, as well as his cool and courageous conduct in a case at the time apparently so desperate.

Mr. Mather, the father of these youths, immediately left England for Florence, and, as he passed through London, laid the case before the foreign minister, as far as the detail had reached him by the letters of the younger brother, which were handed to the minister. He arrived at Florence after his son had been three weeks in the hospital; part of that time in a dangerous state. The kind attention and the great skill of the medical officers of that magnificent Florentine institution were doubtless the chief causes of his recovery. The conduct of these young Englishmen under such trying circumstances has been praised by almost every political writer who took an interest in the subject, and there seemed only one opinion throughout the country, that their coolness, courage, and endurance, under great difficulties and personal dangers, could not have been surpassed by the bravest and most experienced men.

Lord Palmerston, after the publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared “that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except Mr. Mather and his sons.”*

* House of Commons debate, June 14, 1853.

In the route to the hospital, in the occurrences there, as well as in the account of the outrage, the graphic details by the generous-hearted Giovanni Pini bring the reader in presence of the cruel and bloody scene. While ill in hospital, pressed by professing friends, the British _chargé d’affaires_ among them, to authorise proceedings in the Tuscan law courts, Mr. E. Mather firmly refused his sanction. He at once elevated the question to its right position by an appeal to the representative of his country for the redress of an injury done to a British subject, and for the future protection of British subjects, to be redressed by the Tuscan government to the satisfaction of that of Britain, without reference to his own private wrong. His young brother, before the day had closed, sought out Mr. Scarlett, the British _chargé d’affaires_, and also Prince Lichtenstein, the Austrian commander-in-chief, taking with him two witnesses to testify to the exactitude of his statement, and to them he poured out in clear and emphatic language the story of the outrage committed. The conduct of these two young Englishmen, without friends in a strange city, relying on their sense of right, and sustained by their own firmness and courage, was truly heroic. Their father, one of the most patriotic and useful public men in the north of England, warmly approved of their course of conduct, and pursued their views for redress. It is humiliating to our country to write what historical truth compels us to admit, that their efforts were met by the chicanery of diplomacy and treachery on the part of British officials, which have left behind an unpleasant impression of incapacity and want of principle, when the purest honour, and a high sense of national justice should have exclusively prevailed. They were well sustained, however, in their course by the generous sympathy of the people of Florence, and at home by the warmest feelings of their countrymen. As an eloquent public writer earnestly expressed himself in reference to their conduct, and that of the Earl of Malmesbury, the successor to Earl Granville:—“Both father and sons have nobly vindicated themselves as Englishmen; it was only when the national honour was confided to the minister, that the national honour was degraded by the spirit of the Jew pedlar.” After several weeks’ delay in Florence, the Mathers removed from that city to Genoa, where the father leaving his sons in safety, and for the purpose of the better recovery of the eldest, himself returned to England, to press the case personally upon the foreign minister of England. His first demand was punishment of the officer who had committed what Lord Granville called, “a cruel and cowardly outrage,” and then, but not without the first was granted, compensation to the injured youth by the government under whoso jurisdiction the culprit acted. The Earl of Malmesbury, then foreign minister (the Whigs having left office), after several imperfect and ineffectual attempts for the better security of his countrymen abroad, by the signal punishment of the Austrian officer, wrote to Mr. Mather, senior, by his under-secretary, a letter, on the 24th of May, 1852, in very pitiable terms, to the effect that no national redress had been obtained; but that one thousand francesconi had been placed to the credit of his son, by the Tuscan government, for the injury which he had sustained. Mr. Mather’s answer, with his indignant refusal of the acceptance of such redress, received high eulogies from the public writers of the day, and brought on debates in both houses of parliament. We extract a portion of the letter:—

“Now, my lord, you will do me the favour to remember, that a British subject, my son, was attacked in Florence by two armed Austrian officers, receiving the most ‘unmerited and brutal treatment,’ as your lordship has expressed it; that he was cut down by one of them, left in his own blood, his life in danger for a length of time, and his health perhaps for ever injured; and all this without any provocation, any offence, as it has been proved by evidence not to be controverted, of the most respectable witnesses,—people the subjects of the state whose officers had so acted,—yet for all this no real redress has been obtained; that officer is still at large, and remains unpunished....

“Whatever personal reparation you might deem proper to demand, which I conceded with regret, to your lordship’s express commands (as I foresaw a probable misapplication of such concession), was, as you know, to give place to public honour.

“You now inform me that Prince Schwarzenberg, the late prime-minister of Austria, ‘prior to his death had addressed a note to her majesty’s government expressing his great regret at the occurrence, and at the act of the Austrian officers.’ The extent of such regret may be estimated by this:—the Austrian officer, who stained the honour of the Austrian army by his bloodthirsty and cowardly act, has been allowed to go free and unpunished, and his conduct has been approved, at least defended, by Prince Schwarzenberg’s lieutenant, the Austrian commander-in-chief in Tuscany, Prince Lichtenstein. This man I frequently saw, in all the pride of military array and overbearing insolence, in the streets of Florence, a public example to his brother officers, and the world, of the impunity with which British subjects may be treated, and the evidence of the low estimation of his superiors for British honour, and British power. This all the while that British statesmen and diplomatists were making urgent demands for redress, your lordship among the number.... Has it been obtained?...

“The patriotic manner in which I have repeatedly expressed myself in this unfortunate affair, as you are pleased to observe, has originated in feelings that induce me now to express the pain which I feel that this crime is sought to be compromised, and the indignation, as far as I am concerned, with which I reject the offer of the Tuscan government, and any participation in such proceedings.

“I will not pretend to be a judge of what is due to the honour of England, but I know what is due to my own.”

The effect of this note was that Lord Malmesbury threw the responsibility on Mr. Scarlett, his representative in Tuscany, and annulled his proceedings. He then sent out Sir Henry Bulwer to endeavour to arrange the affair, or to withdraw the embassy from Florence. A sort of apology was given by the court of Florence for the outrage, and a responsibility was assumed by it for the future, in case of injury to British subjects—as if the law of nations had not already secured it. No redress or punishment for the outrage ever followed Sir Henry’s mission. He might, for all its purposes, have as well remained in England. The Mathers refused to the last the money compensation, and to this hour, in this infamous matter, the guilty officer has never met his just punishment, nor public honour been satisfied. It is known that had the course been pursued which the father and sons adopted, and justice been satisfied, any personal compensation was to have gone chiefly to the public hospital of Florence, and for other public institutions of that refined capital, in which those Englishmen had received so much kindness and sympathy when it was personally dangerous to yield it, in the presence of their barbarous Croat invaders. Mr. Erskine Mather is now a scientific British officer, and bears amidst the ranks of England’s defenders the visible scar of the wound so treacherously and wantonly inflicted upon him because he was an Englishman: a remembrance to every Englishman of how little he may rely upon the defence of his own honour, or the honour of his country in his person, while the diplomacy of England is in the hands of men who sympathise with foreign despotism, or find luxurious and lucrative appointments at foreign courts under the ostensible duty of watching over the interests of their country.

The remaining features of English affairs, in relation to foreign nations, were of too little interest to require notice in these pages.

DEATHS OF EMINENT PERSONS DURING THE YEAR 1851.

No one who knows England can wonder that her annual obituary presents such long lists of great names, when it is remembered how wide-spread is her empire, and how varied her enterprise. It is only possible to select a few of the remarkable persons for notice, whose departure from this life in 1851 excited the attention and regret of large classes, or of the whole nation.

On the 1st of February occurred the death of Mrs. Shelley, widow of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the celebrated poet. Mrs. Shelley was a lady of extraordinary gifts, and these were stimulated by the genius of her husband. As an authoress she will always rank high, although only one of her books has attained a just proportion of fame, “Frankenstein.” That was received throughout Europe and America as one of the most remarkable works of imagination which the 19th century had seen, and it gained for her a reputation as lasting as extensive. “Lodore,” “Volperga,” “The Last Man,” and others produced also a great impression, but not one of a very permanent character, at least, in the British Isles. “The Last Man” deserves a higher estimation than has been awarded to it. There is a very penetrating sadness in all Mrs. Shelley’s works written after the loss of her gifted husband, and an impression of enervated physical strength, and effort to write in spite of depression, is conveyed to the reader.

On the 5 th, at Guildford, Surrey, the Rev. John Pye Smith, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S., for many years Principal of the Independent Congregational College, at Homerton. He was one of the greatest scholars of his age. The author of this work knew him well, and can in truth say his virtues were as conspicuous as his scholarship was profound. He was especially benevolent and modest. A celebrated divine once said of him that he “had a very _troublesome_ conscience,” referring to its extreme tenderness, and his nervous scrupulousness lest he should wear the remotest appearance of evil. His religious works are chiefly critical and controversial, and are written in a style of quiet and graceful simplicity, with great perspicacity of expression and perspicuity of thought. His “Scripture Testimony of the Messiah” is a wonderful monument of human learning and clear, candid, and cogent logic. It is the greatest standard work in the language, on “the Unitarian Controversy.” When he retired from the direction of’ the college at Homerton, where he trained many eminent men for the Christian ministry among congregationalists, three thousand guineas were presented to him as a tribute of respect. At his death the interest of the same was applied to divinity scholars in the college for candidates for the Christian ministry among the congregationalists, established at St. John’s Wood, London, the Principal of which was Dr. John Harris, author of many curious and literary productions much prized in tire religious world.

February 23rd, at Hampstead, London, Joanna Baillie, the celebrated authoress. She was the friend of Sir Walter Scott, who admired both her poetic and dramatic genius exceedingly. Her plays, although open to criticism as to selection of subject, plot, and stage effectiveness, display the poetic power of her mind to great advantage.

April 28th, in London, aged eighty-one, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington. He saw great variety of service as a naval officer, and displayed professional skill and personal courage. In 1826, he received the command of the Mediterranean fleet. He commanded the following year the combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, in the destruction of the Egyptian fleet, at Navarino. A son of this eminent and amiable man subsequently commanded the British army in the Crimea, during a war of England and her allies against Russia.

May 23rd, at Florence, where he officiated as British minister to the court of Tuscany, the Right Honourable Richard Lalor Shiel. He was the son of an Irish merchant, and was born in Dublin. His early education was in the English Jesuit College, at Stonyhurst, a place which made many bad Catholics by the excess of its ultra-montanism. Mr. Shiel was afterwards a student of the Dublin University, where he distinguished himself. He was called to the Irish bar in 1814. He wrote several plays which had merit, and were for a time made popular by the acting of Miss O’Neil. Mr. Shiel was never very successful as a lawyer, his taste lying in the direction of dramatic literature and politics. He began his political career at an early age; his first passionate oration, to a Dublin Roman Catholic audience, was made at eighteen years of age. He became one of the leaders of the Roman Catholic emancipation movement, being second to O’Connell only as a leader of party and an orator; his eloquence, however, was more refined than that of his more potential colleague. His speeches were dramatic, rhetorical, and effective. Their moral tone was offensive, vituperative, and vindictive. He was very small of stature, ungainly and unprepossessing in appearance, and had a strange squeaking voice; but in spite of these and other defects he was, next to O’Connell, the most powerful agent in carrying Roman Catholic emancipation. He was, however, never heartily trusted by O’Connell, who saw his value as an instrument and flattered his vanity by fulsome panegyric: when, however, the great agitator suspected the drift of any movement of Shiel, he turned against him his keen although coarse satire, and, by his contemptuous sneers and ludicrous and striking caricatures, turned the tide of popular feeling against his subtle and unreliable colleague. After Roman Catholic emancipation was achieved Mr. Shiel became a member of the imperial parliament, where he distinguished himself by his eloquence more than he ever did as a tribune. His oratory was, however, characterised more by histrionic passion, rhetorical artifice, and boldness of declamation, than by logic or truth. Many times the beauty of his parliamentary orations dazzled his opponents, and drew forth their admiring eulogy, and often his sarcasms smote them with a severity more terrible than any launched from his side of the house. He became a mere whig partisan; his ambition was office, and he excited the strong resentment of the Irish party, with which he had acted, by his silence where “Irish or Catholic interests” were concerned, if the whig party were opposed to their demands. No orator had espoused with more seeming heartiness various liberal opinions, which he abandoned when he became a pet of the Whigs. Like O’Connell he had harangued with great fervour large democratic assemblages in favour of the voluntary principle in religion, and like O’Connell he mocked it and vituperated it, when it served his purpose to do so. He had been a great anti-slavery agitator, uttering fervent sentiments concerning the equal right of men of all creeds and colours, and the duty and policy of applying this great principle in the West India possessions of England, and all over the world; but when his parliamentary party adopted a course which displeased the anti-slavery party, and a deputation of eminent philanthropists waited upon him, believing that in Richard Lalor Shiel the black man had a friend as true as he had been an eloquent advocate, those gentlemen were received with a haughty insolence, and a contemptuousness which there was not even a decent effort to suppress. Upon the Protestant dissenters of England he poured loud and eloquent praise when he was agitating for Roman Catholic emancipation, as the English dissenters gave an ostentatious support to that movement. When the end was gained which he hoped to serve by such flattery, he manifested a profound animosity to those whose services he had commended. His real views on subjects of civil and religious liberty were selfish and narrow. His professed patriotism was to a certain extent real, but it was narrow and invidious where true, and it was for the most part simulated. He was an object of hatred to the ultramontane party in his own church; and a report prevailed in Europe, which does not appear to have been substantiated, that he was, by that party, ingeniously deprived of life through skilful agency appointed for that purpose.

August 5th, Mrs. Harriet Lee, in her ninety-eighth year. This lady was one of the authoresses of the “Canterbury Tales.” Her works were various and popular.

August 6th, at Hong-Kong, the distinguished missionary, Gutzlaff. He was by birth a Pomeranian, but was associated with the English so intimately as interpreter, and as secretary to the Hong-Kong government, that he was always regarded as a British citizen.

August 12th, aged fifty, the Honourable Elliott Drinkwater Bethune, a man whose efforts for legal reform in England and India won for him the gratitude of the good, and caused him to incur the bitterest hostility of the selfish classes affected by proposals of reform.

November 18th, aged eighty-one, at Herenhausen, the King of Hanover, uncle to her majesty.

December 19th, at Chelsea, London. Joseph Mallord William Turner, the great English landscape painter, whose works are too well known, and whose fame is too widely spread, to require more particular notice.