The personal interest in politics which this laudable habit of judging of everything for herself naturally engendered in the Queen's mind led, however, to the adoption by her Majesty, in more than one instance, of a course at variance not only with all historical precedent, but, with deference be it said, with constitutional principle, sanctioned though it was by more than one ministry. When the First Napoleon, after his elevation to the head of the French government as First Consul, proposed, by an autograph letter to George III., to treat with that sovereign for the conclusion of peace between the two nations, Pitt, to whom his Majesty communicated the letter, had no difficulty in deciding that it would be unseasonable for the King "to depart from the forms long established in Europe for transacting business with foreign states,"[285] and, under his guidance, the cabinet instructed Lord Grenville, as Foreign Secretary, to address the reply to the First Consul's letter to the French Foreign Secretary, M. de Talleyrand.
But this reign has witnessed several departures from the old and convenient rule. Its violation was not begun by her Majesty, but by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia in the year preceding the Crimean war. He wrote to the Queen herself to discuss some of the points in dispute, and she answered his letter with her own hand.[286] The outbreak of war which soon ensued prevented any continuation of that correspondence; but the close alliance which that war for a time produced between England and France, strengthened as it was by an interchange of visits between the royal and imperial families, which led to the establishment of a strong mutual friendliness and regard, led also to an occasional interchange of letters on some of the gravest questions affecting the policy of the two nations. The correspondence was sanctioned by successive English cabinets, every letter which the Queen either received from, or sent to, any foreign prince on political affairs being invariably communicated by her either to the Prime-minister or to the Foreign Secretary; and they, in one instance, even suggesting to her Majesty to write to Louis Napoleon[287] with an object so delicate as that of influencing the language with which he was about to open his Chambers.
But we must think the line recommended by Pitt to George III. both more constitutional and more safe. A letter from one sovereign to another on political subjects cannot be divested of the character of a state-paper, and for every state-paper some one must be responsible. The sovereign cannot be, but for every one of his actions the ministers are. And it follows, therefore, that they are thus made responsible for documents of which they have not been the original authors; of which, were it not for the courtesy of the sovereign, they might by possibility be wholly ignorant; and with parts of which, even with the knowledge which that courtesy has afforded them, they may not fully coincide, since they could hardly venture to subject a composition of their royal mistress to a vigorous criticism. Such a correspondence, therefore, places them so far in a false position, and it runs the risk of placing the sovereign himself in one equally false and unpleasant, since, if the opinions expressed or the advice given fail of their effect, the adviser is so far lowered in the eyes of his correspondent and of the world.
As has been incidentally mentioned, in the spring of 1854 war broke out with Russia, nominally on account of the Sultan's refusal to concede some of the Czar's demands concerning the condition of the Greek Church in Palestine, but more really because, believing the Turkish empire to be in the last stage of decay, he hoped by hastening its destruction to obtain the lion's share of its spoils. And for the first time for two centuries an English and French army stood together in a field of battle as allies. In the field our armies were invariably victorious, inflicting severe defeats on the enemy at Alma and Inkerman, and wresting from them the mighty fortress of Sebastopol, in the Crimea, which hitherto they had believed to be absolutely impregnable. Our fleet was, if possible, still more triumphant, destroying Bomarsund and Sweaborg, in the Baltic, without the Russian ships daring to fire a single gun in their defence, while their Black Sea fleet was even sunk by its own admiral, as the only expedient to save it from capture. And in the spring of 1856 the war was terminated by a treaty of peace, in which, for the first time since the days of Peter the Great, Russia was compelled to submit to a cession of territory. But (it may almost be said) to the credit of the nation these successes, glorious and substantial as they were, made at the time scarcely so great an impression on the people as the hardships which, in the first winter of the war, our troops suffered from the defective organization of our commissariat. Want of shelter and want of food proved more destructive than the Russian cannon; presently our gallant soldiers were reported to be perishing by hundreds for lack of common necessaries; and the news awakened so clamorous a discontent throughout the whole of the United Kingdom as led to another change of ministry, and Lord Aberdeen was succeeded by Lord Palmerston. While a war on so large a scale was being waged there was but little time to spare for the work of the legislator, though it is not foreign to our subject to relate that in 1855 the last of those taxes which the political economists denounced as taxes on knowledge, the tax on newspapers, was abolished. Originally it had been fourpence; in 1836 Mr. Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's ministry, had reduced it to a penny; and now, with a very general acquiescence, it was abolished altogether.
The entire abolition of a tax is not properly to be called a financial measure, that epithet belonging rather to those which aim at an augmentation of revenue by an increase in the number of contributors to a tax, while lessening the amount paid by each. But the abandonment of the tax in question should rather be regarded as a sacrifice of revenue for the instruction of the people in political knowledge; a price paid to enable and induce the poorer classes to take a well-instructed interest in the affairs of the state and the general condition of the country. And, viewed in this light, the abolition of this tax must be allowed to have been a political measure of great importance, and to have contributed greatly to the end which was aimed at. Till 1836 a daily paper, costing sevenpence, was the luxury of the few; and the sale even of those which had the largest circulation was necessarily limited. But the removal of the tax at once gave birth to a host of penny newspapers, conducted for the most part with great ability, and soon attaining a circulation which reached down to all but the very poorest class; so that the working-man has now an opportunity of seeing the most important questions of the day discussed from every point of view, and of thus acquiring information and forming a judgment on them which the subsequent extension of the franchise makes it more than ever desirable that he should be able to form for himself. Every movement in that direction renders it the more necessary to raise the intelligence of the great mass of the people to a level which may enable them to make a safe and salutary use of the power placed in their hands. And no mode of implanting a wholesome political feeling in the masses can equal candid political discussion: discussion one ruling principle of which shall be to teach that the greatest differences of opinion may be honestly entertained; that, with scarcely an exception, the leading men of each party, those who have any title to the name of statesman, are animated with an honest, patriotic desire to promote the best interests of the nation; and that the elucidation of truth is not aided by unreasoning invective and the undeserved imputation of base motives.