It did not pass without vigorous resistance from more than one quarter. The Bishop of Exeter complained of it as incompatible with the great Church principle, that a bishop could only resign his office to the archbishop of his province; others opposed it as a violation of the common law, which forbids any bargain being made for the resignation of an office; while some, referring to the prohibition of simony (a word, perhaps, as much misunderstood and as often misapplied as any in the language), denounced the arrangement that the retiring prelates were to have pensions as simoniacal.[295] The most reasonable objection made to the proceeding was, that such exceptional legislation to meet an isolated case tended to establish a dangerous precedent, and that, as there were other men of great age on the bench, it would be better to effect the end now aimed at by a large general measure providing means for the retirement of all clergymen, those of inferior rank as well as bishops, whom age or infirmity might incapacitate. But the general feeling was against delay. The bill passed, and served in some degree as a model for that general measure which was soon afterward introduced, and which, as was suggested on this occasion, provided for an arrangement similar in principle being carried out whenever a priest holding any kind of ecclesiastical preferment should become disabled for the performance of its duties.
There can be no doubt that such legislation was absolutely necessary in the interests of the Church, taking that expression to include, not the clergy alone, but the whole congregation of Churchmen. But it introduced a remarkable change into the system of ecclesiastical peerages, and, so far, into the constitution of the House of Lords. What was resigned by the two prelates was not the peerage (they had still the right to be styled "my lord"), but the seat in the House of Lords, which was a part, and which had hitherto been regarded as an inseparable part of it, or, at least (as it should, perhaps, rather be said, since the recent regulation that the junior bishop should not have a seat was a clear violation of that principle), which hitherto no one had been able to dissociate from the peerage after it had been once enjoyed.
The treaties which terminated the war with Russia were not concluded till the spring of 1856; and it was well, indeed, that the country had no longer a foreign war on her hands, for a twelvemonth had scarcely elapsed when the very continuation of her existence as a great Eastern power was suddenly imperilled by what, regarded in one aspect, was a mutiny of her troops on a most extensive scale; in another, a civil war, waged by a combination of native princes, Hindoo as well as Mohammedan,[296] for the total extinction of our power, and the expulsion of the British race from Bengal. As early as the first week of February several commanders of regiments and other authorities received warnings of the organization of a wide conspiracy against our power; and in the second week of May the troops at Meerut broke into open mutiny, set fire to the public buildings, murdered their officers, and even their wives and children, and then marched off to Delhi, where the garrison was prepared to receive them with open arms, and to imitate their atrocities. The contagion spread, and in a few weeks nearly all Bengal was in arms. In one or two instances the native chiefs stood by us, but the greater number joined the insurgents, some from the desire to throw off our yoke, but others, probably, from constraint and through fear. Whatever were their motives, before the end of June nearly all the principal cities and fortresses of Bengal, up to the very gates of Calcutta, were in the hands of the insurgents, the chief exception being at the great city of Lucknow, where, though the mutineers got possession of the city, a British garrison held the Residency, in the centre; and, maintaining themselves with heroic fortitude, unsurpassed in all the history of war, for nearly nine months, contributed more than any other body of men to the final suppression of the revolt. It would be beside our purpose here to dwell upon the great deeds by which in that terrible year our army, in all its branches, maintained its old renown; upon the recapture of Delhi; the deliverance of the incomparable defenders and preservers of Lucknow; the exploits of Lawrence, and Inglis, and Havelock, and Outram, and Peel, and Campbell; and, if we are forced to deny ourselves the proud gratification of dwelling on their combined heroism and wisdom, we may for the same reason be spared the pain of recounting the horrid cruelties wreaked in too many instances not only on the officers who fell into the rebels' hands, and on the civil magistrates, but on the helpless women and children. In the first excitement of fear and horror those cruelties were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, but still enough remains proved to stamp the insurrection as one branding with the foulest disgrace the race which perpetrated and exulted in them.
It was not till the last week of 1858 that the last sparks of rebellion were finally extinguished by the defeat in Oude of the last body of rebels who remained in arms, and the flight of the remnant of their force across the frontier of Nepaul; but, even before that day came, the ministry at home had been led to see the necessity of putting the government of the country for the future on a different footing. It could hardly be doubted that the prompt suppression of a revolt of so unprecedented a magnitude, and the proof given in the course of our operations that the British soldier still maintained the same superiority over the native trooper as in the days of Clive, had heightened our reputation and the belief of our power among the native tribes. But, speedily and decisively crushed though it had been, the revolt had given too terrible a proof of the inconstancy and treachery of the native tribes not to act as a warning to our statesmen; and the reflection that was thus forced upon them showed that a company of merchants, however distinguished by general courage and sagacity they had shown themselves, was no longer qualified to exercise imperial dominion over a territory which now extended over more than a million of square miles, and more than a hundred and fifty millions of native subjects.
Accordingly, in the first week of the session of 1858, Lord Palmerston, as Prime-minister, introduced a bill to transfer the government of British India from the East India Company to the crown. It was natural that the principle of such a measure should be opposed by the Directors of the Company, though it was supported by more than one person who had held high civil office in India; and equally natural that the arrangement of its details should call forth a minute and rigorous examination, and on many points a very determined opposition. We need not, however, say more about this bill, since circumstances prevented its being proceeded with; and the history of those which succeeded it is now only worth referring to as showing the extreme difficulty of the task of framing a government on new principles for a dependency of such vast magnitude and importance.[297]