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 DAVID URQUHART
 
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 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 SOME CHAPTERS IN THE LIFE OF 
 A VICTORIAN KNIGHT-ERRANT 
 OF JUSTICE AND LIBERTY 
 
 BY 
 
 GERTRUDE ROBINSON 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 F. F. URQUHART 
 
 FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGH 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. 
 
 1920
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
 
 'J! 
 
 DeDicatcO 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF THE 
 
 MEN AND WOMEN OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 
 
 AND OF ALL THOSE 
 
 LOYAL AND SELF-SACRIFICING FRIENDS OF DAVID URQUHART 
 
 FROM WHOM HE EXPECTED SO MUCH 
 
 AND IN WHOM 
 
 HE WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This study of a great though little-known personality of 
 the last century is not presented to the reading public as 
 in any sense an adequate biography. It may be regarded 
 as a preparation for a Life which still remains to be written. 
 The immense mass of material to be dealt with, involving 
 all the most vital diplomatic and international questions 
 of the last century, would have made the preparation of 
 such a Life a matter of time, and could only have been 
 successfully undertaken by an able historian. 
 
 David Urquhart during a long life never ceased to preach 
 doctrines and make claims which the world derided. The 
 last five years have set the seal on the truth of those 
 doctrines, and justified many of those claims. But the 
 man himself has been forgotten. It seems now a fitting 
 time when, in common gratitude for his life of toil and 
 self-sacrifice, his memory should be revived. 
 
 AH the manuscript and most of the other materials used 
 in the preparation of this book haVe been very kindly 
 placed at the author's disposal by Mr. David Urquhart, 
 Mr. Urquhart's eldest son. She owes more than she can 
 adequately acknowledge to the help and co-operation of 
 Miss Urquhart and Mr. F. F. Urquhart of Balliol College. 
 Most of the drudgery involved in the reading, selection, and 
 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 tabulation of a great mass of almost unarranged corres- 
 pondence was undertaken by Miss Urquhart, as well as 
 a great deal of necessary research at the Record Office 
 and the British Museum. Apart from this, the book in 
 one respect at least owes whatever psychological interest 
 it may possess to her. Her mind, probably unconsciously 
 to herself, reproduced in that of the author the impression 
 made on her, while still a sensitive and imaginative child, 
 by her father's unique personality. 
 
 Mr. F. F. Urquhart, in addition to the constant and 
 valuable advice and criticism which he gave during the 
 whole time the book was in preparation, made himself 
 responsible for the whole of the indexing. To him the 
 author is also indebted for the correction of the proof- 
 sheets, as well as to Mrs. V. M. Crawford, who with her 
 knowledge of the technicalities of printing has been of 
 invaluable help. 
 
 Oxford, 
 
 December, 1919.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOK 
 
 PREFACE - - - - - - - vii 
 
 PROLOGUE - - - - - - Xi 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...-.- 1 
 
 PART I.— THE KNIGHT 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS - - - 19 
 
 11. URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE - - - 44 
 
 III. THE EAST AND MEDIAEVAL INSTITUTIONS - - 64 
 
 PART II.— HOW HE FOUGHT FOR JUSTICE IN 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 IV. CHARTISM - - - - - - 81 
 
 V. FOREIGN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATIONS - - - 104 
 
 VI. THE FORMATION OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES - 120 
 
 VII. THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES - - 141 
 VIII. WHY THE COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND WHY THET 
 
 FAILED .--..-- 166 
 
 PART III.— HOW HE WENT TO ROME 
 
 IX. URQUHART AND HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME - 179 
 
 X. " UNITED ITALY " .... - 194 
 
 XL URQUHART IN SAVOY ..... 205 
 
 XII. URQUHART'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 218 
 
 XIII. THE APPEAL TO THE POPE - - - - 231 
 
 XIV. THE VATICAN COUNCIL .... 250 
 XV. THE LAST CHAPTER ..... 274 
 
 APPENDIXES ...--. 301 
 
 INDEX ..----. 323 
 
 ix
 
 LIST OF PLATES 
 
 DAVID URQUHAKT, MS. CIRCA 69 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 TO FACK PAGE 
 
 - 20 
 
 DAVID URQUIIART, ^T. 12 AND 63 - 
 
 DAVID URQUHART SHORTLY AFTER HIS MARRIAGE - - 121 
 
 POSTER ISSUED BY THE PRESTON FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE 134 
 
 CHALET DES MELEZES 
 
 206
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Then the Kings having denied Christ, made new gods and 
 idols, and exposed them to the sight of nations, and ordered 
 men to fall down and worship and fight for them. 
 
 And they made for the French an idol, and the}^ called 
 it Honour — and it was the same idol that in former times 
 was called the Golden Calf. 
 
 x\nd for the Spaniards they made an idol and called it 
 Political Preponderance, and it was the same idol that the 
 Assyrians adored under the name of Baal, and the Philis- 
 tines under the name of Dagon, and the Romans under that 
 of Jupiter. 
 
 And for the English their King made an idol, and called 
 it Sovereignty of the Seas, and it was the same god that 
 was formerly named Mammon. 
 
 And for the Germans they made an idol which they 
 called Weil-Being, the same that formerly had the names 
 of Moloch and Comus. 
 
 And the people adored their idols. 
 
 And the King said to the French: " Be up and fight for 
 Honour." 
 
 And the people arose and combated for 500 years. 
 
 And the King said to the English: " Get up and fight 
 for Mammon." And they arose and combated for 500 
 years. 
 
 And so the other nations, each for his idol. 
 
 And m Europe idolatry flourished — and as the Pagans 
 had first adored different virtues under the forms of idols 
 and afterwards so adored different vices, and then men, 
 and beasts, and finally trees, and stones, and figures, and 
 geometry, so also did it happen in Europe. 
 
 For the Italians created for themselves an idol, which 
 
 xi
 
 xii PROLOGUE 
 
 thej'' named Political Equilibrium. Now this was an idol 
 which the ancient Pagans had never known ; and the ItaHans 
 were the first to invent its worship, and in combating for it 
 they became weak and stupid, and fell into the hands of 
 petty tyrants. 
 
 Then the Kings of Europe, seeing that this idol had 
 exhausted the Italian nation, caused it to be brought into 
 their States and propagated its worship, and ordered men 
 to combat for it. 
 
 After this the King of Prussia traced a circle and said, 
 " Behold a new God "; and the circle was adored, and the 
 worsliip was henceforth called Arrondissement. 
 
 Then came three Kings whose names were Blasphemy, 
 who, seeing that the people were not sufficiently corrupted, 
 raised on high a new idol, the most terrible of all ; and that 
 idol was called Interest. That idol was not known to the 
 Pagans of Antiquity. 
 
 However, all the people adored Interest, and the Kings 
 said: "If we propagate the worship of this idol, it will 
 happen that, as there is to-day between nation and nation, 
 so will there happen, then, war between town and town, 
 between man and man. 
 
 ''And men will become savages again." 
 
 Adam Mickiewicz: The Book of Polish Pilgrims. 
 
 These idols have all been broken, and a greater one has 
 now taken their place. This Idol is Chance— he is pro- 
 pitiated with wave offerings and burnt offerings of laws, 
 rights, usages, and traditions — his high-priest is Diplomacy, 
 his temple was Congress — is Cabinet. By wJiispers he sears 
 the heart of man. He changes all things past, corrupts 
 all thuigs present, and disposes all things to come. He 
 was known among the ancient Pagans as Iniquity, but was 
 considered a Demon and not a God. 
 
 The Portfolio (New Series), vol. ii., No. V.
 
 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is not easy to write about the life and work of a 
 man who set himself consciously and diametrically 
 against the opinion of his time. A biographer has but 
 two courses open to him, either to argue that in im- 
 portant matters, at any rate, opinion was wrong and 
 his view right, an undertaking of perilous length and 
 difficulty, or to " explain " his hero, to put in a plea, 
 in other words, for extenuating circumstances. The 
 second alternative is a confession of failure, and no 
 one who knows and admires David Urquhart would be 
 so poor-spirited as to adopt it. Silence would be 
 preferable, silence until the enemy had surrendered, 
 until opinion had so changed that much which had 
 seemed preposterous paradox had become accepted or 
 at least acceptable. 
 
 The opinions which Urquhart attacked have not yet 
 been entirely abandoned, they have not yet been trans- 
 formed, as he would have said, into judgments. They 
 have, however, shifted their ground, and much that he 
 wrote and said would be better understood now than 
 in his lifetime. 
 
 The catastrophe which he foretold has come upon us. 
 It may not have come from the quarter from which he 
 expected it, but it has been the result of those principles 
 of international iniquity against which his voice was 
 
 I
 
 2 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 lifted in season and out of season. The purpose of this 
 book is mainly to show the moral principles which 
 underlay his many activities, and it would be impossible 
 within a reasonable compass to examine his convictions 
 about the international events and the leading states- 
 men of his time. Yet principle was with him so closely 
 connected with facts, so much of his life and energy were 
 spent in battling against Eussia and all her deeds, that it 
 is essential at least to show that his whole conception 
 of the international history of his time was not the in- 
 credible thing it seemed to most of his contemporaries. 
 When they saw the workings of popular forces, of 
 national movements or of mere chance, David Urquhart 
 detected the deliberate policy of Russia. Russia was 
 to him a Power essentially weak and inorganic which 
 had yet by the semblance of strength, by the extreme 
 intelligence of her ministers, and by her unhesitating 
 rejection of all scruple, been able to pursue, since the 
 days of Peter the Great, a policy of almost uninter- 
 rupted conquest. Her success was due not to mihtary 
 achievements, but to diplomacy, to the skill with which 
 she weakened the other European States by setting them 
 against one another or by using against them, though 
 herself the most autocratic of Powers, the weapon of 
 Revolution. Every European State was threatened 
 by the Russian danger, but her immediate victim was 
 the Turkish Empire. Once established on the Bos- 
 phorus and the Dardanelles she could control South- 
 Eastern Europe and the Near East, she could interpose 
 her portentous bulk between Europe and Asia. The 
 Mediterranean would be her path to power in the West, 
 while in the East she would threaten the Indian Empire. 
 Among the Turks, however, were to be found not only
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 great military qualities, but certain convictions on the 
 essential connection between righteousness and public 
 action, between religion and politics which had been 
 almost forgotten in the West. The Turks were therefore 
 the appointed antagonists of Russia because they were 
 diametrically opposed to her policy of systematic injus- 
 tice, and it was an essential article in David Urquhart's 
 creed that Turkey, left to herself, was more than 
 a match for Russia. The great object of Russian 
 diplomacy was therefore to secure the help of the Powers 
 in disorganising or breaking up the Turkish Empire — 
 and this, he maintained, they had frequently done even 
 when they professed to be acting as her friends. Con- 
 temporary history was to him a tremendous living 
 drama in which the greatest moral issue was at stake. 
 Russia was the great adversary, working for her end 
 by the gradual demoralisation of Europe. She repre- 
 sented the principle of evil in international affairs, the 
 attempt to exclude them altogether from the domain 
 of the Moral Law. Before her day other countries 
 and sovereigns had acted unjustly. She acted on the 
 principle of injustice. And she worked in secret, by 
 her hold over individual statesmen in other countries, 
 by the press, by revolutionary influences, by men and 
 movements often enough intentionally opposed to her. 
 Her power lay in her one, single, Satanic vision of her 
 aims, while the feeble men in whose hesitating hands 
 lay the defence of the Moral Law were confused by 
 uncertain aims, by hazy views of national justice, and 
 by words which they used without understanding them, 
 such words as democratic government, ministerial 
 responsibility, nationality and the rest. " Our An- 
 tagonist," Urquhart wrote, " scrutinises the earth for
 
 4 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 talents, and having found them, disciplines them to an 
 order which has never been matched, and inspires them 
 with the prospects of a triumph never yet attained. 
 There are united superiority of mind, unity of system, 
 permanency of purpose, the coercion of an iron rule, 
 the inspiration of a golden harvest and the doubly 
 fortifying sense of confidence in themselves and con- 
 tempt for the rest of mankind. . . . For those who 
 manage the affairs of Russia every branch of science, 
 every field of knowledge, and every motive of the human 
 mind is equally possessed and mastered, and the com- 
 bination of the whole is — Diplomacy."* 
 
 To the immense majority of his contemporaries this 
 conception of Russia and of the character of her power 
 seemed the imaginings of a distorted if not of a diseased 
 brain. Have we any reason after sixty years to ques- 
 tion this verdict ? 
 
 To begin with, most men would admit the truth of 
 David Urquhart's passionate conviction, underlying 
 all his conception of " foreign politics," that there was 
 a fundamental antagonism between two principles, one 
 which required in the acts of the State merely the pursuit 
 of a policy, the other which demanded before all else 
 that they should conform to the eternal principles of 
 justice, and they would agree that the triumph of the 
 former would mean an absolute perversion of the very 
 basis on which human society is built. Thoughtful 
 men had long realised the existence of this antagonism, 
 and dreaded the consequences of the apparently growing 
 indifference to all issues save those of national advantage ; 
 and the war has opened the eyes of many more to the 
 fatal consequences of um'estrained national ambition. 
 
 * Progress of Bussia, Fifth Edition, px). Ixv.-vi. aud Ixix.
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 For one thing we are beginning to understand that 
 the national movements, which were welcomed so 
 enthusiastically in England, contained much that was 
 evil, at least in their methods. It was the custom a few 
 years back to admire Bismarck and to excuse his 
 methods of blood and iron because they had been success- 
 ful in bringing about German unity. Immediate success 
 clouded the judgments of his contemporaries even 
 in England. Indeed the whole popular verdict on 
 " Nationality," which Urquhart distrusted intensely, 
 is already being revised in the light of increasing national 
 ambitions and national hatreds. 
 
 It may be claimed, then, that time has confirmed 
 David Urquhart 's moral judgments; can it be said to 
 have justified his political insight ? He is obviously 
 open to the charge of having mistaken the real enemy, 
 of having made Russia the Antagonist when it should 
 have been Prussia. As a matter of fact he always 
 insisted on the close connection between the two Powers, 
 though Prussia, and even Bismarck, he considered to 
 be the tools of Russia. The international policy of 
 both countries was based on the same principle of 
 injustice, the difference lay in the means. Russia, 
 fundamentally weak, internally divided, was driven to 
 use the weapon of diplomacy, Germany in the years 
 after '70 was strong enough to be frankly brutal. In 
 any case the Prussianising of Germany in the late years 
 of the nineteenth century does not immediately affect 
 the historical question of Russian policy and influence 
 in the period between 1815 and 1870. 
 
 Certainly no contemporary historian would be pre- 
 pared to accept in its entirety David Urquhart 's account 
 of the international politics amid which he lived.
 
 6 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Perhaps future revelations may confirm a number of 
 his convictions, but too much must not be expected 
 from further pubhcations of documents. It is one of 
 the difficulties of the history of the last century that so 
 much of importance was communicated in private 
 correspondence and may never be at the historian's 
 disposal. At any rate all that is possible now is to 
 point out how mysterious a great deal of nineteenth- 
 century history still remains, and how in a number 
 of cases increased knowledge has only deepened the 
 mystery. 
 
 The period of the Congresses, the years following the 
 Congress of Vienna, has been the object of much re- 
 search and many books, and yet two diametrically 
 opposite explanations are still facing each other. The 
 explanation more commonly accepted by English writers 
 makes Metternich the soul of the system. In the 
 interests of " legitimacy," of the counter-Re volution, 
 he persuaded Alexander of Russia to abandon his 
 liberalism, to throw himself into the Conservative camp 
 and to use the Holy Alliance for the purpose of suppress- 
 ing revolutions in Spain, Italy, and elsewhere. The 
 rival theory makes Russia not only the inaugurator, 
 but also the motive power behind the Alliance ; and the 
 object of Russia throughout is to promote intervention 
 in other countries in order to set the Western nations 
 against one another and to profit by the confusion. 
 To bring about intervention, revolutions had first to 
 be set afoot, and writers of this school are prepared to 
 show that Russian agents were at work both in Spain 
 and Italy before the insurrection of 1820. It would 
 seem at first sight incredible that a country like Russia, 
 the embodiment of conservatism and autocracy, should
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 be stirring up revolutionary fires ; yet the very fact that 
 Russia was so much outside the European system, so 
 remote from the flame, made it safer for her statesmen 
 to promote revohition in other countries. Sorel has 
 himself pointed out how Alexander I. contrived to be 
 " the hidden deity of the Revolutionaries while re- 
 maining the public god of the Conservatives." And 
 what Sorel said of Alexander, most idealistic of the 
 Czars, is only what David Urquhart said all his life of 
 the general policy of Russia. Certain it is that whether 
 Russia was to any degi'ee responsible for the Revolution 
 of 1820, it was Russia, and not Metternich, who first 
 proposed intervention, and it was Russia who at the 
 Congress of Verona ultimately forced it on the French 
 Government by using Chateaubriand. As it turned out, 
 French intervention was not resented by the Spaniards 
 as a people, and the general peace of Europe, which a 
 prolonged war in Spain would certainly have destroyed, 
 was preserved. 
 
 In the East again it is to the personal influence of 
 Metternich over the impressionable Alexander that 
 Russia's abandonment of the Greeks during the earlier 
 years of their rebellion is usually attributed. It is 
 pleasant to substitute for a difiicult study of facts and 
 documents a lively discussion of Alexander's character 
 and of the temperament which so exercised the chan- 
 celleries of Europe, but in Russian history the direct 
 influence of a Czar's personality is nearly always exag- 
 gerated. The real control of events has generally been 
 in the hands of a much less impressionable minister. 
 The connection of Russia with the Greek Revolt is of 
 primary importance in David Urquhart 's life. It was 
 his first great lesson in the power of diplomacy; it
 
 8 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 convinced him of the ignorance which prevailed in the 
 West about all Eastern matters. The scene of the 
 drama was one with which he was familiar. He had 
 fought for the Greeks and he knew their detestation of 
 Russia. He had lived with the Turks and realised their 
 great mihtary quahties. In his inquiries into the 
 diplomatic forces which brought about the destruction 
 of the Turkish fleet at Navarino and the Peace of 
 Adrianople, so disastrous to Turkey, he was assisted by 
 a strange and almost unique discovery. The Polish 
 rebellion of 1830 placed the Poles for some time in 
 command of Warsaw, and there they found a number 
 of diplomatic documents; these were copies of despatches 
 which had been sent to the Russian Viceroy Constantine, 
 Nicholas I.'s elder brother, the man who had given up 
 his right to the throne and was therefore treated with 
 great consideration by the Russian Government. These 
 despatches were ultimately sent to England, and some 
 of them appeared, with the consent of the Government, 
 in The Portfolio, edited by Urquhart and some of his 
 friends. To the casual reader these Russian secret 
 despatches do not contain any startling revelations, but 
 every here and there phrases are met with which bring 
 out the point of view of the Russian ministers and are 
 full of meaning to one who knows the facts. They 
 certainly confirmed Urquhart in the judgments he had 
 formed about Russian policy. 
 
 He started with the conviction of the inherent weak- 
 ness of Russia on the one hand, in spite of the com- 
 manding position which she held at the time, and of the 
 military strength of Turkey on the other. Russia 
 therefore could not afford to attack Turkey single- 
 handed. It was not sufficient for her to get a free
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 hand in the East by embroiling the Western Powers 
 with one another; she must secure the help of one 
 or more of them in her attack on Turkey. This 
 she ultimately succeeded in doing, partly owing to 
 the sympathy felt in the West towards the Greeks, 
 partly owing to the very fear with which Western 
 statesmen regarded the independent action of Russia 
 in the East. Canning was anxious to settle the Greek 
 question by arbitration between Greeks and Turks. If 
 he had acted single-handed he might have done so, and 
 it is obvious that Eussia feared his independent action. 
 She therefore threatened Turkey in a quarrel of her 
 own, disconnected with the Greek question, and Canning 
 then came to terms with Russia, hoping to check her 
 by working with her. But union with Russia made a 
 friendly settlement between Greeks and Turks im- 
 possible, and step by step the English and French 
 Governments w^re led on till, without declaration of 
 war, and while they still professed to be allies of Turkey, 
 the fleets of England, France, and Russia destroyed 
 the Turkish Fleet at Navarino. Russia was now in a 
 position to attack Turkey. Navarino had given her 
 the command of the Black Sea and of the ^Egean. 
 Yet in spite of this advantage the Russo-Turkish War 
 of 1828-29 would probably have ended in a Russian 
 disaster if the Sultan had not been persuaded by disloyal 
 ministers and the ill-informed and timid representatives 
 of England and France to sign in a panic the Peace of 
 Adrianople. It is true that Diebitch was in Adrianople 
 with a Russian army, but his troops were dying of fever 
 and he could not advance on Constantinople. Behind 
 him there was a Turkish army north of the Balkans; 
 another was advancing from the west under the Pasha
 
 10 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 of Widdin. The destruction of Diebitcli's army seemed 
 almost inevitable if the Sultan had held out, and so 
 signal a Russian disaster might have had almost in- 
 calculable consequences. Even as it was the Poles were 
 able in the following year to keep the field for ten 
 months against the Czar's armies. The victory of 
 Turkey would probably have meant the emancipation 
 of Poland and a complete and wholesome change in the 
 history of Russia. 
 
 An inner knowledge of this phase of the Eastern 
 Question not only strengthened Urquhart's convictions 
 on the relative strength of Russia and Turkey, it also 
 confirmed his suspicions about Russia's diplomatic 
 methods. Pozzo di Borgo, the Corsican, was, for 
 instance, just one of those able foreigners who became 
 the most efficient servants of Russia. As an ambassador 
 at Paris he had a great personal share in the success of 
 the Russian policy. Such were his relations with the 
 French Court that at one moment it was seriously 
 proposed that he should be appointed French War 
 Minister. A more enigmatic position still was that 
 held in London by Countess Lieven, the wife of the 
 Russian Ambassador. She was at different times with 
 the Duke of Wellington, with Lord Grey, with Palmerston 
 and other prominent men on terms of intimacy which 
 seem to us incredible, especially as she never forgot 
 that she represented Russia. It was at a private 
 meeting between Canning and the Lievens that he 
 seems first to have abandoned that isolated action in 
 the Greek question which Russia disliked. Countess 
 Lieven's own point of view is perhaps best expressed 
 in a postscript to one of her letters to her brother, 
 written in the winter of 1828, when the comparative
 
 INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 failure of tlie first campaign against the Turks had 
 astonished Europe. " Defeat the Turks, for the love 
 of God ! Europe is growing insubordinate since it 
 thinks we cannot do so." 
 
 The subsequent history of the Near East, as Urquhart 
 saw it, was not likely to diminish his sense of the power 
 and danger of Russian diplomacy. He saw her states- 
 men use the rise of Mehemet Ali in Egypt first, to secure 
 what was practically a protectorate of Turkey in 1833 
 and, when that too brilliant success roused the hostility 
 of the Western Powers, he saw her use the same weapon 
 in 1840 in order to break up, with the help of Lord 
 Palmerston, the Anglo-French Entente of 1830. The 
 crisis, which had brought England and France to the 
 verge of war, was over in 1841, but by making Mehemet 
 AH an hereditary Pasha of Egypt the Powers which had 
 come to Turkey's help combined to inflict on her a 
 blow more serious, perhaps, than the ephemeral pre- 
 dominance of an over mighty subject. The success 
 of a rebelhous Pasha had been a fairly frequent 
 phenomenon in the history of the Ottoman Empire, 
 but the establishment of a dynasty in Egypt was a step 
 towards the permanent loss of that province. 
 
 The Crimean War might seem at first sight to be the 
 fulfilment of David Urquhart 's ambitions. Now at last 
 England and France were united with Turkey in a 
 war against Russia's attempt to ruin the Turkish 
 Empire by securing a protectorate over three-quarters 
 of her subjects in Europe. And yet this war, though 
 it began with a Russian defeat by the unaided Turks, 
 ended in what was practically a drawn fight between 
 Russia on the one side, and the two Western Powers, 
 Turkey and Sardinia, on the other. Sebastopol itself
 
 12 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 was never taken in a military sense, and we had to 
 have a clause inserted in the Preliminaries of Peace to 
 allow us to use its harbour for the embarkation of our 
 troops. It is hardly too much to say that the prestige 
 with which the Crimean War endowed Russia gave her 
 a decisive voice in all questions concerned with the 
 East until her war with Japan. It is a period full of 
 historical mysteries. Why did the war break out ? 
 Why did the Allies when they were at Varna never 
 make the least attempt to help the Turks in Silistria ? 
 Why did we attack Sebastopol, almost the only fortified 
 Russian port in the Black Sea ? Why did we prevent 
 the Turks from helping the Circassians in the Caucasus ? 
 Why, during the whole of the war, was Russian trade 
 allowed to pass unmolested through the Bosphorus ? 
 The list of such questions could be extended almost 
 indefinitely. The Crimean War was not likely to 
 diminish XJrquhart's intense suspicion of the current 
 diplomatic methods and his conviction that Russia 
 had agents, whether conscious or unconscious, in the 
 ministries of Europe. 
 
 To most of his contemporaries the maddest thing 
 about David Urquhart was his belief in the treason of 
 Lord Palmerston, and it is most unlikely that time will 
 ever justify that belief. Yet it is now much easier to 
 see how a man of Urquhart 's knowledge of the inner 
 world of diplomacy could be absolutely sincere in such 
 a conviction. Palmerston is certainly one of the most 
 remarkable enigmas of our nineteenth-century history. 
 At first all is simple enough. A representative of the 
 ideas and prejudices of the English middle class, a 
 man without inspiration and with little scruple, yet 
 eminently efficient, his political success is easily ex-
 
 INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 plained. He pleased the Tories by the vigour of his 
 foreign policy, the Whigs by his spirit of compromise 
 at home, the Radicals by the support he gave to national 
 movements and extreme parties abroad. He had, in 
 addition, a very good " press,'' he came to be on terms 
 of great intimacy with Delane of The Times. The 
 cheerful optimist of the cartoons of Punch is still the 
 Palmerston of tradition as he was the Palmerston 
 whom most Englishmen knew and liked. He certainly 
 enjoyed the fruits of popularity, and during the fifty- 
 five years of his political life he was only about ten 
 years out of office. Even when, in 1857, the House of 
 Commons revolted against the iniquities of the China 
 War the constituencies returned him with a substantial 
 majority. His importance in our history, however, 
 depends more on his control of our foreign affairs than 
 on his Whig leadership. During the middle years of 
 the century the relations between England and the rest 
 of the world depended far more upon Lord Palmerston 
 than on any other man, and to the Continent he was 
 a figure very unlike that of the genial Whig. To 
 foreigners he seemed arrogant, offensive, passionate. 
 That is the picture we get of him in the letters of the 
 eminently moderate Leopold I. of Belgium. The 
 foreign Liberals he alienated by his bullying methods 
 even when they profited by his policy, while the Con- 
 servatives could explain the alUance between this 
 English aristocrat and continental revolutionary forces 
 only by a deliberate bargain: the revolutionaries were 
 to leave England undisturbed in return for support 
 abroad. After all, what could be more offensive to a 
 foreigner than the famous " Civis Romanus sum " 
 speech ? A speech which won Palmerston immense
 
 14 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 popularity in England. It apparently claimed for an 
 Englishman in a foreign country the rights which a 
 Roman citizen enjoyed within the bounds of the Roman 
 Empire. The wiser men of his time realised the injury 
 that Palmerston was doing to the peace of Europe and 
 the position of England, and Peel's last speech in the 
 House of Commons was a grave protest against a 
 diplomacy which was used " to fester every wound, to 
 provoke, instead of soothing, resentments."* A study 
 of the crisis of 1840 when Palmerston shattered the 
 Anglo-French Entente and brought the two countries 
 to the brink of war would confirm every word of PeeFs 
 protest. 
 
 It is extraordinary that there should be no adequate 
 Life of Palmerston, no attempt to replace the partial 
 portraits of more or less " official " biographies by a 
 real picture, and to explain the contradiction of his 
 character and career. Passion probably accounted for 
 much. He had real, deeply felt, personal resentments 
 towards the rulers of other States, towards Metternich 
 and Louis Philippe, for instance; and even towards 
 other countries, especially Austria. But such personal 
 resentments do not account for everything, and much 
 remains in his foreign poHcy that is puzzHng. Fortu- 
 nately materials for a real biography are slowly 
 accumulating. Queen Victoria's Letters and Lord 
 Fitzmaurice's Life of Lord Granville have revealed 
 Palmerston's attitude towards the Queen and his 
 fellow-ministers, but it is by his relations with the 
 ideahsm of his time that he will ultimately stand or 
 fall. Li any final judgment the charges brought against 
 him by David Urquhart with such intensity of con- 
 
 * Paiker's Life of Peel, iii., 543.
 
 INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 viction will have to be considered. To Urquliart 
 Palmerston was the representative of the great Adver- 
 sary, of that immoral principle in the affairs of nations 
 which he identified with Russia; and he was prepared 
 to prove that in spite of the appearances of hostility 
 Palmerston's policy had always in the long run been 
 to the advantage of Russia. Whether this was so 
 or not is a matter of evidence, and much of his 
 criticism is of the highest value. But it is a long step 
 from failure, and even from injustice, to treason. 
 Urquhart's whole character and life had tended 
 to make him attribute to deliberate purpose much that 
 is due, in the actions of men, to passion, or ambition, 
 or mere thoughtlessness and want of foresight. He 
 placed Palmerston on too high a level intellectually, 
 made him too much of a Satan, and did not recognise 
 that even he had a good deal of " Thomme moyen, 
 sensuel '' in his nature. 
 
 On the whole, then, it may be said that Urquhart's 
 judgments on the events of his day would be listened 
 to with more respect now than they were by the majority 
 of his contemporaries, and that much still remains very 
 obscure in the diplomatic history of the last century. 
 Certainly no student of those times can afford to neglect 
 the mass of material, the evidence drawn from unex- 
 pected sources, and the startling and impressive judg- 
 ments which are to be found in David Urquhart's 
 writings, and in the reviews or papers which he inspired 
 and to which he contributed.
 
 PART I 
 
 THE KNIGHT 
 
 "My soul breaketli out l:or the very fervent desire: that it hath 
 alway unto Thy judguients."— PsYtim exix. (Prayer-Book version.) 
 
 " Et custodiaiu legem tuam semper, 
 In sseculum et in sseculun sgeculi. 
 Et ambulabam in latitudine, 
 
 Quia mandata tua exquisivi. 
 Et loquebar in tesliinoniis tuis iu couspectu regum 
 Et non confuudebar." 
 
 Psalm cxvii. 44, 46 (Vulgate).
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 
 
 "• I>ibcra me de sanguinibus, Deiis, Deus salutis meae, 
 Et cxultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam." 
 
 Psalm 1. (Vulgate). 
 
 This book does not profess to be a Life of David Urquhart. 
 
 It is merely a story of his two greatest attempts to avert 
 the ruin which was already hanging over Europe, though 
 only seers like himself, or Cobbett, or William Morris could 
 discern its dark and sinister signs. 
 
 Urquhart saw them more clearly than the others of the 
 Brotherhood, because he had an opportunity, which they 
 had not, of comparing things as they were with things as 
 they had been in a more healthful state of society 
 
 Many attempts have been made to write his Life, but 
 they have all failed because his biographers were so bUnded 
 with admiration for their hero that they could not see his 
 
 defects. 
 
 Let us begin, therefore, by pointing out what Urquhart 
 
 was not. 
 
 He was not a statesman, in spite of his great knowledge 
 
 of statecraft. 
 
 He was not a historian, in spite of his wide knowledge of 
 history; for he was neither logical nor accurate, nor had 
 he any idea of the value of evidence. 
 
 He was not a psychologist, in spite of his interest in 
 and love for human nature; his mind was always at work 
 comparing men with what they ought to be rather than 
 realising them as they were. 
 
 But he was a prophet. His historical next of kin are 
 Cassandra and Jeremiah. For it is only after the catas- 
 trophe has come that his countrymen can see how true 
 were the words he spoke. Indeed, we hear them now on 
 
 19
 
 20 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 all sides, though most of those who utter them do not 
 know their origin. Labour leaders, religious teachers, 
 Mediaevalists, Guild Socialists, promoters of Leagues of 
 Nations, those who hate the Peace terms, all speak his 
 language now. 
 
 Born ten years before the battle of Waterloo on his 
 family estate in the Scottish Highlands, Urquhart started 
 life with that fiercest form of aristocracy, Scottish pride 
 of race; and an aristocrat he remained to the day of his 
 death. But, thanks to his cosmopolitan education,^ his 
 interest in commerce and his close and intimate friendship 
 with men of the working classes on his Foreign Affairs 
 Committees, the aristocratic spirit he had inherited was 
 counterbalanced by a democratic conscience, which he 
 acquired and which was none the less true and sincere 
 because he Avas, and always remained, a monarchist. His 
 knowledge of the East taught him the respect and courtesy 
 due from one man to another, irrespective of class distinc- 
 tions, and a dramatic incident of his early manhood, which 
 
 1 Uiquliart's education was conducted by his motlier in an 
 altogether original manner. He was delicate as a child, and at ten 
 years old she took him abroad with a tutor. They lived in France, 
 Switzerland, and Italy, and Urquhart's studies were superintended 
 by first one tutor, then another, more or less unsatisfactorily. 
 
 His flr.st real settled education took place at the College of Soreze, 
 famous later as the scene of Lacordaire's labours amongst his beloved 
 " jeunesse." 
 
 Soreze was interesting enough in its history to fire the imagination 
 of such a boy as David Urquhart. 
 
 Founded in 757, under Pepin le Bref, as an abbey, it became a 
 military school about 1,000 years later, under the Benedictines. 
 Secularised at the Revolution, it still retained its original character 
 because it remained in the hands of its old superiors, who became 
 laymen for the time being. It was still under this regime when 
 Urquhart was sent there in 1817. In 1854 it became a Dominican 
 school under Lacordaire. 
 
 At Soreze Urquhart's education began in earnest. He was at 
 school as an extern from 5.30 a.m. until 7 at night, and often sat 
 up till midnight preparing his lessons for the next day. 
 
 He had a tutor to help him with Latin and Greek, but Mrs. Urqu- 
 hart describes him as a " heavy burden." " His master," she says 
 in a letter to David's half-sister, Henrietta, " does not even raise 
 him. I have had him so often vexed that I have a woman to come 
 on purpose to wake liiin. \V"e keep the fire in, and sometimes his 
 anxiety is such that he gets up at 3 o'clock and studies." 
 
 No wonder an old friend writes to Mrs. Urquhart: " I cannot think 
 that it is good lor our darling David to study such long hours."
 
 
 
 
 Q 
 
 C u 
 •J u 

 
 WHAT IMANNER OF MAN HE WAS 21 
 
 took place there, aroused into vigorous life a passion for 
 justice, which upheld him through years of almost hopeless 
 struggle against national and social injustice and im- 
 morality. 
 
 For David Urquhart was a crusader first and foremost. 
 It is true that he was many other things as weU: a diplo- 
 matist too honest for the diplomatic world of his day; a 
 politician with aims too lofty to succeed in politics; a 
 philosopher, who rose above the barren intellectuality and 
 utilitarianism of the utilitarian school of his day, though 
 Jeremy Bentham was a friend of his impressionable youth ; 
 a writer, whose writings, in spite of the careless diction 
 which too often mars them, rose sometimes to heights of 
 poetic beauty; a prophet, who fifty years ago foretold the 
 woes which have fallen on this generation. But all these 
 noble qualities were burnt to a white heat in the furnace 
 of his passion for the re-establishment of justice in the 
 world. That is the key which unlocks all the chambers of 
 a mind full of interests and gifts. That is the torch which 
 lights all the secret recesses of a personality at once complex 
 and contradictory. That was the one dream, the one hope 
 of his life. For that he spent money recklessly, lavishly, 
 heedless not only of his own future, but, later on, of that 
 of his children. For that he laboured night and day in 
 spite of sufferings, which were a " baptism of pain." For 
 that, with a nature affectionate and sensitive to an almost 
 inconceivable degree, he put aside the natural desire of a 
 man for a home and human love till his fiftieth year, and 
 offered after his marriage, not himself alone, but the wife 
 to whom he was devoted, a willing sacrifice to the cause. 
 
 Few people have been so misjudged. David Urquhart 
 was a " megalo -maniac." His unceasing hostility and 
 opposition to Lord Palmerston was the result of " dis- 
 appointed ambition." The political aim of a man who 
 loathed parties was " to form a party, that should be 
 called after his own name." He, the bitterest foe of Russia, 
 was in her pay, or if he was not, his friends were. All his 
 convictions were the result of " insensate vanity," of 
 " wounded pride," of " mad extravagance."
 
 22 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 On the other hand, men of all classes, of all shades of 
 religious and political opinion, of all nations and of all 
 grades of intellect were attracted to him. But in all these 
 there was a certain nobility and simplicity, which enabled 
 them to recognise the same nobility in his freedom from 
 self-seeking, his absolute justice, and the sincerity and 
 purity of his character, through all the many and con- 
 spicuous faults that marred it, his extravagance, his some- 
 times apparent and sometimes real egoism, and his over- 
 bearing manner, which alienated many who would have 
 been his friends and gave to his enemies many very welcome 
 occasions of scandal. 
 
 His influence was by no means confined to men of his 
 own country. 
 
 Alone almost of Englishmen, he was admitted to intimacy 
 with the Turks. He might live in a Mohammedan house, 
 eat at a Mohammedan table, receive the " Temena " or 
 Mohammedan greeting. 
 
 It was no secret that he might, while still a young man, 
 had he chosen, have remained in Turkey as confidential 
 adviser to the Sultan. The Circassians, seeing in him at 
 first sight a simplicity and nobility akin to their own, 
 wished to make him their Chief, and, because of him, placed 
 in English honour and in English arms a confidence which 
 tended to their undoing. 
 
 " Daoud Bey " they called him, and in the East " Daoud 
 Bey " was a name to conjure with to the last j^ear of his life, 
 when, sick almost to death, he travelled through Egypt, 
 "en prince," receiving the homage of Pashas and peasants, 
 to some of whom that name had been from their youth a 
 household word. 
 
 A Protestant to the last, in spite of his conviction that 
 the Papacy was " the only moral force in Europe," he 
 won and kept the whole-hearted respect of prominent 
 Catholic ecclesiastics, German, Italian and French, as well 
 as English. So great an impression did he make on the 
 Papal Legate Cappaccini in 1844 that Pope Gregory XVI. 
 summoned him to the Vatican to confer with him about the 
 foundation of a diplomatic College in Rome. Pero Gratry,
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 23 
 
 M. le Play, the General of the Jesuits, Monsignor, after- 
 wards Cardinal, Franchi, the Bishop of Geneva, the famous 
 Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, were on terms of friendship, 
 in some cases of intimacy, with him. " God has inspired 
 you with very great ideas on the greatest of subjects," said 
 Pius IX. to him at a private audience. 
 
 And yet the majority of EngUsh statesmen were either 
 entirely indifferent or actively hostile to him. There were 
 notable exceptions. As quite a young man on his return 
 from Constantinople he was high in the favour and con- 
 fidence of William IV. Disraeli recognised his greatness as 
 he recognised DisraeH's possibilities, and there was a great 
 and striking unanimity between his point of view and that 
 of Disraeli at his loftiest and best. Lord Ponsonby, who 
 was at least partly responsible for the wreck of his diplot 
 matic career in 1837, became reconciled to him after years 
 of estrangement, and admitted that he had been right from 
 the beginning, and that he alone could save England. 
 
 The barrier between Urquhart and the statesmen of his time 
 is due very largely to his unremitting and intense hostiUty 
 to Russia. By his enemies this hostility was sneered at 
 as a form of mono-mania; even by many disposed to sympa- 
 thise with him his poHtics were deemed unsound because 
 he proposed to humble Russia by the exaltation of Turkey. 
 In 1834 Urquhart pubhshed his pamphlet Turkey and 
 Her Resources, showing the military and commercial strength 
 of that country, with its rich lands and free trade; where 
 the hearth was the factory; where every citizen had the 
 right to wear the sword, which he might only wield, how- 
 ever, in the cause of right and justice. The knowledge he 
 had gained of her people and her commerce enabled him 
 to draw up his Commercial Treaty, whose object was to 
 encourage trade between Great Britain and Turkey. Tha- 
 this Commercial Treaty was so altered as to defeat the end 
 he had in view, he was doubtless right in putting down 
 to Russian intrigue, and he pointed out with great clearness 
 to the working classes of England that the dearness of their 
 food was due to Russian astuteness and EngUsh— particu- 
 larly Palmerstonian — complacency.
 
 24 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 This is no place to inquire how far he was right in regard- 
 ing every political move in Europe as due to the machina- 
 tions of the Russian Cabinet. We must remember, how- 
 ever, that not only was the Russian foreign policy of an 
 entirely unbroken uniformity, and her Foreign Ministers, 
 unlike those of the rest of Europe, quite independent of 
 political parties, but that, however we may account for it, 
 within one hundred and fifty years the Russian power had 
 advanced with frightening rapidity. At the time of the 
 Crimean War she was one thousand miles nearer Teheran, 
 seven hundred miles nearer Vienna and Berlin, and five 
 hundred miles nearer Constantinople than she had been 
 at the death of Tsar Peter. ^ Urquhart was not alone in 
 his bitter mistrust of Russia. The Poles looked upon her 
 as their undoing, Turkey was like a fly helpless in her web, 
 and M. Thiers looked forward with dismal prognostications 
 to the time " when the Russian Colossus, with one foot in 
 the Dardanelles and the other in the Sound, will make the 
 whole world his slave and liberty will have fled to America." 
 Urquhart, in the concentration of his mind on Russia, did 
 not, perhaps, lay enough stress on the growing power of 
 Prussia .2 The separation of the Duchies he regarded not 
 so much as a rung, set by Bismarck, in the ladder of Prussia's 
 rise to power, but as the result of Russian machination. 
 
 Mr. Behrens, who helped him in his commercial investi- 
 gations, gives a remarkable instance of Urquhart 's almost 
 supernatural prevision. 
 
 " We wore walking along the Elbe conversing upon the 
 state of England and ]Mr. Urquhart 's then accomplished 
 career in the East. We sat down on an eminence to enjoy 
 the view, and Mr. Urquhart asked me the name of the 
 country spread out before us. I said, ' Holstein.' He 
 exclaimed, with great excitement, 'Is that Holstein?' and 
 interrupting our conversation he remained with his gaze 
 
 ^ Vro(jreHSi of Iluf^sia, West, South, and Eaxi, D. Urqnharf, second 
 Kditioii 1803. It readied live editions. ISir Joim McXeil, wiio knew 
 the East ahnost as well as Urquliart, is even luoie einplifitic about 
 the Riissiiiii menace in his Progress of Russia in the East. 
 
 ' Sec, however, Pi'T/ifoUo, Old Scries, vols. i. and iii., on Prusria's 
 Policy.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 25 
 
 intently fixed upon it. I was surprised, and at last answered, 
 and said to him : ' That is Holstein you see, not Timbuctoo.' 
 He turned upon me and said, ' Yes, Holstein ! and 1 was 
 thinking of the day when that name would ring through 
 Europe !' I was desirous to know what all this meant, 
 and he then told me a great deal about the Oldenburgh 
 Line, the renunciations of Peter, and a number of other 
 antiquated matters, which really did not appear to me as 
 much connected with the nineteenth century as the stories 
 of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. I had for a moment 
 misgivings as to whether or not his head had been turned, 
 and I said to myself : ' How extraordinary that a man should 
 understand as he does commercial matters and the East 
 and England, and yet become wild whenever he can bring 
 in Russia !' But when the insurrection came in the Duchies 
 and then the Mediations, and then the interminable fight- 
 ings about no one knew what, until it came to the Russian 
 Protocols and Reservations, I remembered those words, 
 and often mentioned them; I found it was I, not he, that 
 had been mad. And I came to be considered a prophet at 
 Hamburg by recollecting what he had told me a dozen 
 years before."^ 
 
 His prophecy of the results of the German Zollverein we 
 have seen fulfilled in our day.- 
 
 " At midnight on January 1, 1834," he says, " the barriers 
 between sixteen States were knocked down. . . . Sixteen 
 States are added to the Prussian system and agglomerated 
 around her disjointed and unconnected territory. ... It 
 will make Germany indeed one, but that unity will, Ave 
 fear, be no less disastrous to the j)arts of which it is com- 
 posed than to the general interests of the European com- 
 munity of which it is a member. . . . From the moment 
 that Prussia collects and distributes the revenues she places 
 herself, not in the position of a feudal lord, whose revenue 
 was received from his vassals, but in the position of a 
 proprietor, who distributes the means of subsistence to 
 his agents and dependents. . . . Prussian custom-house 
 collectors, her roads, weights, measures, coins, extended 
 throughout the twenty-five millions, now composing the 
 union, will soon be followed by her laws, by State papers, 
 
 1 Private Letter. 
 
 2 See Article by D. U. in the Briiish and Foreign Review on " Tlie 
 rrustiiii.n Comniorcia,! Loiigue."
 
 26 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 State loans, and finally by conscription, and even at this 
 moment, were the peace of Europe to be disturbed, the 
 Federation would fly to arms at the bidding of Prussia, 
 assemble under her banners, be paid by her from the 
 common treasury, and obey her generals." 
 
 In denouncing the folly of the Crimean War Urquhart 
 foretold that Russia would not suffer from it, but that, 
 whether she lost or won, it would be a step on the down- 
 ward path for Turkey. The Declaration of Paris proved 
 to France in the war of 1870-71 what in 1860 he had said 
 it would prove in the event of a war with Prussia — dire 
 disaster. 
 
 This prophetic power of his Urquhart himself called "the 
 power of being right." There was nothing supernatural or 
 extraordinary about it. It was simply the result of a 
 system. 
 
 " Look at me," he said to his old friend, the Prince of 
 Samos in 1862, "a man without position, with only 
 mediocre talents, beginning with nothing, and yet I am 
 always right. I cannot conceive the circumstances under 
 which I should be wrong. For if an insoluble position 
 arose I should stop. I should do nothing. Yet I tell you 
 there is nothing in all that I have done that any other 
 man might not have done, might not do. I have only 
 hit upon a method — a method of procedure." 
 
 He differed from other men, he would have said, simply in 
 this, his determination to be always right. It was within 
 the power of every man to be right, and therefore his duty. 
 
 He could not, he said, believe in a God unless he could 
 believe that a man had in himself this power of being 
 right. 
 
 A man can be right, therefore he must be right, or he is 
 
 not a man. 
 
 No allowance is made in the Urquhart philosophy for 
 human weakness. The standard he set for himself he set 
 for others also, without distinction of persons, class or 
 sex. Such an evidence of trust and respect accounts in 
 part for the honour and devotion he met with from his 
 friends of every class, princes and worldng men alike, in
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 27 
 
 spite of the harshness, even violence, with which he often 
 treated them.^ His treatment of them was often as in- 
 comprehensible to those who suffered under it as it was 
 to the onlookers. He explained it himself as " the result 
 of his working on men." 
 
 Starting from the axiom that it is within the power, and 
 therefore the duty, of every man to be right, he asks, "Why, 
 then, are they not right ?" " Because," he answers, " their 
 eyes are bhnded by self-love. Men of this corrupt age 
 prefer seeming right to being right. They are furious when 
 they are shown to be wrong; their self-love is hurt." 
 
 Therefore Urquhart's first object was to kill the self-love 
 in those who were possible disciples, and so enable them 
 to see themselves as he had once seen himself. In other 
 words he believed he could effect nothing without a real 
 conversion or new birth. To this end he often, at first, 
 so infuriated men by his scathing and contemptuous lan- 
 guage that they left him, determined to have no more to 
 do with him. But he says that, thinking over his words 
 calmly, they invariably found out that he was right, and 
 if they had sufficient courage and truth in them they re- 
 turned to him and were won. This was the way he won 
 the Chartists; and later on Socialists and Atheists, who 
 came to scoff, were drawn into his net by being shown, as 
 one of them afterwards said, " that they had never been 
 right in their lives." 
 
 This was the first step ; the second was the development 
 of a conscience in public affairs. Man was born part of a 
 community. He could not live to himself. If wrong were 
 done by the State to which he belonged he could not say, 
 " The Government has done this," and think no more 
 about it. 
 
 " You have done it," said Urquhart, " and you will be 
 punished in this world and the next. When national in- 
 justice is done, who suffers ? Each individual in the State 
 
 1 His letters show that he reproved as whole-heartedly and 
 severely his friends, Prince Czartoryski and Prince Frederick of 
 Augustenberg, as he did his working-men disciples ; they show also 
 that he was just as respectful to a working-man as to any Crowned 
 Head of Europe with whom he came in contact.
 
 28 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 sooner or later, and the working-man first of all, for he is 
 bound to his country and cannot get away from it. And 
 yet people go on thinking that they can be right while the 
 nation of which they are a part is wrong. They do this 
 because they hide their responsibility under an abstraction 
 and say, ' The State does this or that,' not ' I and my 
 fellow-countrymen do this or that.' " 
 
 So we come to the third part of Urquhart's system, the 
 cultivation of a right judgment, the first and most important 
 part of which was the right use of words. " Men suppose 
 that their reason has authority over words ; but it happens 
 that words in return exercise power over reason," says 
 Francis Bacon. The way to prevent a fact being under- 
 stood and realised is to clothe it in abstract terms, to 
 enunciate it under a general proposition, to use some term 
 that is so common and yet so loose that it really conveys 
 a false meaning to the minds of people, who think they 
 understand it. Political and philosophical language is full 
 of such terms. Urquhart applied the Socratic method^ to 
 show their emptiness to all who glibly used them, without 
 regard to their meaning or no -meaning. 
 
 The last and most important of all the means of being 
 right was the acquisition of real first-hand knowledge, not 
 someone's opinions, not loose and inaccurate information, 
 but real knowledge. This means hard and self-denying 
 labour. Such labour is everyone's duty, especially in the 
 things that concern the government of his country, which 
 it is the constant concern of all politicians to keep from 
 him, particularly in relation to foreign affairs. 
 
 Such was Urquhart's system. In brief, it amounted to 
 this: a man to be right must first cast aside the self he 
 received from his age, and must set his true self to work 
 at the acquisition of knowledge and self -discipline, striving 
 all the time against allowing himself to be infected by the 
 modern spirit and public opinion; when he was himself 
 instructed he must teach others. 
 
 The pursuance of this method was as painful and uphill 
 for the master as for the disciples. If the treatment meted 
 
 1 For Urquhart's method ol teaching dialectic, see Appendix II.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 29 
 
 out, in their training, to men who were devoting hfe and 
 substance to the great cause seems almost like cruelty, 
 David Urquhart himself spent sleepless nights over their 
 education. But he never flinched in what he conceived 
 to be his duty. " One living soul," he says, " is to me the 
 universe." 
 
 " My striving for your soul," he writes to a lady, whom 
 he had convicted of want of intellectual sincerity, "is to 
 get it clear-sighted and upright. It cannot be the last 
 unless it is the first, for at every second of time, with an 
 active mind such as yours, the slightest flaw in an intel- 
 lectual operation gives a foothold for self-love. My life, 
 alas ! is spent in watching these operations. There is 
 scarcely a friend I have from whom the letter I receive 
 may not be the last. I can retain them only by putting 
 them beyond the reach of error and failure, for in that 
 their selif-love is offended by being told that they may 
 have been wrong. And yet this alone is the condition on 
 which I can hold intercourse with my fellow-creatures." 
 
 This crushing of self-love, " the entire abnegation of 
 self," as he expresses it, was essential for every man among 
 his followers. The little band was leading a forlorn hope. 
 Hitherto their acquaintance with public questions had con- 
 sisted " in floating on the top of a public frenzy aided by 
 an assenting Government." Joined to his company, how- 
 ever, they were " struggling against the stream." " There 
 were no passions to be worked on, only right to be main- 
 tained." No man could put his hand to the plough, not 
 only without a perfect abnegation of every selfish end, but 
 also without entire knowledge of the matter in hand. The 
 aim of the ploughing was nothing less than the casting 
 down of the evil of injustice and pubHc immorality 
 which was enthroned in the world, which found its complete 
 expression in unjust war, and whose most perfect incarna- 
 tion was Russia. 
 
 His followers must not only be, they must know. To that 
 end they must labour, to that end they must study. They 
 must spare themselves no toil or trouble. He who said 
 this practised what he preached. His labour was incessant.
 
 30 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " There is nothing in the whole world," he says, " equal 
 in my eyes to one man being always perfect, always able to 
 convict, always indignant against wrong, whose mind ever 
 occupies the judgment seat, who, in a word, is — judgment. 
 That God created us for this is evident in our being the 
 reverse; for what pushes each into the mire is the desire to 
 appear to be right, that disposition which we familiarly 
 designate among ourselves as self-love. Now this is the 
 sure effect of faihng to be right. Such an aspiration planted 
 in the breast of all (as well as the necessary faculties them- 
 selves) shows that being right is the end for which we were 
 created. Here too lies the evidence of immortality revealed 
 in man himself, the greatest of all revelations." 
 
 " Those only who see are honest. Those only can hope 
 who work. Forget j^ourself. That is the first condition of 
 good greatness and of real enjoyment." 
 
 If Urquhart had been asked to explain his moral point 
 of departure he would doubtless have cited his extensive 
 and sympathetic knowledge of the East. He went to 
 Turkey from Greece, and was at first most unfavourably 
 impressed respecting the character of Eastern countries by 
 the Turkish Government and people. 
 
 It was after six years' work and experience that he felt 
 forced to change his oi)inions. Obviously, though we may 
 pass by for the moment the question of Turkish adminis- 
 tration, he was qualified to form a judgment about Eastern 
 life. It is the moral aspect of that judgment which affects 
 us here. David Urquhart considered he had been convicted 
 by a Mussulman of the crime of murder in unjust war, 
 and that he had learnt from the Mussulmans the first 
 principles, unknown in Europe, of cleanliness, courtesy, 
 self-denial and sincere speech. 
 
 " If I take this musket unblessed by God, then I take 
 it of the devil," said a simple Mussulman soldier, explaining 
 why he and his companions had allowed themselves to be 
 driven out of a redoubt, without firing a shot, by Russian 
 soldiers. War had not been declared by the Fetva, there- 
 fore to fight would have been murder. A Christian might 
 do such a thing, a Mussulman never. Urquhart, whose 
 own hands wore reddened with the blood of men with
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 31 
 
 whom his country was not at war (he had fought against 
 the Turks in the Greek War of Independence), was brought 
 up short against an overwhelming sense of guilt. " I 
 would gladly have given myself up to justice," he says, 
 " had there been a tribunal to deal with such cases." 
 Instead thereof, he gave himself up to a lifelong struggle 
 to re-establish the cause of law and justice between nation 
 and nation. 
 
 This first lesson was followed by others, for it must be 
 remembered that the Turkey he studied was not the Turkey 
 of Constantinople, but the Turkey of the country villages 
 unspoiled by European civilisation. The veil of European 
 convention fell from his eyes. The mist of European 
 language and ideas feU from his mind. He saw that there 
 is something better than so-called progress, and that is 
 " stationariness," when the latter means " the free right 
 to property of every man, and the equaUty of all men 
 before the law." When the status quo is good, man, especi- 
 ally the Eastern, mistrusts all departure from it. Again, 
 if government in the East is despotism, it is frank despotism, 
 not legal tyranny; " men are not exasperated by the con- 
 version into law, through the decisions of an accidental and 
 numerical majority, of opinions they repudiate." It was 
 in the East that Urquhart learnt the effect of manner and 
 words on character. He saw a country where all classes 
 mixed together in closest relationship, without familiarity 
 on the one side, without haughtiness on the other; where 
 the master addressed his servant in terms of respect and 
 affection without fear of loss of dignity, because a common 
 rule of respect and courtesy, unquestioned and irrefragible, 
 governed aU intercourse. Children brought up under that 
 regime were neither cowed nor unruly. They were treated 
 with respect and yielded obedience. He saw social inter- 
 course free from the idle chatter and flippancy of European 
 society, because politeness forbade anyone to speak unless 
 he had something to say, and because it was the height 
 of bad manners to tell anyone what he already knew. He 
 found cleanliness carried to a pitch unknown in Europe, 
 for the bath, as among the Romans, really carried away
 
 32 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 the impurities of the skin, and even the hands must be 
 washed by clean water being poured over them. And, 
 lastly, he saw a state of society where an excuse was the 
 worst of bad form, where a man must either prove himself 
 right or admit himself wrong. In short, as he said towards 
 the end of his life, he found a state of society in which all 
 the ceremonies of the Catholic Church in her most solemn 
 act of worship are part of the daily life of the people: 
 the ablutions, the prayer of the priest^ when censing the 
 Altar, the reverential posture of the ministers, not only 
 towards God, but towards each other, and finally the 
 ceremonial and ancient form of salutation given under the 
 very eye of God made Man. 
 
 David Urquhart's contemporaries found his religious 
 position very difficult to define. Like most other things 
 about him, it seemed to most men a paradox. On the one 
 hand, his code of ethics, at first sight, seems diametrically 
 opposed to that which we are inclined to consider as dis- 
 tinctively Christian. There is hardly anything in it which 
 we can recognise as humility, or dependence on God. The 
 fate of nations, according to it, depends entirely on the 
 conduct of those who compose them. National catastrophes 
 are always the direct result of stupidity or wrong-doing — 
 the wrong-doing of every individual in the nation. Man 
 will profit if he does his task with wisdom, knowledge and 
 diligence. Man will suffer for carelessness, ignorance and 
 folly. Man's first duty is to be right. 
 
 On the other hand, Urquhart says that the only end of 
 his existence is to serve God, which service consists in 
 being just — that is, in having a right judgment in all things. 
 In a letter to an unbeliever he declares : 
 
 " I am daily and hourly engaged in the endeavour to 
 lead the life of a Christian — that is, to be right in all things. 
 That ' all things ' includes the minutest operation of the 
 mind and perception of the senses." 
 
 He maintained that most so-called Christians were not 
 
 Christians. 
 
 ^ Pone Domine custodiam ori meo . . . xit uon declinet cor meum 
 in verba malitise ad excusandas excusationes in peccatis.
 
 WHAT lilANNER OF ]\IAN HE WAS 33 
 
 " To know a Christian," he says, " there is the simplest 
 of rules, which is also a Divine Commandment; it is ' By 
 their fruits ye shall know them.' You must surely know 
 that in this land there are no longer Christians, and with- 
 out Christians how can there be Christianity ? . . . If 
 there were amongst the missionaries a single Christian, he 
 would not be found in China or Hindoostan, but in England, 
 denouncing a race of malefactors and calling them to 
 repentance." 
 
 There can indeed be no doubt of the depth and absolute 
 sincerity of his religious convictions. They are manifest 
 in every action of his life. His religious history is a singular 
 one. Brought up by a clever and original mother,^ whose 
 piety took the form of extreme Evangelicalism, his educa- 
 tion threw him during the most impressionable time of 
 his young life into contact with Catholics in foreign schools. 
 
 No strong impression seems, however, to have been made 
 on him till he came under the influence of Csesar ]\Ialan of 
 Geneva. Under the spell of this famous Calvinistic teacher 
 and his friends, the latent Calvinism Urquhart had inherited 
 from his forbears burst forth in the youth of fifteen. He 
 went about from village to village with Malan's " mission- 
 aries," denouncing the CathoUc reUgion as anti-Christ, 
 setting forth the Gospel, and " desiring nothing so much 
 as to become one of that zealous band, who had given 
 up all to spread the pure word of God in the dark places 
 of the earth " — i.e., in the CathoUc Cantons of Switzerland ! 
 " Constance," he says, "is so much under the curse of 
 God for the burning of John Huss that there is scarcely 
 one Christian known of in the town !" 
 
 But even under this strong Calvinistic influence his 
 natural instinct for right action comes out. 
 
 " How curious is fate," he wrote to his mother in 1820. 
 " We cannot pass, I really beUeve, a thousandth part of a 
 hand-breadth of our chain. Not that I think we are bhndly 
 
 1 Urquhart had been his mother's constant companion from 
 infancy. Left a widow while he was still a young chUd, all her devo- 
 tion was centred upon him. Her great desire was that he should 
 gain a knowledge of men and things before "he went into abstruse 
 studies," which she had observed " hardened the feelings and 
 destroyed the heart."
 
 34 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 to follow without consideration; we must make use of 
 our judgment and do all for the best. That is our part, 
 and things will only be blessed to us in so far as we act 
 after these principles, but still our allotted part will be 
 the unchangeable same. For the determination of the 
 Almighty is unchangeable." 
 
 In order to break the Malan influence Mrs. Urquhart 
 sent David to travel in Spain for six months with a tutor. 
 
 When the lad was close upon sixteen mother and son 
 returned to England. Coming back to his native land 
 must have been a new experience for young David, who 
 had been abroad since his eleventh year. 
 
 We have little means of knowing how his inner self 
 developed amidst the strenuous activities of his early 
 manhood, which extended from engineering work as an 
 operative at Woolwich Arsenal to farming operations. 
 These works were evidently among the recreations of his 
 vacations, for at sixteen he matriculated at St. John's 
 College, Oxford. His career was interrupted by ill-health, 
 which drove him to the South of France before he had 
 completed his course. Instead of returning he embarked 
 for Greece with Lord Cochrane, with whom his half- 
 brother Charles was serving as a Naval Captain. 
 
 At the susceptible age of seventeen he began an intimate 
 friendship with Jeremy Bentham, in whose affections from 
 that time " our David," as he always calls him in writing 
 to his mother, held a high place. That the old Sago appre- 
 ciated fully his unusual mental endowments is evident in 
 a letter answering one of Mrs. Urquhart 's in 1830. " David 
 has for years been better able to judge for himself than 
 anyone at such a distance [he was then in Greece] can judge 
 for him. The advice I submit to you is to leave the matter 
 altogether to himself, accompanied with information of the 
 utmost you are able to do or obtain for him in the way of 
 money." In 1825 he had written a letter of introduction 
 for him, beginning: " The bearer, David Urquhart, though 
 rather too constitutionally born and bred, which he cannot 
 help, poor fellow ! is an intimate and most worthy friend 
 of mine, in whom I have entire confidence." 
 
 Probably close friendship with the old utilitarian de-
 
 WHAT MAJSTNER OF MAN HE WAS 35 
 
 veloped Urquhart's strong sense of the place of law in 
 morality. Perhaps he unconsciously absorbed from him 
 that belief in and dependence upon reason, that scornful 
 contempt for stupidity or loose thought, that characterised 
 him all his life. There was always about him a clear-cut 
 hardness and a secure superiority which recall Bentham 
 and his school. 
 
 His real spiritual awakening Urquhart dates from the 
 rebuke given to him by the Mussulman soldier at a time when, 
 " fortunately," he says, " I was young enough for the 
 sense of shame not to be extinguished, and not having 
 passed through the ordinary routine of education, nor 
 having learnt to sneer at what is different to ourselves, . . . 
 I found for the first time the perception of a human being." 
 It is on the " perception of a human being " that David 
 Urquhart afterwards takes his stand. "It is merely the 
 natural law which makes men men and not beasts, that 
 I ask you to observe," he says. 
 
 Her position as a great lawgiver and disciplinarian 
 attracted him nearly all his hfe to the Catholic Church. 
 But the attraction was on the intellectual side; no allow- 
 ance is made for feeling. 
 
 This probably accounts for the curious sense of aridity 
 with which, in spite of our admiration, Urquhart's life and 
 writings so often inspire us. Even his wife, with her evan- 
 gelical piety, did not dispel it. 
 
 To the end of his life Urquhart remained apparently 
 aloof from human emotion, human passions, human weak- 
 ness; the homely and comfortable things which surround 
 other men's public work had no place in his. The gracious 
 play of feehng, of sympathy, the delicate Ught and shade 
 which make the lives of so many great men like pleasant 
 green hills, down which the streams bubble, on which 
 flocks feed and lambs play, and which shelter in their folds 
 little dwellings, whose blue smoke rises into the blue heavens, 
 seem to have no place in that life of stern austerity and 
 unremitting work. Urquhart stood like a clean-cut rock, 
 alone, inaccessible, unsmiling, unaffected by rain or sun- 
 shine, yet all the while bearing in nooks and crannies 
 flowery treasures for those who knew where to look,
 
 36 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 touching memories, unexpected tendernesses and sensitive 
 affections. Little remarks here and there will show how 
 the really human heart of the man suffered and loved. He 
 and his wife were all in all to each other. "We are most 
 happy," he writes, when nearly at the end of his life, to a 
 friend in England, " and often wonder if there ever lived 
 on earth two persons as happy as we are." 
 
 The people whom he admitted to his friendship had great 
 power to hurt him. He could spend sleepless nights over 
 the sorrows of a working-man friend whom he had not seen 
 for twelve years. 
 
 " Do you think that I am destitute of human feelings," 
 he writes to a friend, "that I could receive a letter with 
 all those suppositions about myself from one to help whom 
 in the discharge of his duty I have been labouring both 
 by night and day, with any other feeUngs than those of 
 great pain and extreme surprise ?" 
 
 As a child he was affectionate and sensitive to an almost 
 inconceivable degree. A story is told that when he was still 
 an infant in his nurse's arms, his father came in hurriedly 
 and went out again without noticing him. The little David 
 burst into a passion of grief which nearly cost him his life. 
 
 Nevertheless, David Urquhart, to most men of his time, 
 stood strange, uncompromising, unadorned, the preacher of 
 righteousness, that comes by the works of the law in an 
 age which preferred to beUeve only in such righteousness 
 as could be had without works. For those were the days 
 when English statesmen could openly avow that Inter- 
 national Law was no concern of theirs; they were the 
 days when capitalists grew rich on the labour of babes, 
 put to work as soon as they could totter, while Pharisees 
 of the school of Hannah Moore were preaching to the poor 
 their duty of submission and respect to their betters. 
 
 The love of International and National Justice was dead. 
 The one had been slowly dying since the Peace of West- 
 phalia, the other had received its death blow when, at the 
 demolition of the monasteries, lands, which had kept many 
 in contentment, were seized to enrich those whom the 
 King delighted to honour. 
 
 And the nations were blindly content with this state of
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 37 
 
 things. To arouse them a seer was wanted. That seer 
 David Urquhart undoubtedly was. But he was the voice 
 of one crjdng in the wilderness. Like Jeremiah he stood 
 and cried aloud to the inhabitants of Europe. He told 
 them of their iniquities, of which they were filHng up the 
 measure. He told them of the woe that would come upon 
 them : nothing short of a universal catastrophe which would 
 involve the whole of Europe. 
 
 And who can say to-day that he was not a true prophet ? 
 "I see as clearly with the eye of the mind as others do 
 with the eye of the body," he said. He belonged by birth 
 to that mysterious race of the Celt which, for whatever 
 reason, possesses psychic sight, from whom reahties are 
 wont to be hidden by the thinnest of veils. In Urquhart 
 even that scarcely existed. The account he gives of his 
 dream hfe shows how abnormally his sub -consciousness was 
 developed. 
 
 " In my dreams," he says in a letter to a friend, " I am 
 a being of a higher order than in my waldng state, for I 
 can not only imagine what is beyond my power to imagine 
 when I am awake, but also can represent those imagined 
 things to the senses as if real. I see the landscape and its 
 colours, I see endless vistas of statues never seen with the 
 waking eyes, and groves of bas-reliefs of the most exquisite 
 beauty. I see the most intricate designs, endless, never the 
 same, and as entirely original in conception as they are 
 perfect in execution. They convey the most exquisite 
 enjoyment, and to that extent, that when my waking eye 
 takes in an object with pleasure, it seems but the faint 
 reflection or memory of what I have enjoyed in sleep. That 
 sleep existence is infinitely more intense than the waldng 
 one. I labour more, I never rest, I see more, understand 
 more, enjoy more, and suffer more. I am the while causing 
 myself to suffer, to enjoy, to understand, and all this in 
 various persons at the same time. I can do things when 
 asleep that I cannot do when awake. I can do that which 
 when awake I can only appreciate. If, then, in another state 
 I can accomplish what I cannot in this, there needs must 
 be a faculty in the mind higher than its own powers of 
 apprehension. It is in me all the time, only latent at 
 some time, and that sometime is our normal state when 
 awake."
 
 38 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 This subconsciousness that worked constantly in his 
 sleep worked unconsciously in his waking hours and made 
 of David Urquhart a mystic. It is easy to recognise in 
 his description of his dream state the mystical tempera- 
 ment. It showed itself in other ways, notably in his extra- 
 ordinary perception of what was in man. In conversation 
 with his friends he would startle them by answering aloud 
 their thought rather than their speech. One very remark- 
 able story is told of his supernatural power of discernment. 
 A great friend was anxious to bring his son to see and be 
 introduced to the great man. The meeting had been 
 arranged with difficulty; Urquhart was in England only 
 for a short time, for the incident took place towards the 
 end of his life, when his permanent home was in Savoy. 
 But the youth must not be deprived of an interview he 
 would remember all his life. When the day came David 
 Urquhart was in a somewhat suffering state, and was lying 
 on the couch in his sitting-room at the hotel. The sofa 
 was in such a position that the person entering could not 
 at once see it, so that when the youth came into the room 
 Urquhart could only see his hand opening the door. But 
 that was enough for him. Quick as lightning he left his 
 couch and darted into his bedroom, whence no persuasions 
 or entreaties of his wife could withdraw him. " No," he 
 said, " I will not see him; I will not be in the same room 
 with that young man. The hand I saw is the hand of a 
 criminal !" Not long after the youth brought himself 
 within reach of the law for forgery . 
 
 Urquhart had that true and delicate perception of evil 
 and strong (almost physical) loathing of it, which we are 
 accustomed to associate with the Saints and mystics of the 
 Catholic Church. Of such we hoar how they faint in the 
 presence of sin ; how they can see into the heart of a sinner ; 
 how the sight of one venial sin is to them torment un- 
 speakable. At first sight Urquhart seems to have little in 
 common with a Catholic Saint. Wo look in vain for the 
 shrinking from notice, the dependence on Divine help, the 
 rapt states of prayer, the patience, meekness and out- 
 ward humility that seem inseparable from the saintly 
 character. But looking more closely there is more likeness
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 39 
 
 than appears at first sight. The unique sign of the saintly 
 life is the crucifixion of self. " I die daily," says St. Paul. 
 To kill self-love was the first step in Urquhart's training of 
 his disciples. The entire abnegation of self was his own 
 ideal. "Be ye therefore perfect," is the standard set 
 before the Saint. " To be a Christian is to be right in all 
 things," said Urquhart. But with him harshness towards 
 himself was not joined with leniency towards others. He 
 exacted from others what he exacted from himself. And 
 there lies the secret both of his power and of his failure, 
 his power with the few, his failure with the many. For it 
 is only the few who are what Professor James calls the 
 twice-born, and one of these was Urquhart himself. He 
 had been born again and washed and made whole ; he never 
 returned to his wallowing in the mire. Having seen, hke 
 the souls of Plato's myth, one of the attributes of God, His 
 eternal righteousness and justice, with the clear vision of 
 the mystic, he could never again take man's counterfeits 
 and call them righteousness and justice. Such to him 
 were always base and evil, even the least noxious of them, 
 and he counted them as sin, and to him there was no such 
 thing as venial sin. Sin was always base and without 
 excuse. 
 
 Had Urquhart had the full vision of the Saint, had he 
 been beaten to the ground as St. Paul was in his journey 
 to Damascus beneath the full rays of the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness, he would have known the gentleness and patience, 
 the almost infinite love and tenderness of the saintly soul. 
 But hidden in a cleft of the rock he had seen but the skirt 
 of God's garment of justice that covers the world and hides 
 as well as reveals Him. Therefore he became a seer and 
 a prophet; he missed being a saint. " I do not understand 
 good," he says, " I only understand evil. I know I must 
 resist sin in myself and evil in others." He saw this with 
 his whole being, and he did it to the death. 
 
 But his idea of evil was very concrete. He would not 
 
 allow that a man should accuse himself of cowardice, or 
 
 avarice, or injustice in the abstract. That conduced to 
 
 false humility and indolence. After all there is a comfort 
 
 in labelling oneself and saying: " Well there it is; that is
 
 40 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 what I am. What else can you expect of me but such 
 things ?" But a man can be guilty of a coward act, of 
 an unjust act, of an avaricious act. It is of these that he 
 has to repent, and the proof of his repentance will be, 
 Urquhart maintained, as in his own case, the impossibihty 
 of committing such an act again. It is so with all the 
 brotherhood of the twice-born, and Urquhart knew no 
 other. 
 
 " He (one of his disciples) said to me that he was cowardly 
 and could not do this. I said to him : ' You are not cowardly, 
 because there is no such thing as courage. It is not a thing 
 — courage: it is merely the character of an act. The act 
 has reference to the means of judging of the thing. If a 
 man understands, he does that which is right to do, and 
 he will therefore neither be courageous, nor will he be timid, 
 and there will be no idea either of bravery or of cowardice. 
 A man must err in act and err in judgment of that act, 
 when he refers to the presence of cowardice for the deficiency 
 of the performance of his duty. Not understanding what 
 you have got to do, if you do less than, with such a know- 
 ledge as you do possess, you might effect; or, not under- 
 standing what you have to do, if you attempt more than 
 you can accomplish you will have erred in both cases. 
 And he who looks to the highest part of his own soul will 
 think of that error. It is only he, who does not go to it 
 but who hangs behind, who will speak of courage or 
 cowardice. Not going to the source, not only will he not 
 correct himself, but he will have his mind carried away 
 from attention to those means by which he would correct 
 himself, which was by better knowledge of the matter 
 upon which he has to act, or a better arrangement of that 
 mind by which he has to judge." 
 
 " To attribute character and tendencies to the mind, and 
 to judge of the capacities of a man by them is," he goes on 
 to say, "as if one found abstract ideas of the ills suffered 
 by a man in sickness and tried thereby to remedy the 
 disease. It is by this fatal habit that disease and decay 
 go unchecked in men and nations, and such decay is, as 
 a rule, only arrested by means of someone simple-minded 
 and uninstructed." 
 
 Here speaks the age-long passion for reality of the twice- 
 born, the getting at the thing which lies behind the ab- 
 stractions which veil it from our crooked minds, the simple
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 41 
 
 and direct vision of one who knows, who remembers what 
 he saw in the heavens. 
 
 In the same conversation Urquhart tells how he had 
 himself once had to write down at the request of a phren- 
 ologist whom, with great reluctance, probably at the urgent 
 request of his mother, he had consulted, what he considered 
 to be his own mental and moral characteristics. He passed 
 in review, he says, various qualifications and various de- 
 ficiencies he thought he might possess, and in every instance 
 that might prove the possession of such a quality or de- 
 ficiency he found that they were all due to knowledge or 
 ignorance of facts, of judgment, or misjudgment. And on 
 the quality of judgment, on which all depended, he could 
 not speak at all, because it was himself, and he could not 
 see it because through that he saw other things. He was 
 therefore reduced to presenting the phrenologist with a 
 sheet of blank paper. 
 
 Self-examination was one of the first things that Urquhart 
 taught his disciples, but it was their acts and omissions 
 they were to examine. They were not allowed to take 
 refuge from them in generahties. The religion of the 
 ordinary rehgious person was, he declared, a mockery, 
 because, instead of binding to his soul the commandments 
 of God and fulfilling them in his public as well as in his 
 private life, he hugged to himself generalities, among them 
 the dangerous heresy that reUgion was an affair of a man's 
 own soul and had nothing to do with politics or public 
 affairs. It was by indulging in generahties that people 
 could thank God for the conclusion of an unjust peace, that 
 wealthy coal-owners could speak at meetings for the aboli- 
 tion of negro slavery, while little girls of four and five were 
 working for more than twelve hours a day as trappers in 
 their mines. 
 
 Anyone can see this now; how many people saw it when 
 Urquhart denounced the Chinese War and declaimed against 
 the social conditions of his day ? 
 
 A most vivid and illuminating description of Urquhart 
 in the full tide of his power and work is contained in a 
 letter by a still living writer. Her husband, a member of 
 one of the great Polish families whose life was spent in
 
 42 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 struggling for the freedom of his people, found in Urquhart 
 a friend ever stanch and faithful to the cause of Poland. 
 
 The letter was written from London in 1862 to a friend 
 in Poland. 
 
 " You have probably heard the name of Urquhart. That 
 man is a phenomenon, and to have met him makes an 
 epoch in one's life. I do not know how to express, for I 
 do not understand myself the impression he has made upon 
 me. I heard a lecture of his on the Law of Nations; he 
 spoke for nearly three hours, and I was sorry when he had 
 done. I think he did not hesitate once or repeat a single 
 time the same thought. He was repeatedly interrupted 
 and drawn into a new current of thought. These thoughts 
 flowed again, and to an unobservant listener it would have 
 seemed he had hardly time to collect or develop them. He 
 followed them up in the same way as if he were ascending 
 a flight of steps, straight before him, not turning right or 
 left, but at each step disclosing new horizons. I said to 
 myself: ' This man is a genius, but strange to say, for all 
 that he is disagreeable.' He has stayed with us three days; 
 it is the third time he has done so since we have been here. 
 He left to-day. However strong is the feeling that I could 
 hate him, I know there are wonderful depths in him and 
 that there is something which God must have put in the 
 heart of man at the beginning of the world, which our 
 civilisation has destroyed and corrupted. He is as learned 
 as a Lexicon; this is a help, but not his principal weapon. 
 His strongest argument is ' justice,' or, rather, ' truth.' 
 He says that all trouble and disquiet in this world originate 
 in the confusions of the notions of right and wrong in every 
 man's mind. That Russia is most to be blamed for this 
 confusion. That formerly people did wrong, but there was 
 a judgment upon them, that now no one has any inde- 
 pendence of judgment. That Russia has corrupted and 
 loosened politics and diplomacy in the whole world, and 
 that, in consequence, anyone who wishes to serve truth is 
 bound to wage war without mercy with her and with all 
 that serves her views, whether consciously or unconsciously. 
 This is why he got acquainted with my husband. He 
 upbraids everyone with being untruthful, and when he 
 begins to convince you of some prevarication or cowardice, 
 or concession to wrong, or turning aside from the right 
 path, such as bowing to the golden calf, or prejudice, etc., 
 etc., without end, willingly or not one enters into one's
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 43 
 
 conscience and looks at it in a new light. And it is im- 
 possible to deny that he is in the right in many, many ways. 
 He told me : ' Vous aviez un fond de caractere (I think he 
 meant honesty) qui etait une force mais qui est de venue, 
 n'etant pas bien dirigee, un embarras, et ce qui vous etait 
 donne comme une force n'est qu'une faiblesse maintenant.' 
 And he speaks in this way to everyone, when he does not 
 say a thousand times stronger things. The shades of right 
 and wrong which are very delicately pencilled in the very 
 depths of one's soul and do not show at the surface ' il 
 vous somme de les faire paraitre.' 
 
 "But it is quite useless my trying to write about him, 
 he is impossible to describe. He goes about like a comet 
 with an immense tail of followers from every possible class 
 of society, who believe in him as in the Gospel. And 
 whoever is not with him is against him. He is called 
 ' madman,' ' charlatan,' I know not what. He is known 
 by everyone, but it is sufficient to name him in society 
 here to be classed as a fool. You are laughed at in 
 the face and asked, ' Oh, you are Urquhartite ? Very 
 well !' But not only is one looked at as a fool, but also as 
 a spy in the camp, for people are afraid of him. He brings 
 to light and shows to the public view all the mean dealings 
 and bribery of the English Ministers. He is ready to work 
 night and day, to sacrifice health and property for the sake 
 of Poland. He will thunder out to you, ' What is Poland 
 to me ? Poland is nothing to me: it is justice that I am 
 seeking and working for.' Someone asked him why he 
 was friends with my husband. ' We are never of the same 
 opinion,' he answered, ' but it is a man who has given up 
 everything that is personal for the sake of what is right, 
 and that is why I am his friend.' That Lord R. who is 
 being sent to Berlin is his pupil, but does not equal his 
 master by far ; he is in love with him, though often disappoint- 
 ing. Mr. Urquhart says of him that for fear of his con- 
 stituents he (Lord R.) dare not speak out or act as his 
 conscience bids, and adds : ' I do not trust him for a moment ; 
 I have had to struggle with his ambition (in office), and 
 now I have to struggle with his cowardice ' ; and that he 
 says not only of him but to him. 
 
 " I do not know why I write all this, but I will have to 
 meet him all along, and I cannot well write when you know 
 nothing of the people we have to deal with. When his 
 course of lectures come out I will send them to you; please 
 read them with attention."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EAST AND THE WEST: URQUHART AT 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 " Still eyes look coldly upon me; 
 Cold voices wliisyiei- and say — 
 He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia, 
 They have stolen liis wits away." 
 
 Waltek be la Mare. 
 
 Urquhart's knowledge of the East, his love for the Turk 
 .andjiatred of the Russian began with the Greek War of 
 Independence. 
 
 After the Treaty of Adrianople,^ though Capodistrias 
 had offered him the command of a civil Province, he spent 
 his time in studying the ancient Municipal Institutions, 
 first in Greece and afterwards in Turkey. During a visit 
 to Constantinople the knowledge of mineralogy which he 
 acquired in vacation excursions from his private tutor at 
 Oxford, Gerald Smith, brought him to the notice of the 
 Sultan. This knowledge which had been to him a form 
 of recreation stood him in good stead, for it introduced him 
 to the Seraglio, and was the beginning of his subsequent 
 and often intimate relationships Avith successive members 
 of the Turkish Government. 
 
 Like M. Le Play, he applied the methods of scientific 
 investigation to the study of the East. 
 
 Returning in 1830 to England through Albania, which 
 had broken out into revolution, he published his observa- 
 tions in a series of articles in the Courier. They attracted 
 the notice of William IV., who had already heard much of 
 this brilliant youth through his private secretary. Sir 
 Herbert Taylor, a lifelong friend of his mother. 
 
 It seemed as though Urquhart's career was made. 
 
 *• See Biographical Sketch in the Conversations Lexicon. 
 
 44
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 45 
 
 In the year 1831 Sir Stratford Canning, Envoy Extra- 
 ordinary to Constantinople, sent the young man, then only 
 twenty-six, on a secret mission to Albania to induce the 
 Grand Vizier, Reschid Mohammed Pasha, to renounce his 
 intention of carrying the power of Albania against Greece, 
 a measure which would probably have resulted in the 
 complete subjugation of that country. Urquhart met 
 Reschid Mohammed at Scodra, and was successful in his 
 enterprise. His mission accomplished, he returned home 
 through Wallachia, Moldavia, Austria and Germany, 
 making observations all the way. He was much struck 
 with the German Customs Union, ^ and seems to have seen 
 at a glance the probable effects on English, indeed on 
 European, commercial interests. More clearly still were 
 his eyes opened to the deliberate hostility of Russia to 
 European development. "With these ideas in his mind he 
 determined to travel through Europe and Asia, and to 
 make far-reaching observations as to the political and com- 
 mercial conditions prevailing in the countries most exposed 
 to Russian influences. 
 
 His plan involved a journey through Prussia and Austria 
 down the Danube to Trebizond, through Persia and Central 
 Asia, and finally through Tartary to China. 
 
 Through his friends at Court, Urquhart succeeded in 
 commending his scheme to the Secretary of the Board of 
 Trade, and was sent out again with a practically free hand 
 to make commercial investigations in Europe and Asia. 
 
 But arriving in Turkey he was struck with the growing 
 hostility of the Sublime Porte to England — due, as he believed 
 he had discovered, largely to Russian machinations. He 
 renounced, therefore, for the present, his plan of proceeding 
 to the Far East and settled down in Turkey, determined to 
 bring about as good an understanding between the Otto- 
 man Empire and his own country as existed between 
 himself and the Sultan. 
 
 To this end he made himself as a Turk. He lived in a 
 Turkish house, surrounded himself with Turks, both as 
 
 ^ He published his impressions on tlie j)robable effect of that 
 TJniou in an article in ths British and Foreign Review, Oct. 1835.
 
 46 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 servants and as friends, became complete master of the 
 language, and rose so high in the esteem of his adopted 
 countrymen that they treated him in all respects as one 
 of themselves, even to giving him the Turkish Temena or 
 salutation, which as a rule they bestow upon none but the 
 sons of the Prophet. 
 
 One result of the long residence in the East was the 
 Turkish Commercial Treaty which he drew up and sub- 
 mitted to both the English and Turkish Governments. 
 
 Diplomatist as he was by choice, he saw in commerce 
 the firmest bond for the union of Peoples, as well as one of 
 the most powerful weapons for world dominion in the 
 hands of an unscrupulous Government. In a close commer- 
 cial union with Turkey there was, he maintained, not only 
 the possibihty of a vast increase of trade with England, but 
 a most effectual means of combating that insidious method 
 of conquest by diplomacy and trade whereby Russia was 
 enlarging her borders and increasing her sphere of influence. 
 
 In 1833 he published Turkey and her Resources, an epoch- 
 making work in the history of the Eastern Question.^ 
 The Conversations Lexicon speaks of it as " one of the 
 most surprising productions in literature," and there is 
 no doubt that the amount of fresh knowledge brought by 
 it within reach of Europeans, and the originality of its 
 conclusions turned the thoughts of many of the thinkers 
 
 1 Urquliart's " Turkey " lias never been approached, far less 
 supcrsedecl. 
 
 Sir AVilliam White, the British Ambassador in Constantinople 
 from 1885 to 1891, Avas wont to say that no one could pretend to 
 know the East who did not know his " Urquhart "; and to this day 
 those who have attained to anything beyond a superficial knowledge 
 of the baffling intricacies of the Eastern Question echo his words. 
 
 Sir AVilliam White's opinion is, from his first-hand knowledge 
 of the East, of great value. Indeed, so far was that knowledge and 
 experience beyond that of any of his contemporaries in the Diplo- 
 matic Service, that, notwithstanding his having been a mere consul, 
 and in spite of his faitli (ho was a Catholic, and there had been no 
 Ambassador of that religion since the Reformation), the Govern- 
 ment could not avoid sending him as Ambassador to Constantinople. 
 
 His policy was to build up the Balkan States as a bulwark against 
 Russia. 
 
 Sir William White lurnished the rare — perhaps, m Constantinople, 
 the unique — example of an Ambassador whose appointment was 
 due solely to his being a skilled and honest diplomatist.
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANriNOPLE 47 
 
 among politicians towards the hitherto much misunder- 
 stood East. The entire falsity of European ideas on the 
 whole Eastern Question was one which Urquhart never 
 ceased to impress on statesmen. 
 
 In 1834 he published his pamphlet England and Russia, 
 which he sent to the Duke of Wellington with a letter^ 
 pointing out that the whole treatment of Turkey had been 
 systematically calculated to throw her, where of herself 
 she never wished to be, into the arms of Russia, that 
 England's neglect had been the opportunity of the Power 
 which made use of any and every means for gaining in- 
 fluence and control. " Her agents," he said, " speak the 
 language, have access to every office, and to the intimacy 
 of the Sultan. Their opportunities are seized for the 
 propagation of opinions which, being reiterated day by day 
 without contradiction, are more or less believed, and are so 
 far accepted as to have introduced into the Government a 
 feeling on foreign politics . . . that no rehance can be 
 placed on her promises, that the power of England is verging 
 to its decline, that Russia is about to upset its dominion 
 in India, that the power and resources of the Russian 
 Government are unlimited, save by the moderation of the 
 Emperor." He pointed out how ready the mass of the 
 Turkish people were to beheve the contrary of " this, to 
 them, afflicting picture." " I have," he says, " been within 
 the last year on the Western and Eastern frontiers of 
 Turkey, and I can bear witness to the universality of the 
 hopes that to my utter amazement I found placed in 
 England by every tribe and in every hamlet." 
 
 Urquhart saw and never tired of saying that Turkey 
 with her teeming soil ought to be England's market. He 
 also saw, and said it to the constant discomfiture of the 
 Enghsh Government and of the Russian merchants, that 
 Russia was working to shut her out of that market. He 
 pointed not only to the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, but to 
 the blockade of the free and independent state of Circassia 
 by Russia and to the newly created provinces of WaUachia 
 and Moldavia which she was trying to get into her net. 
 
 I Foreign Office Papers, 266.
 
 48 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 It was not only Urquhart who was alive to this 
 attitude of Russia. The British Consul at Belgrade wrote 
 in 1838 to Her Majesty's Government that the Russian 
 Agent was insistent in his demands on Prince Milosch of 
 Servia to give no credence to the assurances of any English 
 Agent as regards the settlement of the Servian Question at 
 Constantinople if he wished for Russia's friendship and 
 protection. But Prince Milosch rephed that " he should 
 choose his own friends," and the Consul earnestly impressed 
 on Lord Palmerston that " if Her Majesty's Government 
 should abandon the interests of Servia and expose Prince 
 Milosch to the vengeance which awaits him at the hands 
 of Russia, British influence would cease throughout Euro- 
 pean Turkey, and all future assurances of Her Majesty's 
 Government would be received with suspicion."^ 
 
 It was Urquhart's great anxiety about the establish- 
 ment of right relations between Britain and the East that 
 led him to ask for an official post in the Embassy at Con- 
 stantinople, where he hoped that his friendship with Lord 
 Ponsonby, the Ambassador, on the one hand, and with the 
 Sultan and his ministers on the other, would enable him 
 to attain his object. In 1836, thanks to the offices of the 
 old sailor King, William IV., who had a warm place in his 
 heart for the young officer of his own Service,^ Palmerston 
 found himself obliged, evidently with great reluctance, to 
 appoint Urquhart to the Embassy of Constantinople as 
 Eirst Secretary. Having given him the post he was ex- 
 tremely anxious to get him safely out of London, but 
 Urquhart declined to move until he had obtained certain 
 concessions from the English Government, which would 
 make his work possible and his post not a sinecure. 
 
 These were : an immediate increase in the Navy, a closer 
 connection with France against Russia, the re-establishment 
 of friendly relations between Persia and Turkey, the aboli- 
 tion of the system of Dragomans in Constantinople and 
 the conclusion of three Commercial Treaties, one between 
 England and Turkey, which was, as it seemed, practically 
 
 1 Foreign Office Papers, 266, Oct. 10, 1838. 
 
 ^ Urquhart had a Lieutenant's Comiuissiou under Lord Cochrane.
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 49 
 
 settled; another between England and Persia, to place a 
 limit on Russian influence in the East, and another between 
 England and Austria, which was practically a defensive 
 alliance against Russia in the West. 
 
 Of these points, two, the increase of the Navy and the 
 Commercial Treaty with Turkey, were conceded without diffi- 
 culty. The Navy increase took place almost at once, thanks 
 to the support of William IV. Of the other points none 
 was refused; the question of the Dragomans, which seemed to 
 Urquhart most important, for he declared the English Drago- 
 man was brother to the Russian, was promised careful con- 
 sideration, as were also the Treaties with Persia and Austria. 
 
 It seemed as though anything was possible to a young 
 man who could so obtain the confidence of two Govern- 
 ments before he was thirty, and Urquhart departed to his 
 post at Constantinople full of hope. 
 
 Never was there a more disastrous ending to an under- 
 taking which promised so well. 
 
 Urquhart 's short diplomatic career was a conspicuous 
 failure. That the failure was in some measure attributable 
 to himself there is little doubt. He had obviously no idea 
 that it was part of his duty to fulfil the conventional func- 
 tions of a Secretary of Embassy. Instead of sedulously 
 attending ambassadorial functions, attired as a Secretary of 
 Embassy should be attired, and ready to enliven them with 
 the brilliant conversation in which he was a past master, he 
 retired with a friend to a cottage near the Embassy, where 
 he spent his time in conversing with Turks, in study and in 
 writing. Only four times in two months did he appear at 
 the Ambassador's dinner-table. " The English mission " 
 was singularly and collectively shocked at finding one of its 
 official representatives adopting Turkish dress and Turkish 
 habits, and eating Turkish food in the Turkish manner. 
 
 What a blow to the English j)restige in Constantinople ! 
 
 What an unpardonable lowering of the flag of English 
 superiority in the face of the Heathen !^ 
 
 1 See Foreign Office Papers, 309, 78. Memorandum by Mr. Frazer, 
 on the differences between Lord Ponsonby and Mr. Urquhart, July 
 27, 1837.
 
 50 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Far more serious, however, than the social stigma which 
 he brought upon himself was the attitude which Lord 
 Ponsonby adopted towards the young diplomatist with 
 whom he had previously been on the most friendly and 
 even affectionate terms. ^ When Urquhart arrived in 
 
 1 The correspondence found among Urquhart's private letters 
 between liimselt and Lord Ponsonby, during his visit to England 
 in 1835-36, is like the correspondence between an affectionate and 
 intimate lather and son. 
 
 The following account of his position in Turkey, however, from 
 a MSS. Life found among his papers, is enough to show that even 
 if it is here exaggerated, his position as a Secretary to Embassy 
 was quite incompatible with it. 
 
 The writer was a barrister, a friend of Urquhart's, and the account 
 is a conversation that he had with a Greek commercial agent, who 
 had known Urquhart dmmg his sojourn in Turkey. 
 
 " Mr. Lovi (the Agent): 'The first thing he did was to adopt the 
 dress and customs as near as possible, and, knowing the customs so 
 perfectly, he u?ed to go into Turkish houses, and was received the 
 same as 'a Turk, taking care never to infringe upon the Turkish 
 customs, that is to say, always leaving the shoes at the door, and 
 other things of that kind. . . . The consequence was that he was 
 courted by all the great men ; so much so that even the Pashas would 
 come and beg him to introduce them to one another ! . . . He 
 gained so much ground, that a general order was given in all the 
 forts and fortresses that whenever he came a guard was turned out, 
 and he was received as if he had been a Field -Marshal. . . . Lord 
 and Lady Ponsonby dined with Mr. Urquhart to see the Turkish 
 
 mode of living.' ■, , . , ^ ^ 
 
 " 3Ir. Westmacott: ' In fact. Lord Ponsonby gamed his knowledge 
 of the East, and of Turkish manners, from what he observed in Mr. 
 Urquhart's house V , t, 
 
 "Mr. Lovi: 'Exactly. . . . There is a kind of officer sent by the 
 Government to see that there is no riot. He was stationed in the 
 Hall of the Palace. When the Ambassador would pass through he 
 would take no notice, but if Mr. Urquhart came he jumped up ni a 
 moment; and this because a Turk holds himself superior to any 
 Frank. The lowest Turk will never get up to receive any Frank. 
 Mr. Urquhart was always received as one of themselves, and with 
 even a great deal more respect. ... On Mr. Urquhart's departure 
 after a visit to Mustapha Pasha, he turned out his body-guard and 
 lined the streets down to Mr. Urquhart's house. He could not 
 have done more if it had been the Sultan. . . . The Ministers were 
 always very much afraid that the Russians would get to know that 
 he (Mr. Urquhart) communicated with them — I know that Achmet 
 Pasha used to send his boat generally at midnight for him to avoid 
 observation. . . . "When he went away to England the impression 
 was that he was coming back as Ambassador; that Lord Ponsonby 
 intended to resign and that Mr. Urquhart was to take his place. 
 They look to him as the regenerator of Turktey up to the present 
 
 dav.'' " . , ^ 
 
 "With such a position as this at his feet in Turkey, with the con.
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 51 
 
 Constantinople in July, 1836, as Secretary, it was to find 
 his relations with the Ambassador suddenly and entirely 
 changed : the archives of the Embassy were closed to him, 
 his work was thwarted, and his person treated with con- 
 tempt, contempt that increased with the lapse of time, 
 until at last Lord Ponsonby refused to acknowledge his 
 official existence or to communicate with him except 
 through the Dragoman Pisani. No greater insult cou'd 
 have been put upon him, for Urquhart had always pro- 
 tested against the presence of the Dragomans at the Em- 
 bassy, and had refused to employ them as intermediaries. 
 He felt this treatment so acutely that his health suffered, 
 and the only way in which he could endure it was to with- 
 draw himself to a Turkish village and there carry on that 
 intercourse with the Turks which he had found impossible 
 in Constantinople. 
 
 Meanwhile the estrangement between the Ambassador 
 and the First Secretary was common talk. 
 
 Urquhart himself in after years refused to beUeve that 
 Lord Ponsonby was really responsible for his incompre- 
 hensible behaviour.^ He attributed it to the deliberate 
 
 fideuce of the King in Eugiaud, with liis great knowledge oi: the 
 possibilities and resources of the East, and his full couvictiou of what 
 we are just beginning to discover, the rottenness of the so-called 
 civilisation of the West, what a martyrdom must Urquhart have 
 suffered, when at 30 years old the gate to the way of usefulness both 
 to Turkey and his own country was suddenly shut upon him by 
 the suspicion and disUke of one man, and he was bidden, so far as the 
 Government service was concerned, to eat out his heart in silence 
 and inaction ! 
 
 ^ Mrs.Urquhart, in a letter written shortly before Lord Ponsonby's 
 death, in 1855, give? a very touching account of the resumption of 
 their relations. " Yesterday," she says, " we went to Brighton by 
 appointment to call on Lord and Lady Ponsonby. He was the 
 Ambassador at Constantinople under whom David served when he 
 was Secretary of Embassy there. Since then, the year 1837, they 
 have never met. You have heard of David's being recalled at that 
 time. Some months ago Lord Ponsonby said with much emotion 
 in the presence of two or three friends of D.'s: 'He is the most 
 generous of men. I ruined him and he has never spoken a word 
 against me.' At the same time he bore testimony to his accurate 
 judgment and his wonderful power of action. 
 
 " But now I have heard with my own ears what he thinks of my 
 husband. He has been very ill, and he said something to me of his 
 invalid state. I replied that we never wanted him so much as now. 
 On which he turned to David, and said, ' There is the man. He has
 
 52 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 misrepresentations made to the Ambassador by Lord 
 Palmerston, who was afraid of Urquhart's anti-Russian 
 pohcy, and had adopted the plan of making him harmless 
 by blighting at once and for ever his diplomatic career 
 in lieu of the more direct means which he would have 
 adopted had it not been for the King's affection for the 
 young diplomatist. 
 
 At the same time it must be admitted that Urquhart at 
 larc^e amongst the conflicting interests and inflammable 
 materials of Constantinople was " hke a fire-ship let loose 
 in the Bosphorus." With his versatile genius, his extra- 
 ordinary knowledge, his private friendship for the Sultan, 
 his great influence in the Turkish Government, he stood 
 forth the most conspicuous figure in Constantinople. It 
 began to be whispered abroad that he had come out en- 
 trusted with special powers from the English Government, 
 which were to supersede those of ordinary diploma,tists. 
 Everyone knew that he was responsible for the Commercial 
 Treaty, from which such great things were hoped, and he 
 was respected accordingly. It was of no avail that he 
 withdrew into obscurity during the first weeks of his return 
 to Constantinople, and ran the risk of offending many of 
 his most influential Turkish friends by refusing to see them. 
 " Daoud Bey " was in everyone's eyes, and his name on 
 
 beeu at work since the beginning, and lias been always right. He 
 has never failed to point out both the wrong done and what ought 
 to have been done.' More than once he returned to the subject, 
 and expressed the most complete concurrence with him. He can 
 think of nothing but the state of the country, which he believes to 
 be desperate. He said he had too good reason to know that the upper 
 classes are fearfully worthless, and believes that the only hope of 
 safety is in some one man being found fit to rescue the State as 
 Dictator. 
 
 " But what we were able to tell him of the work going on m the 
 North gave him new conceptions of what might stUl be done. 
 
 " I am sure he lay down easier in his bed that night, not only 
 from the evident gratification of seeing David, but also from what 
 we told him. He is a magnificent old man, just 84 he told me. I 
 have never been in the presence of any one like him. I fear he does 
 not leave one like him behind. There is no trace in others of such 
 scorn and disgust for wickedness or wrong, or that same feeling for 
 his country that a man has for what is most dear to him. 
 
 " David and he will henceforth take counsel together for England, 
 as of old they did for Turkey."
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 53 
 
 everyone's lips, and doubtless the Ambassador heard from 
 all quarters what great things he was to do. He would 
 not have been human had such a state of things been pleasing 
 to him. Matters were not improved by indiscretions of 
 one of Urquhart's friends who, in letters to EngUsh papers, 
 combined strictures on the effete methods of the Embassy 
 with admiration for Urquhart's knowledge and talents. 
 
 Moreover, it must be admitted that neither then nor at 
 any other time of his life did Urquhart shine in a subordi- 
 nate position. Before he went out to Constantinople he 
 wrote with all the air of a plenipotentiary to Backhouse, 
 the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs: "I 
 saw the Turkish Ambassador in Paris, and conferred with 
 him on the possibility of obtaining Firmans from the Porte 
 for the passage of an English line of battleship through 
 the Dardanelles." Backhouse was left gasping, and Lord 
 Palmerston sent the following very justifiable snub: "Mr. 
 Urquhart must learn to submit himself to the discipline of 
 the Service to which he belongs. A private person may 
 act on his own impulse, but a Commissioned Officer must 
 wait till he is told to act. . . . This is a very important 
 point, and unless Mr. Urquhart fully comprehends this 
 principle of duty, and is prepared to attend to it, I should 
 think it highly inconvenient for the Public Service that he 
 should go to Constantinople. For the reason above stated 
 I must desire that Mr. Urquhart be apprised that I highly 
 disapprove of his having held communication upon Public 
 Matters with the Turkish Ambassador at Paris without 
 having been instructed or authorised by me to do so."^ 
 
 Mr. Urquhart took the rebuke in a proper and submissive 
 spirit. It is, however, scarcely Ukely that this was the only 
 occasion on which he exceeded the very Umited powers of 
 a Secretary of Embassy. It is as easy to imagine Pegasus 
 meekly submitting to be harnessed to the carriage which 
 took the Ambassador for his daily airing as David Urquhart 
 patiently trotting along in the appointed routine of a 
 Secretary of Embassy in early Victorian days. 
 
 It is not, therefore, surprising that his diplomatic career 
 
 1 Forciga Office Papers, 307.
 
 54 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 came to an untimely end, under circumstances which pre- 
 cluded any hopes of its resumption. In March, 1837, he 
 was recalled and his papers cancelled. Lord Palmerston 
 refusing to give any reason beyond that of his open dis- 
 agreement with the Ambassador. There is, however, one 
 circumstance in particular that serves to confirm Urquhart's 
 idea that his removal was due to Russian influence in the 
 English Cabinet, and that is, the confiscation by a Russian 
 warship of the merchant ship Vixen, sent through his agency 
 to the coast of Circassia, and the acquiescence by Lord 
 Palmerston in Russia's refusal to pay any compensation to 
 her owners. 
 
 The story of David Urquhart's deahngs with Circassia is 
 one of the most romantic episodes in his life. He was the 
 first Englishman to land on her shores, and on his visit he 
 went there quite alone. The beauty and splendid physique 
 of those mountain tribes, living a simple, primitive life, 
 rich in noble tradition and in rare and fine craftsmanship, 
 impressed him, no less than his intellect, the fire of his 
 energy and his unique and fascinating personality attracted 
 them. They begged him to become their chief and to lead 
 them, in council as in war, against the Russians, who, by 
 wile and cruelty were depopulating their country and 
 stealing their territory. He refused, thinking to serve them 
 better in his own country, and even though he failed in his 
 aim, the Circassians never lost faith in him. Twenty years 
 later, in the supreme hour of their country's last agony, 
 they sent three of their chiefs to England, hoping still in 
 the power and influence of " Daoud Bey " and the great 
 nation in which they still believed because it was his. 
 
 All Urquhart's chivalry was engaged on behalf of these 
 patriarchal tribes of the Caucasus, who, possessing a country 
 but the size of Scotland, had yet successfully resisted the 
 " million bayonets " which Russia declared Providence had 
 entrusted to her. " Russia," said Urquhart, " has never 
 been able to conquer the Circassians of the Black Sea. 
 Still in sight of the Russian fishers of Anapa peasant girls 
 tend their flocks, and warriors meet in the open air in 
 solemn deliberation. No title could be obtained by con-
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 55 
 
 quest. No other State had ever possessed Circassia. Cir- 
 cassia, therefore, could never be obtained by cession. The 
 device hit upon in this difficulty was simple. Russia ceded 
 Circassia, which she did not possess, to Turkey, in order 
 that a few years later she might compel Turkey, which in 
 like manner did not possess it, to cede it to Russia." 
 
 This cession took place under the Treaty of Adrianople. 
 Russia henceforth set to work to subdue the Caucasus, 
 which was an effectual bar to her progress in the East. In 
 1831 she instituted what was practically a blockade of the 
 Circassian coast, under pretext of plague quarantine, pro- 
 hibiting trade with any place, except two stations where 
 she had custom-houses. 
 
 Such was the position when Urquhart visited Circassia 
 in 1834. His indignation was aroused at the injustice done 
 to this small nation, while England, the defender of the 
 oppressed, looked on unmoved. Lord Ponsonby was entirely 
 in sympathy with him. " Your visit has been the occasion 
 of great emotions," he wrote in September, 1834. "I 
 think it is important that the Government should be put 
 in ample possession of the poHtical state of the Circassian 
 nations without any delay. Will you draw up a memoir 
 on the subject ? I will send it in a despatch. It is right 
 that you should receive the credit due to the exposition of 
 the facts, which have been hitherto only generally and 
 superficially known. ... If we do not take care, Russia 
 will possess the Caucasus and all the power which that 
 possession will give her over Turkey and Persia." 
 
 In November, 1834, the Ambassador wrote to Lord 
 Palmerston : 
 
 Lord Ponsonby to Lord Palmerston re Circassia and 
 Mr. David Urquhart. 
 
 Therapia, 
 
 Nov. 24, 1834. 
 
 My dear Palmerston, 
 
 I have a few words to say in reply to your letter of 
 the 10th, wherein you express some alarm respecting 
 Urquhart's conduct towards the Circassians. It is evident 
 to me that you have not attended to the facts, and I feel 
 confident you will be quite at your ease when you have
 
 56 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 examined them. . . . The Circassians could not be excited 
 to revolt, because they were at the time, and had long been, 
 in arms against Russia, and had just defeated the Russian 
 corps. There are 4 or 6 milUons of people determined 
 not to be transferred like herds of swine to the Russians, 
 but resolved to assert their rights and liberty. I do not 
 know the Englishman alive who would not, when asked, 
 have given advice to such people how to act to render 
 legitimate their virtuous, noble, and just resistance to a 
 yoke which Russia has no right to impose upon them. 
 
 Urquhart counselled those who sought counsel from him 
 to assert their right to independence by the declaration 
 that they were not the subjects of Russia, had never been 
 so, and would not be so. All of which was comprised in 
 the declaration of their national independence, and which, 
 if maintained de facto, would be esteemed by many (the 
 Americans to wit) as sufficient ground for our acknowledg- 
 ment, which in the case of South America was by ourselves 
 held to be sufficient ground for treating with that country, 
 and which, in the older case of North America, authorised 
 France to acknowledge that country. Urquhart is not a 
 diplomatic agent of His Majesty's Government. ^ He has 
 no character whatever as a public servant. He, I believe, 
 has been employed merely to collect what may be called 
 statistical information. His words nor his acts could not 
 implicate Her Majesty's Government, and lastly, it is wholly 
 a secret to everybody that he is employed at all by the 
 British Government. 
 
 Now, in addition to the above, I have to add that I learned 
 from Capt. Lyon, who accompanied Mr. U., that so far 
 from urging on the Circassians to encounter risks, he said 
 the strongest things possible when replying to their ques- 
 tions, to persuade them to act with caution and the most 
 careful attention to consequences dangerous to themselves 
 from their isolated and destitute situation, and the hope- 
 lessness and improbability of their receiving aid from any 
 foreign Power. 
 
 I have said this much in part from a feeling of what is 
 just, in part from a feeling generated in my bosom by the 
 thing itself. 
 
 I leave to Urquhart the proofs of the facts. 
 
 Believe me, 
 (Signed) Po^soisBY.- 
 
 » lie w.ts «»n ii sccriit coauiicioial misjiiou tour. 
 3 Foreign Office Papers, 266.
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 57 
 
 David Urquhart's championship of Circassia was, how- 
 ever, by no means favourably regarded at home, and the 
 Ambassador received letters requiring the removal from 
 Constantinople of the " gentleman who had visited Cir- 
 cassia," because he was " endangering the peace of Europe." 
 " What can I say," wrote Lord Ponsonby to Urquhart, 
 referring to these letters, " but that curs will bark and 
 rogues lie and fools believe, and time show the cowardice 
 of the one, the falsehood of the other, and vary the folly 
 of the last." 
 
 Since Urquhart had a friend at home in the person of 
 WilHam IV. as well as one at that time in Constantinople 
 in the person of the Ambassador, it was two years before 
 his enemies could get rid of the man who was " endanger- 
 ing the peace of Europe." They, however, succeeded in 
 preventing any action by England in defence of Circassia. 
 The coast of Circassia continued to be blockaded by Russia 
 and all trade with her stopped. 
 
 Urquhart adopted another plan. In 1836, in order to 
 assert the commercial right of England to trade with 
 Circassia, he induced his friends the Bells, a firm of English 
 merchants with a commercial house in Constantinople, to 
 fit out a small ship laden with salt for a voyage to the 
 Circassian coast. The vessel reached its destination and 
 was for two days in trade with the inhabitants, when a 
 Russian warship entered the harbour and seized her on 
 the pretext of a breach of blockade. Redress was de- 
 manded by the owners from the British Government, and 
 Lord Palmerston entered into correspondence with the 
 Russian Government, who, in a high-handed manner, 
 justified her action on the ground, not of blockade, but 
 that the port where the vessel lay was Russian territory. 
 This was absolutely no justification, because if it had 
 been so, which it was not, there was a Commercial Treaty 
 between England and Russia, and England had a right to 
 trade with Russian ports. But Lord Palmerston, who had 
 purposely postponed the whole matter till the Session of 
 Parliament was at an end, pretended to accept it; the 
 owners of the Vixen received no compensation for their
 
 58 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 loss, and were ruined in consequence. William IV. was 
 now dead, and Urquhart was at the mercy of Palmerston, 
 who made this affair one of the causes of complaint against 
 him when pressed hard for reasons for his dismissal, and 
 refused to allow him any opportunity to justify his action. 
 When the question was brought by Sir Stratford Canning 
 before the House, Palmerston refused to read the letter 
 which Urquhart had written to him in his defence, saying 
 it was a lengthy tissue of mis-statements and misrepresenta- 
 tions, which he had not had the time to answer, and indeed 
 had not properly read.^ 
 
 So ended Urquhart 's short and stormy diplomatic career. 
 He had flashed like a meteor through the Foreign Office, 
 seriously disturbing its peace, and no doubt the officials, 
 permanent or otherwise, sighed with rehef when he had 
 gone. 
 
 Successive Governments, however, discovered to their cost 
 that Urquhart at large was a more disturbing element than 
 Urquhart bound by the slight trammels of the Diplomatic 
 Service. In July, 1838, the Turkish Treaty came out. 
 
 " This treaty," says Mr. Urquhart in a letter to The 
 Times, " was originally a suggestion of my own to the 
 Turkish Government. Adopted by it, it was in the first 
 instance rejected by the English Government, and after 
 a year of truly laborious efforts it was finally admitted. 
 The object of the treaty was so to lower the export and 
 import tariff on Turkish goods, particularly those in which 
 she came into competition with Russia, as to increase 
 considerably Turkey's trade and cheapen England's com- 
 modities, notably corn and oil and raw silk. In the original 
 draft the duty was three per cent, on both exports and 
 imports, and transport duty and harbour duty were not 
 to raise it above five per cent." 
 
 When the treaty finally came out, however, though 
 Palmerston maintained that it was the same which Urquhart 
 had drafted, a few adroit additions had so altered it as to 
 destroy any possibility of Turkey's being able to compete 
 
 1 See Parliamentary Papers relating to the seizure and confisca- 
 tion of the Vixen by the Russian Government, presented to both 
 Houses of Parliament, 1837.
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANriNOPLE 59 
 
 with Russia in trade with Britain. British commerce was, 
 in fact, charged with an additional duty of two per cent, 
 import and nine per cent, export, an aggregate duty nomi- 
 nally of eleven per cent., which was in reality augmented 
 to seventeen per cent, above the rate paid by Russian 
 commerce, and Britain was excluded from equality of rights 
 with Russia.^ 
 
 1 Treaty of Commerce with Turkey, 1838. 
 The following account of the negotiation of the Treaty of Conuuerce 
 recently concluded with Turkey is given by " a Levant Merchant," 
 in a letter to the editor of The Times, who acknowledges the respecta- 
 bility and extensive knowledge of the writer: In 1834, Mr. Urqu- 
 hart, being then in Constantinople, was called upon by one of the 
 ministers of the Sultan to give his advice upon a question of uiternal 
 administration connected with the duties on import and export 
 commerce, on which occasion he suggested to the Tiu'kish Govern- 
 ment that they should propose to (xreat Britain a new treaty of 
 commerce, based upon precisely those principles which are contained 
 in the one lately signed. Obstacles were at first raised, but after 
 much discussion, his views prevailed, and he was requested to be 
 the mediator between the two Governments for the negotiation of 
 the matter. He consulted various British merchants in Constan- 
 tinople on the subject, in order to hear their opinions, but, so far 
 from viewing it as they now do, their perceptions were so darkened 
 by prejudice'in favour of the old system of things, and fear, perhaps, 
 lest any change might render commerce more easy for new-comers, 
 that, with hardly an exception, they condemned the project as 
 dangerous, impossible and absurd. However, strong m his own 
 convictions, Mr. Urquhart came to London, followed by a Turkish 
 Ambassador, who was to support his project, and whom I then often 
 heard express his coincidence in Mr. Urquhart's views. Overtures 
 were made to the Foreign Office, but for a long time total apathy 
 and apparent or pretended ignorance of the value of the proposition 
 closed the door to all progress, until in the autumn and winter of 
 1835 the matter began to be attended to, entirely through the 
 influence of his late Majesty, who saw the true value of Mr. Urquhart s 
 views with regard to Turkey, and commanded that they should be 
 carefully discussed. Mr. Urquhart was appointed Secretary of 
 Embassy at Constantinople; the question of the treaty was regularly 
 brought before the members of the Cabinet, and was the subject of 
 discussion for several weeks. Lord Palmerston showed little dispo- 
 sition to adopt the new and remarkable views of one whom he con- 
 sidered a junior and a novice in diplomacy, and he handed the matter 
 over to the President of the Board of Trade for examination. He 
 at first declared, verbally and in writing, that the scheme was the 
 production of a master mind, but by and by light broke in upon him, 
 as he saw that if it was carried out in the manner that was projected, 
 his family interests in the Baltic trade must be irretrievably damaged 
 by Turkey being elevated to the position of a competitor m the supply 
 of those articles which Russia alone furnishes to this country, for I 
 well remember remarking, while in conversation with him at that
 
 60 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Urquhart was not slow to point out the difference between 
 the original treaty and this one finally produced. He 
 
 time, the bias of Ms observations on this subject. Being among the 
 number of those Levant merchants whose opinions were asked, 
 and differing, as I did, from others who desu'ed the continuance 
 of the monopolies in Turkish commerce, I saw much of the minis- 
 terial manoeuvres, which tor a time prevailed. Lord Palmerston 
 and Mr. Poulett Thomson then spoke of Mr. Urquhart's treaty 
 and opinions as mere Utopian chimeras, and the subordinate officers, 
 w]io had become their advocates from conviction, received hints 
 to keep quiet. At length our late noble-minded Monarch, having 
 heard of what was going on, and despising the paltry chicanery 
 which he saw was standing opposed to the advancement of the true 
 interests of his people, took one of those noble stands which he knew 
 so properly how to assume when duty called upon him, and I dare 
 the Government scribes to deny (what I knew at that time through 
 the medium of more than one inmate of the Palace) that the option 
 given to Lord Palmerston and Mr. Poulett Thomson was the adop- 
 tion of the present much-lauded treaty or their dismissal from office, 
 and that matters hung in the balance, those ministers being more 
 out of than in office for two or three days on this very account. 
 But place and pension were dear things to part with; the affront 
 was pocketed, revenge was set aside for another day, and the treaty 
 was adopted in the spring of 1836. All things then went on ap- 
 parently very smoothly, although I must say that, knowing all I 
 did of the preceding events, I had many suspicions as to the future 
 conduct of these men in this matter. They soon after embarked 
 Lord Ponsonby in their boat, evidently by showing him that if the 
 treaty (having been projected by Mr. Urquhart) were concluded 
 with the Turkish Government while he was at Constantinople, the 
 credit would be given to him (Mr. Urquhart), and j)ro ianto not to 
 las lordsliip. A misunderstanding between his lordship and Mr. 
 Urquhart (who had, as I know, been for long previously on terms of 
 the most intimate friendship with him) was raised and fostered. 
 Lord Ponsonby then expressed his opinion openly in Constantinople 
 that the draught of the treaty sent from London was a piece of 
 monstrous absurdity which never could be carried into effect, and he 
 accordingly set to work to prevent its being even proposed to the 
 Turkish Government. The extraordinary correspondence published 
 in your paper some months ago disclosed this and other disgraceful 
 proceedings, for it is evident that Mr. Urquliart was sent to Constan- 
 tinople wif h tlie predetermination of the Foreign Secretary to destroy 
 his cliar;i,cter in public lite by leading hini on to encourage the voyage 
 of the Vixen, which in due season was to be disavowed, as contrary 
 to the wish of his superiors, and by placing him in apparent opposition 
 to his chief. When these disclosures came before the public, the 
 existence of the treaty as a measure in abeyance became known; 
 its conclusion was, of course, looked for with some expectation by 
 mercantile men; but all the influence with the Porte which was 
 rcjpiisito for that ]»urposo was by that time absorbed by Russia, 
 until at last llcdschid P;isha (the most able Turkish minister that 
 his filled the oftice of Reis Effcndi for many years), aware of the 
 deep importance of the treaty as a measure of salvation for his
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 01 
 
 published the two in parallel columns, and so evident to the 
 commercial world was the superiority of the original draft, 
 that he gained the confidence of many important men of 
 the mercantile class who had already been attracted to 
 him by his books and pamphlets and by the articles which 
 for six months continuously he had contributed to The 
 Times, showing an amazing grasp of wide-reaching com- 
 mercial questions and a most original way of dealing with 
 them. Through George Bell, of Vixen renown, he got a 
 hearing at Glasgow, and was invited by the merchants to 
 a large public dinner. His after-dinner speech, which lasted 
 two hours, finished the work. " Henceforth," says one of 
 his friends, " he may pursue as an amusement the career 
 of gaining towns, which I presume to be no less interesting 
 than instructive an occupation, and will come to tell power- 
 fully on our national position." 
 
 Glasgow having fallen, the next town to be taken was 
 Newcastle. Hull, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Bir- 
 mingham followed in quick succession. Everywhere Urqu- 
 hart struck a new note — that international justice and 
 commercial prosperity must go together.^ 
 
 "Why," said he, "are half the markets which were 
 oj)en to British trade now closed ? Because we, the cham- 
 pion of the oppressed, have allowed injustice to be done 
 and cared naught. We had an open market in Poland. 
 Our goods are now taxed sixty per cent, because, by our 
 supine and criminal disregard of the Law of Nations, we 
 have allowed her to be crushed out of existence. We have 
 cut ourselves off from free commerce with Turkey by 
 sacrificing her to Russia's aggression. We have almost 
 
 country, obtaiued the consent of the Sultan to adopt it, through 
 despite of the opposition of the interim, Russian minister, Baron 
 Ruckman, and of the apathy of Lord Ponsonby, who had repeatedly 
 declared that it would not and could not be adopted by the Turkish 
 Government, and therefore left it neglected. 
 
 ^ The connection between Commerce and International relations 
 is a familiar one in these days. It was new to the world when Urqu- 
 hart insisted upon it. 
 
 In September, 1853, he published in the Morning Herald an article 
 on " Diplomacy injurious to Trade," in which he gave a table showing 
 the approximate loss to England in cash alone, not to speak of credit 
 and influence, by her neglect of such treaties.
 
 62 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 ruined our leather trade by allowing the blockade of Mexico 
 by France in time of peace, an infraction of maritime law 
 which we, the British Nation, who are the guardians of 
 the Freedom of the Seas, should have maintained at all 
 costs." 
 
 " The power of England," he said in his Glasgow speech, 
 " does not reside in her bayonets, and is not shadowed by 
 her pennants; it resides in the confidence which men have 
 placed in her firmness and integrity. Her supremacy can 
 only be endangered by the conquests of independent States, 
 and aggression but rallies strength around her as the de- 
 fender of endangered nationalities. When she proclaims 
 herself the lover of peace at the expense of honour, when 
 she asserts herself the friend of the powerful and the ally 
 of the aggressor, she ceases to have a situation among 
 mankind, not because her fleets are disarmed, but because 
 her character has sunk. 
 
 '*'My idea of the power of England has not been derived 
 from the inspection of her dockyards, or of any of her 
 barracks, but from the veneration with which her name 
 is pronounced on the Atlas, on the glaciers of the Alps, 
 on the heights of Pindus, and in the vales of the Caucasus, 
 on the plains of Poland, and the steppes of Astrakan." 
 
 Such speeches as this put Urquhart at once in opposition 
 to the policy of " peace and retrenchment " of the Whigs, 
 which was, as he very truly said, making the name of England 
 a by-word among the nations who had once revered her, 
 and justified the merchants in claiming him as a Conserva- 
 tive. The idea of a man who neither belonged nor wished 
 to belong to any political party never entered their minds. 
 He must enter Parliament in the Conservative interest, said 
 his friends. Robert Monteith of Carstairs,^ who was about 
 to contest Glasgow, offered to retire in his favour. Sir 
 George Sinclair, the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir 
 Francis Burdett^ and Mr. Somerset Beaumont would back 
 
 1 A son of the Monteith who had welcomed Sir Robert Peel to 
 Glasgow, ii member ot the Cambridge '" Apostles," and David Urqu- 
 liart's liielong friend. 
 
 2 Sir Francis Burdett was himself ever the sturdiest of fighters. 
 To him " was confessedly due the merit of making free speech again 
 possible in England." 
 
 As a member of the House of Commons he indicted the Govern-
 
 URQUHART AT CONSTANTINOPLE 63 
 
 him up if he would stand for Marylebone. Sheffield was 
 open to him. The little coterie of devoted friends, who 
 were faithful to him amidst many trials and, in spite of 
 much that would have killed friendship for a lesser man 
 or in less single-minded people, were insistent that he 
 should enter Parliament, and placed time, money, health, 
 and interest at his disposal.^ 
 
 ment on every possible occasion for its encroachments on popular 
 rights. 
 
 He took up the scandal of the Coldbath Fields Prison, and raised 
 such a storm about their ears that the Prison Commissioners suc- 
 ceeded in getting him forbidden to visit any prison within the 
 United Kingdom. In spite of this inhibition, however, his cause 
 finally triumphed. 
 
 The most dramatic point in his career was his arrest on a question 
 of breach of Parliamentary Privilege. After some days' hesitation, 
 during which his house was garrisoned by Volunteers, with Francis 
 Place at their head, a forcible entry was made, and Sir Francis was 
 conveyed to the Tower. 
 
 His release, which took place after several months, was only 
 prevented being made an occasion for a great popular demonstration 
 by his slipping away unnoticed by water, to the great disgust of his 
 partisans, especially Francis Place, who was so angry that he would 
 not speak to him for years. 
 
 ^ I am indebted to Miss L. I. Guiney for the following note: 
 Notes and Queries, 12 S. vol. iv., January, 1918, p. 4. (In a paper 
 signed " M. Beza," on English Travellers among the Vlachs.) 
 
 " In 1838 appeared The Spirit of The East, by D. Urquhart. A 
 special interest attaches to this, in his time, most influential political 
 author. A Roumanian statesman and writer of note, I. Ghica, 
 for many years representative at the Court of St. James, knew him 
 well. In a letter he portrays him as ' a young man of short stature, 
 delicate complexion, with pale face, long golden hair over his back, 
 blue piercing eyes,'* and he further speaks of Urquhart's noble 
 character, of his ardour in espousing the great causes for freedom. 
 Indeed his Spirit of the East breathes in a large degree the tumul- 
 tuous, fiery atmosphere of the Greek revolution. He deals in it with 
 chiefs like Catchiaudoni and Tchionga, both of the Vlach race; or, 
 as Urquhart puts it, of 'these hardy mountaineers, nowhere fixed, 
 but ever to be found where the wolves have dens and eagles nests ' 
 (Vol. I., 122)." 
 
 * Scrisori ale lui I. Ghica catre V. Alexandri. Bucuresti, p. 144. 
 No date given.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 
 
 " We speak in unknown Tongues; the years 
 Interpret everything aright." 
 
 Alice Meynell: Builders of Euins. 
 
 The chief of a Highland clan combines in himself the essential 
 equalities of aristocracy and democracy. He is an aristocrat 
 by jjosition and a democrat by virtue of his blood-relation- 
 ship with every member of his clan. 
 
 Though David Urquhart left the Highlands when he was 
 eight years old and straightway, for the rest of his hfe, 
 became a citizen of the world, he was always the chief of 
 his clan and brother of all his clansmen. When he no 
 longer possessed a rood of the lands of his forefathers there 
 was nothing he loved better than to be called in Highland 
 fashion by the name of the lands that had been theirs; 
 and never did he lose the sense of kinship with the men of 
 his clan. Pointing to the barefoot boy who drove the 
 pigs, he would say with pride, " He is an Urquhart too." 
 
 Taken away as a child from amongst his own people, the 
 feeling of human brotherhood, which would have spent 
 itself on his clansmen, was widened to include not only his 
 own countrymen, but all the human race: "Homo sum; 
 humani nihil a me ahenum puto." All men were his brethren, 
 bound to him by common ties and duties. They owed to 
 him, and they had a right to expect from him, courtesy 
 and justice. With his countrymen he had still stronger 
 ties. It did not matter how lowly their condition, they 
 were all, from the King to the humblest peasant, members 
 of the State, and all aUke were bound together by virtue 
 of their duties to it, duties arising not from any accidental 
 cause such as the franchise, or a position in the Legislature, 
 
 G4
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 65 
 
 but just in the same way as the duties of individuals towards 
 one another arose from their common partnership in the 
 same society. For the ideal State has, Hke the family, 
 been bound together by mutual courtesy and justice. Class 
 distinctions were official; they were Uke rank in the army, 
 to be respected and kept up, but they made no man another 
 man's real superior or inferior. 
 
 It was not, however, till Urquhart went to the East that 
 the strength of this aristo-democratic instinct of his revealed 
 itelf to his consciousness. And, curiously enough, it was 
 the East, the despotic East, as it seemed to most people, 
 which awoke it. 
 
 He went to Turkey, as he tells us, full of prejudice, and 
 what he saw there did not seem, at first sight, calculated to 
 break down that prejudice. The heterogeneous Turkish 
 Empire, composed of many nations, many religions, with 
 its tyrannical jannisaries, its ruling and blood-sucking 
 Pashas, each under the thumb of his attendant Armenian, 
 its apparently complicated and yet loose financial system, 
 which kept from seven to nine hundred clerks in continual 
 occupation in the immense financial bureaux at Con- 
 stantinople with so little apparent result, seemed at first 
 sight an apotheosis of bad government. 
 
 It was some time before he found reason to modify his 
 judgment. 
 
 " It was after three years of diligent statistical inquiries," 
 he says in the Introduction to the Spirit of the East, " that 
 I began to perceive that there were institutions connected 
 with the East. From the moment that I did perceive the 
 existence of peculiar, though distinct, principles, an intense 
 interest was awakened in my mind, and I commenced a 
 collection of financial details with a view to understanding 
 the rules upon which they were based. Three more years 
 were spent in this laborious uncertainty, and I collected 
 and noted down the administration of two hundred and 
 fifty towns and villages before I was struck with the common 
 principles that guided their administration."^ 
 
 During those three years was laid the foundation of all 
 Urquhart 's knowledge and love of the East. " They were," 
 
 ^ Spirit of the East; Introductory chapter. 
 
 5
 
 66 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 he says, " dumb years," because " when in the considera- 
 tion of nations you come to ideas which cannot be accu- 
 rately expressed by the symbols of your own language, 
 you must revert to first principles, you must come back 
 to the consideration of human nature." 
 
 This was exactly what the ordinary Eastern traveller 
 could not do, or at any rate did not choose to do, and there- 
 fore he never learned the secret of Eastern administration. 
 
 " The ordinary EngUshman," Urquhart says, " goes to 
 the East convinced that he is a professor of political economy, 
 who has possession of the science of government, and that 
 in all respects he is a free man of an understanding mind. 
 He discovers that the Turk considers a public debt a bad 
 thing. ' The ignoramus !' he exclaims. That the Turk 
 regards this debt as contrary to rehgion. ' Ah ! the fanatic !' 
 He discovers again that the Turk has a repugnance to the 
 idea of an Assembly which makes laws. ' Ah ! the slave !' 
 That the Turk despises a representative chamber. ' Ah ! 
 the tool of despotism !' and so on to the end of the chapter. 
 But if the Turk were to reveal to him his own ideas of the 
 duties of a sovereign and the obhgation of dethroning him 
 when he does not fulfil them, or the necessity for every 
 civil and military subordinate to be sure of the legality of 
 an order before executing it, the European would lose him- 
 self in conjectures and astonishment, and would exclaim, 
 ' These Turks are revolutionists and communists.' He 
 would be a hundred leagues from perceiving that science 
 and hberty, as he understands them, are only perversions 
 arising from the impotence of past ages to resist the en- 
 croachments of authority, which has succeeded in sub- 
 jugating the nations of Europe and putting them in handcuffs 
 administrative, financial and intellectual."^ 
 
 The first, and perhaps the most important, thing that 
 Urquhart discovered was that Eastern nations did not 
 consist of rulers and ruled: one part of the nation did not 
 continually sit to legislate for the other part. The founda- 
 tions of government and legislation rested on inviolate and 
 inviolable custom, by which all were equally bound. The 
 Sultan himself could not retain his throne did he attempt 
 
 1 Diplomatic Eeview, vol. xxiv., p. 178: "Islam and the 
 Constitutional System."
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 07 
 
 to override them. Moreover, the Government took no 
 account of details. The people were not bound under 
 penalties to obey rules and regulations quite independent 
 of moral law. 
 
 The taxes were imposed, not on individuals, but on the 
 municipia, for these were the units of the Eastern State. 
 The municipalities were responsible for apportioning the 
 taxes and for taxing themselves for their own necessary 
 expenses. They maintained order within their own Umits. 
 They provided schools and schoolmasters. They organised 
 their own trade, and thus industry and commerce were 
 free. Indirect taxation was a thing unknown. In the 
 East, said Urquhart, might still be seen feudaUsm in its 
 earliest and uncorrupt stage. For in the East the military 
 fief did not, as in Europe, involve possession of the soil, 
 but only a right to one-tenth of its fruits, and that right 
 carried with it the duty of protecting the cultivators, who 
 had " an indefeasible right of property in the soil, as un- 
 controllably their own, as that of the blade of grass to the 
 earth from which it springs." Such a right was of itself 
 enough to raise the peasant proprietors of the East far 
 above the unlanded and disinherited peasant of England, 
 who had nothing he could call his own but his labour, and 
 that he must sell, not at his own price, but at that of its 
 purchaser. 
 
 Each municipahty was a family, of which all the members 
 were bound together by ties of mutual interdependence. 
 If there was outside tyranny, as too often there was, under 
 a corrupted^ Mussulman Government, it was borne, and 
 often resisted, by the whole community. Like the members 
 of a Highland clan, the members of the municipality had 
 each his own place and his own rank, and each his own 
 human value equal to that of any Prince or Pasha. There- 
 fore the active principles of Eastern municipal life were 
 necessarily those vital principles of justice and courtesy 
 which thus leavened the whole of Eastern society. All 
 ranks, whether in the community or the family, associated 
 
 ^ Its corniption was largely due to Western interference with 
 Eastern institutions.
 
 68 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 without familiarity or condescension, but with mutual 
 respect and courtesy, for human dignity was by no means 
 affected by the accident of rank or position. Custom 
 regulated manners as well as law, and by reason of custom 
 all classes could associate with an ease and dignity which 
 is almost unknown in Western life, except in the remoter 
 parts of Ireland and Scotland. The master could use 
 affectionate expressions towards his servant without evoking 
 either presumption or suspicion, and servants, children and 
 friends could, and did, perform the lowliest offices for their 
 masters, parents or friends without any real or fancied 
 loss of dignity. The class hatred which was springing up 
 to devastate Europe was unknown in the East which 
 Urquhart discovered in his early manhood. 
 
 It was an East of wide extent, for he was not content 
 with knowing the Turkey of Constantinople, which his 
 official duties necessitated his knowing; he had lived in 
 the villages of Servia, he had travelled more than once 
 through the Balkan PrincipaUties and the parts of Greece 
 still under the Turkish rule. He had lived as a Mussulman 
 in the villages of Asiatic Turkey and in the tents of Arab 
 sheikhs in the deserts. He visited Mount Lebanon, and first 
 of any Englishman he penetrated into the mountain fast- 
 nesses of the Caucasus, where the Circassians were still 
 fighting stubbornly to protect their country from the paw 
 of the Russian bear. Everywhere he found the same 
 characteristic features: freedom of trade, agriculture and 
 craft going on side by side in the villages, strong inde- 
 pendent municipalities which contained within themselves 
 all the essentials of a republic, and, however great might 
 be the poverty, no pauperism. 
 
 In 1838 Urquhart returned to England. It would not 
 have been surprising had he forgotten all else in the con- 
 sideration of his own private misfortunes. His diplomatic 
 career had been unjustly and suddenly wrecked; he found 
 himself involved in huge expenses for an undertaking for 
 which he had had every reason^ to believe the Government 
 considered itself responsible, and he was struggling under 
 1 The publication of the PortfoliQ.
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIAEVAL INSTITUTIONS 69 
 
 one of those attacks of ill-health to which his sensitive 
 temperament and abnormally active brain rendered him 
 constantly liable. 
 
 But the ills of his country very soon absorbed him to the 
 entire exclusion of his own. He had come back to a state 
 of society the very antipodes of that which he had been 
 studying for the past six years. He had come back from 
 Eastern despotism to " a free and enlightened country," to 
 find it, in his own words, " a nation of slaves." The over- 
 whelming majority of the peoj)le had not as much as a 
 foot of the ground of England they could call their own, 
 even the right to feed cattle on the common lands they 
 had lost. 
 
 They were entirely without a voice in the government 
 of the country. The introduction of machinery had thrown 
 thousands out of work, and had reduced the old handloom 
 weavers of many once prosperous districts to absolute 
 starvation. The old Poor Law, by giving relief in aid of 
 wages, had enabled the farmer to pay to his labourers con- 
 siderably less than a living wage, and the new Poor Law, 
 by stopping this relief while trade was still disorganised 
 and wages at starvation rate, had roused the people to a 
 state of frenzy. The Reform Bill, from which the people 
 had anticipated such great results, had, they declared, only 
 made matters worse by putting the power into the hands 
 of the Whigs, who proved themselves less sympathetic 
 to working-class desires and aims than the Tories had been. 
 The Whigs it was who brought in the hated Poor Law; 
 who threw out the Factory Bill, which was intended greatly 
 to diminish, if not abolish, child-labour; who steadily refused 
 any further extension of the franchise. Poverty and dis- 
 tress were everywhere rife; with a population of seventeen 
 millions, eight million pounds were spent yearly in poor 
 relief. The people were in a state of smouldering discontent 
 and class-hatred, which might break out at any time into 
 open flame. The moment that the prohibition to combine 
 was removed from the working men, and even before that, 
 large organisations were founded all over the country. 
 The Political Unions, the Trade Unions, and the " Asso-
 
 70 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 ciations of the Useful Classes," were all animated by hatred 
 more or less intense of the classes above them, and all 
 determined, some by moral force, some by violence, to 
 make their voices heard in the government of the country. 
 
 Urquhart had not at first any intention of interfering 
 in the Labour troubles of his time. He had come home to 
 settle scores with Palmerston over the Turkish Commercial 
 Treaty, and his own recall from the Turkish Embassy, and 
 to try to bring before the country generally the importance 
 of right and just relations with other countries. Probably 
 the deplorable condition, both moral and physical, of the 
 working classes had not especially struck him, but in his 
 journeys from one large commercial centre to another, 
 where he spoke to large meetings at the invitation of mer- 
 chants and manufacturers, he could not fail to be impressed 
 by the contrast between the general prosperity of the 
 country and the poverty of the poor. It was not, however, 
 till he had been invited to stand in the Tory interest for 
 St. Marylebone, that Urquhart came in contact with the 
 movement which is now known as Chartism. 
 
 He never was a Tory; in fact, he never belonged to any 
 party except that of his country. But as Disraeli indicated 
 in his speech against Attwood's Petition in July, 1839, the 
 Tory party had shown more practical sympathy than the 
 Whigs for the working classes. It was but natural. The 
 old landed proprietors belonged to the soil; so did the 
 peasant, though his right in it had been lost. There was 
 still a bond which connected together the landed proprietor 
 and the peasant, a remnant of the feudal relations of pro- 
 tector and protected. But in the middle-class parvenus, 
 who had come to power with the Reform Bill of 1832, this 
 bond was absent, and the working class bitterly realised 
 that their " shopocrat " masters, as they contemptuously 
 called them, were worse tyrants than the aristocrats had 
 been. Therefore, if Urquhart could be said to have had 
 anything in common with any party it was with the Tories. 
 He probably recognised this when he consented to stand for 
 Marylebone. But the candidature did not go farther than a 
 public meeting. He was very soon engrossed in other work.
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 71 
 
 At that meeting three leading Chartists were present. 
 They had been attracted by the soundness and originahty 
 of his views upon commerce, and had come to this meeting 
 partly to hear what he had to say and partly to heckle. 
 But when it was over they begged him to attend a private 
 meeting of their own. He went; he met them and their 
 friends, not once but many times, and his lifelong and 
 affectionate connection with the working classes began. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the Chartists were by no 
 means a united body with unanimous aims. As a matter 
 of fact they had sprung from at least three distinct sources : 
 the National Political Union, which had agitated for the 
 Reform Bill and had practically died down after it was 
 passed; the Trades Unions, closely connected with the 
 European Societies of Trades Unions, which organised the 
 riots of 1834; and the "Association for the Moral, Social, 
 and Political Improvement of the Industrious Classes." 
 This last was the most important of all as regards real 
 working-class advance, for it was an attempt on the part 
 of the operatives to be their own organisers and leaders. 
 The political unions had been very largely supported and 
 led by merchants, manufacturers, and shopkeepers. The 
 working men's association, organised at the beginning by 
 an American, Doctor Black, and his friend Detroisier, who 
 took in hand and attempted to carry through the repeal 
 of the stamp duty on newspapers, began in a back room 
 at Francis Place's shop in Charing Cross Road. 
 
 It took Dr. Black some time to overcome the suspicions 
 of the working men, who, since the collapse of the Political 
 Unions, were thoroughly mistrustful of the middle classes, 
 but he overcame this mistrust by devoting evening after 
 evening to thek' instruction in " common school subjects." 
 Detroisier and Henry Hetherington,^ with some of Black's 
 evening-class pupils, founded the first Working Men's 
 Association. The Associations spread with very great 
 rapidity, and their rules forbade any but working men to 
 be in any official position in them. They had, however, 
 
 1 The cliampion of the unstamped Press, and editor of The Poor 
 Mail's Guardian.
 
 72 DAVID URQUHART ' 
 
 many sympathisers among the middle classes, and the 
 London meetings were attended by Members of Parhament, 
 such as Sir William Molesworth, Fielden and Roebuck. 
 Their aims were perhaps at first more educational than 
 political. They established libraries, opened reading-rooms, 
 and brought out elaborate plans for national education, 
 which was not to be in the hands of the Government, but 
 of local authorities. 
 
 But they soon became aware that to carry out any success- 
 ful schemes they must have more political power. Lord 
 John Russell's speech in 1837, in which he expressed him- 
 self against all that the working classes had been working 
 for since the passing of the Reform Bill — ^Triennial Parlia- 
 ments, the Extension of the Franchise and Voting by 
 Ballot — finally roused them to action. The London Asso- 
 ciation appointed six members of its committee in con- 
 junction with six sympathetic Members of Parliament to 
 draw up a Bill embodying the rights which the people 
 demanded, the People's Charter which it now was for the 
 first time called. To further their aims the Associations 
 combined with the Birmingham Political Union, which had 
 revived under the leadership of Mr. Thomas Attwood, and 
 the Trades Unions to call a monster Convention in London, 
 to which delegates were to be sent from all towns and 
 villages in the United Kingdom. Addresses were sent to 
 all the Radical Associations, missionaries were sent out, 
 subscriptions or " rents " were collected, monster meetings 
 were held. In some places more than thirty thousand 
 people assembled, and in spite of the growing fear of the 
 Government, and the vexatious, and in many cases unjust, 
 methods adopted to repress it, the movement steadily 
 grew in numbers and determination. So powerful did it 
 become that the Chartists might have carried all before them 
 had it not been that their house was divided against itself. 
 One party, the moral force party, desired to use only con- 
 stitutional means to gain their ends; Law, Peace and Order 
 was their motto. The other, the physical force party, declared 
 that nothing could be done with peaceful methods unless 
 behind them they had the means and the will to adopt force.
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 73 
 
 Such was the position of the Chartists when Mr. Urquhart 
 first came in contact with them and gained the friendship 
 of many of their prominent men, at the same time that he 
 showed himself to be an enemy of the movement. 
 
 Urquhart 's attitude towards the working man was entirely 
 unique. There was in it not a touch of familiarity or of 
 condescension; he met them on the terms of the most 
 complete equality, while at the same time he maintained 
 his own position and expected them to maintain theirs. 
 He had no sympathy with the philanthropist or the 
 economist, both of whom apparently believed that between 
 the classes favoured by God with all that made life desir- 
 able and those deprived of them, obviously by the same 
 Agency, there was a great gulf fixed. 
 
 The philanthropist tried to mend their condition by 
 some slight efforts to supply here and there the most obvious 
 and crying needs of the poor, but more especially by preach- 
 ing contentment with their lot and submission to their 
 betters. 
 
 The economist regarded the state of things as an inevit- 
 able result of fixed laws. The poverty of the poor, said 
 he, is the result of the laws of demand and supply; we are 
 over-peopled, let us limit our population. The dislocation 
 of trade arises from the want of division of labour. Economic 
 laws cannot be altered; they must be studied and we must 
 live according to them. 
 
 But David Urquhart could not deal with the problem 
 either as a philanthropist or as an economist. He must deal 
 with it as a man, or not at all. And it seemed to him that 
 in the East he had learnt the secret of so doing. 
 
 But was it possible that Eastern methods could be 
 appUed to Western peoples ? The ordinary observer 
 would have said "No"; Urquhart said "Yes"; for he 
 maintained that the methods of government which the 
 East had retained were, broadly speaking, the methods of 
 the whole of Europe in the Middle Ages.^ In mediaeval 
 
 1 The Guild Socialists are Urquhart's direct descendants in plead- 
 ing for a return to Mediaevalism. See H. J. Penty, Guilds and the 
 Social Crisis.
 
 74 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Europe moral law was the recognised basis of government, 
 as it was still in the East. The effect of that recognition 
 was justice in public relations and courtesy in private life; 
 for justice and courtesy are but different aspects of the 
 recognition of law. A man who gives, in his private rela- 
 tions, to children and servants, to inferiors and superiors, 
 that courtesy which is their due, will not withhold, in his 
 public dealings, the justice which is the foundation of public 
 life. And a nation whose social life is built on courtesy 
 will not fail in its public relations with other nations. That 
 virtue in the Turk which prevents his drawing his sword 
 against an enemy until he is convinced that the cause is 
 just is the same virtue which makes him courteous in all 
 his relationships. So in the Middle Ages all relationships, 
 from the relation of nation to nation to the relation of a 
 servant to his master, rested on the same broad principles of 
 moral law and unwritten custom. All men knew that law; 
 it did not follow that they obeyed it, but no one questioned 
 it. And over all there was an authority capable of visiting 
 its infringement with penalties. Within the wide bounds 
 of that law individuals were free; they were not subject, 
 as under modern government, to rules and restrictions 
 having no moral force but the will of the ruling majorities. 
 
 Taxation moreover was open and direct. The Public 
 Revenue was not drawn from taxes on the necessaries of 
 life. Communities not only apportioned but assessed their 
 own taxes ; and they were only asked to pay extraordinary 
 taxes. Ordinary taxes were paid out of Crown lands and 
 by the Feudal Lord. It was his demesne, not the poor 
 man's few acres, which paid the expenses of government. 
 
 As in the East, moreover, so in the Middle Ages pauperism 
 was a thing unknown, for hospitaUty was a rehgious duty. 
 No man might be without food and lodging within the 
 bounds of a Christian parish. Of all the Church property 
 in England one-third was devoted to the care of the acci- 
 dental poor in the different parishes.^ 
 
 But the most important point, and the one in which 
 
 1 For Feudalism and Pauperism see Urquliart's pamphlet, 
 Wealth and Want.
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 75 
 
 modern England diverged most widely, not only from the 
 England of the Middle Ages, but from the whole ancient 
 world, was the practice of domestic industry. Before the 
 days of Morris and Ruskin, when the whole of England was 
 rejoicing in the wonderful invention of power-looms, and only 
 the working men talked of the factory system as " damnable," 
 Urquhart declared that the new industrial system was but 
 the beginning of the end of the greatness of the nation. 
 
 " The loss of the spinning-wheel was like the loss of the 
 shoe, after that the horse went, and after that — there was 
 no longer a State but only a jumble. . . . 
 
 " Before the subdivision of labour was known as a process 
 of science, the people of England, then called ' merry,' 
 manufactured at home, in the intervals of field labour, the 
 clothing requisite for their families out of the produce of 
 their land and their flocks. England was consequently a 
 self -subsisting country, and neither depended herself for 
 existence on the accidents of war, and a bolstered-up credit 
 at home, nor infected remote regions with her flimsy stuff 
 and vulgar patterns. The millions did not live in trembling 
 dependence from hand to mouth, nor were there cotton 
 lords to revel in coarse and ungainly luxury. This change 
 was brought by science; men could produce more when 
 their industry was confined to a pin's point, and the great 
 idol. Cheapness, was set up; distant lands adored, but the 
 people at home were crushed. 
 
 " Civilisation draws everything to the towns and makes 
 each family dependent on the factory; to that den is not 
 transferred the sanctification of the household by its easy 
 tasks and varied occupations, which has now departed. 
 In addition to the rest you divide the people into two hostile 
 camps of clownish boors and emasculated dwarfs. Good 
 heavens ! a nation divided into agricultural and commercial 
 interests calling herself sane ! nay, styling herself en- 
 lightened and civilised, not only in spite of but in conse- 
 quence of this monstrous and unnatural division. 
 
 " A family engaged in field work will have sufficient idle 
 time upon its hands to spin, weave, make up the stuffs 
 wherever the practice of those civilising arts is pursued, 
 at no cost at all.^ 
 
 ^ " Twenty pounds of wool, converted unobtrusively into the 
 yearly clothing of a labouring family^ makes no show, but bring it 
 to market, send it to the factory, bring it thence to the broker, send it
 
 76 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " The cost, or gain, is healthful industry. It is a matter 
 of habit, not of reasoning; where the habit of preparing 
 these articles exists there is no reasoning about it — neither 
 is there where it is the custom to go to the slop shop. 
 
 " A people in the first condition would be horrified at 
 the idea of expending money for what they could do them- 
 selves. A people in the second would be confounded at 
 the proposal to spin their own yarn and knit their stockings, 
 and conceive it to be a furious encroachment on the gin 
 shop for the man and the slop shop for the woman. 
 
 "... England, the wealthiest of lands and the first in 
 the scale of industry, is the country in which, above all 
 others, domestic industry has disappeared. It is also the 
 home of pauperism and panics. Other countries in various 
 degrees approach to her in the subdivision of labour and 
 in an equal degree in the extinction of domestic industry. In 
 like proportion are they afflicted with pauperism and panic. 
 
 " Pauperism and panic are unknown to-day in the East. 
 They were unknown throughout the whole of the ancient 
 world. 
 
 " Domestic industry is practised in the East. It was 
 practised in ancient times in every portion of the globe. 
 The opposite plan was the discovery of England; it has 
 been, in her own estimation, her greatness. It has given 
 to her colossal riches as the gain of a few, and unparalleled 
 misery as the gain of the rest. 
 
 " Could the hard breathings and choking thoughts of 
 a second of time in these realms be condensed into one 
 utterance, it would overcome the concentrated groan of 
 the misery endured throughout the remaining eight hundred 
 millions of the human race throughout the course of the 
 present and many preqeding generations."^ 
 
 In all these ways, Urquhart maintained, in respect for 
 the moral law, self-government, freedom of trade and the 
 
 to the dealer, and it will represent commercial operations and apparent 
 capital to the amount of twenty times its value, and costs to the 
 labourer when returned to him twice as much as it would cost him 
 in dyeing, spinning, and weaving. The working class is thus amerced 
 to support a wretched factory population, a parasitical shop-keeping 
 class and a fictitious monetary and financial system. The landlord, 
 for his share, pays five shillings per acre Poor Rates. All this is the 
 result not of cheapness but of delusion. 
 
 " The people of England were better clothed and fed when there 
 was no commerce and when there were no factories." 
 
 * Free Press, December 1, 1855: "Domestic Manufactures."
 
 THE EAST AND MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS 77 
 
 love for and skill in craft, did the East show what the Middle 
 Ages had been and what Modern Europe had lost. And 
 with this loss, nay, because of this loss, she had suffered 
 a far greater loss, the loss of idealism and the loss of in- 
 dividual character. Underneath the hfe of the Middle 
 Ages lay the basic principle of a strong religious faith. 
 Above all earthly rule there stood, its model and its monitor, 
 the spiritual rule of the Papacy, the Grand Justiciary of 
 Europe. Individual popes might be ambitious, criminal 
 and self-seeking. The ideal of the spiritual State to which 
 all temporal sovereignty must bow was never attained, 
 but who that looks on the world now must not see that 
 the world was the better for such an ideal ? It affected 
 not only the policy of statesmen, but the lives of indi- 
 viduals. Private character was stronger, more self-reUant, 
 better developed. Men did not prostitute their judgment 
 to public opinion, or get any idea they might possess from 
 a newspaper article. IdeaUsm, obedience, respect for 
 authority, all the things that a vain and shallow pretence 
 at independence professes to scorn, developed, instead of 
 stultifying, character, stimulated thought, and safeguarded 
 freedom. In the Middle Ages men were really free. 
 " Liberty is ancient; it is despotism that is modern." 
 It was, said Urquhart, this idealism, this strength of 
 character, this power of being right, that the working men 
 must strive to gain. Nothing else that they had lost could 
 they regain, no advance could the nation make tiU they 
 had this. They must divest themselves of the spirit of the 
 age with all its corruption, injustice and want of thought, 
 they must divest themselves of themselves, for they partook 
 of the spirit of the age. Each man must go back to the 
 simple self, to the man that lay beneath all the corruption 
 which his age had fastened on him, to the elemental virtue 
 and simpUcity which makes the true man. Then, and 
 then only, might they hope for a real change in the life 
 and social condition of the Nations. 
 
 Of course the ideal was, hke all great ideals, impossible 
 of attainment. The attempt failed, but it was a failure 
 greater than many a success.
 
 PART II 
 
 HOW HE FOUGHT FOR JUSTICE IN ENGLAND 
 
 " And the Mills of Satan were separated into a moony Space 
 Among the rocks of Albion's Temples, and Satan's Druid Sons 
 Offer the human Victims throughout all the Earth." 
 
 Blake: Milton, folio 9, lines 6-8. 
 
 " And did those feet in ancient time 
 
 Walk upon England's mountains green % 
 And was the holy Lamb of God 
 
 On England's pleasant pastures seen ? 
 
 '* And did the Countenance Divine 
 Shine forth upon our clouded hiUs ? 
 And was Jerusalem builded here 
 Among these dark Satanic Mills ? 
 
 " Bring me my bow of burning gold ! 
 Bring me my arrows of desire ! 
 Bring me my spear ! clouds, unfold ! 
 Bring me my chariot of fire ! 
 
 " I wUl not cease from mental fight, 
 
 Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand. 
 Till we have built Jerusalem 
 
 In England's green and pleasant land." 
 
 Blake: Milton, folio 2.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHARTISM 
 
 _ " Woe unto him that buildeth his house by uurighteousuess aud 
 his chambers by wrong." — Jeremiah xxii. 13. 
 
 Urquhart came to the working men of England in 1839 
 with what seemed to them a new Social Gospel. 
 
 It was indeed that by which their forefathers had shaped 
 their lives in the Middle Ages; but it was the East which 
 had revealed it to him. 
 
 It was the East, moreover, which had taught him the 
 rottenness of a civilisation based on injustice and a so-called 
 economic system. 
 
 During his journeys from town to town in his connection 
 with the mercantile class, the wrongs of the Enghsh 
 operative classes were opened to his keen sight. It 
 was apparently in 1838, during a visit to Glasgow, that 
 he first came into personal contact with them, when 
 he and his feUow-workers succeeded in getting together 
 small bodies of operatives as well as merchants to 
 discuss the commercial relations of England to other 
 countries. 
 
 In some places operatives and merchants sat at the same 
 table and discussed the same subjects. At Newcastle his 
 friend Wilham Cargill, a member of one of the prominent 
 merchant famihes of the town, carrying on an important 
 trade with the East, greatly aided him, and succeeded in 
 gaining the confidence of many working men. George 
 Fyler, a young barrister with commercial connections, 
 seconded his efforts in London, while Robert Monteith, 
 David Ross of Bladensburg, and Charles Attwood, did 
 the same thing in Glasgow, Birmingham, and Lancashire. 
 Urquhart himself, as time went on, became gradually more 
 
 81 6
 
 82 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 and more convinced that any hope for the future of England 
 lay with the working man, oppressed, poverty-stricken, 
 disenfranchised as he was. 
 
 " I speak to the operatives because my interest is in 
 working men," he said in a sjDeech at Stafford. " I care 
 not for the gentlemen: tliey have means, power, possessions, 
 wealth, and all those things which would secure existence, 
 if not honour, in any country, if not in this; but in address- 
 ing the operatives I speak to those whom fate has fixed on 
 the soil upon which we live, who can have no interest 
 except in its prosperity. The higher orders may be corrupt 
 and the nation sound. But in addressing the operatives I 
 speak to those who, if their heart is cold to their country 
 and their ears closed to reason, leave to their State no hoj)e 
 whatever of regeneration or restoration." 
 
 We who live in a time when the working man is coming, 
 if he has not already come, to his own, can scarcely realise 
 the political insight and the grasp of future possibiUties 
 which such a point of view indicated in a man, young, 
 without prestige or influence, who could stand up and speak 
 so to a society which regarded the working man, struggling 
 for justice, as some sort of wild beast; at a time when a 
 judge on the bench could, without condemnation, stigmatise 
 the " lower orders " as " wholly vicious"; at a time when 
 the police harried them with spies and informers, and the 
 Government, whether Whig or Tory, treated their most 
 legitimate criticisms on its methods of procedure as sedition 
 and conspiracy. 
 
 Urquhart's relation to the working classes was intensely 
 human; it was entirely unpolitical, and it culminated 
 during the Chartist rising in a situation of extreme interest. 
 
 It was in 1839 that he first came into contact with 
 the Chartist leaders; that this man on fire with the love 
 of justice and hatred of oppression, the stern upholder 
 of moral law as the highest thing he knew, came into con- 
 tact with men in whose souls the iron of injustice was 
 rankling, many of whom were smarting under recent and 
 unjust punishment, and were ready to cast aside all law, 
 moral and civil, in order to attain to the liberty they felt
 
 CHARTISM 83 
 
 was their due. An electric spark was lit, apparently oppo- 
 site elements became united, and David Urquhart was 
 joined to the operatives by a bond that was to last to the 
 end of a long life. 
 
 The Scottish aristocrat, the polished cosmopolitan, drew 
 to his side and linked his career finally and entirely, not 
 with the respectable mechanics and artisans of the twentieth 
 century, but with the starved, despised, and, as his soi- 
 disarit betters called him, the " degraded " factory hand, 
 with the potters, the weavers, and the labourers of early 
 Victorian days. Not as a superior did he join forces with 
 them, but as an equal, a fellow-citizen, a fellow-English- 
 man, a man with common duties and common rights. He 
 had his position in society, they had theirs. He had some- 
 thing to teach them, but when they had learnt it, their 
 duty, no less than his, was to go and put the lessons into 
 practice, to serve their country and to teach others what 
 they had learnt. The relationship between Urquhart and 
 the operatives never degenerated into familiarity on their 
 side or to patronage and philanthropy on his. On both 
 sides it was always respectful, simple, and sincere. To his 
 working-men friends he meted out the same treatment as 
 he did to his social equals. Neither escaped the fiery 
 furnace of indignation and scorn which followed any dis- 
 play of insincerity or stupidity. But if there was any 
 distinction it was in favour of the working man. It was 
 against smug, wealthy, middle-class self-satisfaction, or 
 political self-seeking, that his most fiery darts were hurled. 
 His devoted adherents were often reduced to despair, 
 because he aUenated by fierce denunciations wealthy and 
 influential people, whom it seemed to them all-important 
 to gain, while he would spend patient hours trying to 
 convince one or two working men or instructing a young 
 girl. " My best converts, apart from working men," he 
 was wont to say, " are men of genius and young girls." 
 
 In 1839, when Urquhart first came into contact with the 
 Chartists as Chartists, they were in a very dangerous mood. 
 The monster Petition with 2,000,000 signatures, their last 
 hope of obtaining their demands by peaceful means, had
 
 84 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 been contemptuously set aside by the Government. Those 
 of them who had always maintained that in the end they 
 must resort to physical force to obtain their ends were in 
 the ascendancy, and there is no doubt that the preparations 
 for a universal armed rising were wide and well-organised. 
 Mr. Urquhart's conviction that foreign agents had a large 
 share in these preparations is not unsupported by inde- 
 pendent evidence. 
 
 The Enghsh Trades Unions had always been in very close 
 connection with the foreign Unions.^ There was a Central 
 Democratic Association composed of Poles, ItaUans, Ger- 
 mans, and French, which was strong enough to provide that 
 Haynau, the notoriously cruel Austrian General, when he 
 paid a visit to Barclay and Perkins's Brewery should be 
 set upon, pursued and so frightened, that he was forced 
 to take refuge in a dust-bin. 
 
 Information of great and extensive revolutionary pre- 
 parations reached the Government by side winds. The 
 poUce heard from their spies and informers of orders 
 for as many as 10,000 powder cans being given to jobbing 
 tin-workers in Bethnal Green, ^ and an informer writes that 
 it has come to his knowledge that many thousand pikes 
 and weapons are being made, also triangular forked instru- 
 ments, for placing across the streets to injure the feet of 
 cavahy horses. 
 
 In 1839 an informer in a secret report^ writes from 
 Manchester : 
 
 " My Lord, the Radicals in Manchester muster thirty-six 
 divisions of one hundred men each, subdivided into sections 
 of twenty each under staunch leaders, who bind themselves 
 by certain rules and regulations to stand by one another 
 even unto death. They are ruled by a Council of Twelve 
 in each district. Ashton-under-Lyne, including Dunker- 
 field, has fifty-two divisions, Stalybridge seventeen divisions, 
 
 1 When the type-founders employed by Messrs. Caster in Chiswell 
 Street, E.G., struck work on account of a reduction of 20 per cent, 
 in their wages, word was immediately sent round to the Trades Unions 
 of France and Belgium, with the result that Messrs. Caster, who sent 
 for men to both these countries, could only get nine French workmen, 
 and that at 30s. a week higher wages than they had been paying. 
 
 2 Home Oflicc Papers, 64, 15, 1834. 3 Ibid., 64, 15.
 
 CHARTIS:\I 85 
 
 all sub-divided as above. The whole of these men have 
 arms of some sort. My Lord, I must say that I find the 
 working classes almost to a man determined Republicans 
 and extremely discontented. . . . Thousands of them will 
 join the Union men when a break-out takes place. There 
 have been plans prepared to make the Government yield. 
 The one was for all the Unions and others that would join 
 them to march up to London and by force of numbers to 
 compel the Government to grant the Charter. In the 
 Union last night^ I asked how we could subsist on the 
 journey; their answer was, 'There is plenty of money in 
 the banks of which we can take possession.' This morning 
 a letter was read from Richardson, one of the ^lanchester 
 deputies, now in London, advising all the Unions to hold 
 themselves in readiness for simultaneous meetings all over 
 the country on the same day, and ordering the INlanchester 
 flag that bears the inscription ' Annual ParUaments ' to 
 be altered to ' The People's Parliament.' He seems to have 
 no hopes of the present Government granting their requests." 
 
 It was Urquhart's idea that underneath the ordinary 
 Chartist body there was a secret organisation governed by 
 foreign agents. None of the rank and file of the Chartists 
 knew of the whole conspiracy, which was so thorough and 
 well-laid as to be a great menace to the Government. Of 
 this he became convinced at his first meeting with the 
 Chartist leaders at Marylebone in 1839, and in his owti 
 account of the event written thirty-three years afterwards 
 he maintained it with absolute certainty. 
 
 Urquhart's connection with the Chartist movement dates 
 from his nomination as Tory candidate for the Borough of 
 Marylebone in September, 1839, to which, at the urgent 
 entreaty of his friends, he had consented. In order to 
 prepare the way a meeting was called by his friends in 
 the Mechanics' Institute, New Road, " to take into con- 
 sideration the Commercial, Domestic, and Foreign Affairs 
 of the Nation." It was attended by a large body of 
 Chartists, headed by William Cardo, the delegate for 
 Marylebone at the Convention, who acted as spokesman. 
 
 1 It was a usual plan for spies to join the Trades Unions. Some- 
 times they rose to eminent positions, where they were extremely 
 useful to the Government.
 
 86 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 George Fyler, a London barrister and disciple of Urquhart's, 
 who was present at the meeting, was already acquainted 
 with the Chartist Westrup,^ who had approached him on 
 the subject of the formation of a London Chamber of Com- 
 merce. Having got into conversation with Cardo through 
 Westrup at the meeting, Fyler determined to pursue his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 The Chartists on their side had been struck by the views 
 of Mr. Urquhart and his friends which they had heard, for 
 the first time, fairly stated. 
 
 " It appears," writes Fyler, " that my speech created a 
 sensation among the Chartists, that you and your views 
 have been the subject of discussion with the Convention 
 at Marylebone. The result of this was my sending Westrup, 
 who has become most valuable, back to Cardo, ready 
 primed. He saw him and had a conversational discussion 
 with the Convention about you, which has terminated 
 satisfactorily, and Cardo is to be with me to-morrow night. 
 I had Westrup to breakfast with me this morning, and he 
 was to have brought a Mr. O'Brien, an Irish barrister of 
 good family, a Chartist of great influence, and a man, 
 Westrup says, of great talent. O'Brien, however, could 
 not come: I expect him to-night, about ten." 
 
 Fyler met Bronterre O'Brien, that fiery advocate of 
 physical force, as well as Cardo. But he did not succeed 
 in converting them. 
 
 " Mr. Cardo still did not see in what I said the means of 
 solving these internal difficulties which he felt, or of raising 
 the poor and industrious man from the miserable state of 
 dependence and oppression in which he stood. Mr. O'Brien 
 had not quite made up his mind that we should not be all 
 the better without foreign trade. ... I left him with no 
 other impression than appears in the willing expression 
 that he should be very happy to co-operate or give effect 
 to the labours of such gentlemen as Mr. Urquhart. . . . 
 But Mr. Urquhart, at my request, came up to London, 
 and the scene was changed. Mr. Westrup and Mr. Cardo 
 called on me; I took them to Colonel Pringle Taylor's, 
 where Mr. Urquhart was, and, to use INIr. Cardo 's expressive 
 
 ^ Hovell, in The Chadist Movement, calls him Westrapp, but he 
 signs himself in his letters Westrop or Westrup indiscriminately.
 
 CHARTISM 87 
 
 words the next day, ' in less than five minutes Mr. Urquhart 
 had solved all these difficulties without my having felt it 
 necessary to state them.' ... In the evening O'Brien 
 came to the Colonial Society with Messrs. Cardo and 
 Westrup. It was not in language to convey what passed 
 on that occasion, the extensive range of subjects which, 
 in the two hours it lasted, Mr. Urquhart grasped, laying 
 bare the character, the injurious and deleterious effects of 
 our boasted institutions, and, in a few simple words, not 
 alone leading the hearer to understand the bearings of the 
 subject but to the reception of similar convictions to his 
 own. He pointed out the source of the evils under which 
 the nations groaned, and that the only remedy is in return- 
 ing to the simple institutions of our forefathers, and he 
 showed the effect of indirect taxation on the character of 
 the people, the influence of local government in the de- 
 velopment of powers of the human mind, its effect on the 
 internal state of the country, rendering a j^olice, poor laws, 
 custom-houses, and all those other adjuncts of what is 
 called a civihsed people unnecessary. . . . On Thursday 
 morning they came again. Lord Dudley Stuart and Mr. 
 Carey were likewise present. It is impossible to go through 
 these extraordinary conversations, or, rather, addresses. I 
 can only convey their effect to the mind of another, by 
 stating the deep silence and continued attention and in- 
 terest with which Mr. Urquhart was listened to, an occa- 
 sional remark made being rather to elucidate a further 
 explanation than the statement of any objection." 
 
 At the public meeting held soon after, Mr. Cardo " with 
 great simplicity, intelligence, and power " communicated to 
 his audience that he had at length found a means of arriving 
 at truth, that he perceived a certainty of accomplishing the 
 great object for which they had been struggling, not by the 
 triumph of one party, but by the sinking of all those dis- 
 sensions and party differences that existed among them. 
 
 Cardo and Westrup were won, and with them the delegate 
 from Bolton, Warden, a man unlike Cardo, opposed to 
 physical force for gaining the ends of labour, intelligent, 
 gentle, and conscientious. These and other of their friends 
 at last felt impelled to lay before Urquhart, this new friend 
 who had inspired them with such confidence, the danger 
 to the country which was involved in the Chartist plot.
 
 88 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " The Chartists," they said, " disappointed in the hopes 
 they had entertained of realising their projects peaceably, 
 were now, to the amount of nearly two millions throughout 
 the land, aroused and ready to accomplish their objects 
 by national convulsion; all their numerous armies in the 
 North, in the West, as well as in the South, had intended 
 some early day before the first of January to put themselves 
 in motion. They had already shells and rockets which 
 were explosive, spikes for the feet of cavalry horses, and 
 other ammunitions of war prepared in secret in Bir- 
 mingham." 
 
 Urquhart and his friends took action on this information ; 
 they not only laid the whole before Lord Normanby, but 
 without trusting to anything the Government (which was, 
 or affected to be, sceptical of the extent of the Chartist 
 conspiracy) might or might not do, they went themselves 
 from town to town, seeing the leaders, and if they did not 
 win them over to their side, at least making them afraid 
 to act, from the knowledge that their plans were known. 
 
 Mr. Urquhart, writing in 1854 to a working men's asso- 
 ciation in Manchester, gives his own account of these 
 strange happenings. 
 
 " Having accepted the proposal to stand for Marylebone, 
 and several meetings having been held, the Chartists came 
 in a body to interrupt them, having somehow been informed 
 that I was a dangerous person, as representing trade, 
 diplomacy and Toryism. I was not present at the meeting, 
 but after it one of them, a friend of mine, said to the leader 
 of the Chartists : ' I see you are an able man. Would it not 
 suit those quaUties better to try and understand Mr. Urquhart 
 first and reserve your denunciations for afterwards ? ' 
 
 " Accordingly he (the Chartist) came to me and asked 
 what I considered were the evils of England and what I 
 proposed as a remedy. 
 
 " But when I had begun to tell him he rose and said: 
 ' I cannot listen to this alone. Will you allow me to bring 
 some of my friends to-morrow night V 
 
 " They came, and returned again and again. 
 
 " The Charter was never mentioned, nor the suffrage, 
 nor any meanness of that kind. 
 
 " I think it was the third time, at between two and three 
 in the morning, they said they could not lay their heads
 
 CHARTISM 89 
 
 on their pillows till they had revealed to me the fate pre- 
 pared for the doomed city sunk in slumber. They had not 
 gone far in their narrative before we came upon a Russian^ 
 agent as mover and director of the whole plan. Not an 
 instant was lost. With the aid of these men and others 
 which they brought, and collecting all my available friends, 
 amounting to about twenty or thirty individuals in all, 
 we proceeded to deal with the confederacy, now broken in 
 London, throughout the provinces. 
 
 " I visited every district, saw every leader. 
 
 " There was no change in my language because of what 
 I had learnt. The Charter was never mentioned from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 " It was by showing another and a better way that doubts 
 came over them as to the judiciousness of continuing in 
 that in which they were engaged, and men in doubt do not 
 risk property, liberty and life. 
 
 " Frost was missed by half an hour; otherwise this danger 
 would have been averted without leaving a trace behind 
 of its existence." 
 
 The campaign against Chartism started with great hopes. 
 
 The working men would be won, and with them the 
 country. 
 
 Urquhart was deeply impressed with the intelligence and 
 the sincerity of the operatives. 
 
 " There are in this body," he said, " immense resources; 
 they are individually more simple, more honest, and more 
 thoughtful than the upper orders; there is a consciousness 
 among them of community of interests, and there is sym- 
 pathy for each other; they consider themselves as a class 
 and not as a party; their minds are set to work to inquire 
 and to investigate; and therefore it is that my hopes for 
 the salvation of their country are centred on them." 
 
 The line he took in his first dealings with the Chartists was 
 
 1 Benyouski. (See NoHhern Liberator, November and December, 
 1840.) He had been an officer in the Polish Lancers. He was a 
 Russian Pole whom Urquhart believed to have been in the employ 
 of the Russian Secret Service. 
 
 There is little doubt but that he was one of the principal leaders 
 of the Chartist Movement and his presence was always followed by 
 revolution. Urquhart's life was twice attempted during his crusade 
 against Chartism; once he had to escape from a house over the roofs 
 of the neighbouring houses.
 
 90 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 that to gain the six points of the Charter would do them 
 no good so long as the whole nation persisted in its down- 
 ward course. 
 
 Class injustice and class distress were but symptoms. 
 
 The real disease lay deeper. It was to the unjust and 
 foolish Foreign Policy of England and the disloyalty of her 
 Governments to her ancient Constitution and to the principles 
 of justice, both in international and national affairs, that 
 the present distress of the operatives was due. 
 
 The nation had gone astray. It was declining more and 
 more from the old paths of justice and honour. This was 
 the fault of the whole people, not of a few; it was the fault 
 of each individual. It had come about gradually, and its 
 primary cause was the loss of municipal government, which 
 had produced loss of the sense of responsibiUty. Men had 
 come to think that affairs of state were no concern of theirs. 
 They had committed the Government to representatives, 
 to whom they had also committed their thinking. Instead 
 of thought-out opinions they had adopted party catch- 
 words, and so had got into a vicious circle, wherein loose 
 thought had debased speech, and this in turn had corrupted 
 thought, until men neither knew what they thought nor how 
 they ought to act. They had lost the faculty of judgment. 
 
 " If you, the nation, judge soundly," he said to a little body 
 of Chartists who came to ask his counsel, " it would not 
 matter what the form of government might be. . . . It 
 is the knowledge and simplicity of the men which constitute 
 the value of the accidental institutions under which they 
 live. Monarchy, Despotism, Democracy and OUgarchy have 
 all been base and baneful as they have all been great 
 and beneficial. The form of government has no more to 
 do with your conclusions than the fashion of your clothes. 
 The fashion of your clothes, as the form of your govern- 
 ment, may react upon you, but again it is but the reaction 
 of your own thoughts upon yourselves. . . . Government 
 can do no people any good. Government is always a load 
 to bear, but it is necessary as a curb to place upon the evil 
 passions of men, whether those passions are exhibited in 
 individual acts of injustice, or in international assaults, 
 which have to be resisted abroad. These are the legitimate 
 objects of government, and all else is bad. ..."
 
 CHARTISM 91 
 
 Such was the foundation of Urquhart's teaching, and so 
 he drew the nobler spirits among the Chartists to himself. 
 Those who were frankly revolutionary, or wished to be the 
 leaders of a great party, Uke O'Brien^ and Feargus O'Connor, 
 and those to whom the Charter was an end in itself, beyond 
 which they could not see, held aloof or were openly hostile. 
 Many of them seriously thought that David Urquhart was 
 a Tory, that the whole movement had been " hatched in 
 the Carlton Club," and that the " Foreign Pohcy cry was a 
 red herring drawn across the trail to draw off the attention 
 of the operatives from the Charter." The Government 
 took another view. Lord Normanby considered Mr. Urqu- 
 
 1 Bronterre O'Brien, however, in after years found that he had 
 many points of agreement with Urquhart. 
 
 On February 12, 1856, in a speech which he delivered on the 
 Crimean War at the John Street Institute, Fitzroy Square, he said: 
 
 "Let it not be pretended, then, that Turkey needed our assistance, 
 or that of France. If left to her own resources the whole Turkish 
 population wordd have risen en masse, and no power that Russia could 
 have broiight into the field could have availed against such a force 
 on Turkish soil. 
 
 '■ Mr. Urquhart was quite right when he said, it was not. Turkey's 
 weakness but Turkey's strength that the Allies really feared; and 
 that, instead of going to save her, they sent their fleets and armies 
 to prevent her from saving herself. 
 
 " Every incident of the War, every measure and fact of our policy 
 towards Turkey, goes to prove the truth of Mr. Urquhart's assevera- 
 tions. 
 
 " France and England have done more to destroy the independence 
 of Turkey in one year, by theu- pretended alliance, than Russia 
 could have done by fifty years of war. 
 
 "We have, by our Machiavellian policy, destroyed her three 
 principal armies; we have caused one part of her fleet to be destroyed 
 at Synope, and the rest to be either used as transports or left to 
 rot in their harbours. We have caused 3,000 of her seamen to 
 perish for lack of pay and necessaries. We left the brave garrison 
 of Kars to capitulate for want of bread and powder, after all their 
 heroic sacrifices, not sending them a single regiment, when the Allies 
 could have spared at least twenty from the Crimea (where they had 
 nothing to do), not sending them a single ration of bread, or a parah, 
 when we had immense stores accumulated within a few days' sail of 
 them, and while it was known to us that nearly three years' arrears 
 of pay were due to that brave garrison. 
 
 " To talk of helping Turkey under such cii'cumstances was only 
 a cruel mockery. 
 
 " We have only taken the place of Russia, in order to do to Turkey 
 what we charged Nicholas with having designed to do. 
 
 " We have left her literally without a fleet, also without an army, 
 except the miserable remnant of some 30,000. . . . This is what is 
 called helping Turkey !"
 
 92 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 hart " nothing but a Chartist with the Foreign Policy 
 added." 
 
 But the anger of the Chartists was strongly directed 
 towards their old leaders who had joined the " Foreign 
 Policy men," when some of them, like Cardo, Lowery, 
 Warden, Westrup, Thomason, and Richards, went about 
 the various towns and districts where Chartists had lost 
 hold, trying, not to destroy Chartism, but to show the 
 Chartists a more excellent way. Many of them were quite 
 ready for such showing; for the better sort were full of 
 fear as to the way in which things were going. The members 
 of the Convention seem to have felt that plans were being 
 laid and plots hatched by small coteries of desperate men who 
 had no patience to wait for the slow workings of petitions 
 which were disregarded and appeals which were ignored. 
 
 None of the converted Chartists showed more enthusiasm, 
 ability, and power of absorbing and reproducing the new 
 ideas than William Cardo. Two months after his first 
 meeting with David Urquhart we find him conducting a 
 public meeting at Birmingham, of which this is his account : 
 
 " In my first address to the people of Birmingham after 
 showing them the injury done to the labour and capital 
 of this country by the expansion of the Russian Empire 
 and the almost universal exercise of Russian influence, all 
 directed to the destruction of British commerce, likewise 
 the blockades carried out by France, through which one 
 Button Manufacturer told me he had lost a market that 
 he used to supply annually with hundreds of thousands gross 
 of buttons, the men that made them he was compelled to 
 discharge, and they were reduced to all the sufferings and 
 privations consequent on want of employment. They have 
 since been compelled to find employment in other trades that 
 were already overstocked with workmen. Also the large 
 import duties allowed to be put on British goods, having 
 the effect of entirely destroying the Trade, or otherwise com- 
 pelHng the manufacturer to reduce considerably the wages of 
 his workmen to enable the merchants to pay them. I have 
 given you this outline to show how I connect the interests 
 of industry with the Foreign Policy of the Country."-^ 
 
 * The letters and speeches of the working men have been given 
 without alteration of any kind, either of diction, grammar, or spelling.
 
 CHARTISM 93 
 
 At a Chartist meeting which took place when he was 
 in Birmingham, Cardo opposed to the suggestion of an anti- 
 Corn Law agitation the Russo-Turkish policy of the Govern- 
 ment, pointing out how it increased the price of corn, and 
 took the opportunity to speak of Eastern municipal in- 
 stitutions. He seems to have made some impression, for 
 he was invited to attend a Committee and argue out the 
 matter with the supporters of the anti-Corn Law agitators. 
 
 " I have determined," he said, " that no individual with 
 whom I am in contact, whether in public or in private, 
 shall remain ignorant of the designs of Russia and the 
 treason of Lord Palmerston, not forgetting those institu- 
 tions that Mr. Urquhart has made known to the world, 
 and the existence of which I trust I shall live to see in 
 this country, for it is then I look forward to the eman- 
 cipation of that class to which I belong and the general 
 happiness and prosperity of society." 
 
 In April, 1840, Cardo was the principal speaker at a 
 public meeting at Newcastle, the immediate and very 
 important result of which was the re-embodiment of the 
 Northern Political Union, ^ a distinctly Chartist body with 
 a policy of Universal Suffrage. 
 
 It was reorganised with an addition of seventy new 
 members " for the express purpose of inquiring into matters 
 of which they had previously no knowledge." 
 
 " The facts stated at the meeting," says Cargill in a letter 
 to Monteith, "came upon them hke a clap of thunder; 
 and as the Northern Political Union is a leading one, the 
 subject taken up energetically by them will not fail also to 
 be considered with attention by the rest of the working 
 classes." 
 
 A day or two before this meeting Cardo, Taylor and 
 Juhus Harney had spoken together at a meeting at Carlisle, ^ 
 
 1 See Northern Liberator, April, 1840. 
 
 2 The meeting was a higlily respectable one for the " Promotion 
 of Sabbath Observance" ; but Cardo and his followers took possession 
 of it by force and used it for a very different purpose. They had been 
 refused the use of the Town Hall by the Mayor. The full account of 
 it is given in the Northern Liberator, which strongly sympathised with 
 the Urquhart movement. The NoHhern Star was, on the other 
 hand, fierce in its abuse of the " Foreign Policy Men."
 
 94 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 denouncing the treasonable Foreign Policy of the Govern- 
 ment which had brought the country into its condition of 
 distress. Cardo was already becoming known as belonging 
 to the " Foreign Policy " party. He was a shoemaker by 
 trade, and evidently a man of quick intelligence and much 
 personal attraction, with the powers and temperament of 
 an orator. Robert Monteith says, in describing the effect 
 he produced at a public meeting : "He was firm, earnest and 
 sonorous to a degree I had no notion of, a Danton without 
 his ferocity." In the Convention he was on the side of 
 physical force, and opposed James Cobbett's resolution 
 that the Convention should oppose any contempt of law 
 and confine itself to presenting the People's Petition. Cardo 
 said that the resolution " amounted to a gagging bill," and 
 maintained that the people " should not be dictated to." 
 
 He took a prominent part in the meeting of Chartists at 
 Birmingham to protest against the summary and despotic 
 arrest of Dr. Taylor. Even after his conversion he by no 
 means gave up his Chartist friends. He brought many of 
 them with him to the Urquhart camp. Of these one of the 
 most valuable was Warden, a man of very different nature 
 to himself. 
 
 Warden was the first chairman of the Metropolitan Trades 
 Union, a society of men which had broken away from the 
 Owenites, and whose programme combined Radical reform 
 with a moderate amount of co-operation. William Benbow 
 was among its members and Henry Hetherington, the editor 
 of the Poor Man's Guardian, which alone reports its first 
 meeting. This society merged into the "National Union 
 of the Working Classes," out of which the Chartist move- 
 ment sprang. Warden was the delegate for Bolton at the 
 Convention, a man of dehcate health, sensitive conscience 
 and rich intelUgence. He was first a carpenter then a 
 gardener by trade, and for his recreation he studied the 
 Dialogues of Plato. Warden gave in his allegiance to 
 David Urquhart, because he it was, he said, through whom 
 he had found the truth. 
 
 *' Since the time I met with Mr. Urquhart," he wrote 
 to Montieth six months after the opening of the campaign,
 
 CHARTISM 96 
 
 " I have been endeavouring to gain a clearer conception 
 of the truths which were then for the first time revealed 
 to me. My perceptions, though dim and indistinct, are 
 sufficiently clear to convince me, that in the course we 
 have pursued for the past two years we have been radically 
 wrong; we have been pursuing a political phantom while 
 England was rapidly sinking into the grave of nations. 
 My object was (and I entered into the struggle with the most 
 perfect self-abnegation) to restore to the working classes 
 that privilege which they had lost, and which I conceived 
 the other classes possessed — self-government; but I did 
 not perceive that in losing its simplicity of character, in 
 allowing its perceptions to be clouded by error, it had also 
 lost the faculty of self-government as completely as the 
 man who, having lost his eyes, has lost the faculty of sight; 
 and that simply to add to the number of electors, when all 
 aUke were ignorant of the causes of national greatness or 
 national decay, would only have the effect of leaving us 
 where we were, or perhaps make our doAvnfall more certain, 
 since all classes from their common ignorance must have 
 been committed to the same fatal policy." 
 
 Westrup may be called the first convert. He had been 
 attracted to Urquhart and his friends by their views on 
 commerce, and it was through him that the Chartists were 
 brought in the first instance into contact with the Foreign 
 Policy movement. 
 
 Lowery, another Chartist leader, was a Newcastle working 
 man and a member of the Convention. He had taken part 
 in the hard and thankless task of trying to convert Cornwall 
 to Chartism, which never succeeded well in mainly agri- 
 cultural districts. He had always been on the Law and 
 Order side of the Convention, and in 1840 he had put for- 
 ward a scheme before the meeting of delegates at Manchester 
 for the contesting of Parliamentary seats. 
 
 Cargill gained him to the cause in the April of 1840. 
 In July he was sent as a missionary, having earned the 
 enthusiastic good opinion of Charles Attwood.^ " In 
 eloquence," said Cargill, " Lowery has always been the 
 first man here." " Lowery is the greatest man they have, 
 
 1 One of David Uiquhart's earliebt and most enthusiastic sup- 
 porters, brother of Thomas Attwood, of " Birmingham Political 
 Union " fame.
 
 96 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 most eloquent and noble," writes Monteith in a letter 
 asking if he shall be put up at a Glasgow meeting to oppose 
 ColUnSj always an enemy to the cause. Lowery was one 
 of the few prominent Chartists who adopted Urquhart's 
 views and promulgated them without making enemies of his 
 old friends. He never lost touch with Chartist movements 
 and seems to have been a link between the Urquhart move- 
 ment in Newcastle and the Northern PoUtical Union. 
 Cargill also succeeded in winning over Thomason, a Scotch 
 delegate to the Convention, and at first a vehement opposer 
 of the " Foreign Policy " men. 
 
 " I have just had," says he, " two hours' conversation 
 with the only Chartist who opi^osed us on Wednesday, a 
 man of immense influence among them, called Thomason. 
 Perfect success ! The utmost confidence is estabhshed, 
 and he desires to go to Glasgow to see you. He has requested 
 from me all the publications on foreign affairs, which I 
 have given him, and he is determined to investigate them 
 with the deepest attention. He requested me to lend him 
 Turkey and Its Resources. He begged me in particular to 
 procure him a copy of Vattel. He is going on a tour, being 
 chiefly actuated by the desire of laying our subjects before 
 the people. Yet this is the man who said only on Wednes- 
 day that if any person thought to make Foreign Pohcy 
 a stepping-stone to power they would find themselves 
 horribly mistaken. ' Only the Charter !' " 
 
 Thomason made rapid progress. This letter of Cargill's 
 is dated April, 1840. In June he wrote from Darlington, 
 when he was on a missionary tour, to report progress. He 
 had had two open-air meetings on Sunday, one on the 
 Bratts near Bishop Auckland, and another on Monday just 
 outside the town. His first glimpse at world pohtics had 
 evidently been to him, as it was to so many of the working 
 men, a passport into a wider world. 
 
 " I find," he writes, " in examining these topics that my 
 mind is carried into the interior of a temple, of which I 
 could form no conception, and I feel as though I could get 
 introduced to every clime and hold intercourse with uni- 
 versal man. Party and its paltryisms are not worth notice 
 when placed beside the rights of nations and the rights of 
 man."
 
 CHARTISM 97 
 
 Side by side with Thomason's work went his studies. 
 
 " Would you be so kind as to get me two copies of the 
 Boundary Pam2)hleis," he says. Again, in September he 
 writes from Manchester, whither he had gone from Darhng- 
 ton, to ask for advice as to where he can get the Portfolio, 
 the History of Poland, and the Orations of Deynosthenes. 
 His studies since May have, he says, inchided " twice 
 reading Vattel, MacNeill on the East, Urquhart's Spirit of 
 the East, and Turkey and Its Eesources." 
 
 That he had not been idle anyone will admit who has 
 read these works but once ! 
 
 Last came " old Richards," who had been sent by the 
 Convention to agitate in the Potteries for the Charter. 
 He was on the side of Law and Order, and had tried to 
 impress it on the operatives there, but found the conditions 
 of labour in the Potteries so deplorable that he feared ' ' all 
 will be of no avail, this being the language used in these 
 places : ' Better to die by the sword than to perish with 
 hunger.' " No wonder, when men working fifteen hours a 
 day found that the utmost they could earn was seven or 
 eight shillings a week ! 
 
 Richards came into the Urquhart movement under the 
 wing of Cardo, and in spite of his age and infirmities (he 
 was over sixty and in ill-health), he was not the least en- 
 thusiastic of the little band. At Trowbridge he reports 
 having addressed a meeting of six hundred men in the 
 Chartists' pubhc room, and so interested them that they 
 there and then formed a Committee to Investigate Foreign 
 Policy. Bristol he visited also. 
 
 " I arrived there," he says, " about two on Saturday/ 
 and after some time found some of the most intelligent of 
 the working men there : we entered into conversation on the 
 Foreign Policy of these kingdoms, a subject entirely new to 
 them; they were well aware that something was wrong, 
 but knew not what : we spent about two hours in conversa- 
 tion, and when I was leaving them they asked me for proof 
 of what I had stated. I then presented them with some 
 pamphlets, obtaining their promise to investigate for them- 
 selves and also to form a Committee to report thereon." 
 
 7
 
 98 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Such were the most prominent of the old Chartists, by 
 whose means Urquhart and his Uttle company of friends 
 carried on a strenuous cam^Jaign from 1839 to 1841. 
 
 Having successfully combated in many places the 
 Chartist danger, his one idea was to gain the mass of the 
 working men of England to his side,^ that together they 
 might work for the restoration of Law and Justice at home 
 and abroad, and so avert the peril which he was convinced 
 threatened the safety, nay, the very existence, of England. 
 He had with him, besides his Chartist friends, a little band 
 of followers, whose devotion is all the more touching when 
 we realise, as we must, that Mr. Urquhart was an extra- 
 ordinarily difficult, sometimes impossible, leader. His 
 demands on the time, health and money of his friends 
 were immense and unceasing, and could only have been 
 borne by those who reahsed to the full how much more 
 than he exacted he was prepared himself to give. 
 
 With a really tender and sensitive disposition he could 
 be as hard as steel. His great and piercing intelligence was 
 absolutely intolerant of stupidity or of want of agreement 
 on points which, because to him they were obvious, he 
 conceived they must be so to all thinking beings. 
 
 Urquhart 's aim was to establish in all the places where 
 Chartism had been rife Associations for the Study of National 
 and International Affairs — " Committees for the Investiga- 
 tion of Diplomatic Documents." 
 
 The original idea was that these committees should con- 
 sist ol all classes, but this project failed. The real interest 
 evinced by the working men was not shared by the others, 
 
 ^ After the early strenuous days of the Chartist Rising, one of 
 the first tasks to which Urquhart set himself was to try and avert 
 the fate which hung over the unfortunate Frost, now imprisoned in 
 Monmouth Gaol, and about to be tried for his High Treason. He 
 was convinced that if the Government had listened to his warnings, 
 the Newport Rising would never have taken place, and, moreover, 
 that Frost was not responsible for it ; it had been engineered secretly 
 by a little coterie under the influence of Benyouski, and Frost had 
 unwilhngly and from a sense of loyalty to his associates been drawn 
 into it at the last moment. 
 
 He was seconded by Westrup and Cardo. The latter went down 
 to Wales to see what news he could gather, and was arrested at 
 Newport, but released, as nothing could be proved against him.
 
 CHARTISM 91) 
 
 to whom the distressful state of the country had never 
 come home in the same way. 
 
 Urquhart himself was ubiquitous. He was in Liverpool 
 one day, addressing meetings of Chartists often till two or 
 three in the morning; the next day in Newcastle, working 
 at the same high pressure for a week, allowing himself 
 scarcely time to sleep or to eat; then on to Glasgow, to 
 Sheffield or Manchester. He was always accompanied by 
 one or more of his friends, from whom he exacted an equal 
 amount of work. 
 
 Monteith of Carstairs wrote to Mr. Cargill about six 
 months after the campaign had opened: 
 
 " I take advantage of a very short interval of leisure to 
 put down a few recollections of a time which I am assured 
 will be esteemed one of the most remarkable in the annals 
 of England. ... I have been present at scenes in which 
 the select of the people have been addressed in a tone to 
 which their ears have become utterly unaccustomed. No 
 conciliation, no dexterous play with the passions or pre- 
 judices, no endeavouring to win by the sacrifice or even 
 the concealment of the eternal truth. Rebuke, reproof, 
 warning have been the instruments employed, and the 
 results have been invariably interest, humiliation, awe, 
 submission, and the promise of zealous co-operation. 
 
 " In consequence of the course adopted at Glasgow it 
 became possible to do more in a week at Newcastle than 
 during the previous weeks already mentioned. 
 
 " A committee of investigation into the state of the 
 country and the crimes of the Foreign Minister^ has been 
 appointed there, remarkable not only for the subject of 
 its labours, but for the elements of which it is composed. 
 Classes hitherto in a state of rancorous hostility are there 
 linked together, operatives and merchants sit together at 
 the same table, conning over the same papers and espousing 
 the same convictions. . . . Hence Carlisle, the next scene 
 of our labours, was won at a single meeting of about three 
 hours, a meeting at which the principal popular leader was 
 not only dethroned before his followers but compelled to 
 
 1 Lord Palmer^ston. Urquhart and his followers were convinced 
 that Palmerston, in many matters of foreign policy, had acted as 
 Russia's tool. His connection with the Princess Lieven aroused 
 the suspicion that he was not always an unwillincr tool.
 
 100 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 leave the room as unworthy of information and instruction, 
 while they were retained and made allies in a new cause. 
 The operatives were to have formed a committee and have 
 agreed to visit the upper classes of all parties, to compel 
 their attention to these subjects and to invoke their co- 
 operation. 
 
 " At Bolton, whither we immediately proceeded, the 
 utmost excitement had been previously raised. A large 
 Committee consisting of operatives and merchants has been 
 there established. A similar work was performed at Roch- 
 dale. The last scene of our labours was Birmingham, 
 where, as is usual with places of importance, more difficulty 
 was to be expected, more self-sufficiency of the leaders to 
 be encountered. Notwithstanding this and the great 
 anxiety experienced by Mr. Urquhart, the leader of popular 
 feeling there came with four or five of his followers. The 
 result was far beyond what I had anticipated," 
 
 The converted Chartists had become infected with the 
 spirit of their leader. Thomason's committee at Manchester 
 was so flourishing that it was deemed unnecessary for Mr. 
 Urquhart to visit that town, and in the Potteries, " that 
 hot-bed of political agitation and the centre of powerful 
 Chartist organisations," the committee which Richards had 
 formed had thrown itself heart and soul into the examina- 
 tion of the real causes of distress and their remedies. All 
 the members asked for were papers, documents and books 
 to aid them in their studies. 
 
 Mary Ann Grove, an energetic Chartist, the Secretary of 
 the Women's Radical and Female Political Union of Bir- 
 mingham, became a warm supporter of the Urquhart cause. 
 Dr. John Taylor was also much impressed by an interview 
 of his own seeking which he had with the great man. The 
 two were brought together by the good offices of Dr. Bryce, 
 Urquhart's friend and medical adviser ever since the Greek 
 War days, and a sympathiser with the Chartists. We have 
 accounts of the interview from both the actors in it. 
 
 Urquhart writes : 
 
 " I have had a conversation of nearlj'^ five hours with 
 Dr. T. I never so shook any man. He seemed tortured, 
 struggling between responsibility, shame and failure brought
 
 CHARTISM 101 
 
 home, and self-love and pride that linked him to a system, 
 and the greater shame of sinldng in the estimation of those 
 he had led on. He prevented two of the secondary men 
 from coming, and continued the same line after our con- 
 versation, yet volunteered to send a packet of letters for 
 the men he thought of in the places I might visit. I must 
 add that Dr. T. repeatedly asserted that bloodshed and 
 convulsion were inevitable. The die was cast !" 
 
 The following is Taylor's account of the meeting written 
 to a Chartist friend: "I have had four hours' conference 
 with Mr. Urquhart. He is truly an extraordinary man, and 
 destined to play a great part, but he has neither time nor 
 materials for his present project. I have given him letters 
 to men who can aid him, but I beUeve we have parted 
 never to meet again. "^ 
 
 Cardo met with hearty abuse from some of his own 
 associates : he was a " renegade," a " Tory spy," a " traitor," 
 he had been bought. His life was more than once threatened 
 by his old associates, and he had the additional incon- 
 venience of being shadowed by the police as a Chartist. 
 
 The cry of " Tory, Foreign Policy humbugs " was indeed 
 raised all over the country in proportion to the success of 
 the little company, who, it must be said, courted abuse by 
 maldng existing Chartist organisations the base of their 
 operations, and by always being present and speaking at 
 Chartist meetings. One working man, who introduced the 
 subject at a Greenock Trades Union meeting, was told that 
 he was connected with a party which was seeking to divert 
 the people's attention from the Charter, that before the 
 people paid attention to these doctrines they must have 
 the power to alter them. 
 
 " Well," said this apostle, " you have not got the power, 
 that is quite clear. You have got to get the power; it 
 won't come to you, and knowledge upon this as on every 
 subject will assist you in getting political power." He then 
 proceeded to explain that in various towns there were com- 
 mittees of men who were so determined to understand the 
 foreign relations of this country that they met every week 
 
 ^ This was probably the case. Dr. Taylor died in ISll,
 
 102 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 to investigate Parliamentary documents. His opponent 
 replied that these committees did not consist of Chartists. 
 " On the contrary," said he, " every one of them is a 
 Chartist." " Opposition," he remarks, " now ceased." 
 
 The success of Urquhart's pupils was largely owing to the 
 methods he himself used for their instruction. 
 
 He always made a point of instructing them in dialectic. 
 *' The art of proving your opponent wrong," he would often 
 say, " hes not so much in proving the strength of your 
 cause as in exposing the weakne-ss of his." 
 
 At the meetings and conversations he had with the opera- 
 tives he usually allowed them to choose some subject on 
 which to question him, and he, then and there, without 
 books or papers, would enter with them into obscure points 
 of diplomacy, would explain to them the bearing of treaties 
 with all their secret articles, would trace out the trend of 
 a certain line of policy and its results, with a brilliancy that 
 a statesman might have envied, and with such simplicity 
 that these uneducated working men could follow him and 
 reproduce in their talk with their fellows the knowledge he 
 had given them. 
 
 " Yesterday," wrote Colonel Pringle Taylor, " several 
 gentlemen dined with Mr. Urquhart and, in the evening, 
 about six operatives waited upon him, and several gentle- 
 men. Being much exhausted by the labours of the day 
 and the conversation at dinner, which was very effective 
 indeed, he confined himself to three-quarters of an hour 
 in addressing the party after dinner. Having requested 
 Mr. Richards, the leader of the operatives at Hanley in the 
 Potteries, to name a subject, the Blockade of Mexico was 
 selected. 
 
 " He showed the violation of International Law in that 
 blockade, and the collusion of the Foreign Secretary in 
 promoting it to the injury of British commerce; he pointed 
 out that the operatives employed in manufactures, if the 
 loss in wages were divided among them all, had each lost 
 thirty shillings by the blockade; that besides, Russia had 
 at least benefited by it in the sum of £700,000, which had 
 principally come out of the pockets of the operatives of 
 this country; that the merchants who had appealed against 
 it had done so in a manner which had strengthened instead
 
 CHARTISM 103 
 
 of weakening the action of the traitorous Foreign Secretary ; 
 that the nation, and certainly all the operatives, had sub- 
 mitted uncomplainingly to the injury inflicted on them; 
 that their apathy and indifference was criminal and must 
 tend to the downfall of the State ; that this was only one 
 of many similar acts destructive of their interests and 
 ruinous to the nation; that if they had any regard for them- 
 selves and the condition of their families, if they had any 
 sense of the duty of man to man, if they were not entirely 
 degraded and infamous as men and as citizens, they would 
 apply themselves to the investigation of these matters and 
 save their country from that annihilation which otherwise 
 was inevitable. 
 
 " The exposition was admirable, the appeal powerful; it 
 is impossible to give even a feeble representation of it, 
 and still more so to convey the powerful impression produced 
 upon all present. A gentleman present, highly connected, 
 a Whig, hitherto an opponent, said he would give £1,000 
 to get Mr. Urquhart into Parliament. Mr. Charles Att- 
 wood spoke of Mr. Urquhart as an apostle, and said he 
 never could have believed that any man was given such 
 power. The effect on the operatives was no less astound- 
 ing ; they have gone forth to act day and night in awakening 
 their fellow-men to a knowledge of what they have learnt, 
 to an appreciation of the wonderful man they have seen, 
 and to the conviction that through him alone can the nation 
 be saved not merely from dangers of an appaUing nature, 
 but from annihilation and horrors which it has not hitherto 
 entered into their minds to imagine. 
 
 "A Central Committee has been formed in London to 
 communicate with the several provincial committees which 
 have been formed, and the attention which is being given 
 to the subject in London is so rapidly extending, and pro- 
 ducing such powerful effect upon men's minds that the 
 result can no longer be doubtful."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ASSOCIATIONS FOR INVESTIGATING FOREIGN 
 AFFAIRS AND ENGLAND'S RELATIONS WITH 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 In the autumn of 1840 arose the crisis between England 
 and France brought about by the exclusion of France from 
 the concert of the Powers on the Eastern Question. Obvi- 
 ously this insult to France was due to the influence of 
 Russia, who had seen in the French support given to 
 Mehemet Ali an opportunity for breaking up the Entente 
 Cordiale of the Western Powers against the autocracies of 
 the North and Centre which was formed in 1830. 
 
 Russia's plan to create a breach between England and 
 France met with no obstacle from the two Powers them- 
 selves. M. Thiers was carrying on a crooked and under- 
 hand pohcy in the East, and Lord Palmerston not only 
 disUked the French, but had an extreme personal antipathy 
 to Louis Philippe. 
 
 It was therefore without difficulty that the Russian 
 Cabinet succeeded in arranging that in the Conference of 
 the Powers to deliberate upon measures to be ta.ken against 
 Mehemet Ah, France should be ignored. 
 
 England and France had been allies for the past ten 
 years, and France naturally looked upon this action as 
 a deadly insult, as indeed it was. Preparations for war were 
 begun, and her fury was not diminished when the Russian 
 Fleet was allowed to pass the shores of England and France 
 on her way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean; she 
 rightly conceived it to be a demonstration against herself. 
 
 David Urquhart took the hne that it was an unjustifiable 
 breach of the Law of Nations,^ and a cleverly laid scheme 
 
 1 Because it was a breach of the Treaty of July, 1839, whereby 
 England, France, Austria and Russia were ijledged always to act 
 together at the Porte. 
 
 ^ 104
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 105 
 
 on the part of Russia to bring about a war between England 
 and France during which she might carry out, without 
 opposition, her designs on the Porte. 
 
 The Treaty was signed on July 15th. England's share 
 in it was entirely due to the influence of Lord Palmerston, 
 who had threatened to place his resignation in Lord Mel- 
 bourne's hands unless his very unwilhng colleagues agreed 
 
 to it. 
 
 The whole matter, the action as well as the manner of 
 its doing, was calculated to wound France in her most 
 vulnerable points. And M. Thiers declared that the last 
 franc and the last drop of the blood of France would be 
 expended to avert the consequences of the Treaty. This 
 was tantamount to a threat of war, and war Urquhart 
 was most anxious to avert. To this end he determined 
 that the people of England should communicate dhectly 
 with the people of France, to make it clear that the Treaty 
 was merely a concern of their respective Governments, that 
 the Enghsh people were against it and were determined if 
 possible to avert its consequences. He published a mani- 
 festo to the committees formed for the examination of 
 diplomatic documents. He pubUshed pamphlets, wrote 
 letters to the newspapers, held pubhc meetings, and finally 
 with some of his friends and three of the operatives on his 
 committees, Lowery, Thomason and Thomas, went on a 
 deputation to Paris. The crisis, if it did nothing else, 
 showed the sincerity of the men who followed Urquhart, 
 and it gained him adherents, while at the same time it 
 augmented the hostility of his enemies. 
 
 The Morning Post was full of ridicule. The Chartist 
 Northern Liberator, however, always more or less sympathetic, 
 warmly espoused his cause. All the missioners were sum- 
 moned to the North, and a great pubhc meeting was held, 
 which it reports at great length. At Carhsle two large 
 meetings were held within a week, at which Richards, 
 Cardo and Warden spoke. Richards was particularly 
 happy in the hne he adopted. He began by a declaration 
 of the importance of a just Foreign Pohcy, but was inter- 
 rupted with a question, " What about the Charter ?"
 
 106 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 He answered that he was a democrat. He went a lot 
 farther than many Chartists. The cause of hberty through- 
 out the world was progressing. But there was a party in 
 England and throughout the world to prevent the spread 
 of democratic institutions. There was Russia, there was 
 Prussia, and Austria was stepping into the shoes of Prussia. 
 At a time like the present, when liberty was stretching out 
 her hands to lay hold of the prize, at that moment the 
 Foreign Minister offends a friendly Power, and links himself 
 with the despotic Powers. What was the union with the 
 despotic Powers for ? To bring about a war between 
 England and France when our commerce was barely suffi- 
 cient to support our operatives, and war with France would 
 throw millions out of employment. He wanted the Charter 
 quite as much as that gentleman who called out, and would 
 maintain it, and if necessary fight for it. 
 
 Cardo thereupon proposed a resolution: 
 
 " That those who had hitherto had the management of 
 affairs, from the Cabinet to the Electoral Body, were alike 
 guilty of the betrayal of their trust, and that therefore the 
 only hope of safety left to the nation was in the people 
 understanding and obtaining the management of their own 
 affairs by securing the full enjoyment of the principles 
 contained in the People's Charter." 
 
 The success of this meeting was such that another was 
 held, this time in the theatre, which was filled. At this 
 Warden spoke. He said the Treaty of July was the renewal 
 of a war against freedom in France, Turkey, Poland and 
 Circassia. He proposed a resolution: 
 
 " That it is the opinion of this Meeting that the Treaty 
 between Russia, Prussia, Austria and England is a Treaty 
 to promote and forward Russian influence and aggression: 
 that the possession of the Dardanelles and the Caucasus 
 will give Russia a dangerous preponderance: that this 
 Meeting is of the opinion that Lord Palmerston is a Traitor 
 to his country, that he has betrayed his colleagues and 
 injured his native land. And this Meeting is of opinion 
 that the House of Commons injures the interests of the British 
 Empire, and they pledge themselves to do all in their power 
 to bring about a complete reform in that House." 
 
 A curiously modern interlude took place at this meeting 
 which, in spite of a little opposition, Warden carried with
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 107 
 
 him. An opponent inquired why so much fuss was made 
 of Poland and Cir cassia, whereas nothing was said about 
 Ireland. 
 
 Warden replied that Ireland was on exactly the same 
 footing as Poland and Circassia, but that was no reason 
 why she should be dragged into an unjust war. 
 
 At a meeting in Birmingham Charles Attwood spoke to 
 25,000 people. 
 
 But it was Newcastle which took up the question most 
 warmly.^ The Newcastle Committee for Investigating 
 Foreign Affairs joined with the town to send Charles Att- 
 wood, Thomas Doubleday, Horn, Grey, Gilmour and Loutit 
 charged with a petition to M. Thiers, under the following 
 instructions : 
 
 " Your chief duty is to make known to the People, the 
 King, and the Cabinet of France the earnest desire of the 
 People of England to cement more firmly the feelings of 
 friendship and sympathy which we feel towards the French 
 People. 
 
 " You will endeavour to convince the French People that 
 the EngHsh People see in the comphcations arising out of 
 the Treaty of July 15 no justifiable cause whatever for the 
 interruption of peace between the two countries. 
 
 " You will therefore impress on the French Government 
 the absolute necessity, which is incumbent on it, for our 
 common security, to protest nistantly and decidedly against 
 the Treaty as an act of outrage on the Law of Nations in 
 general, and of danger to our two nations in particular. 
 
 " You will take pains to impress on the French Govern- 
 ment that it is the interest and therefore the imperative 
 duty, not only of England and of France, but of the rest 
 of Europe to secure the independence of Turkey, Circassia, 
 Persia, and Sweden from the aggressions of Russia. 
 
 " It will be your duty to impress upon the French People 
 the unanimous feehng of the people of England that the 
 people of France and England and all the Governments 
 party to the Treaty of Vienna, require the full and uncon- 
 ditional restoration of the Independence of Poland. 
 
 " The passage of a Russian fleet from the Baltic to the 
 
 1 The Northern Liberator (October and November, 1840) gives 
 full particulars of the public meeting and speeches as well as the 
 history of the deputation and its doings in Paris.
 
 108 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Mediterranean would constitute a distinct attack on the 
 maritime power of England. 
 
 " In conclusion it is desired by order of the Committee 
 that you co-operate by all the means in your power in the 
 patriotic exertions of Mr. Urquhart, our respected fellow- 
 countryman, to avert the blow that is being prepared and 
 the danger that is suspended over our country, of which 
 the hostility of France will be the signal, and the destruction 
 of both the consequences of its fall." 
 
 Lowery was elected at a large public meeting to represent 
 the town: Thomas and Thomason were sent to represent 
 the working classes. They arrived at Paris on November 13, 
 and on the 15th Lowery wrote to the Chairman of the 
 Committee for Investigating Foreign Affairs : 
 
 " We arrived here on Friday night. On our way here 
 we endeavoured to sound the feelings of the French people 
 and found them in some instances under the war mania — 
 but mainly disposed to a friendly connexion with England ; 
 yet they appeared at a loss to understand how, if we were 
 disposed to continue the French Alliance, we had allowed 
 the Treaty of July to be sanctioned. We pointed out to 
 them that the Treaty was the Act of the Minister — that he 
 was a Traitor — and never had we a better opportunity of 
 seeing how the systematic arrangements of falsehood and 
 diplomatic treachery were calculated to attain their objects; 
 here were people, whose ardent desire v/as to consider their 
 neighbours as friends, yet by the fraudulent management 
 of a Minister of England, were impressed with the belief 
 that the people of England were their enemies. 
 
 " Yesterday we had an interview with M. Faucher, 
 Editor of the Courier FraiiQais. I explained to him the 
 nature of the Meeting at Sunderland, by which I was 
 deputed, and the resolutions that were passed repudiating 
 the Treaty of the fifteenth of July, and expressing their 
 esteem for and desire of Alhance with the people of France. 
 He expressed wonder that there had not been more meetings 
 than there had been on the subject, and thought that Sir 
 William Molesworth had had more influence than Mr. 
 Attwood; we showed that he laboured under a mistake 
 and that the subject was more generally entertained than 
 they in France thought — that Mr. Attwood from my know- 
 ledge of the people of England (which was general) had a 
 larger share of popular influence than INIolesworth and that
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 109 
 
 coming from Newcastle lately I could assure him that the 
 calumnies of the Whig and Tory Press, as to Mr. Attwood 
 not representing the feehng of the people of that district, 
 were unfounded. That there had been a large pubhc 
 meeting there lately commending the proceedings of Mr. 
 Attwood. M. Faucher then reverted to Mr. Urquhart and 
 Mr. Attwood, saying he thought the Treason of LordPalmer- 
 ston had better been kept out of their proceedings here, 
 that it was purely an EngUsh question and did not forward 
 their views here on maintaining the French Alhance — we 
 showed it was only by the French understanding the Treason 
 of Lord Palmerston that they could understand our true 
 position and their own, that his intentions could only be 
 explained by his acts, which were calculated to destroy 
 the power and influence of England and render her prostra- 
 tion subservient to Russian Aggrandisement to place us 
 in collision with France and weaken both her and us, and 
 thus make the only two European Kingdoms that might 
 stand as barriers to her usurpations and aggressions, the 
 destroyers of each other and the instruments of her ad- 
 vancement. M. Faucher expressed his pleasure at our visit 
 and his desire to extend our objects, yet he is in a fettered 
 condition being a great admirer of M. Thiers. 
 
 "To-day we have waited on M. de Tocqueville, also Mr. 
 Cavanah the Editor of the National ; after explaining my 
 mission, M. de Tocqueville appeared to think the treachery 
 of Palmerston plain, as connected with his conduct to the 
 Persian Embassy, and agreed with me that it was folly to 
 consider the Treaty of the fifteenth of July as aught but 
 calculated to injure England and that it was the act of 
 the Minister and not of the people ; he expressed his pleasure 
 at our mission and his hopes that the effects of the Treaty 
 would be averted and its aim destroyed, also he said that 
 he would assist us in any way in which he could be useful. 
 The conversation with the Editor of the National was, of 
 course, similar to the above. I told him my knowledge of 
 the feehngs of the mass of the English people from moving 
 extensively among them, and that it was anti-Russian and 
 well disposed to France and that the Treaty was the work 
 of a Russian agent, Palmerston ; we pointed out Mr. Cargill's 
 pamphlet and he agreed with it, also that England and 
 France had the same interests. I told him that this feeling 
 was extending fast in England, and that from the exertions 
 of Mr. Urquhart the people were entertaining and investi- 
 gating the subject; he expressed his pleasure at these things,
 
 110 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 and said that he would forward my views for producing a 
 good understanding and mention my mission in his paper. 
 
 " To-day also we met General Charnowski, a Polish 
 general and naturaUsed Englishman, just returned from 
 Constantinople ; when there he was offered the command of 
 the Turkish army in Syi'ia or in Egypt and refused. He 
 was sent to Lord Ponsonby by the English Government. 
 We explained to him how we thought that not only Poland 
 but England and France could be saved, namely, by 
 understanding each their true position, and acting accord- 
 ingly. He agreed with us, but appears to have lost hope, 
 he says that the Treaty of the fifteenth of July will have 
 a bad effect on Circassia, as representing England as friendly 
 to Russia and fears they will be worn out. He also says 
 the war feeling is rising in Germany against France- — ^thus 
 are the Russians succeeding everywhere by invidious means 
 and hired traitors: hoping soon to see these means 
 destroyed, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours, 
 Robert Lowery." 
 
 On November 17 he writes again to the Chairman of the 
 Central Committee in London. 
 
 " Since I wrote last we have been extremely busy from 
 morning until night, visiting those whom we thought might 
 be useful in assisting to further our object, we have seen 
 several members of the Chamber and expect to get intro- 
 duced to a number of others, and as all honest men would 
 be loath to think a man, entrusted with the destinies of 
 his country, could be guilty of such crime and wickedness, 
 until they examined the facts, we pointed out the series 
 of consecutive acts committed by him, all tending to destroy 
 the honour and influence of his country, in which he had 
 in every instance forwarded the objects of the Russian 
 Government; all admitted that such had been the con- 
 sequences of those acts, and owned that we had sufficient 
 reasons for affirming his guilt. 
 
 " Everyone we have spoken with has expressed his 
 pleasure at our Mission and agreed that a war between 
 England and France will be destructive to the interests 
 of both countries, and that the only way to stop it is to 
 get the people of each nation to speak out in condemnation 
 of the Treaty and of their desire of alliance; this, of course.
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS HI 
 
 is more particularly necessary for England to do, as the 
 intelligent of the French are very desirous of our alliance. 
 
 " The last note of Lord Palmerston has had a most 
 pernicious effect here, all men of all parties consider it an 
 intended insult, designed to produce hostility. Le Comte 
 de Noe, whom we visited to-day informed us that it had 
 caused amendments to be made in the King's speech, giving 
 it a firmer and more warlike tone. 
 
 " The nobleman, spoken of above, is decidedly convinced 
 of the truth of our views, and Mr. Fyler was very glad to 
 learn so, for when he had called on him he appeared to 
 hesitate to admit them. He, the Comte de Noe, informs 
 me that to his knowledge there has been for the last two 
 years a number of persons travelling in our Indian posses- 
 sions as French travellers, who were nothing else but 
 Russian agents, whose purpose was to view our military 
 stations, and to sound the feelings of the inhabitants, and 
 scatter the seeds of revolt. 
 
 " M. Cabet, a member of the Chamber, whom we visited 
 to-day promised to procure me some introductions to some 
 of the intelhgent working men, hitherto we have not been 
 able to get access to them, except by mixing in the cafes 
 and entering into conversation on the subject, which we 
 have done very often, and have then left some copies of 
 Mr. Attwood's address to the French Nation. 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 Robert Lowery." 
 
 Urquhart himself was engaged in the diplomatic circles 
 he knew so well. He evidently did not find them improved 
 during the five years he had been absent from them, judging 
 from the following extract from his journal of September 4: 
 
 " I went out with Mr. Porter and M. Faucher to Auteuil, 
 I had never seen M. Thiers. He received me well. About 
 ten minutes elapsed before dinner was announced, during 
 which he several times came towards me, and after a word 
 or two went away again, showing an anxiety to enter into 
 conversation, and still as if there was something that 
 restrained him. I constantly found his eyes fixed upon 
 me when I turned. I heard Madame Thiers remark to Mr. 
 Porter, ' Votre gouvernement est aujourd'hui tout-a-fait 
 Russe.' I expected from this, alliance in that quarter. We 
 went to dinner about a dozen. I was beside Madame Thiers 
 and M. Thiers opposite, found Madame Thiers perfectly
 
 112 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 ' inabordable.' M. Faucher was on the other side, and he 
 told me as we sat down at table that M. Thiers had asked 
 him if they could not manage to get me to talk to them 
 about the East. I, therefore, thought that the time of 
 dinner would be employed in some degree usefully. I 
 never heard a conversation at a dinner-table so thoroughly 
 contemj)tible, and took no part in it but a simple reply 
 when specially addressed. On retiring after dinner M. 
 Thiers immediately came to me, but was called off once 
 or twice by the arrival of intelligence (popular movements), 
 and finally led me into a gallery where we conversed. Until 
 we got into conversation, whether after or before dinner, 
 1 had avoided the subject; accepted none of the openings 
 made by M. Thiers either as to continuing conversation 
 or as to directing conversation. I left him the full labour 
 of extracthig every point, and responsibility of adopting 
 every subject. After dinner I think he commenced with 
 saying, with a smile: ' Very different is the position of poor 
 Ministers in France to your fine gentlemen in England ; we 
 hear that a 1 your Ministers are killing game, and that 
 there is not one in London '; and something followed this 
 which pointed directly to Lord Palmerston. 
 
 " I immediately replied that he had to look to the cause 
 of this different state of things in the great difference 
 between the system of government in England and France, 
 running over the different departments of Ministers in 
 France, and showing that nothing of the kind existed in 
 England, no functions to perform — for instance, Instruction, 
 Justice, Police, Interior. 
 
 " M. Thiers did not seem to like the tone I took, but to 
 be interested with my thoughts, and said: ' But the Public 
 Affairs of the State, whatever the difference internally, 
 require at least some care in England as in France.' I 
 said that I believed a great deal more care had been given 
 to these things in England than in France. An expression 
 of surprise led me to distinguish between care and the 
 object for which that care was given, and between interest, 
 which was general, and attention which might be individual 
 I then sketched the causes of the loss of the sentiment of 
 nationality in England, the unappreciation of every man 
 born in England of the commonest subject understood by 
 every Frenchman, described the difference which I felt 
 myself in Paris and in London, and consequently the 
 different responsibility attached to France compared with 
 England from her power of comprehending, without effort
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 113 
 
 and without assistance, what no unassisted Englishman 
 could by any possibility comprehend. Here he moved 
 towards the other room and returned. 
 
 " He then asked me in a formal manner what I conceived 
 the opinion in England is, or would be, in regard to present 
 transactions. I said: 'The oi)inion in England is not 
 divided, it is nothing or it is good — that is to say, that the 
 mass of the nation is wholly indifferent and dead, and the 
 few who are acting are all acting in one sense.' He said: 
 ' And what will those who are acting be able to accom- 
 pUsh ?' I said I could not answer that without taking a 
 given term, that if the events pressed on with rapidity as 
 I expected they would, that opinion in England would 
 effect nothing, but the nation would be compromised and 
 committed, that whatever might be done afterwards, the 
 evil that would be effected would be irrevocable. I entered 
 then into a general explanation in reference to the estimate 
 I formed of the different classes in England. I further gave 
 him the conclusions at which I had arrived regarding the 
 danger, the cause of it, and the means of safety. He said, 
 stopping, and with great slowness and gravity: ' Be assured 
 that every means within the disposition of France — ^that 
 every resource which she possesses — that every arm that 
 belongs to her will be employed and will perish, before 
 France will submit to the dishonourable and dangerous 
 conditions that are sought to be placed upon her.' My 
 reply was in the same tone : ' Be assured that all the re- 
 sources and power and strength and energy of France will 
 be of no avail. It is not by material means that the danger 
 comes, nor by the arm, but by the head that it is to be 
 averted.' I then sketched the progress of inter-distraction 
 between the Powers of Europe, the object of Russia in 
 arming France for the accompUshment of her design. He 
 stopped a second time, and after a pause, which left me in 
 some doubt whether he was preparing to oppose or to 
 assent, he said : ' I feel indeed that all our differences and 
 our struggles are heedless and insane, and that a fearful 
 overflow awaits Europe. I have often thought,' he added, 
 ' that we were much in the position of Athens in the face 
 of Philip.' I said: 'If you feel that, these consequences 
 will not follow, no Minister of Athens dreaded them.' At 
 this moment I conceived every end within reach. It died 
 away — he followed nothing to a conclusion, received coldly 
 my statement regarding the ignorance of the Pubhc Men 
 of France and his own of matters without which he could 
 
 8
 
 114 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 not judge of the position of England and Russia, conse- 
 quently of the diplomatic relations of the world, and the 
 spirit of the conversation was lost from that point where 
 he had come to the assertion of so solemn a resolution, as 
 if it was a thing to overwhelm me, and when he accepted 
 my counter declaration, not feeUng that if he accepted it 
 the whole of what he was saying was vain and useless. 
 We returned after some time to the saloon, where our friends, 
 I saw, were anxiously awaiting the result. The only answer 
 to the inquiries made me which I gave was ' tant soit peu 
 content.' He immediately after this sat down in an arm- 
 chair, and when I observed him next he was sound asleep !" 
 
 Urquhart left nothing undone that might help on his 
 designs. He conversed at much length with M. Mignet, the 
 historian of the French Revolution. 
 
 " I never saw a man more powerful than M. Mignet," 
 he says, " in common-place. ... I can quite conceive that 
 any man living enfamille with M. Mignet must be incapable 
 of action. If I Hved three days with him I should only be 
 fit for Bedlam." 
 
 He visited the various French Ministers and the diplo- 
 matic representatives of the different countries. 
 
 One most interesting visit, which he describes at great 
 length, was to M. Coletti, the Greek Minister,^ who had 
 known him in his early days in the East and had the most 
 profound faith in him. 
 
 " My sole hope," said the old man when he saw him, 
 " was in England, knowing you were there, but I had begun 
 to despair, because I had expected long and waited long." 
 
 He had an interview with the agent of the Pasha of 
 Egypt, Mehemet Ali: 
 
 " I drove in the Bois de Boulogne to see M. Nuber, whom 
 I found very much restored; he detailed to me the prepara- 
 tions for an insurrection in Asia Minor, and I concerted 
 with him that he was immediately to write a letter to the 
 
 ^ Coletti was Governor of Samos after the Greek War of Indepen- 
 dence, and Urquhart studied Greece under his guidance. " He 
 Avas," said he, " the only man of outstanding merit whom the Greek 
 Kevolution had produced. He was the constant opponent of Capo- 
 diitras and the Russophile party."
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGx\ AFFAIRS 115 
 
 Prime INIinister of the Porte, exposing to him his position, 
 and a similar letter to Mehemet Ali. He is to bring the 
 drafts of the letters here on Sunday morning; he is, not- 
 withstanding the position he occupies, a man who for many 
 years has laboured in every way, not merely to give me 
 support, but to obtain for me instruction. He is an Armenian, 
 a brother-in-law of Bogos Bey, the Prime Minister in Egyi)t. 
 He thought he had explained to himself the conduct of Lord 
 Palmerston, by supposing that the object of England in 
 this matter was jealousy of the French navy, and to create 
 a collision for its destruction. I had but the day before 
 learnt the (if it is possible to suppose one fact more damning 
 than another) damning fact, that the augmentation of the 
 French navy in 1836 had been at the request of Lord 
 Palmerston. This I mentioned to him, and he staggered 
 (we were walking at the time) as if a blow had been dealt 
 upon his breast." 
 
 Urquhart and his party were, moreover, in constant 
 communication with M. Odilon Barrot, the Leader of the 
 Left in the French Chamber under the Thiers Government. 
 He was entirely sympathetic, and had several interviews 
 with the English deputation. He had arranged a public 
 banquet for them, when the Thiers Ministry fell. The 
 King, evidently in a panic, called M. Guizot to the Presi- 
 dency of the Council, and the French Government declared 
 its readiness to subscribe the Treaty of July 15. This being 
 so, the danger of a war was averted, and any public demon- 
 stration became inexpedient, more especially if the presence 
 of the deputation had been at all concerned in the volte - 
 face. 
 
 Though Urquhart had done his best to avert a war between 
 France and England, his last wish was that France should 
 meekly accept the Treaty. " Her way of escape," he said, 
 " was not war, but protest." 
 
 " This," said M. Odilon Barrot, who was waited upon 
 by the deputation, accompanied by several members of the 
 Chamber, " would not be appreciated by the people. If 
 any public demonstration took place, they would not know 
 how to distinguish between the sympathy between the 
 peoples and the impending alliance of the Governments, 
 which means dishonour to France."
 
 IIG DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The banquet, however, took place at M. Barrot's house, 
 where eighty members of the French Chamber met the 
 English deputation. 
 
 So ended the only important piece of international work 
 undertaken by these young committees. After 1841 they 
 gradually died out. Urquhart probably felt discouraged 
 in face of the indifference which he found everywhere 
 prevailing, and the small headway he seemed able 
 to make against it. His time and attention were 
 taken up in a thousand other directions, and he did not 
 bestow on them the care that such immature societies 
 needed. 
 
 One or two friends in whom he placed confidence proved 
 themselves unworthy, and grossly mismanaged the business 
 arrangements with which Urquhart refused to concern him- 
 self. The missionaries were sent from town to town, and 
 left there without regular supplies of money being sent for 
 their necessary expenses. 
 
 Heartrending letters came from the poor men, left to 
 themselves without money, and anxious about wives and 
 families also left, they much feared, in great straits. That in 
 spite of such inconvenience they remained faithful is suffi- 
 cient proof how strong a hold the cause had on their minds 
 and affections. Certainly there was no pecuniary induce- 
 ment for their loyalty, though Fergus O'Connor accused 
 " the anti-Russo, anti-Chartist " party of trying to buy 
 off Chartists " at anything from £3 to £5 a week." The 
 unsatisfactory state of the financial arrangements of the 
 little company, however, necessitated the missionaries 
 returning to their daily labour. Some of them grew 
 despondent when the great hopes with which the campaign 
 started seemed to fail and efforts relaxed. Lowery, writing 
 from Kirkcaldy in July, 1841, says: 
 
 " After I wrote you last I waited till April in the hope 
 that I would have heard of some attempts of our friends 
 to set themselves in motion on the subject of foreign rela- 
 tions, but hearing nothing from the South of Mr. Urquhart 
 coming northwards, and never having had a line from Mr. 
 Cardo or Mr. Warden on it, and from the desponding manner
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 117 
 
 in which jNIr. Cargill spoke, I concluded that those arrange- 
 ments spoken of as being intended had been considered 
 impracticable, and had been abandoned." 
 
 ]Mr. Urquhart himself says, writing in 1850, of the move- 
 ment : 
 
 " The way I pointed out has not been walked in. I had 
 then minds in action, but minds can be brought into action, 
 or have hitherto at least only been brought into action by 
 vain speculation. The excitement faiUng, stoUdity re- 
 turned. The convulsion of England was spared; that is all." 
 
 As a matter of fact the apparent failing of the movement 
 was just as much due to himself as its earliest success. 
 He did not succeed in gaining the mass of the working men 
 to his side, because he was always expecting them to see 
 things from his point of view. He never realised that he 
 was up on the heights and saw the whole of Europe, and 
 more than Europe, America and the East also, and that 
 therefore he could see remote and far-reaching causes, 
 while they could only see those that lay within their low 
 and narrow vision. He might see that it was international 
 injustice which was the ultimate cause of national distress, 
 that it was England's subservience to Russia and arrogance 
 to Turkey which made prices high and wages low, but the 
 only causes they could see were the selfishness of the upper 
 and middle classes and the Corn Laws. He might be able 
 to lay his finger on the weak spot in British Government, 
 and say: "If your Ministers were responsible to the King 
 and people the danger of injustice would be lessened." They 
 only saw in the King, as in the Ministers, the representative 
 of a hated system. The Charter and Universal Suffrage, 
 class- war against an oppressing class bounded then vision. 
 They could see no other way of getting right and justice 
 done. 
 
 This point of view Urquhart not only did not understand, 
 but would not try to understand.^ Like a prophet of old 
 he denounced it, unsparingly, fiercely, whenever it was 
 presented to him. To men who came to interview him, 
 
 ^ His position seems to have been justified by the eventual death 
 of the Chartist movement.
 
 118 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 prepared to uphold it and fight for it against him, he would 
 have nothing to say. He dismissed them, often with con- 
 tumely, always with contempt. These were evil counsels, 
 things that must be put away without compromise. This 
 attitude of his, while it increased the admiration of his 
 friends, gave enormous advantage to his enemies, and 
 seriously restricted the number of those who followed him. 
 
 He seized the eager, speculative and enthusiastic minds 
 like Cardo's, or the intelligent philosophical lover of abstract 
 reason like Warden; he attracted daring men like Thomason, 
 who guessed at ^possibilities lying beyond their opportunities 
 of knowledge, by his glowing dreams of a future, when 
 righteousness and peace should possess the earth, following 
 in the wake of justice, and bringing prosperity in their train. 
 He stimulated their intellect by his knowledge and intelli- 
 gence, he awakened their consciences by his hatred of evil, 
 he thrilled their imaginations by his glowing oratory; the 
 strength of his personality held them while they were with 
 him, but sometimes, when they were outside the magic 
 circles of his presence, they began to see that they had been 
 carried along by him, and they did not recognise the path 
 by which they had come. If they were prepared to study 
 long and arduously, they generally found him out to be 
 as they said, " absolutely right," and their admiration 
 became almost worship. But these were the finer minds. 
 The lesser ones often withdrew from him if they were 
 sincere, or yielded to that subtle form of falsehood, which he 
 himself denounced most fiercely, the profession of opinions 
 to which they had not themselves arrived. But where 
 Urquhart failed he failed grandly. A lesser man would 
 have met the men on their own grounds of Charter and 
 Suffrage, and led them on. Not so Urquhart. The Charter 
 and Suffrage, he said, were based on meanness and selfish- 
 ness. They were just as much party cries as any Whig or 
 Tory shibboleths. He would not use them even for a jump- 
 ing-off ground into the deep seas of Liberty and Justice. 
 
 He destroyed all he held to be evil so thoroughly and 
 recklessly that he often tore down foundations on which 
 good might have been built.
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS 119 
 
 But although the movement which had begun with such 
 high hopes died down for a time, Urquhart's friends did not 
 therefore count him to have failed. His mission was too 
 high to be within the reach of failure. In their eyes he 
 could not fail ultimately. They were ready to follow him 
 wherever he went, and to share with him whatever came. 
 So it was now; so it was at the end of a long life, when to 
 Attwood, Monteith and Ross, as well as to a host of younger 
 disciples, he was still the " Bey " of early days. But then 
 he had become also a prophet, for by that time he had 
 substantiated in their eyes his claim to be " always right." 
 
 This passionate, and as it seems sometimes, exaggerated 
 worship of David Urquhart by his friends is quite incom- 
 prehensible if we look upon him as a leader of a political 
 party. That he never was. He was always a preacher of 
 righteousness; of righteousness where it has been hitherto 
 left out by the modern world — i.e., in matters of statecraft. 
 
 It was as a preacher of righteousness that they followed 
 him. Whomsoever he attached to him, whether working 
 men, merchants, women, Catholic priests, he first converted. 
 Their entry into his sphere of influence was like the entry 
 into the Kingdom of Heaven; it involved a new birth into 
 Justice. Old things must be put away, henceforth all 
 things must become new. 
 
 Selfish individualism in rehgion, sloppy piety, empty 
 formalism died away under his teaching, and there rose 
 up in his followers a sense of fellowship, a joy in the annihila- 
 tion of self, and a willingness to put aside any self-interest 
 in the common work for the salvation of the State and the 
 regeneration of mankind.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 
 
 " Look up ! Look \ip ! 
 Citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance. 
 Jew, leave counting gold ! Return to thy oil and wine. 
 African ! Black African ! Go, Winged Thought, widen his 
 forehead." 
 
 Blake : A Sovg of Liberfy. 
 
 It was not until 1854 that the Foreign Affairs Committees 
 were revived. In 1854 also Urquhart married, and the 
 success which attended the new Societies was in no 
 small degree due to Mrs. Urquhart 's untiring diligence 
 and gentle courtesy. Not only did she keep things 
 going when her husband's health broke down, as it 
 constantly did beneath the strain of his work, but she 
 smoothed over many difficulties, soothed wounded feelings, 
 and held to her husband's allegiance useful men whom his 
 faults of temper bade fair to sever from it. She threw 
 herself into the work with the most entire self-devotion. 
 She studied, wrote, and interviewed, spending strength 
 which, as the years went by, she could ill spare from the 
 cares of her household and the burden of an increasing 
 family. 
 
 From 1847 to 1852 David Urquhart was in Parliament, 
 but his parliamentary career was only an episode in his life. 
 Yielding at last to the representations and entreaties of 
 his friends, he had consented to stand for Stafford as an 
 Independent Member, and was returned by an overwhelm- 
 ing majority. He entered the House with a scorn for 
 parliamentary methods, traditions and procedure which, 
 while it effectually secured him from falling into the parlia- 
 mentary habit, at the same time prevented his gaining or 
 wishing to gain either influence or position in the House. 
 
 120
 
 DAVID URC^THART 
 
 Shortly after his marriage 
 
 To face page 121
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 121 
 
 His most important speech was on the Motion of Mr. 
 Anstey^ for the impeachment of Lord Palmerston as a 
 traitor to his country. The Motion was naturally a fiasco. 
 Even those Members of the House who were inchned to 
 agree that Palmerston deserved impeachment had too 
 much regard for their political career to admit it. Palmer- 
 ston himself affected supreme indifference, but he bought 
 off Anstey by offering him the appointment of Attorney- 
 General of Hong-Kong. 
 
 Urquhart did not stand at the next General Election in 
 1854. 
 
 A considerable part of the fourteen years which had 
 elapsed since his first attempt to secure the co-operation 
 of the working men Urquhart had spent abroad trying to 
 recover from a severe attack of illness to which he had all 
 but succumbed in 1 84 1 . He travelled leisurely through Spain 
 and Morocco, and revisited the East, spending six months 
 in Mount Lebanon. His book The Lebanon was the result 
 of his sojourn there. 
 
 The literary outcome of his travels in Spain and in 
 Morocco was The Pillars of Hercules, one of the most in- 
 teresting of his works. It is a book of travels interspersed 
 with historical and philosophical research. In spite of much 
 careless writing, the book is one of great value, and bears 
 the marks of an acute and original mind. 
 
 " The narrative and descriptive parts," said William 
 Shepperd,^ whose opinion Mr. Urquhart had asked, " are 
 most striking and novel. The historical and philosophical 
 disquisitions I consider one of the most valuable con- 
 tributions to modern literature; you have fallen upon the 
 great topics of interest and curiosity, the great problems 
 of history to which Spain is the key with the Phoenicians 
 and Saracens. . . . Mr. Hallam, Sharon Turner, Forster 
 and Bechman in his History of Inventors have all touched 
 upon these subjects, and their data confirm your con- 
 clusions, but you alone have worked out this mine in the 
 spirit of Niehbur, and have thrown light upon and reduced 
 to order what has hitherto been an historical chaos." 
 
 ^ Member for Youghal, co. Waterford, v. sub. p. 143 n. 
 2 Fellow of Oriel and Barrister of the Inner Temple.
 
 122 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The book was successful. It would probably have been 
 more so had it not been for its twofold character. His 
 reviewers, favourable as they were, did not understand his 
 point of view. One thinks it "most extraordinary that Mr. 
 Urquhart, whose books are so full of talent and originality, 
 has not succeeded in public life." " There is good sense," 
 said the Daily News, whose review occupied two columns, 
 " in every remark he makes till he comes to politics, and 
 then he becomes at once deraisonable.'^ 
 
 But what, to the British mind, was want of common 
 sense to him was fundamental truth. It was here that his 
 way parted from that of most of his countrymen. In the 
 unspoilt countries, which Europe considered had been left 
 behind in the march of civilisation, he found what had 
 attracted him in the East — entire indifference to what the 
 West called progress, and a simple adherence to primitive 
 social ideals. 
 
 This condition of things Urquhart contrasts in The 
 Pillars of Hercules with the national life of modern European 
 States, particularly of England, who, like the Church of 
 Laodicea in the Apocalypse, boasting herself " that she was 
 rich and had need of nothing, knew not that she was wretched 
 and miserable and poor and blind and naked." 
 
 " England thought herself to be rich," said Urquhart, 
 ' ' because great masses of wealth were accumulated into the 
 hands of a few, whereas she was poor in all real wealth and 
 was, moreover, smitten with the sore diseases of corruption 
 and blindness. Material poverty matters little. A nation 
 may be poor in gold and possessions and yet, like Spain 
 and India and the East, in fact all the countries where the 
 old traditions still Unger, may be not only healthier but 
 richer than England." 
 
 Of the condition of his own country he took, indeed, a 
 very gloomy view. She had lost her self-government. She 
 had lost, or was fast losing, all noble and beautiful craft. 
 Her industries were being absorbed by factories, and domestic 
 industry was either dying or dead. 
 
 " The country," he said, "is being run on a system that 
 would ruin in a year any private estabUshment. Taxes
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COjVEMITTEES 123 
 
 are levied on industry and on the necessities of life instead 
 of on capital. Credit is pledged in advance. The mass of 
 the people are crushed by taxation and legislation. Law 
 and freedom are ahke dead ; and everyone hf ts up his hands 
 and praises our noble civiUsation. . . . Matters that are 
 of the most vital importance to every member of the com- 
 munity involving issues of peace and war which mean the 
 prosperity and life or the misery and death of millions 
 are entirely withdrawn from the control of those whom 
 they most nearly concern, and are decided in secret by, 
 at most, two or three highly placed officials responsible to 
 no one for their mistakes or crimes."^ 
 
 This was, in Urquhart's eyes, the crowning evil of the 
 State, and in the Crimean War he saw it materialised. 
 The saihng of the Alhed Fleets to the Bosphorus was the 
 direct result of the secret diplomacy which he traced from 
 the proposal of the Czar Nicholas to Lord Aberdeen for the 
 partition of Turkey, through the conversations in which 
 again and again the same proposal was made to successive 
 Prime Ministers, with the final offer of Egypt and Candia 
 to England as her share of the booty, to the climax of 
 March, 1854, when the war for which Russia had so long 
 plotted at length broke out, " because," said Urquhart, 
 " she was ready for it." 
 
 "Is it conceivable," he asks, " that if Sir Hamilton 
 Seymour's despatches of January, 1853, had been read at 
 the Council-table to an assemblage of selected pubhc men 
 of all parties that the English Ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burg would not have been instructed to return a reply far 
 different to that sent ?" 
 
 A war of ignorance or coUusion according to Disraeli, 
 it was, in Urcjuhart's eyes, one of ignorance and collusion.^ 
 
 ^ This passage occurs in a private letter, but it is in substance 
 constantly repeated in Urquhart's writings. His social creed was 
 most fully stated in a lecture delivered at the Philosophical Society 
 of Portsmouth, March, 1845, on "'Pauperism and its Cure." It was 
 afterwards published as a pamphlet, under the title of Wealth and 
 Want. 
 
 2 Lord Ponsonby — Letters on the Eastern Question, Brighton, 1 854 — 
 is quite at one with Urquhart on the lolly of pretending to aid the 
 Turks, who were perfectly able to defend themselves against the
 
 124 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The collusion would not have been possible but for the 
 ignorance, and it was ignorance which, both before its out- 
 break and during its course, he faithfully endeavoured to 
 dispel. 
 
 Before the appointment of the Sevastopol Commission 
 he pointed out the imbecility of landing British troops at 
 a port of no value, and which they could not hold, on the 
 wrong side of the fort and exposed to all the enemy's fire, 
 while they left unassailed the Port of Odessa, so important 
 for Russian trade, which, thanks to the surrender by the 
 Allies of their maritime rights, was uninterrupted. Most 
 of the disasters of that disastrous war, he maintained, were 
 due to secret diplomacy. Had its conduct been in the 
 hands of the Privy Council, assembled in the constitutional 
 manner by the Queen, Lord Palmerston's proposal to 
 attack Sevastopol would instantly have been met by the 
 questions : 
 
 "Why select that port?" "Why not blockade the 
 Russian ports and so destroy her trade ?" "Why do you 
 select a strong fortress, from which no hostile expedition 
 has ever sailed ?" " And why do you leave unassailed the 
 emporium Odessa, which has always been the base of her 
 operations ?" " Why, if you propose to attack Sevastopol, 
 did you not propose this before that fortress was reinforced 
 by the army retreating from Silistria ?" "And why did 
 you not propose to occupy the Isthmus of Perekop, and so 
 cut off the reinforcing army ?" Fifty other questions 
 would have been asked; and that most ignoble, most use- 
 less, and most ghastly destruction of our army in the trenches 
 never would have taken place. 
 
 It was in order that the nation might not be wholly 
 destitute of those prepared to ask such questions that 
 Urquhart set himself to reorganise the Foreign Affairs 
 Committees in 1854. 
 
 He began in Newcastle, as he wrote some years after- 
 Russians. " I am sure," he says, " that if the Turks are drawn 
 in to trust England they will ultimately be ruined. 
 
 " Let the Allies, as they call themselves, leave it to Turkey and 
 Russia to fight the battle out. The Turks will win. They will 
 not be defeated by Russia."
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 125 
 
 wards to the French social reformer M. Le Play, with a 
 Committee of three, " a blacksmith, a carpenter and a 
 bhnd beggar." But its numerical weakness and social 
 insignificance was more than compensated for by the 
 keenness and intelligence of its members. Their discussions 
 and questions along with Urquhart's answers he afterwards 
 embodied in a pamphlet called Constitutional Remedies, 
 which served as a textbook for other Committees. 
 
 The Committees spread rapidly from town to town. 
 Urquhart devoted a whole year entirely to their organisa- 
 tion. They were for the most part composed of working 
 men, though in some of them we find merchants, shop- 
 keepers and labourers, working side by side. In each 
 town he collected, with the help of friends, a few men 
 gained either by an appeal to " their curiosity, their intel- 
 ligence, or their passions." He introduced them to the 
 study of Vattel, of his own or Anstey's pamphlets on their 
 own Constitution, on the East, and on Russia, together 
 with Blue Books and parliamentary documents relating to 
 their own times. As the Committees grew, he watched them 
 carefully, and from them he selected a few men to undergo 
 for three months a more special course of study. 
 
 " After having," he says in a letter to M. Le Play, " dining 
 the autumn of 1854 travelled all through England holding 
 in each town meetings which varied from fifty to sixteen 
 hundred people, I made choice of the most able men, and 
 brought sixty of them together at Manchester. They were 
 there for three months. During that time we had many 
 public meetings, and made excursions to the neighbouring 
 towns, but the object of bringing together these men, those 
 keen and stirring spirits of the working class, was study. 
 They were divided into sections, and their studies were 
 directed by those who had already worked with me. They 
 assembled at ten o'clock in the morning, and all passed 
 through the same course of lectures on the Law of Nations 
 and the Constitution of England. Then they divided into 
 sej)arate branches of these subjects, such as the Treaty of 
 May, 1852, the Chinese and Afghan Wars, Maritime Law, 
 the Commercial Treaty with Turkey, the Corn Supply, the 
 Holy Alliance, Poland, etc. The hours of work were from 
 ten in the morning till one o'clock for dinner. They re-
 
 126 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 sumed work at two o'clock and went on till seven, when they 
 stopped for tea. At eight o'clock all met in the same room, 
 and I discussed with them for never less than two hours 
 the topics on which they had been at work through the 
 day. These men, grave, diligent, enthusiastic, were a sight 
 worth seeing. At the end of three months there was a 
 pubUc meeting to which prominent statesmen, lawyers 
 and ecclesiastics were invited. Some accepted the office of 
 judges. The men were questioned first by one, then by all 
 who were there. The most able of the sixty were chosen 
 to form a deputation to London to treat with the members 
 of both Houses of the Treaty of Denmark and the Right 
 of Search. It was on that occasion that Lord Hardwicke's 
 famous remark, so often quoted, was made : ' You are not 
 working men but statesmen, or rather, you are what states- 
 men would be if we had any.' 
 
 " But it was not study alone by which such results were 
 obtained. It was by training also. I put myself in the 
 place of such and such a public man, and I made them 
 come and make known their wishes. Then I rephed as 
 Mr. Bright would have replied, or Mr. Cobden, or any other 
 of our enemies, Whig or Tory. Then I made them change 
 places, taking myself that of the deputation. After their 
 training, the deputations to London, of which there were 
 many, gave them insight. But for that all would have 
 been in the air. After having seen the men who from 
 afar had seemed to them so great and so strong, they under- 
 stood the words of Demosthenes : ' It is for the least among 
 us to save the State; for the great have neglected their 
 duty.' " 
 
 Urquhart's method was always to deal with the indi- 
 vidual as a whole man. It was not enough for him to gain 
 the intellectual assent of a man to his opinions. The very 
 word " opinion " was anathema to him. Man was put 
 into the world to exercise his judgment, and a right judg- 
 ment depended on character. The man must be real 
 through and through. He must wish to be right not to 
 appear to be right. That was self-love, and self-love was 
 one of the deepest passions of the human heart. Nothing 
 could be done with a man until that was ehminated. 
 
 It was the first point that Urquhart attacked. And it 
 was here that his hardest struggles took place. Until they
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 127 
 
 met with him his disciples looked upon their private 
 character and thought as something entirely apart from 
 their poHtical and private ambitions. 
 
 What, for instance, had the passing of the Reform Bill 
 or Universal Suffrage to do with a man's sincerity of thought 
 or right use of words ? " Everything," said Urquhart. 
 Sincerity of thought meant that people would really wish 
 to find out what was for the good of their country, and 
 would be ready to lay aside any theory or plan, however 
 cherished, which could be proved to be inimical to it. And 
 sincerity of thought could only be reached in England by 
 a return to the careful use of words — to a knowledge of 
 their true meaning. 
 
 The age was corrupt ; its speech insincere ; its reason per- 
 verted by self-love. Before a man could be of real use he 
 must be taken out of his age; he must put aside the self 
 that his age had produced and become his true self; he 
 must repudiate current modes of thought; he must use 
 words and phrases in their true meaning, and he must 
 renounce abstractions of every kind. The man who gave 
 himself up to Urquhart 's guidance was often brought to 
 himself by a great shock. He was shown that he had 
 nothing that could be called knowledge, that he was bUndly 
 following pubUc opinions, that his theories were based on 
 falsehood, that the Promised Land, to which by way of 
 Suffrage, Corn Laws, and such-Uke paths, he was journey- 
 ing was a mirage in a barren wilderness, that the road to 
 promised lands was never by such easy paths as these, but 
 by rocky roads up the steep mountain-sides of self -discipline 
 and knowledge. 
 
 If he could bear the sight, if he turned and admitted his 
 mistake, Urquhart spared no pains to show him the right 
 way and to keep him in it. He was set to study, to learn 
 the law that should guide nations in their relations with 
 each other, to study the events of the time and the actions 
 of Governments in the light of that law. 
 
 He was taught that the spirit of his age, which called 
 itself Progress, was Retrogression. All the measures by 
 which his fellow-countrymen thought they had advanced,
 
 128 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 had served only to deprive them of the constitutional 
 liberty which had belonged to their forefathers. The 
 Reform Bill, by which the working classes thought they had 
 gained a share in the Government, had resulted in greatly 
 increased taxation. It had given them a right to elect their 
 masters, but it had made their servitude more complete. 
 
 This Urquhart pointed out with great force in the hand- 
 book Constitutional Remedies, whose object was to show 
 that while the Law was intended to control the actions of 
 the Government, modern Governments were tending to 
 become more and more centralised into what was not only 
 an " oligarchical usurpation," taking away from the people 
 the control they had in former days over their domestic 
 affairs, but was depriving them of set purpose of all know- 
 ledge of Foreign Affairs. He entered into an explanation 
 of the various institutions of Mediaeval England from the 
 Privy Council, through which the Royal functions were 
 exercised, to the Courts Leet, showing how it was possible 
 for these Courts of the humblest citizens to set the Law in 
 motion by moving the Shire Courts to move the King's 
 Council. He pointed out that the only safeguard of a 
 State, whether monarchical or democratic, was that the 
 people should retain and be determined to retain knowledge 
 of their own affairs, foreign as well as domestic. He urged 
 on the Committee-men to work as he had always done for 
 the abolition of the Cabinet, whose growth and illegal usurpa- 
 tion of authority he traced from the Cabal of Charles II., 
 on through the reign of William and Mary to its full 
 development under the Hanoverians. There could be no 
 security for the nation with the Government in the hands 
 of a secret Committee. He urged them to work for the 
 restoration of the old Privy Council. How ? they said. 
 And Urquhart's answer is the key to all his teaching. " By 
 your own knowledge, your own sincerity, your own con- 
 victions. You can reach the convictions of other men only 
 through your own." 
 
 "If you are convinced," he said, in effect, "that as a 
 nation you are in a state of sin, that you are weakly and 
 like cowards shelving responsibility, because the power of
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 129 
 
 government has been usurped by a faction, you will con- 
 vince others. But if you hold it only as a political opinion, 
 as a catchword to awaken interest, you will fail. Perhaps 
 not at first, for opinions and shibboleths in a corrupt state 
 of society have more power than honest conviction, and 
 seem to override it. But ultimately the idea will die, 
 because it is founded on nothing: it has no root or depth 
 of earth in which to grow. A truth is a truth, and must 
 win its way. If this thing is true, and you are true, it will 
 win its way through you. If you are not true it will win 
 its way in spite of you. Therefore we return to the starting 
 point: all depends on character." 
 
 At the root of Urquhart's teaching lay a deep belief in 
 human nature, in the power of man to be right. He sweeps 
 away every idea that man is bound to be wrong. Indolence 
 and indifference are the parents of such theories. Man in 
 himself is a being with dispositions towards good, besieged 
 in his inmost citadel by a foe, call it what you will; Urquhart 
 called it the Spirit of the Age. From that spirit the man 
 must free himself. Then he can think truly, judge justly, 
 act rightly. You must not judge man by what he actually 
 is, you must think of his undeveloped powers, those powers 
 to which our Lord referred when He said: " Be ye therefore 
 perfect." You must believe in the possibiUty of fulfilling 
 that command, and along with your contempt for the man 
 as he is and for yourself, in so far as you resemble him, 
 you must have the deepest love and respect for man as he 
 might be. For man is greater than his conception of 
 himself. 
 
 There is in this doctrine no room left for indolence, no 
 truce with human weakness. Man is meant to rise above 
 human weakness. Things are not to remain wrong because 
 we find them wrong. "Never allow yourself to think of 
 what is, until you have thought of what ought to be." 
 This applied, said Urquhart, both to man as an individual 
 and to communities. 
 
 The possibilities which such a doctrine opened up to 
 those who could receive it were illimitable. It took the 
 working men out of theii- narrow hves, conditioned by 
 sordid circumstances, out of the corruption and rottenness 
 
 9
 
 130 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 of politics, out of the evils of the social state and set them 
 in a Utopia, wherein they were pure and just dwellers in 
 a perfect state. No wonder that with heart and mind they 
 worked for such a consummation. Urquhart was, from his 
 first contact with the working classes, against everything 
 which as a class they desired. He despised the Charter, 
 he waved aside Reform Bills, to the Corn Laws he would 
 have nothing to say. All legislation, even the Factory 
 Bills, he described as perfectly useless, if not actually 
 harmful, a mere treatment of symptoms. Yet the working 
 men whom he attracted he held, his system wrought a com- 
 plete change in their character, and they worked, even as 
 he did, for the conversion of others. 
 
 Amongst his disciples were those who had found the 
 Charter useless; members of the O'Brienite National 
 Reform League, Stephens, the old Ciiartist leader,^ ad- 
 
 1 Karl Marx was also a convinced adherent of Urquhart in his 
 views on Eussia and the East, and in his execra,tion of Lord Pal- 
 merston's policy. Both were agreed in detestation of modern com- 
 mercial and financial transactions, though their policy for remedying 
 them was so different. 
 
 Spargo, in his Life of Karl Marx, says: " Marx gladly co-operated 
 with David Urquhart and with his followers in their anti-Kussian 
 campaign, for he regarded Russia as the leading reactionary Power 
 in the world, and never lost an opportunity of expressing his hatred 
 for it. In David Urquhart he found a kindred soul to whom he 
 became greatly attached. . . . The influence which David Urqu- 
 hart obtained over Marx was remarkable. Marx probably never 
 relied upon the judgment of another man as he did upon that of 
 Urquhart. Nor was Marx the only German of note who ackriow- 
 ledged Urquhart's leadeiship. Lothair Bucher, later the friend 
 and literary executor of Lassalle, and the a^.ter ego of Bismarck, was 
 another ardent disciple." 
 
 In his Story and Life of Palmer ston, Karl Jiarx writes: 
 
 " This is a fitting occasion to give his due to Mr. David Urquhart, 
 the indefatigable antagonist for twenty years of Lord Palmerston, 
 to whom he proved a real antagonist — one not to be intimidated 
 into silence, bribed into connivance, charmed into suitorship; while, 
 what with cajoleries, what with seductions, Palmerston contrived 
 to change all other foes into friends." 
 
 Strange to find in the founder of "Doctrinaire Socialism" an 
 admirer, almost a disciple, of so passionate an upholder of Law as 
 
 Urquhart ! 
 
 Lothair Bucher, who had fled for his life from Germany, having 
 been sentenced to death as a Repiiblican, became a devoted disciple 
 of Urquhart's. 
 
 After studying his writings and much oral instruction, his ad- 
 heren-ce to his master was completed by the accidental discovery of
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 131 
 
 herents of secularist and atheist clubs, who found their 
 way back to religion, some even to the Cathohc Church, 
 by way of Justice and Law. One such wrote nearly twenty 
 years later a touching account of his first meeting with 
 David Urquhart : 
 
 " In the month of August, 1857, twenty -one men were 
 assembled in a room over a grocer's shop in the market- 
 place of this town (Preston). Twenty of them were Secu- 
 larists (Atheists), the other a Swedenborgian. I was one 
 of the number, being an Atheist, and the Secretary of tlie 
 Society. It was a Monday night, I liad learnt during the 
 day that Mr. Urquhart was to be in the town that night. 
 When the discussion whether a God existed or not was 
 about to commence, I got up and, mentioning Mr. Urquhart 
 being in the town, stated as I had read in infidel literature 
 that he was an enemy to the freedom of the Press, opposed 
 to both suffrage and ballot, opposed to progress and reform, 
 and that it seemed to me that we ought all to go and take 
 him to task and crucify him. They all agreed, and we set 
 off in a body, exulting on the way at the prospect of our 
 success. 
 
 " The picture in my mind of Mr. Urquhart before I saw 
 him was that of an ugly wrinkled man with a long beard 
 and a stupid expression of countenance. When v/e got 
 into the large room where he was and arranged ourselves, 
 
 an almost forgotten book on The Policy of Etiropean Gahinetn. 
 There were scarcely any copies to be found in European libraries 
 because, as Bucher discovered, Eussia had bought them all up. 
 
 Thereupon Herr Bucher wrote a series of articles to the Gorman 
 papers which set all Germany by the ears. 
 
 " In every beer-shop and tavern," says Edward Fischel, " most 
 energetic controversies were carried on respecting the letters of 
 Bucher." 
 
 " These articles in which the English Ministers were represented 
 as the accomplices of Eussia caused the greatest excitement. . . . 
 To one party Herr Bucher seemed like a Bedlamite, or a hypochon- 
 driac, while to the other he apj^eared as the unshrinking champion 
 of Truth." 
 
 For whatever cause, however, it was worth Bismarck's while to 
 stop Bucher's pen. He was bought off; nothing was said about the 
 sentence of death passed upon him in 1848. 
 
 He returned to Germany as Bismarck's secretary, and soon became 
 known as the only person fully in the great Chancellor's confidence. 
 
 " He is a sort of ' Frere Joseph,' " said the Berlin correspondent 
 of the Pali-Mall Gazette, " notorious as the only man who has his 
 master's full confidence, and as much hated as he is dreaded."
 
 132 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 sitting in a semi-circle before him, I began to feel uneasy. 
 The picture of him in my mind was false. He was not old, 
 nor ugly, nor wrinkled, nor stupid-looking. His eye was 
 steady, clear and fearless, and there was an expression 
 on his face that seemed to say that he knew us, and meant 
 to turn us inside out. When we asked him if he would 
 help us to get votes he said he would help us to get know- 
 ledge, and asked us if we would give a child a razor. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Urquhart, in the course of his remarks, spoke on 
 the necessity of friendship between England and France, 
 and had been giving some instances of how the peace 
 between the two countries had been endangered by diplo- 
 matic means. My friend, the Swedenborgian, began: ' But 
 don't you think that the amount of trade that is done 
 between England and France will be a great security for 
 the peace of the two countries ; that France buying so much 
 from England and selling so much to England must have 
 the effect of cementing the peace of the two countries V 
 
 " The answer of Mr. Urquhart was terrible, at least to 
 me at the time. . . . The point in his denunciation that 
 was the most powerful was the showing that the Sweden- 
 borgian's union of nations was a mere question of huckster- 
 ing, buying and selling, and not the basing the relations 
 of England and France on justice, without which man 
 cannot even buy and sell. I saw all this when Mr. Urquhart 
 burst out with the indignant words, ' You huckster ! you 
 shopkeeper ! ' and advanced to the man with clenched hands 
 and set teeth, and called him blind, and said that he and 
 those hke him were the leaders of the people. He spoke 
 to us of India, telHng us what was coming even then. But 
 it is rather the effect on myself than the actual words that 
 I remember now. My eyes were not only opened, but 
 opened very wide. I looked on my past life as a blank, 
 and from that hour to this I have made some endeavour 
 to redeem the past. I have generally found some few 
 men to work with me. First of all we got five of the mem- 
 bers who heard Mr. Urquhart, and shortly after the Secular 
 or Atheistic Society broke up." 
 
 WiUiam Singleton, the writer of this letter, worked his 
 way from the Atheistical Society to the Catholic Church. 
 But the beginning of good to him was this interview with 
 Mr. Urquhart, when the fierce denunciations which seemed 
 calculated to repel drew the finer spirits to him. This was
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 133 
 
 part of Urquhart's method. " There is no art I have 
 practised so assiduously as the faculty of making men hate 
 me," he says. " That removes apathy. You can get 
 them into speech. Then you have their words to catch 
 and hurl back at them to luiock them down with." 
 
 Many distinguished men bear witness to the success of 
 his method. 
 
 "It is you," said Pere Gratry, on being introduced to 
 him, " who tamed the democracy of England." Lothair 
 Bucher profited by Urquhart's knowledge of diplomacy, if 
 not by his principles. Dr. Fischel used what he had taught 
 him in his work on the Constitutional History of England. 
 ]Mr. A. G. Stapleton,^ who spent a day with one of the 
 Committees, was overwhelmed with the men's knowledge 
 and high moral standard. 
 
 " There is nothing these men did not know on inter- 
 national relations; all the treaties and their stipulations, 
 on what occasions they were made, how they had been 
 carried out, all their bearings as affecting the past, and 
 their probable effect on the future, were dealt with as if 
 they had spent their lives in the Foreign Office. Every 
 point of our Foreign Policy was dealt with, and they showed 
 equal knowledge on all. 
 
 " The object for which these men had banded themselves 
 together was of the noblest. ... ' Su',' they said, address- 
 ing me over and over regain in the course of the discussion, 
 to which they came in their dinner-hour in working clothes 
 and arms all stained with the indigo they were using for 
 their dyes, ' our object is to compel our Government to 
 re-establish the reign of Law.' Such was the lofty ideal 
 which filled the minds of these lowly mechanics. I retired 
 from the conference with mingled feelings of amazement 
 and dehght, and thought that no one need despair of 
 England's fate while such men formed a portion of her 
 people."^ 
 
 John Stuart Mill had an equally high opinion of their 
 character and aims. He called Urquhart's disciples " the 
 elite of the people of England." He told a deputation of 
 worldng men who came to interview him that he had been 
 
 ^ The intimate friend and biograplier of George Canning. 
 2 A. G. Stai^lctoii, A Datj ivilh One of the CommiUee)).
 
 134 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 a college friend of Urquhart's in their youth. They had 
 then had antithetical views on most matters, but now there 
 were few subjects on which he did not agree with him. 
 
 After reading with great appreciation a letter of David 
 Rule, a Newcastle plasterer and plumber, he remarked that 
 the most gratifying thing about David Urquhart's work 
 was " the development of mind among the working classes." 
 
 It must be remembered that Urquhart chose out for 
 treatment the best of the working men. 
 
 " Do not waste your time upon inferior men," he said 
 to a meeting of his working-men disciples ; ' ' you must find 
 a certain amount of natural intellectual power to make a 
 man worth talking to. If a man is not simple and child- 
 like so as to have escaped the fallacies of his age, he must 
 have a mind capable of sufficient intellectual effort to 
 grapple with them." 
 
 It is not possible to read the records of the men of the 
 Foreign Affairs Committees without contrasting them with 
 the working men of to-day, rather, it must be admitted, to 
 the disadvantage of the latter. 
 
 Those men, without half the advantages of the working 
 men of our own times, seem to have been, in character and 
 morale, head and shoulders above them. They had no 
 education except what they got for themselves. They had 
 been put to work at a barbarously early age. Their hours 
 of work were long, often twelve hours a day. Their food 
 was dear and of very poor quaUty. Their homes were un- 
 sanitary, often mere hovels. There were no working-men's 
 clubs. Books and papers were dear, cheap editions almost 
 unknown. The state of labour was disturbed. Wages were 
 low and unemployment common. But the leading note in 
 the men of the Committees was self-forgetfulness and 
 devotion to the cause of their country. During the American 
 Civil War, the time of the Committees' greatest activities, 
 quite half the mills in the cotton districts were closed, and 
 the rest were on half time. Three and sixpence a week was 
 a common wage for a family. 
 
 Yet, in spit 3 of their own sufferingo, the men of the 
 Foreign Affairs Committees signed and took round petitions
 
 RECOGNITION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ** Yoa have forgot tb« la«rs aod the traditions of your Fathers.** M^emosihenes to the Athenian*. 
 
 «< A Aeutral natioD desirous safely to enjoy the conveniences of that state, Isio all things to shew an exact Impartiality b«tweeo 
 the parties at war.** Vattets Late of ^^TtitionB^ 6. u»., c rii.. p. 307. 
 
 •♦The hon.and learned gentleman (nr/Kot>buck)had !«jioken of the invasion of the Worth, and said that Washington was now 
 Id dangler, and that the South had nearly achelved (heir object. H^hy, then. In the name of common sense, not leave them alone 
 to achieve It." Speech of Lord R, Montagu, June SOth, 1^63. 
 
 About foorteeo Tear> affo. the Iluuffarian fH-uple succeeded after a 
 Bumerous array of ^Iciorieji, in dri^ini; a povterlul foreiun ruler out of 
 their couotrr. aud eslabli>hint£ theui;!»elves an indepeDdenl uatiou. 
 The struffk'le ivo far a* Austria and Humrarr »ere concerned, was not 
 only *• firtually " o\er, as the aduilrer>iorthi.s new recoKuition doctrine 
 would sar, but it ^\as po<<)tiveiy and unquestioDably brou;;ht to a close. 
 Not oai\ bad the Hnn^arians couiptetel) scoured their country of the 
 presence of all Aostrianis but they had e\en fulloMed theui to Uieir 
 caphaL The ^n'eat and the grand proof of the utter inability of Austria 
 to retrain pos^e^tsion of that countri, via& the fact of her beins com- 
 pelled to hare recourse to a most eWiminable Russian intervention. 
 As soon as Hunffar>' had fairly cleared herself of the presence of the 
 Au&trians and swept them out of her countr>, she made an appeal to 
 £neliuid to be recocnised as a nation. Etery child knoHs the onsner 
 to that appeal. ^ We can receive no ci>uununi cation from an\ part of 
 the ^iustrioM Ewifirt„ only Ihrou^b the Austrian AmbaMarior in 
 London." Where., then were jour Manchester offices for •*re- 
 coenition" ! ^Vliere, then were lOur club» in Preston, jour monster 
 public meetiD§;s>our great placards, >uur motions in Parliament for 
 Recofniition T Tneo you knew nothing oi such ibings, because there 
 was no Co//ofi in the question ! : If Cotton had stood behind the re- 
 cognition of the Hungarian nationality, >ou would have mot ed Heaven 
 Vid E^arth to have brought it abouL Nothing would haie been left 
 undooe. But because it was a simple and a plain matter of Justice, 
 and because such a thing would hate been disinterested and unselfish, 
 there were no eyes to see if. and no hearts pure enough to mnkc an 
 effort to bring it about. Sorely the Eni;li»h are a preat and a mag- 
 nanimous people. Is it not wonderful that the appeal of the Hungarians 
 does not nog m their ears, and eomiK'l them from >erj shame to cea$»e 
 their agitation about recognition. 
 
 At the head of one of their placards vessels are pictured bringing 
 C«tton, and the motto is printed " Cotton, the only substantial aid for 
 Lancashire. " Tlie picture is trult indicative of the real motive of tfac 
 whole recognition movement. Cotton is the banner. Cotton Is the detty. 
 Before Cotton. Her >liyestys proclamation of neutralit>, the Laws, 
 the setting of a dangerous precedent, and e*er>lhing, must benfL 
 The professed Atheist is scouted as a bein; dangerous to societ), even 
 although he may have given some proofs of self-sacrifice for princljile's 
 6ake ; but those men are far more dangerous to the country, it bo, 
 professing that Christianity which eq|oins the sacrifice of all earthly 
 things even life itself for vVhat is right, yet shall try to lead the country 
 awat from a Just and lawful neutrality, by setting up Cotton before 
 everything, truly publishing the mammop-worshiplpg spirit that is anl- 
 matins them. 
 
 If thousands upon thousands of the people of England hare been in- 
 duced to leate the green hills and flowery vales where thev were bom, 
 to huddle and pack themselves toieether, making densely populated 
 towns and cities breathing air that ts pobwnous and great numbers of 
 them living that /a<( life, which so soon comes to a close; surelv if 
 so much of innocence, simpUcltv, health, and tife has been sacrificed in 
 tfaLs wa.>, enough has been lost without adding (o the list, the crime of an 
 unjust intertention, even although that Intervention be to get Cotton. 
 From the first commencement of Cotton manufacture, we have l^een 
 foolish enough to depend, in a very jrreal measure, on one place for 
 supply. If we uretonatepnblic meetiugs :^d to put up placards and 
 form clulks, and have lectures ftnd bare petitions to Parliament, let 
 them be to ^et Cotton from other places. Is it not foolish to be de- 
 pendent entirely upon one place (or an article, upon which mi many 
 thousands depend for their daiiy bread \ The aim of this recognition 
 movement, Ls to still concentrate public attention, on one place for a 
 supplv. If all the time, money, agitation, and attention, which has al- 
 reaay been laid out in producing a {Kipular crv' for recognition, bad been 
 apeot In trv ing to get Cotton somewbere else, or to laVe steps to have it 
 grown, something would have been done nurih the trouble. 
 
 Mr. Bright warned the House of Commons on the 30th, how much 
 worse a com famine would be tlian a cotton ramine- Let these recog- 
 nitionists take care that one Is not superadded to the other. If a collec- 
 tive European Intei^eDtion in the Cnited Slates should arrest the ex- 
 port of grain to this countrv', the prophecy of the Russian Historian, 
 Haxthaisen will be fiilfilled, namely, " In a fe\t years Ehirope will be 
 dependent for its food, upon the black soU of Russia, and wUl then Ikave 
 to jiay for it at famine prices. 
 
 Mr. Roebuck's motion for the recognition of the Southern t 'onfederacy 
 Is a striking example of the power acquired h^ using, as a weapon of 
 attack, wonis that have no defined meaning. In laws, whether muni- 
 cipal or international, there can be no abstract terms. The statement 
 oi a fact carries with it a corresponding; obligation which cannot be 
 evaded. >^lien Great Britain recognised the independence of the t'nlted 
 States, when Spain recognised theindependeuce of her Colonies Great 
 Britain and Spain by that act made peace. Tlie other nations who, 
 without waiting for the assent of Great Britain, acknowledged the i»> 
 
 dependence of the British North American Colonies at once prepared 
 to become their allies In the war. if tbeyhad not done so, U wouldhavc 
 been onlv because Great Britain was not stron;,- evoogfa to resist them. 
 In any other war than one of ludependence no nation professing nent- 
 ralitt officially, expresses an opinion on the pohits in (Uspnte : such an 
 act would at once be reckoned as a breach of neutrality? In the cose 
 now beine considered, the point of dispute Is exactly this; whether the 
 Southern Confederacv is independent or not. To recognise their tn- 
 dependencv is therefore to take their side. To pretend that this is 
 consistent with neutrility, is to set up the modem code that con- 
 tradictions are reconcileable, and that a neutral is one who is allowed 
 to take a side, trith^.ut incurring the risk of a belligerent Mr. 
 Roebuck's motion therefore, if piU in a straightforward form of words 
 could mean nothing less tiian a war with the Vnited States for t^ 
 fcoke of the .South. 
 
 It is laid down by Vnttel tl|at when two parties of a State*are 
 severed by rebellion it is Lawful for a third partv to side with the <me 
 he deems in the right. The American war of independence came 
 under thisdescriptiou, but it would noikave come uader Ibis descriptioa 
 iltbe Americans had acted as Mr. Roebuck described them to haTe 
 done. They did not as he pretended, declare tliat in consequence of 
 th<ir numbers and sfrcuglh they were Justified in seUing up for then- 
 selves thev were in arms becaase the rights which they had eqjoyed 
 were Invaded by the Parliament of Great Britain, and because an 
 attempt was made to reduce them to a subjectton which they had never 
 known and to which they refused to sabmiL The quarrel was not 
 complicated by territorial coosideratioos. Tbe remaiolnc Britiak 
 territory commanded by the St. Laurence! the mouth ofibe Mi^slssiippl 
 belonged to neither partv The Hudson wasin the absolute possessoa 
 of the I'nited States The Allies \tho took part in the war were 
 Iherelore able to do so without ir\jury to any but their enemv. When 
 peace was made it was not by a general treaty, the I'alted States were 
 not restrained by anv Earopean aruarantee, but each belligerent made 
 a seperate Treaty with Great BritaiiL 
 
 The nislinp circiimslancea bear oo analogy whslever to tboM of 1775 The 
 Southern Stire* 'oaiead of being laied witboct ibeir uwa eonsent ba%'e nerv'ly 
 been bealvn inan elertion in wbich ibey bad more than tbe aamerical share of 
 votes, iastead of having rebelled agaioai ihtarf«of rhe Dew Prcaldeot, Ibei took 
 caretor^belnhile jtt hia predeeeaaor, who waa their aceoiBplice, remaiaed la 
 office, in$le*d of exhausting even legal means of obtaining redress for alleged- 
 grievances, f hey neglected to make use ol tbeprivilegea which ibe conatitvtioa 
 gave them to call a convention by which aeceMion might have been legalised. 
 
 Besides these irregularities there is a further difficulty in tbe way ofany (oreig;* 
 •tate that should desire to take part with tbe Southern' Confedersry 
 
 I'bey demand the ooeirolof tiieMissiaaippi, tbe rooulb of which ncs piinbaacJ 
 from Prsnce, by. and (or tbe Union, and tbe free Navigstion of wbieb la so 
 essenlial to the Western States, which dd not bold Slavery, that it is now 
 ceasing to be a secret that tbe South looka to tbe po«se»ion of the Misaivippi, 
 as a means of socaring fM>t its Independence hot of reconstruct ing tbe I'nioo oa 
 « Southern basis, so as to give them back tbe supremacy which they have kat 
 by the election of Mr. Lineoln, for England to recognise tbe Southern Con- 
 federacy is for her plunge into ihe vortei and to mix hervetf op wiih tbe moal 
 important of alt the internal affairs of the united States. 
 
 But wbsf ia openly contemplated is sttll more than that which b&a jost bcea 
 described. It u that England and Fraoee shall iatervene between tbe two 
 parties oo the gronnd of '*bnm«nity'* trampling on tlie right* of both, sud 
 dictating terms of reconciliation. England is (he Northern neightmar of 
 the United States. France ia now bj her invasion of Mexico, their neighbour 
 oo tbe South. A forced mediation by EogUod and France would oalj be a 
 war io diaguise. The foiled Slates are to be tbe "Sick Mnn" of the new 
 world. VVhen we recollect tbe loss of hlood and treasure and character which 
 baa followed (he English allisBce with France in China and Tnrke\, we caooot 
 help shuddering al the prospect before us if Mr. Itocbuck's siiggestioQ sboald 
 ever be adopted. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone with the minute discrimination peculiar to himself, wlftV be 
 declared that in practice recognUioo of the indepcndef>ce of the Sontbern State* 
 could not be teperated from war in their bebalf, admitted that a distincttoo 
 might be made io theory. But it is difficult to understand in theory, bow a 
 great nation like England cao separate tbt formal recoguition of the iadepeodenca 
 of another state from acts in its support. Mr. Glsdsfone must ha^e beeo thinking 
 of Circsssia. The British governmeai have declared to that of Russia, that in 
 theory they bold Circasia to be iodepeodent, yet io practice they iatiaiais to 
 Brilisb mereb ants that if they trade with this iiwlependeni c'lintrj whose porta 
 are aot blockaded, their ahips will beseiied by Huaaian Cruisers 
 
 Wo*.i) )( aol b« wort^ obU* le ca^uin hew il i< ttal Ut* BiiHab ComuBrat. frh» va ttnU W m%^- 
 btelixt Ib.lr rli^ii aipia,! Rani*. <rb« haa itM t>.>p* cMuKb I« fclvk*J> tX> mlf at "j-rtiiii. ti»mU k*t* 
 M liiUf (<» sf riitpM-abn) itt I'eilrd SUtn, -k* kt. ■MukllT blKUdkn^ «mc Jnoo aUU* of CMM. f.f- 
 Wl inil fttaa bj A» Crt»«*B W w, pra is R«*a At •SoliUwi ^t tin fU(ta( W 9c«nb, ami tk» |iiiiM-ia 
 M afuul Tvfcaj. of tb* SUcfc 9m. Bj tfcrir CbiarM War Atj fit* hm ik* immiarj it ik* A^mt. (^I U 
 •t Ik* AuUic nwi oppmll* the t alMrf •!■«« B< (k«lr W«r «><k Japsa, Ik*; will fi,t Wr ■ foniM W *W 
 •MAtr*. I( tb*; tourCnv to U« W>IM4 Sutn. ii ««< W hi m>mt laicml mat lk«ir «n 
 
 » Issued by order of the Preston Foreign Affoirs As9ociationf T. KERSHAW, Chalrmail. 
 
 W. SIKOLBTON, Secretary. 
 A Petition against Recognition, and for a continuance of Neutrality, is in course of S»iguature. 
 
 CHARLES A^HBLEB, PRUiTEB, 34. CA>3iOi\ STREET, PRESTOS
 
 136 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Francis Marx, and Charles Dobson Collet,^ famous as the 
 devoted Secretary for " The Association for the Repeal of 
 the Tax on Newspapers and the Excise on Paper." 
 
 By then' help and that of sympathisers in the various 
 towns, 145 Committees were formed; some in large towns, 
 some in the villages, where they were even more successful 
 than in the towns. 
 
 " If Ufe remains in England," said a working man, who 
 knew the various Committees well, "it is in the villages. 
 If hope can be entertained of her recovery, that hope is 
 based upon the simpler and less sophisticated minds of our 
 rural populations." 
 
 For their mutual encouragement the village Committees 
 chose out a centre where once a month all the Committees 
 met. 
 
 In the interval they visited one another, lent one another 
 books, and kept one another up to the mark in cases of 
 slackness. Besides these smaller groups there were "Dis- 
 tricts " consisting of many Committees, which had their 
 centre in some town like Leeds or Manchester. The District 
 Meetings took place once in three or six months, and were 
 generally addressed by Urquhart or Rolland or one of the 
 other founders of the Society. " Schools of Public Law " 
 Urquhart called them. They were, as we have seen, also 
 
 on the lines of land-tenure and local self-government. It still exists 
 and flourishes as a little colony of free-holders who manage their 
 own aiiairs in a Land-holders' Court. 
 
 A description of it wUl be found in the Appendix. 
 
 1 " Charles Dobson Collet, who had achieved distinction as the 
 Secretary of the twelve years' agitation for the Repeal of the Taxes 
 on Knowledge, was a man of wide knowledge, versed alike in the 
 literature of Law and Diplomacy. He was the greatest worker of 
 liis day for untaxed knowledge and untaxed travelling. His reasons 
 for the Repeal of the Passenger Duty were delivered by him to the 
 Society of Arts, in February, 1877. Viscount Gorst was in the chair. 
 Mr. Collet and tlie present writer formed (October, 1877) a Committee 
 of forty persons known as promolors of working-class progress; among 
 them Joseph (Jowen, M.P., Th. Burt, M.P., Henry liroadhurst M.P., 
 Alderman (h-awshaw (of Manchester), and others. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Collet, the Founder o[ tlie Committee for the Ab ilitiou of 
 th? Passenger Tax, in the interests of Commerce, and of the working 
 classes, vigilant to the last, died in his 84th year." 
 
 History of the Travelling Tax. by G. J. Holyoi.kc, 1901.
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 137 
 
 schools of character and of manners. Until 1864 Urquhart 
 considered himself responsible for the training of the men, 
 and they were encouraged to send to him for criticism 
 reports of their conversations with their fellows or their 
 superiors, and the private letters by which, for the most 
 part, their propaganda was carried on. 
 
 If a man showed himself particularly able, he was generally 
 invited to spend a little time under his chief's eye at Rick- 
 mansworth or later at Worthing. He was there supposed 
 to give himself wholly to " self -improvement." The process 
 was a severe one. The smallest fault in manner, any 
 familiarity, stupidity, or thoughtlessness met with its meed, 
 more than its meed it seems sometimes, of blame. ^ No 
 excuses were admitted. If a man was right he must prove 
 himself right, if wrong he must take the blame, but an 
 excuse was anathema. It was the result of the deadly sin 
 of wanting to seem right rather than to be right. 
 
 1 Urquhart was as severe upon himself as he was upon others for 
 any failure, however unintentional, in consideration or courtesy. 
 
 His self-discipline, however, was not without its inconvenient 
 side. There h a story still current in the family of one of his oldest 
 friends, David Ross of Bladensburg, which bears this out. On 
 one occasion, w^hen Urquhart and his wife were staying in the house, 
 he wandered too long in the woods and returned home when every- 
 one had finished dinner. The family had waited for some time, 
 and when, at Mrs. Urquhart's request, dinner was served without 
 him, his hostess took every care that he should not suffer tor his 
 lateness. This, however, did not meet Urquhart's view. He was 
 late. It was a breach of good manners. He deserved no dinner. 
 He Avould therefore have none. 
 
 His hostess' distress, however, at the idea of her guest going hungry 
 to bed caused him to modify his determination. He would have 
 some bread and cheese. The bread and cheese was therefore brought, 
 when it occurred to him to toast the cheese; but he must toast it 
 himself. It was siimmer and there was no fire. The fire had to be lit. 
 
 Behold him then at last established in front of the newly lit fire 
 with his cheese at the end of a fork. But alas ! in the midst of the 
 operation an absorbing tojiic of conversation was started. 
 
 Urquhart turned to join in, cheese and aU else forgotten, both 
 by Urquhart and his hearers. 
 
 Softer and softer grew the cheese, longer and longer grew the 
 long viscous yellow trail — till at last it disappeared into the fire, 
 leaving Urquhart's toasting-fork bare. 
 
 This time he was adamant. Discourtesy crowned by inattention 
 to the matter in hand could not be overlooked. 
 
 Urquhart went witliout even a bread and cheese dinner; and all 
 his hostess' trouble was thrown away, to say nothing of the extra 
 work entailed on servants.
 
 138 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 To a man who had used a " vulgar expression " and tried 
 to excuse himself on the ground that he was " but a working 
 man, and therefore could not be expected to behave like 
 a gentleman," Urquhart wrote: 
 
 " For me no difference exists in men because of their 
 circumstances. ... I will no more hold intercourse with 
 a King than a shoemaker if not honest and if not polite. 
 A vulgar term, an excuse in lieu of a desire to be right, I 
 hold in equal abhorrence with a fraud or with perjury. 
 The man who excuses himself maintains the maxim that 
 it is not in him to be right. If you excuse yourself because 
 of your station in life for being coarse and vulgar, you will 
 also excuse yourself because of the age in which you live, 
 for every ignorance, for every debasement, for every crime ; 
 you justify the very things your reprobation of which is 
 the sole and only ground of intercourse between us, which 
 intercourse now ceases unless these words awaken in you 
 shame and repentance — shame for having written an idle 
 word, and repentance for attempting to justify an error." 
 
 To another, who in apologising for an error had said, 
 " I am sorry that I have hurt your feelings," and had 
 mentioned in extenuation that he was Uable to error in 
 dealing with gentlemen, because he had " received no 
 education," Urquhart wrote: 
 
 " You observe that many of the Committee men are in 
 the same position as yourself; with the best intentions, 
 possessing knowledge sufficient to rouse the most apathetic, 
 yet having received no education, finding their efforts futile 
 or noxious. Education is merely a bringing up. All the 
 bringing up that a just man wants is to be taught to speak 
 the truth, to know the right, to cling to it, and to abjure 
 in himself, and prevent in others, the wrong. Such was the 
 bringing up of the ignorant men who formed the noblest 
 service that the learned have now to possess, namely, the 
 Laws of England. Such was the bringing up or the second 
 bringing up of the ploughmen and the fishermen who were 
 the prophets of Israel and the Apostles of Christianity. 
 
 " When God's will is enacted upon earth at any time it 
 is out of weakness that comes strength, it is from the Hps 
 of babes and sucklings that comes forth wisdom. In the 
 case before us it was not knowledge that was want'.ng, it 
 was not ' facts ' that were deficient. Your lettar which so
 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES 139 
 
 grieved me did so grieve me precisely because of the just 
 appreciation of the facts, comiected with a cavilling spirit. 
 When I take up The Times, or any other newspaper, or 
 read debates in the House I am not grieved; I have gone 
 through them once for all. I know what the nation is, in 
 so far that they do not know what to do or what to say. 
 But, treating them as such, one may go on, if not hoping, 
 toiUng in this expectation that when the illusions are dis- 
 pelled they may demean themselves as men. Your letter 
 goes to the farthest point, being a specimen of the con- 
 dition of Englishmen after their delusions have been dis- 
 pelled, showing that the characters and energies of men 
 have disappeared with them. I can continue my batt'e 
 without compromise so long as the enemy I have to deal with 
 is error, I cannot do so when it is once estabhshed that 
 after error has been dispelled honour does not revive." 
 
 This method of Urquhart's in aiming at the highest, in 
 being content with nothing less, had a two -fold effect. 
 Some men were frightened away by it. When, however, 
 men were really capable of appreciating the self-sacrifice, 
 the labour, and the moral height of their master, they reached 
 themselves great heights in thus following him. Some 
 of them showed the greatness of their own characters in 
 their abilitj^ to appreciate him, the scope of his work, what 
 he would do for them, and what they must do for themselves. 
 
 One of them writes : 
 
 " Whatever his enemies say to the contrary, I unhesi- 
 tatingly affirm that (Mr. Urquhart) is one of the most 
 profound thinkers of modern times. Quick at perception, 
 skilful in the arrangement of his thoughts, coherent, con- 
 centrative and logical in his expressions, fervent and ener- 
 getic in their delivery, such a man is in every respect fitted 
 for the high vocation of preceptor to a self-willed, ignorant, 
 and benighted race. You say very properly, in answer to 
 the idle words of those who are afraid to investigate, that 
 Mr. Urquhart has no ambition to become a leader. Can 
 (men) not understand that a man may be an instructor, 
 without being a leader, and can they not see that a truthful 
 teacher cannot inspire to leadership as the term is accepted, 
 because his office is to raise others above the servile neces- 
 sity of it, by developing qualities which make people wise 
 and virtuous ? Men may despise Mr. Urquhart for ex-
 
 140 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 posing the wrong and denouncing the evil-doer, but they 
 may at least calm their fears as regards his leadership of 
 public opinion. That can never be, because it professes 
 nothing that is soUd, stable, or enduring. It is but a 
 fleeting shadow, a dancing meteor, an exhalation or a 
 passing breeze. In lieu of that which is futile and unsub- 
 stantial he would recommend us to study, so that, when 
 appealed to, the introductory expression of each would 
 be ' I know,' instead of ' I think.' This would be sub- 
 stituting knowledge for ignorance, fact for opinions. The 
 end of such wisdom would direct us to Public Law, Public 
 Rights, and create in us fortitude to enforce them. There- 
 fore no man who has a knowledge of Law and its uses, and 
 attends to its application, will whine for a leader, or excuse 
 himself from doing what is right because he can't obtain 
 one." 
 
 This letter well expresses the relation of Urquhart to 
 the Committees. He founded them, he infused his spu-it 
 into them, he was ready to bestow love, labour, thought, 
 care on them, he was their master; but he was in no sense 
 the leader of a party. In 1864 his health obliged him to 
 leave England; he never returned to it except for short 
 visits, and the men were then entirely thrown on their own 
 resources, with only their master's written words to en- 
 courage or rebuke them. But for more than fifteen years 
 they continued their work, and theu* steady adherence to 
 the principles in which they had been trained, their loyalty 
 to a cause which they must have seen was making no 
 headway, are proofs enough that the lofty ideals which had 
 been set before them they had taken for their own standard 
 of life, and are a sufficient answer to those who would 
 accuse the Foreign Affairs Committees of having blindly 
 followed Urquhart's lead.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 
 
 "So natural is the union of Religion with Justice that we may 
 boldly deem there is neither where both are not." — Hooker. 
 
 " Our Fathers took care that what their Rulers did was lawful; 
 we take for Law that which our Rulers do." — " Free Press " 3Iotto. 
 
 The great aims which David Urquhart set before the 
 Committees were the restoration of the Enghsh Constitution 
 and the re-estabhshment of Pubhc Law among nations. 
 AH the evils under which the working man suffered, and 
 which he thought would be remedied by the Franchise, 
 Reform Bill, and Corn Laws Repeal, Urquhart said could 
 only be remedied by the Restoration of Law. 
 
 " The Committees," he said, " are schools of Public Law. 
 If properly conducted and sufficiently attended, those who 
 compose them, though few in number, will perform the 
 office that ought to be performed by the whole State. . . . 
 The first business of the Committees is work; the second 
 denunciation; the third prophecy. When they have pos- 
 sessed themselves of a knowledge of the Law and, so quah- 
 fi,ed, have possessed themselves of a knowledge of the facts, 
 they are in a position to denounce, not indeed the Govern- 
 ment, but then- fellow-citizens. They are equally in a 
 position to foretell, for it is only to the ignorant that there 
 remains any mystery in the course of present events." 
 
 It was part of his creed that every intelhgent member 
 of the State ought to be conversant with its politics, its 
 commerce, its finance. That the modern citizen was not 
 so conversant, in so far as it was not attributable to his 
 indolence, was due to the cloud of mystification in which 
 those things were hidden from the public gaze. 
 
 This programme the Committees faithfully endeavoured 
 to carry out. No pubhc transaction took place during the 
 
 141
 
 142 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 period of their activity, from the war in Afghanistan to the 
 Congress of Brussels, in which the men of the Committees 
 did not claim to exercise their right of Englishmen to make 
 their voices heard in approval, criticism, or, more often, 
 denunciation. 
 
 No peace was concluded, no Conference was held, no 
 active interference in other countries took place which they 
 did not judge with the knowledge and acumen of statesmen. 
 Against the Declaration of Paris, with its surrender of 
 England's Maritime Rights, they petitioned, not only the 
 Queen, but both Houses of Parliament, and when it was a 
 fait accompli they worked for twenty years to prevent its 
 ratification, if not to bring about its abrogation. They 
 found themselves in opposition to the great mass of their 
 fellow-countrymen over the Indian Mutiny and on the 
 question of Italian Unity. They sent a petition to the 
 Pope for the Restoration of the Canon Law, and a deputa- 
 tion to the French Assembly, after the Franco -German 
 War, begging the French nation to set up a Tribunal for 
 judging causes of peace and war. It is true that in all 
 these cases a lead was given to them by their master, but 
 the letters they wrote and the petitions which they drew 
 up contain their own ideas, and were often very obviously 
 couched in their own words, while the deputations which 
 were sent consisted of working men from among themselves, 
 who set forth their own ideas in their own language. Not 
 only were they exceedingly tiresome to successive Govern- 
 ments over current events, but they had an awkward habit 
 of recurring to past acts of wrong and injustice, and de- 
 manding satisfaction and rej^aration. The crime of the 
 Afghan War, for instance, took place in 1849. The falsified 
 despatches were safely deposited in the Archives, and the 
 Foreign Minister, who had made an unwarrantable attack 
 on a friendly country, who had betrayed to death fifteen 
 thousand of his fellow-countrymen, and, for his own ends, 
 had tarnished a brave man's reputation and allowed him 
 to rest in his grave under a cloud of dishonour, was still 
 enjoying offices and honours. 
 
 But the Foreign Affairs Committees, in studying the
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 143 
 
 history of their own times, had ftallcii upon the story of the 
 Afghan War. They had read in the Report of the East 
 India ComjDany Dr. Burnes' passionate outcry: "They 
 garbled my brother's despatches"; as well as the tragic 
 story told in Kaye's History, and they had decided that the 
 tragedy of Afghanistan was a public crime. 
 
 In 1855 the Birmingham Foreign Affairs Committee 
 pubHshed a Report in which they set forth their conclusions 
 as follows : 
 
 " First, that the invasion of Afghanistan was not the 
 act of the Directors of the East India Company, nor of the 
 Governor-General of India, but of the Home Government. 
 
 " Secondly, that the pretext by which it was seen fit 
 to justify the invasion — i.e., that Dost Mohammed Khan, 
 the ruler of Cabul, was a friend of Russia and an enemy of 
 England, was utterly false, the contrary of that statement 
 being true. 
 
 " Thirdly, that the pretext was sustained by extracts 
 from the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes, the English 
 envoy at Caboul, which were laid before Parliament, being 
 so artfully altered, falsified and garbled, that they bore 
 a meaning precisely the reverse of that of the original 
 despatches of Sir A. Burnes." 
 
 This was by no means the first time that this charge of 
 falsification had been brought against the Government. 
 In 1842 Mr. Henry BailUe had moved in the House of Com- 
 mons for the production of the papers. Though seconded 
 by Disraeh, the motion only received nine supporters. In 
 1843 Mr. Thomas Roebuck had made a motion to the same 
 effect, which was defeated by 189 votes to 75. 
 
 In 1847 Anstey,^ in his speech against Lord Palmerston, 
 said: 
 
 ^ Thomas Cliisliolm Anstey was a barrister of the Inner Temple. 
 Called to the Bar in 1839, he was, however, as much interested in 
 religion as in law. He was deeply influenced by the Oxford Move- 
 ment, but passed through it to become a Catholic. Some of his most 
 interesting lectures on the EngUsh Constitution were delivered to 
 the students of Prior Park, near Bath. 
 
 After his speech against Palmerston in the House, Palmerston 
 invited him to dinner, and soon after appointed him Attorney-General 
 of Hong-Kong. The action could hardly have been due to benevo- 
 lence. The writer of the article on Anstey in the Dictiunary of 
 National Biography says:
 
 144 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " I say that forgeries, for it amounts to that, were com- 
 mitted for the purpose of misleading ParHament as to the 
 intentions and disposition of the people of Afghanistan. 
 This is particularly true with reference to the despatches 
 of the late Sir Alexander Burnes, and I am in a position 
 to prove it by reference to the original drafts of his 
 despatches." 
 
 Palmerston had replied that, while it was true that 
 passages had been omitted, they were only such as were 
 irrelevant to the question at issue. 
 
 In 1857 the Foreign Affairs Committee of Newcastle 
 appointed a sub-committee to inquire into the Afghan 
 War, which issued the following Report : 
 
 "1. That certain despatches written by Sir Alexander 
 Burnes, British Envoy at Caboul, in the years 1837 and 
 1838 to Sir WiUiam M'Naghten, Secretary to Lord Auck- 
 land, Governor-General of India, were not laid before 
 Parhament in their complete form, but were mutilated and 
 garbled in such a manner as to entirely alter their character 
 and meaning. 
 
 "2. That Lord Palmerston in a speech in the House of 
 Commons, on March 1st, 1848, acknowledged his responsi- 
 bility, and that of his colleagues, for the suppression of 
 passages of the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes, in the 
 Afghan Papers, Nos. 5 and 6, presented to Parhament in 
 1839; and has also admitted that these suppressions were 
 not accidental, but designedly made by them, for the sake 
 of brevity, and to avoid confusing the minds of members 
 of the House of Commons. 
 
 " 3. That the vahdity of this plea is a simple matter of 
 evidence, to be settled only by comparison of the despatches 
 
 " Although his political conduct hardly seemed to give him any 
 claim to Government Office, in 1854 Anstey was nominated Attorney- 
 G-eneral to Hong-Kong." 
 
 He was suspended, however, in 1858, having come into collision 
 with Sir John Bowring, the Governor, on the subject of the corrupt 
 police practices by which the latter worked. 
 
 He ultimately attained to eminence at the Indian Bar. He occu- 
 pied the Bench at Bombay in 1865. 
 
 Anstey and Urquhart were intimate friends during Urquhart's 
 parliamentary career; and Anstey all through his life preserved a 
 deep and sincere veneration for Urquhart. But after his defection 
 Urquhart cut him off and would have no more intercourse with him. 
 He, like Lothair Buch* r, liad, he said, been bought with a price.
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 145 
 
 of Sir Alexander Burnes, as published in the Blue Books, 
 with his original and unmutilated despatches. 
 
 "4. That this duty has never been discharged by the 
 House of Commons, although copies of the original and 
 unmutilated despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes have been 
 widely circulated by his friends and relations in defence of 
 his character, and in vindication of his memory. 
 
 "5. That they (the Committee) have carefully compared 
 the origmal despatches of Sir A. Burnes (copies of which 
 they have obtained from his brother-in-law) with the 
 Afghan Blue Books, Nos. 5 and 6, and they find that these 
 alterations are so important that they cannot possibly be 
 accounted for in the manner asserted by Lord Palmerston, 
 but that they show the existence of a design to deceive the 
 British Parliament and the Nation, by making it appear 
 that the views of Sir A. Burnes were in favour of the acts 
 of the ministers, in refusing to support, and in deposing 
 Dost Mohammed, when in reality the original despatches 
 prove he was strongly opposed to such an undertaking. 
 
 " G. Crawshay, Chairman. 
 " G. Stobart, Secretary. 
 
 " Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 
 "A^pril 6, 1857." 
 
 Attached to the Report are three appendixes, consisting 
 of: 
 
 Appendix A. — The most prominent perversions contained 
 in the Blue Books. 
 
 Appendix B. — Sir Alexander Burnes' original despatches 
 with the omissions of the Blue Books marked. 
 
 Appendix C. — ^The Petition of the father of Sir Alexander 
 Burnes for justice to his dead son, together with extracts 
 from that son's private letters to his family. 
 
 The Report must have been a bitter pill for the Govern- 
 ment as well as a blow for those who thought that at 
 least in Blue Books the truth was to be found. 
 
 It was in direct consequence of the Report to the New- 
 castle Committee and the petitions of the other Committees 
 that ]VIi-. Hadford, the Member for Sheffield, brought for- 
 ward a Motion in the House for the production of the original 
 papers . 
 
 The Motion was agreed to, and the papers were produced. 
 
 10
 
 146 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Thanks to the good offices of Mr. Kaye, the historian of the 
 Afghan War, then the Keeper of PoUtical and Secret Service 
 Papers, they were pubHshed with the original omissions in 
 parallel columns marked in red ink so that the falsifications 
 could be clearly seen. 
 
 The next step would have naturally been the punishment 
 of those surviving members of the Government who were 
 responsible for the disaster and fraud. " I have done my 
 part," said Hadford to the Newcastle Committee, " it is 
 for you to do yours." This the Committee willingly en- 
 deavoured to do. They in company with the other Com- 
 mittees petitioned Parliament : — 
 
 " That your Honourable House may take into their con- 
 sideration the volume of documents entitled ' Copies of 
 the Correspondence of Sir Alexander Burnes with the 
 Governor of India during his Mission to Caboul in the 
 years 1837 and 1838,' or such part thereof as has not been 
 aiready published, and to make laiown by your decision 
 thereon whether it was fat and proper to mutilate the terms 
 and alter the sense of the despatches of Her Majesty's 
 Service." 
 
 So heavily did the fear of Palmerston lie upon the House 
 that it was with great difficulty that the Committees found 
 a Member who would bring forward a Motion for an in- 
 quiry. At last, however, they succeeded, and in 1861 the 
 Member for Greenock, Mr. Dunlop, moved that " a select 
 Committee be appointed to consider the correspondence 
 relating to Afghanistan as presented to the House in 1839 
 and the same correspondence as presented in 1858." The 
 Motion was defeated by a large majority in spite of John 
 Bright 's^ vigorous and impassioned speech in support of it. 
 
 1 Lord Palmerston opi^osed tlie Motion on the grounds that the 
 matter was past history, a matter indeed almost for antiquarian 
 research and, it would have seemed by his remarks, of really very 
 little importance. The greater part of his speech was taken up 
 in belittling the character and ability of Sir Alexander Burnes. John 
 Bright on this occasion was on the side of the Committees. " I do 
 not suppose," he said, " that it is intended to arraign anybody for a 
 policy which sacrificed at least 20,000 human beings, nor is it intended 
 to inquire how the loss of more than £15,000,000 sterling by that 
 policy has affected for all future time tlie finances and position of 
 the Indian Government, but it is worth knowing whether there was
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 147 
 
 The Chinese War afforded the next field of the Com - 
 mittees' campaign for the re-establishment of Law and 
 Justice. 
 
 The attack was opened in a way characteristic of the 
 thoroughness of Urquhart's methods of training the Com- 
 mittees in regard to public questions. The Free Press, 
 which, as the Committees increased, was his chief means of 
 communicating with them, contained, in September, 1859, 
 an account of the dealings of England with China, from 
 the iniquitous introduction of the opium trade in 1833, to 
 the forcing of the Peiho by Admiral Seymour. All the 
 facts were collected from official documents, and left no 
 doubt of the flagrant injustice towards China of the suc- 
 cessive Enghsh Governments. The Committees at once 
 took up the matter, and so impressive was their action 
 upon the working classes that their membership quickly 
 increased threefold. 
 
 As regards Urquhart himseK, the action of the English 
 Church in the Chinese War was the end of the hope he had 
 once cherished that she might restore at least in England 
 respect for the Law of Nations. The volte-face of the 
 Bishop of Oxford in first denouncing the war as unjust, and 
 then declaring that by it God had opened " a door for us 
 in China," and the subserviency of the clergy in accepting, 
 without remonstrance, the action of the Government, roused 
 in him and his followers a passion of indignation. 
 
 The Stafford Committee wi'ote on its own initiative a 
 long and cogent letter of remonstrance to the Bishop of 
 Oxford, which his Lordship declined to read. 
 
 A working man, John Booth, wrote from Stockport to 
 the Bishop of Lincoln in reference to his speech at the 
 meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel : 
 
 a mau in high position in the Government or in India who had so 
 low an opinion of honour and right, that he should offer to this House 
 mutilated, false, forged opinions of a public servant, who lost his 
 life in the pubUc service. I say an odious offence has been committed 
 against this House, and we want to know who did it. The noble 
 Lord does not think it is anything wrong. The letters he says are 
 of ' trifling importance.' ' Sir Alexander's opinions are not worth 
 much.' Be it so. But if this be a matter of so little importance 
 will the noble Lord teU us who did it f '
 
 148 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " At a public meeting of the members and friends of the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel held at Willis' 
 Rooms, your Lordship is reported to have said that God 
 in His Providence had opened another country and given 
 another road by which the Gospel could penetrate. I beg 
 leave, my Lord, to submit that if God had opened China 
 the means supplied were of God's appointment. I ask, 
 my Lord, if this is not a blasphemous assertion, for we are 
 told that God is a God of equity. Now I ask you, my Lord, 
 were the means appUed for the opening of China equitable ? 
 Are the sacrifice of human hfe and destruction of property 
 (without just cause) the means instituted by the Almighty 
 for the accomplishment of His purpose ? If they are, the 
 Atheist may well exclaim that the world would be better 
 without such a God than to have one." 
 
 The Stafford Committees posted up huge placards 
 setting forth to the working men the wrongs done to the 
 Chinese. 
 
 " Without any declaration of war, your army bombards 
 Canton, massacres its inhabitants ; you call in the assistance 
 of other Powers, terrify and alarm the Emperor, shake the 
 sword even over Pekin, and after committing unheard-of 
 cruelties, demand from that much-injured monarch 
 £1,400,000, hke the highwaymen: ' Stand and dehver !' 
 We emphatically denounce these atrocities and extortions, 
 and call upon you to do the same. WeU may the Chinese 
 call us barbarians, for what else are we ? Will that ill- 
 used people, think you, receive Christianity from our hands, 
 stained with the blood of their fellow-men ? Will our con- 
 duct be likely to increase our trade with them ? They are 
 not made of stone and have a memory." 
 
 On the eve of the departure to China of the punitive 
 expedition of 1860, the following address from the various 
 Committees to the soldiers and sailors was both posted up 
 and circulated : 
 
 *' FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, 
 
 " We, who have taken the trouble to inform our- 
 selves as to what is, and what is not lawful, as to what 
 constitutes War and what Piracy, address ourselves to you, 
 who have not taken the trouble, and therefore do not know, 
 to warn you of the guilt you are about to incur, and of the
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 149 
 
 dangers in which you are thereby going to involve ns with 
 the rest of your fellow-countrymen. War has not been 
 declared against China. For in war a declaration has to 
 be made to the enemy, and the proclamation thereof by the 
 Queen, with the sanction of the Privy Council to her sub- 
 jects. Such is the Law of the land and of all lands where 
 there is virtue, honour, religion, or sense. Those who act 
 otherwise are not even savages, for savages declare war 
 before they kill men. It is this declaration and proclarna- 
 tion which saves the conscience of the soldier in slaughtering 
 his fellow-men, and whoever, without this warrant, does 
 use his weapon to destroy human hfe, is a base murderer, 
 liable to be hung as a pirate by the people he attacks, and 
 exposed to be condemned as a felon in England, according 
 to the municipal law of the land. 
 
 " The order of a Secretary of State for levying war is no 
 justification, and if the case be brought before a Court 
 of Law the accused will not be screened by assigning such 
 a document as the defence. 
 
 " The military oath has been from time immemorial to 
 defend the State. If from the soldier were required an 
 oath, which involved the commission of crime, it would be 
 impious, and no citizen could take it. The duty of a 
 soldier is super-added to that of a citizen, and does not 
 destroy it: he undertakes the defence of his fellow -citizens, 
 he does not become a salaried assassin. The soldier as a 
 soldier has not to enquire into the justice of the war, but 
 as a soldier he must know that it is lawful." 
 
 The document was signed by twenty delegates of Foreign 
 Affairs Committees assembled, in their Conference at 
 Manchester, January 8, 1860. 
 
 But perhaps the most important work the Committees took 
 up was their action in the matter of the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 For nearly twenty years, from 1856 to 1875, they never 
 ceased to demand the abrogation of a Treaty which con- 
 travened the ancient Maritime Law, which placed no hind- 
 rance in the way of enemy trade in time of war, and which 
 took away from belUgerents the Right of Search. They 
 were thoroughly versed in all the bearings of the question, 
 for, in this matter which he considered vital to the life of 
 England, Urquhart had carefuUy and exhaustively in- 
 structed them.
 
 150 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 In his eyes England lived or died by keeping or losing 
 her Maritime Power. To the law-loving soul of one who 
 had been a sailor in his adventurous youth the Law of the 
 Seas was doubly dear. Quite early in his career he was 
 brought into contact with that Law, both in theory and 
 practice. He had in his boyhood come across a copy of 
 Ward's Maritime Laiv,^ and he had studied it with his 
 accustomed eagerness. And what he knew he was caUed 
 upon to use, when he acted as witness in the Admiral's 
 Prize Court during the Greek War of Independence. 
 
 When, on the eve of the Crimean War, England and 
 France agreed to waive their rights of seizing enemy goods 
 if protected by a neutral flag, Urquhart set before his 
 "schools of Public Law" the results of such an action. 
 It meant, he said, that Russian trade would be unim- 
 paired, that our preponderance of power at sea would 
 avail nothing in the war, and that a determined effort 
 would be made by Russia to make the arrangement 
 permanent. 
 
 Events proved him to have been right. Trade between 
 Russia and England never ceased during the war. The 
 Admiralty advertised for and bought Russian tallow. 
 The Government, driven into a corner by the indignation 
 of many classes of the community, tried to excuse their 
 action by pretending that they had acted in the interests 
 of English trade. The Declaration of Paris which Russia 
 manoeuvred into the Peace Conference abundantly justified 
 his prophecy that Russia, having obtained that for which 
 she had been scheming ever since the time of the Armed 
 Neutralities, would not again let it go. 
 
 Urquhart submitted to a long cross-examination by the 
 working men of Birmingham, the results of which were 
 afterwards embodied in a pamphlet. In it he sketched, 
 in an answer to questions from the men, the history of 
 Maritime Law from the laws laid down by the maritime 
 
 1 Ward's Treatise on Maritime Law was publisliecl in ISOl, 
 at the request of Lord Grenville. It was reprinted in 1874 with a 
 Preface by Lord Stanley of Alderley. who notes its complete and 
 remarkable disappearance " within late years from those Public 
 Libraries where it is known to have existed."
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 151 
 
 cities of the Mediterranean, and which were codified under 
 the title of the " Consolato del Mare."i 
 
 He dealt with her enemies' various attempts, from the 
 Armed Neutralities onward, to wrest from England her 
 greatest defence. He showed that the plea of humanity 
 which Russia had always made in her so-called attempts 
 to gain for the rest of the world the " liberty of the seas " 
 was but a false plea, since more could be accomplished at 
 sea by the seizure of property than could be effected on 
 land at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. 
 
 The Foreign Affairs Committees were quick to grasp the 
 ideas thus put before them and to recognise the danger that 
 lurked in the " humanity and civilisation " of which the 
 "Declaration of Paris blatantly proclaimed itself the har- 
 binger. To these men, versed in the Law of Nations, it 
 seemed a display of ignorance on the one side and adroit 
 machination on the other. They took up the position which 
 for twenty 3-ears they steadily maintained, that it was quite 
 impossible for the plenipotentiaries assembled in the Paris 
 Conference to override the ancient Laws of Europe, that 
 the Right of Search must be allowed to belligerents, that 
 privateering was not necessarily an inhuman method of 
 naval warfare, and that enemy trading could not, save at 
 the risk of prolonged wars and increased armaments, be 
 allowed to go on under neutral flags. This position they 
 maintained by every means in their power — by addresses 
 to the Queen, petitions to Parliament, public meetings, and 
 lectures to working men. 
 
 On two points they found themselves on two separate 
 occasions joining hands with the United States. The first 
 of these occasions was in 1857, when America, being asked 
 to sign the Declaration, objected to the article which con- 
 
 1 He mistakenly attributes the Consolato to St. Louis. The 
 earliest jMSS. of it extant are in the Catalan language, and none are 
 earlier than the fourteenth century. It is the Booh of the Consulate 
 of the Sea, i.e., the Law of the " Consules Maris," the Commercial 
 Judges of the Mediterranean cities. The Rhodean Sea Law is the 
 olde-:t of all. It is referred to in the Canon Law: 
 
 Rhodise leges navalium commerciorum sunt, ab insula Rhode 
 eognominatse, in qua antiquitus mercatorum usus fuit."' {Oratian, 
 Decretals. Pt. I., D. II., ch. viii.)
 
 152 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 demned privateering, pointing out that she was dependent 
 upon it for sea-power in time of war.^ 
 
 Again, in 1862, during the American Civil War, in the 
 affair of the Trent, they ranged themselves on the side of 
 America, who had asserted the Right of Search by boarding 
 an English vessel in search of two Commissioners of the 
 Southern States who had found asylum there. 
 
 War between the two countries seemed imminent when 
 America yielded and gave up the Commissioners. Urquhart 
 had forewarned the Committees that this would probably 
 be the upshot of the affair. " For," said he, " the rupture 
 with America is not intended to lead to a long maritime 
 struggle for the time being, but to a parliamentary sanction 
 of the Declaration of Paris." 
 
 He was right. A Motion was brought forward in the 
 House, " That the present state of International Law as 
 affecting neutrals is so ill-defined and unsatisfactory as to 
 call for the early attention of Hei Majesty's Government." 
 
 This was what Urquhart feared; he warned the Com- 
 mittees against an attempt to introduce a new code of 
 Maritime Law secretly inspired by those who were pre- 
 paring for the day of great armaments. The Committees 
 responded nobly: they petitioned, interviewed, held meet- 
 ings, and wrote letters to the newspapers. Urquhart con- 
 sidered that they had won a victory when, though the 
 Declaration of Paris was not repudiated, yet its supporters 
 did not find themselves strong enough to bring about its 
 actual affirmation. 
 
 This affair of the Trent drew forth from one of the mem- 
 bers of the Manchester Committee, Mr . A. Smith, a journeyman 
 shoemaker, eight letters on the Defences of England which 
 appeared in the Nottingham Weekly Times. These letters 
 attracted the attention of John Stuart Mill, and converted 
 
 1 She declared, however, that if this article were extended to 
 the protection of aU private property at sea she would accept it. 
 Cobden vigorously supported her on the ground that such a provision 
 would practically abolish war, and make it but a " duel of Govern- 
 ments." This position of Cobden's led to a long correspondence 
 between him and the Committees in which he was certainly worsted. 
 It is to be found in the Free Press Supplement, December, 1859.
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMJVnTTEES 153 
 
 him to the writer's point of view on Maritime Law. So 
 convinced was the veteran economist of the justice of the 
 Committees' position on the subject that in 1867, when a 
 motion was brought forward in the House to appoint a 
 Commission on Maritime Law, he entirely took their side 
 in strenuously resisting it, and moved, instead, for the 
 complete abrogation of the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 The attention of the Committees was again called to the 
 matter in 1870 by the Franco -Prussian War. Urquhart 
 believed that the defeat of France had been in a very large 
 measure due to the Declaration of Paris, which had rendered 
 her navy useless.^ He did not forget, moreover, that it was 
 England who, at the beginning of the war, had bound 
 France to that Declaration by Lord Granville's intimation 
 that she must consider herself pledged to observe it. In 
 September, 1870, the Foreign Affairs Committees of Cheshire 
 sent an address to the Emperor of the French urging upon 
 him its entire repudiation. 
 
 To appreciate the statesmanship and far-sightedness of 
 this document we must remember that it was drawn up, 
 not when Prussia had reveabd herself in her true colours, 
 but when she was the admired of Europe and considered 
 to be the victim of France's ambition. 
 
 " We have seen with profound grief," began the address, 
 " a foreign army advancing into France, and apparently 
 about to inflict on Paris all the horrors of a siege. It 
 increases our grief that this invasion has the appearance 
 of having been wantonly provoked and ingeniously prepared 
 by Prussia. We know that the nomination of a Prussian 
 Prince to the throne of Spain was felt by every Frenchman 
 not only as an insult, but as a preparation for an invasion 
 of France by Prussia. After Prussia's seizure of . Schleswig- 
 Holstein by a fraud, after the breaking up by force of the 
 German Confederation, of which she was a member . . . 
 after her persistent refusal to execute the Treaty of Prague, 
 it was evident that no reliance could be placed on Prussia's 
 
 ^ German trade was, he said, carried on by neutral merchantmen, 
 while her navy was snugly tucked away in the harbour of Kiel. 
 The French navy roamed the seas with nothing to do, and had to 
 see food and contraband of war being carried to Germany, while she 
 was powerless to prevent it.
 
 154 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 sense of right or on her word, even when plighted to Ger- 
 mans. We know, too, that your Majesty had proposed to 
 tlie King of Prussia a mutual disarmament, and that M. 
 de Bismarck had refused his consent to any such arrange- 
 ment. . . . From any further aggrandisement of Prussia 
 consequences terrible to mankind are certain to follow, 
 while it is possible to hope that such may not follow in case 
 of the success of France. 
 
 " We therefore beg to point out to your Majesty the 
 neglect of a very important means against the enemy of 
 France in not secpiestering her property placed within 
 reach of seizure as being in passage over the sea. Thousands 
 of Frenchmen are slaughtered by an enemy who is de- 
 vastating France and is about to reduce the neighbourhood 
 of the capital to a desert. Yet that enemy is allowed to 
 carry on his trade in peace under a neutral flag. We are 
 told that his plea for the abnegation of maritime power 
 is to assimilate war on sea to war on land where private 
 property is respected. Private property is not respected 
 by the Prussians in France. The cause assigned for sparing 
 Prussia at sea is the Declaration of Paris, which forbids the 
 seizure of enemy goods in neutral vessels, a practice com- 
 monly followed by France as w^ell as England until the 
 Crimean War in 1854. But what is the Declaration of 
 Paris ? England is not bound by it, for even supposing 
 that any State could alter the Law of Nations, the Con- 
 ference of Paris was not competent to make laws for English- 
 men, Not one of Her Majesty's servants has ever dared 
 to ask for an Act of Parliament to sanction this change in 
 the Laws of England." 
 
 Testimony, the more remarkable because it was uncon- 
 scious, was born to the power of prevision with which 
 Urquhart's training had endowed the working men of the 
 Committees by a speech deUvered four years later in the 
 French Assembly by a Deputy, M. Jean Brunei, who 
 pointed out how disastrous for them in the Franco -Prussian 
 War had been the consequences of the Declaration of Paris, 
 which prevented them from seizing at sea all the vessels 
 which the great German ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Stettin 
 and Dantzig sent out over the world, and so crippling the 
 resources of Germany that she would have been forced to 
 suspend her invasion of French territory.
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 155 
 
 In 1871 Mr. Cavendish Bentinck brought forward a 
 Motion in the House that England should now withdraw 
 from the Declaration of Paris. Mr. Gladstone, in his speech 
 on the Motion, said that " the stipulations of the Declara- 
 tion of Paris have a binding force at this moment." 
 
 His speech was taken up by the members of a society 
 connected with the Birmingham Foreign Affairs Associa- 
 tion, and the following correspondence took place: — ^ 
 
 '^ Mutual Improvement Society, 
 " 54, Price Street, 
 
 "Birmingham. 
 
 " 3Ia>f 1, 1871. 
 
 " Sir, — I am directed by the above society to say that 
 they have read with interest the debate in the House of 
 Commons on Mr. Bentinck's Motion relative to the De- 
 claration of Paris of 1856. In the debate you are reported 
 to have said that the ' stipulations of the Declaration of 
 Paris have a binding force at this moment, and the Govern- 
 ment are not therefore at liberty to entertain any resolu- 
 tion for getting rid of them.' This society has lately had 
 the Declaration of Paris under serious consideration, and 
 its members are aware that the Declaration is in itself 
 illegal, and by the words of Lord Clarendon himself is 
 shown to be unauthorised, and has never yet been sanctioned 
 by Crown, Parliament, or people of this country. Under 
 these circumstances, I am directed to ask you to be kind 
 enough to inform us whether you really used the words, 
 and if so, from what source the stipulations not contained 
 in the Treaty derive their binding force ? — I have, etc., 
 
 " E. Cook, Secretary. 
 
 " Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P." 
 
 " 10, Downing Street, 
 "Whitehall, 
 
 " Mfuj 8, 1871. 
 
 "Sir, — ^Mr. Gladstone desires me to acknowledge the receipt 
 of your letter on the subject of the debate held in the House 
 of Commons with reference to the ' Declaration of Paris,' 
 and to inform you that treaty power belongs to the Crown, 
 and the words of his speech on that occasion, agreeing with 
 those of other authorities, went to show that the Declara- 
 
 * See Diplomatic Eeview, July, 1871.
 
 156 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 tion partakes (in what degree he did not attempt precisely 
 to define) of the character of a reciprocal engagement. Mr. 
 Gladstone cannot speak precisely as to the phrases which 
 he is reported to have used. — I have, etc., 
 
 "W. B. GURDON. 
 
 "E. Cook, Esq.'' 
 
 "Mutual Improvement Society, 
 "Birmingham, 
 
 " May 15. 
 
 " Sir, — I am directed by the above society to acknowledge 
 and thank you for your note of the 8th instant. The society 
 have considered your letter, and instruct me to say that 
 they are glad to find you laying down that " treaty power 
 belongs to the Crown." With that they fully concur, 
 and it was precisely because the Declaration of Paris was 
 not contained in the treaty, and not made by authority 
 of the Crown, and was, moreover, illegal in itself, and has 
 never yet received the sanction of either Crown or Parlia- 
 ment, that they wished you to inform them from what 
 source it derived the binding force you are reported to 
 have attributed to it, but as you have shown no source 
 from which it could have derived that binding force, we 
 must presume there is no force in it, and as you cannot 
 speak precisely as to the terms you used, while at the 
 same time it is of consequence that a man in your position 
 should not appear to give value to a declaration of that 
 nature, I am instructed to respectfully ask you, for your 
 own sake and the welfare of our common country, to take 
 or make an early opportunity of declaring pubhcly that 
 the treaty power belongs to the Crown only, and con- 
 sequently the Declaration of Paris has no binding force 
 on this country, and is null and void, and taking the neces- 
 sary legal steps in connection therewith. — I have the 
 honour to be, on behalf of the society, 
 
 " Edwin Cook, Secretary. 
 
 "Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P." 
 
 " 10, Downing Street, 
 " Whitehall, 
 
 ''May 17. 
 
 "SiR^_Mr. Gladstone desires me to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, and to inform 
 you that the Declaration of Paris was made by persons 
 whom the Crown had authorised to that effect. — I am, Sir, 
 etc., "W. B. GuRDON."
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 157 
 
 "Birmingham, 
 
 " May 19. 
 
 " Sir, — I am directed by the ' Price Street Mutual Im- 
 provement Society ' to thank you for your note of the 
 17th instant, and to say that the Declaration of Paris (not 
 the treaty) professed to alter the Law of Nations and 
 reverse the practice (which in former times accorded with 
 the Law) of this countrj'. We know that the Crown has 
 power to conclude treaties in accordance luith law, but ' the 
 King can do no wrong,' and we therefore find Bracton 
 writing thus: ' Rex in Regno duos superiores habet, Deum 
 et Legem.' 
 
 " Who, then, has the power to alter the law of nations, 
 which is defined to be ' The principles of the law of nature 
 applied to the conduct and the affairs of nations and 
 sovereigns '? And, according to Lord Hobart in his 
 Reports, page 87 : ' Jura natm-ae sunt immutabiha — ^sunt 
 leges legum.' 
 
 " But the question is not one of the power of the Crown, 
 it is now reduced to one of the authority given to Lord 
 Clarendon. That nobleman said, in speaking of this very 
 Declaration : ' If we had confined ourselves within the 
 strict hmits of our attributions, we should have lost the 
 opportunity when the representatives of the principal 
 Powers of Europe were met together for discussion.' 
 
 We are astonished to hear from you that the Crown did 
 authorise the Declaration of Paris, and, as we believe it 
 would go far to settle at least one point of the controversy 
 on the subject if that fact were generally known, may we 
 beg of you to tell us where we can find the evidence of such 
 authorisation. — I have the honour, etc., 
 
 "Edwin Cook, Secretary. 
 
 "Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P." 
 
 " 10, Downing Street, 
 "Whitehall, 
 
 ''May 22. 
 
 "Sir, — Mr. Gladstone desires me to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter of the 19th instant, inquiring where 
 evidence may be found that the Declaration of Paris was 
 made by persons whom the Crown had authorised to that 
 effect. 
 
 I am directed to refer you to the full powers of the Envoys, 
 and the records supplied by the protocols. — I am. Sir, etc., 
 
 "W. B. GURDON."
 
 158 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Birmingham, 
 " 3Io.y 30. 
 
 " Sir, — I am directed to acknowledge and thank you for 
 your letter of the 22nd instant. We have carefully looked 
 through the Blue Book on the Conference of Paris, 1856, 
 but have been unable to find the authority under which 
 Lord Clarendon acted when he signed the Declaration on 
 Maritime Law. I am, therefore, instructed to ask you to 
 still further extend your kindness to us by stating to what 
 particular protocol you referred. — I have the honour to 
 be, etc., 
 
 " E. Cook, Secretary. 
 
 "Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P." 
 
 "10, Downing Street, 
 "Whitehall, 
 
 ''June r>. 
 
 " Sir, — Mr. Gladstone desires me to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter of May 30th, and to express his regret 
 that he is not able to enter into further details respecting 
 the matter which you have brought before him. — I am, 
 Sir, etc., 
 
 ''W. B. GURDON. 
 
 "E. Cook, Esq." 
 
 "Birmingham, 
 ''June 3. 
 
 " Sir, — I am directed by the above society to acknowledge 
 and thank you for your letter of the 22nd instant. This 
 society, seeing that your name was used to give apparent 
 sanction to the Declaration of Paris, asked to be informed 
 of the source of the binding force you attributed to 
 it. You replied, ' treaty power belongs to the Crown,' 
 evidently meaning us to infer that the ' Declaration ' had 
 the force of a treaty, and the Crown was to be used as a 
 scapegoat to bear the blame. The society answered that the 
 ' Declaration ' was not part of the Treaty, and had not 
 been the act of or sanctioned by the Crown, and asked 
 you to take steps to get it declared null. You replied that 
 the ' Crown had authorised ' the Declaration. The society 
 then asked for evidence of the authority. In reply you 
 referred us to the ' full powers ' and the ' protocols.' 
 The society answered that after careful examination of the 
 protocols, they could not find the authority, and asked
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 159 
 
 you to specify them to which you referred. You then 
 ' regret that you are unable to enter into further details.' 
 
 The society instruct me to say, that as you are unable 
 to point out the ' authority ' given to Lord Clarendon, 
 they have again for themselves carefully examined the 
 Protocols of the Conference of Paris. The Envoys there 
 assembled had full powers to make peace with Russia, 
 and that was all. 
 
 " Peace was signed on the 30th March, 1856. 
 
 " On the 8th of March, 1856, Count Walewski first intro- 
 duced the subject of Maritime Law, and proposed the 
 Declaration. Lord Clarendon said ' England was disposed 
 to agree ' on conditions (which have not been carried out), 
 the Envoys of Russia, Austria, and Prussia expressly 
 stating that they had no instructions on the subject. The 
 Protocols do not, therefore, contain what your letter in- 
 ferred we should find in them; and, as in ordinary life, 
 when a man makes a statement which he is unable to sub- 
 stantiate, his regret should lead him to own he was wrong 
 and set himself right, I am instructed to ask you to rectify 
 yom' former statement, that ' the Crown had authorised ' 
 the Declaration of Paris, and to take steps to have it 
 declared null. 
 
 " If your ' regret ' should lead to this result it will end 
 in the pleasure of Imowing you have done right and will 
 not be in vain. 
 
 "If it does not, this society will know how to estimate a 
 man who is unable to show that he is right or to admit that 
 he is wrong. — I have, Sir, etc., 
 
 "E. Cook, Secretary. 
 
 " Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P." 
 
 " 10, Downing Street, 
 "Whitehall, 
 " J«n,e 6, 1871. 
 
 "Sir, — Mr. Gladstone desires me to aclaiowledge the 
 receipt of your letter of June 3rd. — I am, Sii', etc., 
 
 "W. B. GURDON. 
 "E. Cook, Esq." 
 
 This was the end of the correspondence ! 
 
 In 1874 England was invited to send a representative to 
 the Congress of Brussels, which had been called by Russia 
 for the avowed purpose of drawing up a Code of Inter-
 
 160 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 national Law. Urquhart describes it, in the Diplomatic 
 Review, as a further attempt to give over the world into 
 the hands of Powers possessing huge armaments. 
 
 The Foreign Affairs Committees of Cheshire, Lancashire, 
 Yorkshire and Northumberland addressed a circular letter 
 to their fellow-workers setting forth the dangers that lurked 
 in the Congress. They dealt with two of its articles in 
 particular, one of which was directed against England's 
 sea power, while the other gave to armies of occupation of 
 an invaded country absolute and legal claim on the allegi- 
 ance of the inhabitants of that country. 
 
 " That means," they pointed out, " that the command 
 of the world will be transferred from the naval to the 
 military powers ; you will be unable to defend your colonies, 
 which will fall into the hands of the enemy, who for a 
 hundred years has been endeavouring to bring ruin upon 
 you. Your enemy's commerce will ride the sea securely 
 and safely while your enemy's armies are invading India. 
 ... It only requires to recollect the former times, and to 
 use your own sense, which will tell you that our country 
 can only be defended by naval power, and that it is not 
 when the armies of the Continent, raised by constraint, 
 count by millions, and are getting larger every day, that 
 England can afford to abate one jot or tittle of those ad- 
 vantages she possesses by her geographical position." 
 
 The Foreign Affairs Committees of Hockley and Birming- 
 ham joined with the Bhmingham Liberal Association and 
 the Birmingham Conservative Working Men's Association 
 in presenting a petition to Disraeh against the representa- 
 tion of England at the Congress, and a large pubhc meeting 
 was held at Macclesfield under the auspices of the Foreign 
 Affairs Committee for the same purpose. Amongst those 
 on the platform was the old Chartist Wesleyan Minister, 
 (Stephens of Staly bridge, who had for a long time now been 
 working with the Foreign Affairs Committees. Twenty of 
 the Committees addressed Disraeh on the same subject, 
 and most of the journals of provincial towns where there 
 were Committees pubhshed letters from some members 
 of them. 
 
 David Rule, a member of the Newcastle Foreign Affairs
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES IGl 
 
 Committees, a plasterer by trade, who had ah*eady written 
 a striking pamphlet on the Right of Search, wrote to the 
 Newcastle Chronicle a letter in which, after specifying the 
 reasons why, at that particular juncture, England's enemies 
 should wish to manacle her without seeming to do so, 
 ended by saying : 
 
 "The interests of France are identical with those of, 
 England in this matter, as there is good reason to believe 
 that had France not agreed to observe the Declaration of 
 Paris the late war between her and Germany would have 
 been avoided, as was the contemplated war in 1867 by 
 the dread of France exercising her Maritime Power on 
 German commerce.^ Prussia expects another war with 
 France and wished to secure the certainty of success by 
 striking off one of her arms." 
 
 The activities of the Committees were this year (1874) 
 stimulated by the presence of David Urquhart in England. 
 For twelve years the magnetism of his personality had been 
 withdrawn from them, and all his health had allowed him 
 to do had been done by correspondence. 
 
 At a large meeting of the Committees at Keighley, he 
 spoke with all his old fire, reminding them how in earlier 
 days he traversed England from end to end to find the 
 materials out of which the Committees were formed : 
 
 " Here a weaver in a garret at Paisley, here a shoemaker 
 in a Staffordshire workshop, there a factory worker, en- 
 feebled by his long hours of toil — such were the men with 
 whom almost alone in England I found I could work." 
 
 He went step by step through the history of Europe 
 since that time to this last danger threatened by the Con- 
 gress of Brussels, showing how year by year events had 
 been working towards one end, the dominance of a single 
 Power in Europe. 
 
 England sent a representative to the Congress of Brussels, 
 but with instructions i^ 
 
 1 England had on that occasion reminded Germany that the 
 Declaration of Paris was capable of abrogation. 
 
 2 See Diplomatic Meview, July, 1874. 
 
 11
 
 162 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " To take no share in the discussion on the rules of Inter- 
 national Law whereby belligerents are guided, and to under- 
 take no new obligations or engagements of any Idnd witli 
 regard to general principles. You will also abstain," said 
 the instructions, " from taking part in any discussions 
 upon any points which may be brought forward, which 
 may appear to you to extend to general principles of Inter- 
 national Law not already recognised and accepted." 
 
 It must not be thought that the Committees' activities 
 were limited to the matters mentioned in this chapter. 
 There was no affair of public interest in which they did 
 not concern themselves. The Boundary Question, the 
 Newfoundland Fisheries dispute, the Danish Succession, the 
 Question of the Duchies, the American Civil War, the 
 Italian Unification, the loss of the Temporal Power of the 
 Pope, Irish Home Rule, and the never dying Eastern Ques- 
 tion — about all these things they not only talked, but acted, 
 and, having chosen the side which they considered that 
 of Law and Justice, they maintained it by all the means 
 at their disposal. The disasters and oppression of Poland 
 and the fall of Circassia were to them personal disgrace, 
 and matters for grief and tears. In the Indian Mutiny they 
 insisted on the fact that the wrongs were not all on one 
 side, and in the Persian War they issued a bold manifesto 
 to the soldiers about to be engaged in it. They never 
 hesitated to protest against any measure, or proposed 
 measure, that seemed to them against the pubUc Law. 
 They must have been a thorn in the side of many successive 
 Ministers of the Crown. Of their method of deaUng with 
 such, their correspondence with Mr. Gladstone on the 
 Powers of the Plenipotentiaries in the Congress of Paris 
 is a very good example. They never allowed themselves 
 to be put off by words, but always insisted on a clear and 
 definite statement of facts which was susceptible of proof. 
 However respectfully they put a question, they clearly 
 indicated that it was asked by those who had a right to 
 ask it. And they administered reproof or expressed dis- 
 approbation in a manner which must have been excessively 
 annoying to mid-Victorian statesmen, who had not yet
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COINOnTTEES 163 
 
 learnt that they were, after all, but the servants of the 
 people.^ 
 
 ^ The work of the Foreign Affairs Committees, it need harcUy 
 be said, did not pass unnoticed by the contemporary Press. 
 
 The highest tribute paid them was perhaps the bitter scorn and 
 ridicule which were heaped upon them and their leader by the' 
 papers which were in the Government interest. 
 
 StiU, many were the honest and worthy tributes borne to them 
 by contemporary journals. 
 
 Such is the following, taken from the Press of October 16, 1858: 
 
 *' The Foreign Affairs Committees in the North of England. 
 
 "There are few of our readers but must, at intervals, have ob- 
 served in the newspapers correspondences between the bodies which 
 have assumed to themselves the above designation, and the different 
 members of the past and present Administration. But we rather 
 think that, nevertheless, the majority of our readers have no distinct 
 idea of the history of these Committees, or of their organisation, 
 their composition, and their objects. Notwithstanding, they are 
 by no means unworthy of attention, for the extent of their organisa- 
 tion forms a rather remarkable feature in our present social position. 
 When we tell our readers that in some seventy of the principal manu- 
 facturing towns in this country these Committees meet weekly, 
 to consider the state of our foreign relations — that many of them 
 have obtained an extensive knowledge of all the proceedings of our 
 Foreign -oflfice for the last fifty years, and that they discuss the merits 
 of those proceedings with a judgment and ability which would do 
 credit to many a member of the Legislature — and further (what is 
 far the most remarkable circumstance connected with them), that 
 they are composed only of working men, obtaining their livelihood 
 by the sweat of their brow, we think it cannot be denied that it is 
 worth the whUe of the public to know somethtug more about them 
 than is generally known at present. 
 
 " These Committees, then, mainly owe their existence to the un- 
 tiring energy and indomitable perseverance of one single individual, 
 who, if he had been endowed with a sound judgment and a power of 
 accurately discerning facts, would, with such instruments as these 
 at his disposal, have long ago succeeded in making a deep impres- 
 sion on the public mind. Unfortunately, however, so much of eccen- 
 tricity has pervaded his views, so hastily has he brought forward 
 statements which would not bear scrutiny, that he has given to his 
 opponents the advantage of being able to discredit those of his 
 principles and his views which are, in fact, wise and profound, so 
 that truth has come to be disregarded, because it has been unfor- 
 tunately largely mingled with error. Still, whatever may be his 
 faults, he has contrived to imbue his followers with as right and 
 patriotic sentiments as ever animated the greatest of our English 
 statesmen. 
 
 " Now, we believe that there are at present very few individuals 
 who have taken the trouble really to master the true nature of our 
 dealings, for the last twenty-eight years, with foreign nations, 
 whether in Europe or in Asia, but have arrived at this conclusion— 
 viz., that most of the wars in which, since 1830, England has been
 
 1G4 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 involved, have been impolitic and unnecessary, and, what is far 
 worse, not to be justified in their origin, when tested by the principles 
 of international law. Where is the honest man who, having carefully 
 looked into the alleged causes, will venture to defend the justice of 
 the Afghan, the Burmese, and the Chinese wars? Where is the 
 wise man who, after having weighed their consequences, will ven- 
 ture to affirm that they were beneficial and politic ? Unhappily, 
 the vast majority of the people of this country have not troubled 
 tliemselves with these matters. They have borne in ignorant 
 patience the increased taxation which they have caused, and they 
 have been content to take for granted that England is as just as 
 she is glorious, and as unselfish as she is great. They have assumed 
 without inquiry that such a nation would never engage in any wars 
 which dire necessity had not forced upon her. They have formed 
 the most false but most magnificent notions of her disinterested 
 condiict, and have been able to listen with the utmost complacency 
 to the declamation of her statesmen against the grasping aggressions 
 of Russia, without a suspicion crossing their minds that the indignant 
 commentaries which were directed against the Czar were even more 
 applicable to her own aggressions. 
 
 " Now, the up-hill and ungracious task which these Committees 
 have set themselves has been to arouse their countrymen to a just 
 sense of these our national delinquencies, to wake them from the 
 day-dream of innocence in which they have too long indulged, and 
 to get them to view the national policy of this country as it is too 
 surely viewed by the more impartial optics of neighbouring nations. 
 Their one single cry is: ' Let us procure the re-establishment of law 
 throughout the world; let us only behold our country once more 
 acting as the asserter, and not the violator, of international law, 
 and we shall be content. We care comparatively little for Reform, 
 for the Ballot, for Free Trade, or for any other of the popular cries 
 which politicians have raised; but we do care for the honour and the 
 good faith of our country, and we can live happy if we can but see 
 it restored.' 
 
 " kSucIi is the language tha^ for some three or four years has been 
 heard to issue from the lips of working men— men with rough hands, 
 and with rude address — men who once clamoured for the Charter 
 and the Ballot, but whose language now reaches the pitch of patriotic 
 eloquence, and whose honesty of sentiment is worthy of the noblest 
 legislator that ever addressed the Parliament of England. 
 
 " It may be tr\xe that these Committees apjiear sometimes to be 
 acting in a sphere for which they are not fitted; but it is not to be 
 wondered at that men in their position of life should sometimes 
 blunder, and should venture on inquiries which perhaps they may 
 be hardly justified in addressing to official persons. Unskilled in the 
 business and duties of the Executive, they may sometimes ask ques- 
 tions which those of whom they ask them may fairly meet by curt, 
 and merely formal, answers. But all this is the mere by-play of the 
 part which they are acting. The task which they have set themselves 
 is to create an interest, in the public mind of the great manufacturing 
 towns, in foreign affairs. They believe, and siirely their belief is a 
 true one, that the internal prosperity of this great nation is deeply 
 affected by the management, or the mismanagement, of our external 
 relations; that every man throiighout the country is affected more 
 or less by the expenditure occasioned by expensive wars, carried
 
 THE AIMS AND WORK OF THE COMMITTEES 165 
 
 on at a distance, on unjustifiable pretences, and for the attainment of 
 very doubtful advantages. They believe that each individual 
 subject of the Queen ought to feel interested in England being the 
 nation to stand forth as the doer of justice, and the upholder of inter- 
 national law; and they know too well, and they desire to impart the 
 knowledge to others, that, under the guidance of Lord Palmerston, 
 England lost her fair fame, and appeared before the world as a nation 
 defiant of law, blustering to the weak, and truckling to the strong. 
 " Such is the character, such the objects of ' The Committees of 
 Foreign Aflairs.' Had they not been composed of working men, 
 and had they not afforded evidence of what working men are 
 capable of, we perhaps should not have thought it necessary to give 
 our readers this insight into their organisation and objects."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHY THE COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND WHY THEY 
 
 FAILED 
 
 " I give you the end of a golden string, 
 Only wind it into a ball; 
 It wiU lead you in at Heaven's Gate, 
 Bunt in Jerusalem's Wall." 
 
 Blake: Jerusalem. 
 
 The study of the Committees presents two main points 
 of difficulty : why they lasted so long and why they 
 ultimately failed. 
 
 Why was it possible for Societies which made an ap- 
 parently impossible demand upon the character, disin- 
 terestedness, dihgence, and self-denial of ordinary working 
 men, which required that they should practise virtues that 
 seem heroic, give themselves up to Herculean labours, 
 expose themselves to ridicule from their fellows and perse- 
 cution from their employers, for what they must have 
 gradually come to realise to be a forlorn hope and to main- 
 tain themselves for more than twenty years at the same 
 high level of work and character ? It is almost impossible 
 to imagine the worldng men of our own day acting thus 
 as apostles and witnesses, not only without the supj)ort of 
 their own class, but in many cases in spite of its strenuous 
 opposition. 
 
 For these Societies were, as we have seen, by no means 
 academic. These men were not theorists or members of 
 study-circles, who sat and talked about Reconstruction. 
 They were active apostles and missionaries. Their field 
 of operations extended from the Queen and her Ministers 
 to the man who worked next to them at the carpenter's 
 bench, or in the shoemaker's shop, to their comrades in 
 the factory or the workshop. They were prepared to lose 
 then' work, and, as then' letters show, sometimes did so, 
 
 166
 
 WHY COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND FAILED 167 
 
 rather than cease to preach to their fellows what they 
 deemed vital to the life and welfare of the nation. 
 
 But what seems strange is perhaps, after all, very natural* 
 It was on these very things that the life of the Committees 
 depended; for when all is said and done, life feeds on 
 struggles, hardness, difficulties, opposition. The life which 
 is reared on softness, which goes with its eyes fixed on more 
 food, more leisure, more amusements, higher wages and 
 less to do for them, is a " ghastly smooth life, dead at 
 heart." It is no life for the spirit of man. 
 
 When we think of the working men of the Chartist times, 
 with their scant food, their poor lodgings, their long hours 
 of toil, and contrast them with the working men of our 
 own day, who seem, though happily with notable exceptions, 
 whoUy absorbed in bettering the material conditions of 
 their own class, it is impossible not to be alarmed at the 
 apparent decUne of character and ideals. 
 
 There is no doubt that a powerful element in the success 
 of the Committees was Urquhart's own personality, intense 
 conviction, and deep mystical insight. 
 
 Such men as he have often been found leading religious 
 movements, but few, like him, leading a movement in 
 which the world saw only a political one. David Urquhart 
 has been called by one of his own children a " mystic in 
 politics." He was truly so if to politics we give its proper 
 meaning, the art of living in the State. Rightly to conduct 
 oneself in the State was necessary to the character of a 
 Christian. This the world had forgotten, and this Urquhart 
 held it to be his mission to teach it. 
 
 He saw perfect Justice with the inward vision of the mystic. 
 He saw it as beautiful in its severity as in its tenderness. 
 
 And he saw Injustice let loose on the world, soft where 
 it should have been stern, or cruel where it should have been 
 mild. He saw that Injustice, that apotheosis of material 
 force, incarnate in the person of Russia. So Russia became 
 his anti-Christ, his Dragon, and Urquhart girt his loins 
 like Athanasius, or even more like Savonarola, to do battle 
 with the Dragon. Like slayers of Dragons in all times he 
 saw the Dragon's slime everywhere, he felt its hot breath 
 poUuthig the air of Heaven, he marked its mangled and i?lain
 
 168 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 victims, until his soul was full of rage and pity, and for 
 him there were only two things in the world, God and the 
 Dragon. 
 
 Perhaps it is the influence of St. George which makes 
 Englishmen followers of Dragon-slayers. 
 
 Certainly men followed Urquhart, not the less wilUngly 
 because he sought to slay the Dragon in themselves as 
 well as in the world. He had all the faults of Dragon- 
 slayers; he could see nothing but the Dragon; everywhere 
 he found its traces. He had all the extravagances, the 
 intolerance, the recklessness, that mark his kind. 
 
 Sometimes he attacked the Dragon where no Dragon 
 was. But his followers were not daunted by such things. 
 For he had the inward vision, he never failed of his con- 
 victions or singleness of purpose. All his life he never 
 ceased to be, to a few chosen spirits, the " sent of God." 
 
 Moreover he appealed to the highest that was in a man. 
 He had a way peculiar to those who have suffered in the 
 flesh, as Urquhart had in his early years, of ignoring material 
 things. Shortness of food, want of rest, excessive toil — • 
 all these things, what were they ? A man could rise above 
 them, so long as his heart was pure. Hunger and cold and 
 pain, what were they ? He could, and did, teach his own 
 young children to bear them. Even want of education and 
 grinding toil could not interfere with the real man, so long 
 as he was just, pure and honourable. 
 
 The working men to whom this high and unique appeal 
 was made, by this man whose words were all acts, answered 
 it with an alacrity and a joy unimaginable by those who 
 do not know the heights there are in unspoilt or regenerate 
 human nature. 
 
 But perhaps the strongest appeal which Urquhart made 
 to the working men of the Committees was that he took 
 for granted that they were the very soul and mind of the 
 body pohtic. What were the powers of the men who had 
 a vote, compared with those of the men who, day by day, 
 in season and out of season, were bringing the highest 
 principles of Law and Justice to bear upon the actions of 
 the State, who were constantly arraigning statesmen and 
 their actions before the bar of the supreme Justice, and
 
 WHY COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND FAILED 169 
 
 who, having cast aside every desire of self -aggrandisement, 
 self-interest, and even class -interest, were concerned only 
 that their country should stand forth among the nations 
 as the lover of Truth and the doer of Justice ? 
 
 These men had reached the Land of Liberty, the liberty 
 of the spirit, and they had no desire to return to the bondage 
 of the world. 
 
 It is, however, undeniable that the men to whom such an 
 appeal could be successfully made were comparatively few. 
 It is the tragedy of every great idea that it must be 
 content either to descend to the level of the many, or to 
 make its appeal to a minority which can, in the eyes of the 
 world, be ignored. 
 
 The Franciscan Order must have come to an end had the 
 great idea of its founder been retained in all its height and 
 grandeur. 
 
 Savonarola's company could not exist in the midst of a 
 naughty world after its first enthusiasm was past. All the 
 great ideas that have prevailed and endured have been con- 
 tent to put off their " extravagances," as the world persists 
 in calUng them, or have been obliged to be content to appeal 
 to a few. The Church herself must let the greater number 
 go a lower way, and bind only a few to the Counsels of 
 Perfection. 
 
 Urquhart was bound to fail, because he would not, or 
 could not, recognise this. The command, " Be ye perfect," 
 was, he maintained, a command to all. But it is only the 
 few who really hunger after perfection: it is only to the 
 elect that it makes its irresistible appeal. 
 
 Therefore Urquhart failed utterly to impress his creed 
 upon the thousands of working men whom he addressed at 
 his crowded meetings in the early days of the Committees. 
 
 The few, it is true, accepted it then, and to the end of his 
 life, but there was no prophet to take up the mantle which, 
 dying, he cast off. Few of the Foreign Affairs Committees 
 survived him more than a few years. 
 
 But there were secondary causes which, even during his 
 hfetime, had contributed to the partial failure of the 
 Committees. 
 At their highest point they never numbered more than
 
 170 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 about one hundred and fifty, with a total of working-class 
 membership of certainly not more than two or three 
 thousand. Their moral effect was, however, far greater 
 than their numbers warranted. They had a real influence 
 on the pubHc opinion, not alone of the working classes, but 
 also of the towns and villages where they established 
 themselves. 
 
 Yet they were failures. By the great mass of the working 
 men they were considered impracticable and singular. 
 The " Committee-men " were not interested in the ordinary 
 working-class interests, in Trades Unions, votes, labour 
 legislation. Like their master, they pushed these things 
 aside as something of quite minor importance, and the 
 ordinary worldng man regarded them as belonging to 
 the Conservative party. The simple fact was that he could 
 not beUeve in, or even realise, men without party spirit 
 orclass aims. 
 
 The Committees offered no material inducements; they 
 demanded hard work, sacrifice of time and leisure, and even 
 money. 
 
 Membership in them carried no benefits; instead it 
 involved j)ersonal inconvenience for causes which, to the 
 bulk of worldng men, grew year by year to be of less im- 
 portance. Year by year it became more difficult to interest 
 them in matters of international importance. 
 
 In part this was no doubt due to the gradual loss of 
 character among the people, which Urquhart had predicted, 
 and which old Frost the Chartist saw when he returned to 
 England from his transportation to AustraUa. 
 
 " I have returned to England," he said, " to discover that 
 that class of men who, twenty years ago, were the only 
 ones capable of entertaining a vigorous thought, or of 
 approving that thought by a daring act, have now become 
 the partisans and abettors of the crimes of men in authority, 
 even when these men do not require their aid, and perhaps 
 have not even thought it worth while to purchase their 
 assistance. No disaster befalhng our arms or our power 
 in India, nor the prospective loss of that magnificent 
 Empire, nor the perfidies that have soiled the British name 
 in those deeds of civil administration which have produced 
 the danger, can strike with so heavy a blow at the heart of
 
 WHY COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND EAILED 171 
 
 a patriot, as this exhibition of cowardice and degradation 
 in men of that humble class of society, from whose in- 
 dignant virtue hope alone could spring, when those placed 
 above them had neglected their public duties."^ 
 
 A great change was gradually coming over England. The 
 grinding oppression and the poverty which had weighed 
 down the working classes were slowly but surely lessening. 
 Each year then- material lot grew hghter, and the tendency 
 was to grasp all that was given, to stretch out their hands 
 for more, and to forget all else. 
 
 The justice or injustice of foreign relations meant less 
 and less to them as bread got cheaper, work more plentiful, 
 and wages higher. The huge armaments which were pihng 
 up all over Europe did not trouble them. They did not 
 realise that they were being taxed for their upkeep. 
 
 The Chartist newspapers of the days of the rising were 
 full of the increase in taxation for the support of standing 
 armies. But in 1870, when they had increased three and 
 fourfold, the worldng men looked upon them with in- 
 difference. Europe drifted ever nearer to the edge of the 
 abyss, but they saw it not; the claims, the desires, the 
 wrongs of labour filled their whole horizon, and it is doubt- 
 ful whether any leader, even one less exaggerated, more 
 commonplace, more of then own world, could have induced 
 them to see that their prosperity ultimately depended on 
 questions of International Justice and Law. 
 
 Probably Urquhart would have gained more adherents 
 had he given so-called Labour aims more place in his 
 
 1 This letter was written to Reynolds' News'pa'per, after a meeting 
 held at the London Tavern to protest against the proposed abolition 
 of the East India Company, at which the working men took the side 
 of the Government, and howled down Frost. Frost goes on to say- 
 in the same letter: 
 
 " Simultaneously with the discovery I have above narrated, I 
 have made another of an opposite character. I have discovered 
 that during my absence and seclusion there have been found among 
 the Chartists men willing and capable to apply their minds to those 
 great and solemn matters which arise in an imperUIed State, and I 
 trust that by the publication of this letter you wiU afford me the 
 opportunity of conveying to them my resolution to devote my best 
 energies to rescuing this land out of the hands of those bad men who 
 have brought her to the present condition of great peril." 
 
 Frost here refers to the F. A. Committees, with which henceforward 
 he worked. He settled down in Bristol and became known as an 
 " Urquhartite " and a Tory.
 
 172 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 programme. Instead of which he almost passionately 
 refused to consider them. " Class " politics he condemned 
 as ruthlessly as party politics. Earlier in his Ufe he had 
 pointed out how domestic distress and International Justice 
 were connected, but the working men wanted to be told, 
 not alone how distress followed injustice, but how the 
 opportunity, which they intensely and rightly desired, for 
 a happy and satisfactory hfe would follow in the wake of 
 International Justice. Urquhart had never really appre- 
 ciated their craving for at least a moderate degree of com- 
 fort and leisure. He had never cared for those things 
 himself, and he could not understand why they should 
 mean so much to other people. 
 
 Moreover, from the time of the Indian Mutiny, when he 
 took a line emphatically not that of his countrymen, 
 Urquhart became more and more alienated from the people 
 of England, and his followers had to bear his reproach. 
 The word " Urquhartite " was a name of scorn, it stood for 
 reaction, for singularity, for everything un-Enghsh; it was 
 opposed to the magic Shibboleths " Progress, CiviUsation, 
 Reform," to everything for which Cobden and Bright and 
 Gladstone stood. 
 
 So long had he talked of danger, while England seemed 
 closely wrapped in peace and security, that to the popular 
 mind he had become as one crying " Wolf, wolf !" when 
 there was no wolf. 
 
 If pohticians of wider outlook saw the black muzzle 
 ready to devour them, they said nothing to dispel the 
 pleasant dreams in which their countrymen Jay wrapped. 
 
 Now the danger so long threatened is on us, the working 
 men have awakened to some sense of the responsibility in 
 regard to their country, and it seems to some of us high 
 time for Urquhart to be vindicated. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to overlook the fact that in 
 part the failure of the Committees was due to Urquhart 
 himself. He was indeed more fitted to be the leader of 
 a forlorn hope, to champion a failing cause at a great crisis, 
 than to lead ordinary men in everyday life. His very 
 belief in the power of men to be right made him intolerant 
 of any wrong; and when wrong was done he included the
 
 WHY COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND FAILED 173 
 
 deed and the doer in the same condemnation, and refused 
 to have anything to do with either. The Christian practice 
 of separating the sin from the sinner did not exist for him. 
 He was a prophet of the Old Testament in this as in all 
 else: Achan and the accursed thing were involved in one 
 common destruction. The weakness of human nature awoke 
 in him not pity, but anger and contempt. The failure of 
 man to do what he knew was right, ignorance and sloth 
 were to him as the sins of injustice and untruth, and any 
 attempt to excuse them increased their guilt tenfold. 
 
 This very refusal to allow a man to justify himself raised 
 a barrier between Urquhart and the men who wished to 
 follow him; many of them fell away from him, because they 
 could not express themselves freely to him. The principle 
 of " Either you were right and must show yourself to have 
 been right, or you are wrong and must admit it," does not 
 always hold good, and the working men, though they could 
 not explain the reasons for this knowledge, knew that it 
 did not. They were no match for him in the power of 
 argument and in eloquence, and were silent, but they were 
 unconvinced of the truth of his reasoning. They lacked 
 the philosophy to see that both sides were right, that while 
 for them and for most people there must be a middle course 
 between the perfection they could appreciate, but to which 
 they could not yet attain, and the evil which they hated 
 but could not altogether avoid, such a via media did not 
 exist for him. 
 
 The difference between Urquhart and the ordinary man 
 was the difference which exists between a saint and an 
 everyday Christian in respect of sin. The saint puts it 
 away at once and for all with so strong a hand that it has 
 no more hold over him. But with most of us it is not so. 
 Our feeble push is so feeble that it comes back again and 
 again, and we seem to steer a middle course between good 
 and evil. 
 
 Urquhart once and for all fought back what he had dis- 
 covered to be sin, and never afterwards yielded a step to 
 its attacks. "It is my daily and hourly endeavour to be 
 a Christian," he said — " that is, to have a right judgment 
 in a'l things." He could not understand that an en-
 
 174 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 deavour which never relaxed could fail. Failure meant lack 
 of endeavour, and therefore every defeat was a matter, 
 not for excuse or palliation, but for shame and repentance. 
 This position not only had the effect of creating a barrier 
 between himself and many of the working men, it gave to 
 outsiders an entirely erroneous impression that Urquhart 
 was " cock-sure." The absolute conviction which he had 
 of the justice and truth of his course and his own imperative 
 duty to maintain it against all the world, seemed to super- 
 ficial observers a belief in his own infallibility. So that 
 which made largely for his own strength helped to contribute 
 to the failure of his purpose.^ 
 
 ^ The following extract from Lord Lamington's In the Days of the 
 Dandies, published in 1890, is an indication of the bewilderment 
 which Urquhart caused to the ordinarily intelligent men of his time, 
 and this in spite of the admiration they could not withhold. 
 
 Just as the East, with its apparently flaming contradictions, 
 still remains an insoluble enigma to the West — so was it with Urquhart 
 and his contemporaries. 
 
 "There were a great number of people," says Lord Lamington, " and 
 those men of ability and consideration, who regarded Urquhart as 
 a prophet — as the founder of a new dispensation. His was a strange 
 career. He was Secretary at Constantinople during Lord Ponsonby's 
 embassy; he then adopted quite the Oriental life, and his influence 
 entirely superseded the ambassador's. This led to violent scenes, 
 and Urquhart was recalled; this was in the reign of William IV., who 
 became acquainted with Urquhart, and at once was subject to his 
 influence. Had the King lived, that influence would have affected 
 any Government. At this time, the Portfolio, a collection of docu- 
 ments on foreign affairs, was edited and written by Urquhart. It 
 produced a great sensation in the diplomatic world, not only by the 
 new light it threw on many political and social questions, but from 
 the keen observations and ability of the writer. It contained from 
 time to time passages of singular beauty and remarkable foresight. 
 
 " I remember when he foretold our terrible Afghanistan disasters 
 of 1841, he wrote (I quote from memory): ' I warn you in this mid- 
 night of your intoxication, a day-dawn of sorrow is at hand; and, 
 although my voice is now raised in vain, and my words find no respon- 
 sive echo in your hearts, they will sink into your spirits when they 
 are broken and subdued by misfortune.' 
 
 "His chief work. The Spirit of the East, possesses great merit. He 
 was entirely master of the Eastern question; and on his own evidence, 
 like the poet, he wandered eastward, not now and then, but in his 
 daily life. His house at Watford (Rickmansworth) was an Eastern 
 palace, with a Turkish bath (for it was Mr. Urquhart who introduced 
 Turkish baths into this country), which in luxuriousness was inferior 
 to none in Constantinople. . . . 
 
 " He expended all the fortune he inherited, and the large sums 
 he received from his many followers, on missions and couriers to 
 all parts of the world. Through him the world was to be renewed. 
 Never was a greater instance how faith in oneself can affect others.
 
 WHY COMMITTEES SUCCEEDED AND FAILED 175 
 
 Another contributing cause of failure was the violence of 
 Urquhart's own temper. Everyone who came into contact 
 with him, whether in pubUc or private life, suffered from it. 
 Sometimes he simulated passionate wrath, of set purpose, 
 to provoke antagonism fierce enough to dethrone indifference 
 and force his intended convert to meet him in the open field. 
 
 But, apart from this, David Urquhart was naturally 
 passionate, impatient of contradiction, destructive of all 
 that opposed him. His temper was part of his physical 
 equipment. An organisation of the most sensitive and 
 a brain particularly active were combined with a strong 
 tendency to a malady which always lay in wait for him, and 
 was always threatening to overtake him. He spent days and 
 nights racked with pain, for which he found no rehef except 
 in the Turkish bath.^ It is probable that complete self- 
 control was an impossibihty to him. Sometimes he would 
 behave with the most astonishing gentleness, patience, and 
 self-restraint under the most flagrant rudeness and insolence, 
 and would take the trouble to argue with people whom 
 most men would have treated with the contempt of silence. 
 
 On another occasion the least opf»osition would rouse him 
 to real violence, and he would terrify the worldng men, as 
 he did his own children, by sudden outbursts of passion. 
 The men and women of his own class fared no better. 
 People who had devoted themselves and their fortunes to 
 the work, who had sacrificed their friends and health, and 
 who gave to their leader the most unswerving loyalty and 
 almost passionate devotion, were content if now and then 
 a word of praise sweetened the many bitter potions of 
 criticism on work, conduct, and character which he ad- 
 ministered. Some of them made long journeys to his 
 Savoy retreat, only to be taken to task most sternly; some 
 
 Altliougli lie lias long passed away from public life, liis memory 
 survives among many who are interested in foreign affairs. 
 
 "The Foreign Affairs Committees of Newcastle and many large 
 towns still exist, and have not lost faith in the great master, with 
 whom they were always in constant communication. . . ." 
 
 1 Wherever he lived he had a Tmkish bath, which was not only 
 for the use of himself and his household, but whoever amongst the 
 working men he thought might be benefited by it. At his mountain 
 house in Savoy the bath was open to all the peasants and moun- 
 taineers who cared to use it.
 
 176 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 spent money like water, only to be told they had not given 
 enough; some journeyed East and West and North and 
 South on the mission of their leader, only to be accused 
 of half-heartedness in the cause. Collet, who had led a hfe 
 of effort in the interests of the freedom of the Press, was 
 constantly rated like a schoolboy for mistakes and failures 
 in the difficult task of editing the Diplomatic Review. 
 
 Yet to most of his adherents, to the end of his Ufe, 
 Urquhart was the Bey, the Chief, the Prophet, almost 
 the " sent of God." To his own Uttle daughter dreaming 
 of her father, suffering as he often did hard speeches and 
 contemptuous treatment at the hands of those to whom 
 his poUtical justice and truth was a continual reproach, 
 it did not seem strange that that same father should 
 change after the strange fashion of dreams, into the Christ. 
 " It is really the same thing, is it not, mother ?" she said. 
 
 Yet even to his children Urquhart showed no softness. 
 He was as stern in his demands on them as on his disciples. 
 If he visited their beds when they were asleep, to see if he 
 could detect in their faces traces of the passionate temper 
 that was the result of his own ill-health, they never knew. 
 They could not tell that it hurt him when they hushed 
 their play as he came near. They could not recognise the 
 signs of the a' ways sensitive affection of his nature, an 
 affection not less real because so sternly held in check. 
 What wonder that a nature so repressed should be an 
 enigma to all around, that a life spent always in harness 
 on the battlefield should seem to fail on the human side ? 
 
 And yet, in the human heart, deep always calls to deep. 
 The affection and courage and passion for goodness of that 
 great heart did cry aloud. His passionate assertion that 
 perfection was possible called out the craving for it in 
 others. Even those who did not understand were attracted. 
 His friends of whatever class, in their deepest anger against 
 him, were often held to him by bonds they could not break. 
 
 He made enormous demands on all with whom he came 
 in contact, and those demands the Elect could not resist, 
 for they were made in the name of Perfection.
 
 PART III 
 
 HOW HE WENT TO ROME TO BRING JUSTICE 
 DOWN FROM HEAVEN 
 
 " Filii tui de longe venient." — Isaiah Ix. 
 
 " He lives detached days; 
 He servetli not for praise; 
 For gold 
 He is uot sold. 
 
 " Deaf is he to world's tongue; 
 He scorneth for his song 
 The loud 
 Shouts of the crowd. 
 
 " He asketh not world's eyes; 
 Not to world's ears he cries; 
 Saith, ' These 
 Shut, if you please.' 
 
 " He measureth world's pleasure. 
 World's ease, as Saints might measure; 
 For hire 
 Just love entire 
 
 " He asks, not grudging pain; 
 And knows his asking vain. 
 And cries — 
 ' Love ! Love !' and dies, 
 
 " In guerdon of long duty, 
 Unowned by Love or Beauty.'* 
 
 Francis Thomson : To the Dead Cardinal 
 of Westminster. 
 
 12
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 URQUHART AND HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 
 
 " A city set on a hill." 
 
 It was in 1839, when England was on the brink of a Chartist 
 rising more serious, as Urquhart beheved, than people 
 generally imagined, that his mind, in its search for some 
 strong international Power founded on Law and able to 
 combat the prevaihng lawlessness, seems to have first 
 Ughted upon the Society of Jesus. 
 
 One evening, when he and some of his friends were dis- 
 cussing the situation with Cardo and Warden, there chanced 
 to come in 
 
 " some gentlemen lately arrived from Munich, one of them 
 a Mr. Bamfield, Librarian to the King of Bohemia, who 
 stated that great alarm existed throughout Germany, and 
 indeed throughout Europe, at the progress and power of 
 Russia, and that a national organisation was forming to 
 oppose her. ... Mr. Urquhart made some remarks with 
 reference to the Jesuits, to the effect that they might be 
 led to abandon the small objects they had in view, for those 
 far greater and nobler ends if they once understood them; 
 and that as an organised body, powerful and intelUgent, 
 unless they were led to employ their talents and their 
 power to oppose Russia, they would be made to employ 
 them, as they now unconsciously did, for her. . 
 " These gentlemen were terrified at the notion, having the 
 greatest horror of anything relating to Popery, and did not 
 conceive it possible."^ 
 
 Two months later Urquhart determined to make trial 
 for himself of its possibiUties. Arriving at Preston in his 
 anti-Chartist campaign, it occurred to him to turn aside 
 and visit Stonyhurst. In his journal he gives the followinty 
 account of his visit : 
 
 1 Private letter by Colonel Priugle Taylor. 
 
 179
 
 180 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " Went by the railway to Preston to go to Stonyhurst. 
 Asked at Preston at the house of one of the Jesuit priests 
 to get directions. Was taken to a Mr. Barroll, who, on 
 learning my errand, very civilly afforded every information. 
 He did not disappoint me in my ideas of a Jesuit — observant, 
 deep tone of voice, jet black hair. As I quitted him he 
 begged to know my name, and on giving my card he im- 
 mediately asked me if I had any introduction. On my 
 reply that I had not, he offered to write a letter for me to 
 take with me for fear of any mistake or any delay. I went 
 in the meantime to the inn to get some dinner, and Mr. 
 Barroll himself came with his note for Stonyhurst. We 
 entered into conversation, and my departure was conse- 
 quently delayed, so as to occasion me a very uncomfortable 
 night. Finding ]\ir. Barroll a man of considerable informa- 
 tion and reading, of a philosophical and metaphysical 
 character, I was induced to enter with him on the object 
 of my visit to Stonyhurst, and the rather because if I 
 should find there men, not his superiors, but his inferiors, 
 it would have been so much gained to have gone over the 
 subject with some one of the Order and to have left some 
 traces behind me of the purpose of my visit. I conse- 
 quently shadowed forth to him the dejDendence of the 
 Papal Power as a temporal Sovereignty on the Public Law 
 of Nations, and the obhgation that the Pope therefore had 
 to maintain it for his own defence, and that, whatever his 
 rehgious position, he must, as a temporal Sovereign, have 
 at heart the welfare of England, since through England 
 alone could he hope to be maintained against that terri- 
 torial preponderance which had driven his predecessor from 
 his throne; against that general disorganisation, which 
 proceeded from the diplomatic combinations of the Cabinet 
 of the North; that Russia was a spiritual, as weU as a 
 pohtical, conqueror, that she aimed no less at subverting 
 the temporal dominion of England than the spiritual 
 dominion of Rome; that the present Pope had appreciated 
 the hostility of Russia;^ had placed himself in a position 
 of warfare with that dangerous Power ; that he had therefore 
 to anticipate my conclusions, but that he must be ignorant 
 of the value of the discovery he had made, of the Alhes 
 who were ready to cluster round him, of the elements he 
 
 * In 1842, Gregory XVI. put forth an "exposition corroborated 
 by documents respecting the incessant care given by Ills Holiness to 
 remedy the Grave Evils by which the Catholic ReUgion is afflicted 
 in the Imperial and Royal States of Russia and Poland.''
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 181 
 
 might call to his assistance. The Kaliff of the Mussulman, 
 the Pontifex of the Catholics, and the Head of the Pro- 
 testant Faith were all at once openly and avowedly assailed 
 by one Power, which liad not only succeeded in injuring 
 all and endangering all, but in preventing each from com- 
 muning with each other or understanding itself. The 
 question was to put the Pope in possession of that know- 
 ledge and of these means, and to show him Turkey, England, 
 Austria, as capable of being united and directed by any 
 superior intelligence comprehending these questions. 
 
 " Having thus unfolded some portion of my thoughts I 
 proceeded towards the College, a distance of fourteen miles, 
 the roads exceedingly bad, the fog preventing us seeing a 
 foot before us. I arrived too late for being admitted, and 
 had to return to a small public-house on the road. The 
 aspect of the buildings, however, the character of its iij- 
 habitants, their connection with that widespread field, 
 embracing reminiscences of China and Paraguaj^ my own 
 anticipations of ability in the Superior and the great results 
 which might come from this visit, all conspired to raise 
 my expectations. The interest of my thoughts recalled to 
 me forcibly the approaching in the East to the tenements 
 or mansions of distinct sects, faiths, and races, diversified 
 ideas, habits, language, doctrines, and metaphysics, and 
 as I approached next morning the towers of Stonyhurst 
 I felt an anticipation and dehght in human intercourse such 
 as I had never before felt except in the East. 
 
 " I was admitted. A gentleman came to me and told 
 me that the Principal was at that moment engaged, and 
 that he would in the meantime show me round the building, 
 which is indeed exceedingly interesting, both in its present 
 application and its past reminiscences. I told this Father 
 briefly my object in the interest I had taken in pubhc 
 affairs, adding that I did so that it might enable the Superior 
 to direct himself to these subjects if he took any interest 
 in them. . . . 
 
 " The Superior appeared, and all idea of communicating 
 with him on any subject of the kind instantly vanished. 
 He could not even tell me the names of the philosophical 
 writers in their own course of study. I need not pursue 
 the matter further. One of the Fathers I found acquainted 
 with the philosophical works and writers on the Continent. 
 He had studied Sanscrit, and was then studying Chinese, 
 but he was a man rather advanced in years, and afflicted 
 with paralysis.
 
 182 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " The people in the neighbourhood I found strongly 
 prepossessed in favour of Catholicism, where they had not 
 turned Catholics. 
 
 " I see no advantage which the Jesuits have over the 
 Church save the bad name of their Order and a certain 
 degree of mere suavity and politeness. 
 
 " I could not altogether resist the temptation of giving 
 vent to my disappointment. On one of them referring to 
 their Order in former times, I remarked that it was im- 
 possible for him to comprehend the Jesuits of that time: 
 ' It is not the privilege of men to comprehend that which 
 is above them, and you can no more comprehend your 
 joredecessors than Englishmen at the present day can under- 
 stand what Englishmen were. I came here thinking you 
 were Jesuits, but find you mere Englishmen.' " 
 
 His disappointment in the English Jesuits, though it 
 resulted in his abandonment of any hope of help through 
 them, for that time, at least, did not destroy Urquhart's 
 growing conviction that in the Catholic Church lay the 
 power, if she chose to exert it, through which poUtical 
 salvation might come to the world. 
 
 England, which stiU maintained some idea of Law and 
 Justice, was losing it in the deadly grip of that most fatal 
 of all heresies : the beUef that rehgion had no concern with 
 politics — a heresy which was the root and fruit of the 
 Peace of Westphalia, and with which all Protestantism was 
 infected.^ 
 
 There were, he pointed out, three religious systems in the 
 world, which counted for good or evil, and these three were 
 in their nature religio-political. In the first of these, the 
 Greek Church, which acknowledged as its head and dictator 
 the Czar of Russia, rehgion was made to serve the uses of 
 politics; she had therefore become a menace to the world. 
 In Islam, whose Kaliff was the Sultan of Turkey, rehgion 
 controlled each act of the daily life of its members as well 
 as the public hfe of the State; its influence was therefore 
 
 1 As a matter of fact, Catholicism was also infected — but only 
 in her practice, not yet in her doctrine. That could never be unless 
 she were to disown her own traditions. The political salvation of 
 the world still lies in Catholics remembering them, and acting upon 
 them.
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 183 
 
 on the side of Justice. But it was in the Catholic Church 
 that there was to be found the most perfect example of 
 the balance of religious and political power. The Pope — 
 the greatest of spiritual rulers — was also one of the lowliest 
 of earthly Kings. The King in him could never overshadow 
 the Priest; never could he, with any chance of success, call 
 his kingly power to the aid of his priestly authority. Unless 
 the basis of his rule was Justice and Law, unless his sceptre 
 was over the hearts and thoughts of men, it was weak as 
 a reed. 
 
 Because he was a King the Pope could set a standard 
 to the nations, because his kingly power gave no pretext 
 for force and no scope for ambition, he could set the stan- 
 dard of Law and Justice. He could do it the better because 
 his was no inherited royalty. 
 
 " He does not pass through the emasculating process of 
 royal birth and pretensions ; he is not gradually woven into 
 the system either of social habits or of poHtical expediency 
 or of diplomatic subserviency. 
 
 " The Pope, translated from the cloister, carries, or may 
 carry, to the Imperial throne the manhood of the peasant 
 and the sternness of the anchorite."^ 
 
 In the hands of a Pope of transcendent moral character 
 and high intelligence the Papacy had been, and might be 
 again, a power for good in the world against which no evil 
 could stand. 
 
 But, it might be asked, in what way could a King, 
 beset on all hands by foes, with an army so insignificant 
 as to be little more than a bodyguard, a royalty so feeble 
 as to be the sport of any great potentate who might arise, 
 whose sole power was in the thoughts of men — how could 
 such an one exercise any appreciable power for good or 
 evil ? 
 
 It was precisely because of the immaterial nature of the 
 power, said Urquhart, that it was so potent. Because his 
 Kingdom was not of this world, because his power lay, not 
 in arms, but in Justice, his arms must be the arms of the 
 
 1 " The Three Religio-Political Systems of Europe," Portfolio. 
 Second Series.
 
 184 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 mind — in other words, diplomacy. The word " diplomacy " 
 had come to have a sinister meaning, but in itself it was 
 innocent ahke of good or evil. It was a weapon which 
 could be turned to base or noble uses. It was for the Pope 
 to take it and with it to fight for the right. At present 
 Europe was suffering under the exercise of the diplomacy 
 of evil. Russia,, the past mistress of diplomacy in Europe, 
 had gained her ends, " in spite of a weak and disjointed 
 Government at home, replete with every element of dis- 
 cord, and destitute of every one of the elements of strength, 
 by which the other Powers had attained to their strength." 
 
 They were her superiors in every other respect, but they 
 had been, over and over again, as clay in her hands because 
 of her superiority in diplomacy. Every man in her Cabinet 
 was a trained diplomatist, but her diplomacy was evil, and 
 its influence maleficent. It was a " Satanic^ intelligence 
 walking the upper world as a pestilence spreadmg through 
 the brain of man." 
 
 It had infected every Power in Europe ; Rome alone was 
 untouched by it because, by the Peace of Westphalia, she 
 had been banished from the charmed circle of European 
 politics, and her banishment had been ratified and con- 
 firmed by the Treaty of Vienna. She had accepted and 
 gloried in her exclusion by refusing to be a party to that 
 Treaty. The defi.ance she alone in Europe had hurled at 
 Napoleon, her strong protest against the breach of public 
 Law committed by Russia in the persecution of her Cathohc 
 subjects ,2 had put the Vatican definitely on the side of Law 
 and Justice. In making, therefore, Law and Justice the 
 basis of a new and higher system of diplomacy, she would 
 not be forced, as every other State in Europe would be, 
 to disown her former poUcy, and to have to retrace her 
 steps. " Diplomacy in Venice," said Urquhart, " was 
 worldly wisdom, diplomacy to Louis XIV. was an aspect 
 
 1 " On the Kelation of the Eastern and Western Churches," Port- 
 folio. New Series. 
 
 2 The first protest issued by Gregory XVI. to the Czar against 
 the persecution of his Catholic subjects, particularly the Poles. 
 In his protest the Pope took his stand not on the Treaty of Vienna, 
 but on Public Law and Justice.
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 185 
 
 of military power, diplomacy in Russia is the science of 
 corrupting and discomposing States.^ Diplomacy in the 
 Court of Rome must be the restoration and the union of 
 the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the 
 dove. ... If after-ages should ever speak of the diplo- 
 macy of Rome, history will have to record the reunion in 
 this century of religion and politics, and it will have to 
 describe the diplomacy of a Church, not of a State, which 
 has appeared upon earth counteracting the powers 
 of darkness, as a Providence protecting the human 
 race." 
 
 But Urquhart well saw that the prehminary step to a 
 theocratic diplomacy such as this was the training of the 
 diplomatist. He had at first cherished the idea that the 
 Jesuits might put some of the elaborately constructed 
 machinery of their educational system to such a purpose, 
 but his visit to Stonyhurst had been the death-blow of that 
 hope. He determined to approach the Vatican directly. 
 
 Through his friend Anstey^ he obtained an introduction 
 to Cardinal Capaccini, the Papal Nuncio to Portugal, who, 
 in 1844, visited London on his return to Rome, that he 
 
 1 If newspapers can be believed, this is still the case in Bolshevik 
 Eussia. The following paragraph appeared in the Observer, May 18, 
 
 1919. 
 
 Stockholm, 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 The Svsnsha Daghlad's Helsingfors correspondent reports that 
 the Russian Soviet Government has sent its representatives abroad 
 the following instructions on how to conduct the revolutionary- 
 movement in foreign countries: 
 
 " In order to create international conflicts, the best method is to 
 support national fanaticism, effect interior dissension, and commit 
 attempts against the lives of foreign Government representatives. 
 As regards internal policy, anti-Government movemeiits should be 
 started, strikes organised, influential persons abused, and industrial 
 machinery destroyed, in order to raise revolt. Efforts should also 
 be made to effect the stagnation of traffic, prevent the supply of 
 provisions to towns, and set false paper money into circulation. 
 
 "It is further advisable to try to create complete dissension 
 within the Army by means of agitation, murderous attempts against 
 high officers, and the blowing up of bridges and depots of arms. 
 Military espionage of every description should be practised in regard 
 to fortifications, naval technical equipment, and the numerical 
 strength and morale of the Army." — Reuter. 
 
 2 See Note to Chapter VII., p. 143.
 
 186 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 might report to the ecclesiastical authorities on the condi- 
 tion of CathoHcism in England. 
 
 Capaccini's interview with David Urquhart had in it 
 certain dramatic elements. 
 
 It is a truism that Italian ecclesiastics find it hard to 
 understand Englishmen, even EngUsh Catholics. But it 
 must have been more than usually surprising to this Cardinal 
 Nuncio of Portugal to be suddenly confronted by an English- 
 man, obviously not one of the prominent Catholics, whom 
 it might be his duty to interview, who declined to be re- 
 buffed, and who opened the conversation by warning him 
 that between England, heretical England, and Rome there 
 lay intermingUng strands of policy, that they were united 
 by a common danger, and a common safety. But soon 
 Urquhart's words woke in the mind of the Italian an 
 answering chord, for Capaccini was a statesman, and he 
 knew that the things of which his interlocutor spoke were 
 true. 
 
 "It is a manifest and great danger," he answered, as 
 Urquhart spoke of the great power of the evil diplomacy 
 which was the menace of Europe, particularly of Rome 
 and of England, each in her own way standing for Justice. 
 " It is a great danger, but it is irresistible." 
 
 " When Europe possesses in its humblest State a Minister 
 who is honest, Europe and you will learn," said Urquhart, 
 " that the power of Russia is not irresistible, but most 
 easily met and overcome." 
 
 " But surely," said Capaccini, " some of the great Euro- 
 pean statesmen are equal to the task ?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Urquhart, " but honesty and knowledge 
 are equal to the task. Look what these men are in the 
 judgment of the Muscovites — what in their hands. You 
 look upon yourself as an ItaUan, upon me as an Enghsh- 
 man. To the Muscovite we are one and the other, only 
 ' Schwabes,' the mute, the brute, and they are right. 
 Europe stands in respect of these barbarous races of the 
 North as the Roman Empire in the sixth century did in 
 respect to our forefathers, but with the difference that our 
 forefathers had not the art, and had not the corruption of 
 the civilisation of the times, while the modern barbarians 
 unite the withering corruption and the destroying art 
 and science of the most advanced civilisation with the
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 187 
 
 destructive energies and the all-grasping cupidity of 
 barbarians." 
 
 "What, then, are we to do ?" asked Capaccini, leaning 
 forward intently, with both hands on the arms of his chair. 
 
 So was Urquhart brought to the point for which he had 
 sought this interview. 
 
 " That question," he repUed, " and the manner in which 
 you ask it, brings back to my mind the very same words 
 addressed to me by my Sovereign, ^ and I will repeat to 
 you the answer which I was inspired to give him. I did 
 not say to him, 'Adopt this measure; take that course; do 
 this thing or that;' but I replied, 'Form men.' I said, 
 ' Send a few young men prepared with the requisite study 
 of International Right and Public Law to a practical 
 examination of things and men. . . . You suffer, not from 
 want of strength, but from the danger of mistaking your 
 way.' This I now say to you, with the difference in the 
 application making its adoption the more easy. You have 
 not the idea of armies and fleets. You have no veil from 
 danger, or pretext for indifference. You are directly 
 assailed." 
 
 Urquhart had three interviews with Capaccini when he 
 was in England, and they parted with many expressions of 
 confidence and regard on the Cardinal's part.^ 
 
 1 William IV. 
 
 2 Mr. Anstey had a private interview witli Cardinal Capaccini, 
 during the course of which he asked if there was any point on which 
 the Cardinal would wish for further information. 
 
 Cardinal Capaccini : " Only one thing I would like you to ascer- 
 tain from him {i.e., Urquhart), whether he is satisfied with me, for 
 I am quite satisfied with him." 
 
 3Ir. Anstey : " Mr. Urquhart is not one of us." 
 Cardinal Capaccini : " He is a good Catholic against Russia." 
 31r. Ansfey: " I believed that I stood alone amongst the CathoUcs, 
 and until I knew Mr. Urquhart and his friends, I thought I stood 
 alone amongst the inhabitants of Britain in the sense that I have 
 ever entertained of judging of public events by the same rule that 
 I might apply to my own private conduct. I considered myself as 
 living alone in this island with these feelings, until I met that man. 
 The difference between him and me depends upon the difference 
 rather of the roads by which we have come to our present conclu- 
 sions: I, through seeking what ought to be my duty as a Catholic ; 
 he, as an Englishman. He has those who fuUy feel and act with him 
 who are not Englishmen — some French, some English, some Mussul- 
 mans : and naturally so, for it is the question of that which is the basis
 
 188 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 He undertook to set afoot a scheme for a Diplomatic 
 College in Rome, and to prepare Urquhart's way with the 
 Holy Father. He fulfilled his engagements and seems to 
 have conveyed to the Court of the Vatican his own feelings 
 of confidence in the wisdom of Urquhart's policy, with the 
 result that the English Protestant was invited to Rome to 
 confer with the Holy Father. He was on his way thither 
 when Gregory XVI. died. He turned back; once again his 
 plans were frustrated. 
 
 On the need for men engaged in the Diplomatic Service 
 to be trained in Public Law and in the practical conduct 
 of affairs, Urquhart never ceased to insist, from the time 
 when he had urged it on William IV. to the end of his life. 
 He reiterated the need of it to Pius IX., in an Italy torn 
 by convulsions and revolution; even when the Temporal 
 Power had been entirely lost, he never ceased to press it 
 on him as the first step to the re -establishment of Public 
 Law and Justice in Europe. 
 
 Urquhart's method is still waiting to be tried. Mean- 
 while, Diplomacy has not grown more honest, standing 
 armies have not decreased, nor have wars ceased. The 
 dream of a reign of Justice, that was to banish the reign 
 of Force, which buoyed us up during the war, retreats 
 farther and farther into the distance. 
 
 There is still no forming of men for Diplomacy. Inter- 
 national lawyers we have. They are present at Peace 
 Conferences, presumably to clear up the obscure language, 
 which, by no accident, finds its way into treaties. But 
 they are unrepresented at embassies, they are not con- 
 sulted as to whether private arrangements between nations 
 are in accord with Public Law; no mention is ever made 
 of their being consulted even before a Declaration of 
 War. 
 
 Moreover, it is a moot question whether the real founda- 
 
 of all national existence, as of all religious obligation, against that 
 which is the perversion of the one and the other. And all those who 
 have come to this conclusion, Turks, Protestants, English, French, 
 look to the Pope as the only European Potentate from which can pro- 
 ceed the authoritative enunciation of these doctrines, or the practical 
 resistance to the evils which follow from their neglect."
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 189 
 
 tions of Public Law and morality are taken into account, 
 even among modern so-called international lawyers, or 
 whether their concern is not wholly with the interpretation 
 of treaties. In Urquhart's eyes treaties were but side 
 issues ; the main question of diplomacy was concerned with 
 Public Justice based on Public Law, It was because the 
 whole fate of Europe seemed to him to turn on the decision 
 as to whether Public Law or lawlessness was to prevail, 
 that he thought it the most important of the duties which 
 devolved upon a Prince of the Church, or even upon the 
 Head of Christendom himself, to strive to guide that deci- 
 sion right. 
 
 In 1846 Urquhart was still hopeful that something might 
 be done in Rome. Italv, with its new. ideas of national 
 life, was for a moment at the feet of Pius IX,, who had 
 " breathed a new spirit into the Romans," Urquhart 's 
 friend, the Abbe Hamilton, wrote from Rome of the 
 appointment of the new Papal Nuncio for Portugal/ who 
 had promised to visit England on his way home if possible. 
 The idea of a Diplomatic College in Rome had been put 
 before him, and he had received it favourably. 
 
 Hamilton writes : 
 
 " Cardinal Ghizzi has promised to give very careful con- 
 sideration to any hints you may give him as to the means of 
 increasing the efficiency of the Corps Diplomatique in 
 Rome, He is not the only person here who is aware of 
 the Avant of education under which our statesmen suffer. 
 A Congregation of Cardinals is considering the reformation 
 of the Institute of Education, and may probably make 
 some change which may render it efficient as a nursery of 
 diplomatic talent," 
 
 Urquhart was very hopeful; there was a great muster of 
 his friends in Rome just then. " Mr. Ross, of Bladens- 
 burg," he writes, "has succeeded in gaining Lord Chfford, 
 who has sent me a message that he is glad to find himself 
 embarked in the same boat; we have had very wild en- 
 counters lately. A new ally, Sir W, Stuart, started for 
 
 ^ Capacciai died suddenly, soou after his return to Rome,
 
 190 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Rome a few days ago, also Dr. Gillies, Roman Catholic 
 Bishop of Edinburgh. Dr. Gillies is a man considerably 
 above the ordinary level, and has, I find, preserved the 
 recollection and impression of a conversation I had with 
 him nine years ago. Dr. UUathorne, Roman Catholic 
 Bishop of the Western District, whom I never saw, but 
 who has been studying the old Portfolio and preaching from 
 it, has gone to Rome. 
 
 " General Manley, now an old associate, is also in London 
 on his way to Rome, so that there will be a singular con- 
 centration of EngUsh opinion at Rome in our sense." 
 
 Mr. Urquhart sent the Cardinal Secretary of State a 
 long and very elaborate account of the possibiUties for the 
 world in a new diplomacy at the Vatican. 
 
 " I hope," says Mr. Hamilton, " that some effect has 
 been made. The Cardinal has, I believe, determined on 
 the erection of a Diplomatic School in Rome, and he has 
 taken the first step to it in the suppression of something, 
 which was by way of supplying the candidates for the various 
 Offices of State. It is his intention to reform the Ecclesi- 
 astical Academies in two years, and I hope that before 
 that time you will have an opportunity of explaining to the 
 Secretary of State in Rome your views on this important 
 subject viva voce." 
 
 Pio Nono's reforming spirit was evident in every depart- 
 ment of the Papal Government. The air around him was 
 full of ideaUsm, and his own ardent soul rose up to meet it, 
 overleaping the bounds set by the steriUsing inertia of the 
 officials of the old regime. Italy was at one with her 
 Spiritual Head as she had not been for centuries. 
 
 But it was upon this very romance and generosity of 
 spirit that the foes of the Papal Power were calculating. 
 They were scattering broadcast insinuations, hints and 
 innuendoes, trying to stir up jealousy and strife aUke 
 amongst his friends and his foes. 
 
 Ross writes from Rome : 
 
 " I cannot subscribe to the judgment you pass on the 
 late Pope,^ nor is the statement of d'Azegho correct, that 
 
 * I.e. that he was against reform of any kind in the administration 
 of the Papal States.
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 191 
 
 Austria called on him to make the reforms now contem- 
 plated by the present Pope. The reverse, I am informed, 
 is the fact. Cardinal Cappelari had expectations of being 
 raised to the Pontificate after the death of Leo XII. Con- 
 sequently he had digested his plans, and amongst his papers 
 since his death have been found arrangements for reforms 
 more extensive and searching than appear, as far as we 
 can judge, to be anticipated at present. The popular 
 outbursts following the French Occupation of 1830 gave 
 an ascendancy to Austria, which she used to prevent these 
 reforms from taking place, and Gregory, after having n 
 vain wrestled against Austrian influence in his Cabinet, 
 was obliged to succumb and let things go their way. . . . 
 I am puzzled as to the influence that raised Pius IX. to the 
 Pontificate. At any rate, I cannot think that his elevation 
 was displeasing to the brigand Powei's, for the simple reason 
 that, as he was a man that never expected to be so raised, 
 he had not any plans matured. The Amnesty was the 
 result of his having perceived the failure of the system 
 pursued while Bishop of Imola. ... I fear that his 
 popularity will impede his freedom in more senses than one. 
 The situation he is thereby placed in, in regard to Austria, 
 is stated to me as a reason for not doing what the present 
 crisis demands. The over-sanguineness will lead to its dis- 
 appointing itself." 
 
 Ross's fears were justified. The great ideas afloat in Italy 
 had not wings strong enough to bear very far or very high. 
 Pius IX. woke from his dream of a free and federated Italy 
 to find it darkened by the fear of bloodshed, to find that 
 there was no cohesion or unity except in fiery speeches. 
 Among the Italian States only Venice showed herself capable 
 of reahsing on what had depended her ancient freedom, 
 her ancient glory. Italy was defenceless in the face of 
 revolution and counter-revolution. The idea of a United 
 Kingdom under the House of Savoy could never be realised 
 with Charles Albert as leader. Those who, hke Gioberti 
 and Rosmini, dreamed of a Confederate Italy under the 
 Pope, saw their vision killed by foes in the household of 
 the Church. Divided in herself, and a prey to revolution- 
 aries of all nationahties, Italy was no match for Austria- 
 even an Austria distracted by troubles at home.
 
 192 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 But the fatal blow to the great ideal was struck when 
 Pius IX., who had already drawn back from a contest with 
 Austria, called in the aid of France against an anarchy he 
 could not stem. Many who had hailed him as the dehverer 
 of Italy, and acclaimed him as the leader under whose 
 banner she was again to be united and free, became his 
 bitterest foes, and the day of the final loss of his sovereignty 
 in Italy grew perceptibly nearer. 
 
 Pius IX., however, in drawing back from leading a general 
 revolt of Italy against Austria, had taken his stand upon 
 the Law of Nations. It was the only firm ground, when the 
 earth was rocking with corruption, and the air was thick 
 with lying rumours. No plot was too dishonest, no 
 treachery too foul wherewith to bolster up a patriotic 
 scheme, or to undermine the position of a foe. Looking 
 back upon it now, it seems as though the Pope, were he to 
 remain master of his own soul, must have stood clear of 
 the whole struggle. Rome was the storm-centre of Italy 
 and of Europe. Only Venice succeeded in riding the 
 whirlwind, in obtaining and even keeping for a time her 
 independence with honesty and good faith. 
 
 Urquhart has been accused of being opposed to Italian 
 Unity. It is therefore interesting to be able to quote some 
 part of a letter of congratulation which he wrote in 1848 
 to the noble President of the new Venetian RepubUc, 
 Daniele Manin, on the little State's great achievement: 
 
 " At a moment when your country's fate depends upon 
 the dii-ection which the Provisional Government shall give 
 to the first movements of the State, you may not be in- 
 disposed to listen to the suggestions of one who has labori- 
 ously explored in its various fields the traces of Venetian 
 enterprise. ... In the past greatness and weakness of 
 Venice I distinguish two remarkable features — causes of the 
 one, and evidences of the other. The first regards com- 
 merce, the second diplomacy ! In both she presents the 
 very contrast to the present European system. The great- 
 ness which she achieved, the ruin with which they are now 
 overwhelmed, would justify a stranger people in eschewing 
 their practice and adopting their maxims. How much more 
 you, who are Venice, and have cast of! Austria !
 
 HIS EARLIER RELATIONS TO ROME 193 
 
 " Venice taxed no foreign produce or manufactures. In 
 modern Europe science consists in that method of raising 
 a revenue. . . . 
 
 " Venice made Diplomacy the very foundation of her 
 State, and therefore, small as she was, she obtained ascend- 
 ancy over mighty potentates. 
 
 " In Modern Europe Diplomacy is in truth unknown, 
 yet the whispers of diplomatists are all-powerful. Secret 
 conclaves rule the world, and the nations neither know 
 why or how. 
 
 " If Venice be indeed again a Republic, let that Republic 
 be Venice." 
 
 Ij
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 " UNITED ITALY " 
 
 " Pater, Hominum divumque seterna potestas — 
 
 Namque aliud quid sit, quod jam implorare queamus ? — 
 Cernis ut iusultent Rutuli." 
 
 ^neid. Book X., 18-20. 
 
 Whatever sympathy Urquhart felt with the natural aspira- 
 tions of the Italian States for freedom from the bondage 
 of Austria, however he may have been disposed to admire 
 the spirit of union against a common foe, and the willing- 
 ness of Piedmont to merge her own personality in that of 
 an Italian kingdom, his admiration, even had it been able 
 to survive the many breaches, open and covert, of the Law 
 of Nations by which the War of Liberation was brought 
 to a successful issue, must have been turned to contempt 
 by the mingled treachery and effrontery of the attack on 
 the Kingdom of Naples by the ill-assorted Triumvirate, 
 Cavour, Mazzini, and Garibaldi; a contempt which grew 
 white hot with indignation and scorn during those ten 
 years after the entry of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi 
 side by side into Naples, when the Italian Government, 
 Catholic in name, was doing its utmost to starve and kill 
 the Catholic Church in its own dominions, by robbing her 
 of her possessions, and subjecting her to every kind of 
 petty persecution, while it sat and watched with hungry 
 eyes for the time to come when it could cast to the wind its 
 promises, tear up the Convention it had signed with the 
 intention of destroying it, and seize upon and secularise 
 the States of the Church. 
 
 We may not agree with him in regarding the setting up 
 of an Italian Kingdom as the triumph of Russian diplo- 
 macy in the South of Europe, as the seizure of the Duchies 
 had been in the North. But it was a view entirely con- 
 
 194
 
 "UNITED ITALY" 195 
 
 sistent with the idea he had formed while he was in the 
 East, of Russia's determination to create for herself a strong 
 sphere of influence in the Mediterranean. For five-and- 
 twenty years before the outbreak of the war he had been 
 constantly concerned to connect Russia with the outbreak 
 of European Revolution, particularly in the South, and 
 more especially in France and Italy. 
 
 " To me," he said, " the key of her operations has been 
 the direct object of Russia, which can be traced back to 
 1793, of obtaining Sicily, positions on the coast of the 
 Adriatic, and the Greek Islands." 
 
 Her great stumbling-block was, he declared, as it had 
 been Napoleon's, the Papacy; and he prophesied that she 
 would not leave a stone unturned until she had crushed the 
 sovereign power of the Pope. 
 
 Few figures in history have stood out with so much 
 dignity and grandeur as Pius IX. during the ten years 
 which preceded the final loss of the Imperium Civile. 
 Neither the wounds of his friends, the blows of his enemies, 
 nor the insults of the indifferent could break down the silent 
 majesty in which he wrapped himself. Betrayed and 
 despised, he was still the most heroic figure in Europe, and 
 that Urquhart recognised him as such, when the world 
 around had been taken captive by much shouting and a 
 Httle glamour, is no mean testimony to his own greatness. 
 
 But if he admired the Pope, whom it was the fashion to 
 execrate, he hated what most men loved. 
 
 The English passion for vagueness had, from the begin- 
 ning of Mazzini's career, been taken captive by his verbose 
 phrases about God and rehgion.^ In the man who, in the 
 eyes of the godly men of his own country, was doing the 
 work of the Devil, persecuting priests, hunting down re- 
 Hgion, turning places consecrated by centuries of prayer to 
 
 ^ Words were Mazzini's great weapon. In an address to the 
 " Friends of Italy," given in Paris in October, 1844, he says: 
 
 " There are regenerative words which contain aU that need be 
 often repeated to the people. Liberty, Rights of Men, Progress, 
 Equality, Fraternity, are what the people will understand; above 
 all when opposed to the words Despotism, Privileges, Tyranny, 
 Slavery, etc !"
 
 196 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 secular uses, Englishmen of all classes saw a saintly ascetic, 
 who had given up home, country, friends, for the sake of 
 Freedom. 
 
 The sentimentalist was enthralled by the spectacle of the 
 great exiled patriot holding classes for the rehgious and 
 moral instruction of the Itahan organ-grinders in London. 
 To him there was great profundity in the long harangues 
 in which "God" and -'the People," "Religion" and 
 " Liberty," were placed in appeahng juxtaposition. 
 
 But when Urquhart read them, he said: "This means 
 but one thing, Disorder, Revolution, utter want of a moral 
 sense concealed behind vague rehgious sentiment." 
 
 In 1863 he wrote to a friend, who had been greatly 
 attracted by the renewed glamour of Mazzini's exploits as 
 Garibaldi's adjutor in Sicily: 
 
 " As to what I mvself dii'ectly know in reference to 
 Mazzini, the whole is to be found worked out in the species 
 of judicial examination of myself which took place at 
 Bhmingham in 1855, on which occasion were produced the 
 letters and statements of Kossuth and Mazzini in attempted 
 justification of themselves; and on the perusal of which 
 the Committee was dissolved, the Chairman, jMr. George 
 Dawson, of Birmingham, observing: 'After that, I have 
 nothing more to say.' 
 
 " But I have no objection to relate from memory what 
 occurred on the one occasion when I met Mazzini to his 
 face. It was in the year 1842 or 1843. Mr. Anstey had 
 been talking to me of him, and as he expressed himself to 
 me in terms which I have scarcely ever heard used of a 
 human being, I was alarmed in reference to ^Ir. Anstey 's 
 judgment and passions; and more with that in view than 
 anything else, I made up my mind to see him myself, if I 
 could possibly do so without his knowing me. 
 
 " I applied to Mr. Szulcheski. Secretary to the Pohsh 
 Association, mentioning the occasion and my purpose. He 
 procured for me ]\Ir. Mazzini's address. I went thither. 
 It was, I think, a street running parallel to Portland Place. 
 Inquiring for him, a message was brought down from him 
 asking my name. I repHed that I was a stranger to him, 
 and yet desired to see him; but yet, if he had any objec- 
 tions, it in no way mattered. The maid-servant returned 
 with an invitation to walk upstairs.
 
 "UNITED ITALY" 197 
 
 " I said on entering: ' I have no excuse for this intrusion 
 save this, that I am an Englishman, and desii-e to hear you 
 talk about Italy.' His look of inquisitive distrust was 
 immediately exchanged for extreme einpressement. He 
 placed for me a chair, and seating himself opposite to me 
 across a small round ta,ble, invited me to question him. I 
 commenced with the year 181G, and, once launched, he 
 apphed himself to expound events historically, I having 
 no other idea at the time than that of endeavouring to 
 fathom the character of the man. 
 
 " When coming to the affair of Modena in the year 1827, 
 a conversation I had had with Davidovitch and Petroni- 
 evitch at Cravovitz suddenly flashed across me, and I said, 
 interrupting him : ' So it was then that you (meaning the 
 Revolutionists) sent your Deputation to the Emperor of 
 Russia at Vosnogenk ?' 
 
 " He threw himself back as if he had received a blow, 
 and after a time faltered out ' Yes,' and remained silent. 
 
 "That silence I broke by these words: 'How do you 
 reconcile yourselves to receive Russian money V 
 
 " By this time he had recovered himself. He smihngly 
 answered: 'There is no love lost between us. We loiow 
 her, and do not trust her; but we are on the same line.' I 
 asked what that line was. 
 
 " He rephed, ' Disorder !' 
 
 "Rising, I said: 'I have now to thank you. I have 
 obtained all I desired,' and left him, rooted in amaze- 
 ment. ... 
 
 " I may say that subsequent to the investigation of this 
 matter at Birmingham, something of a similar nature took 
 place at Newcastle, when a Pole named Stanislas Worcell 
 testified to his having heard ^lazzini mentioning a meeting 
 having taken place between him and me. 
 
 " You may Uke to know what it is I had heard from 
 Davidovitch and Petronievitch in Servia. It was this : 
 
 " They had received the orders of the Prince (jlilosch) 
 to make me a confession of the whole intercourse that had 
 taken place between Servia and Russia, all which has been 
 fully detailed by me in a report to Government at the time,^ 
 but of which I do not find a copy amongst my papers, 
 although there is repeated reference to it in the correspon- 
 dence ^^dth Sir Herbert Taylor.^ It is, therefore, to my 
 
 1 Foreign Office Tapers. Turkey 249. 
 '■* Piivate Secretary to William IV.
 
 198 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 memory alone that I must now trust after an interval of 
 thirty years. 
 
 " They told me that in the year 1827 one or both of them 
 had been amongst the deputies sent by Servia to meet the 
 Emperor at a review at Vosnogenk ; that after their audience 
 in the Emperor's tent he had turned round and caused 
 some gentlemen in dark clothes to advance; and then, 
 turning to the Servian deputies, uttered these words: 
 ' These gentlemen are the representatives of the first peoples 
 in Europe, to whom the rest owe whatever Ught they 
 possess ; and here they are come to seek Liberty and Inde- 
 pendence from those whom the people of Europe call 
 barbarians.' 
 
 " To the best of my recollection the word Italy was not 
 so much as mentioned, nor am I aware that at the time 
 I had any idea of the connection between Italy and Russia. 
 My present impression is that that connection only struck 
 me in the course of Mazzini's narrative." 
 
 His attitude towards the other representatives of Italian 
 Unity was even more contemptuous. In 1867 he sent to 
 one of the leading newspapers a letter, the title of which, 
 " Garibaldians and Fenians," sufficiently indicates the 
 purport. 
 
 The paper returned it with the remark: " Very excellent, 
 but wholly inadmissible into any English paper printed to 
 be sold. The key-note would cause the very stones of the 
 town to fly about the heads of the proprietors." 
 
 The press, as a matter of fact, would now have nothing 
 to do with Urquhart; no newspaper would publish his 
 letters, or the letters of his friends on the state of affans 
 in Italy — so opposed were they to the mass of public opinion 
 which the Government was carefully fostering.^ 
 
 1 The following letter, taken from the Free Press, November 2, 
 1S64:, is one of many that Urquhart received from friends in Italy 
 during this time. It shows, as they all do, the immense discrepancy 
 between fact and fancy in the jiopular ideas on the Papal Govern- 
 m3ut, and the feeling of his subjects for the Pope: 
 
 The Pope and his Subjects. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Free Press:'' 
 
 Sir, — An observation which occurred in a recent number of a 
 daily newspaper intimated that the demonstrations of loyalty and 
 affection manifested towards Pius IX., on his return to Rome from a
 
 " UNITED ITALY " 199 
 
 " There is indeed a History besides," wrote Mrs. Urquharfc 
 to a friend on the subject of the Garibaldian enUstments, 
 " a History which would take volumes in this particular 
 case: I mean Garibaldi and Italy: how, through long years, 
 the minds of Englishmen have been prepared for the events 
 of the last by a systematic supply of false news and sup- 
 pression of the truth as regards the country, in the year 
 1860 to be acted upon; how the most influential members 
 of the Press (secretly working with my husband as many 
 do) have declared it impossible to get in a hne in a con- 
 trary sense, that is a single line that was not abusive, 
 except in some obscure provincial papers." 
 
 Anyone who either remembers or who has read of the 
 white-hot fever of excitement into which all classes of 
 Enghsh society worked themselves over Garibaldi — how his 
 very dress was imitated, his tokens and colours worn by 
 fine ladies, how Cabinet Ministers threw propriety to the 
 winds in their praises of exploits which, if they had been 
 
 summer excursion, did not originate in the sentiment of the people 
 but were prompted and organised by the authorities. If you do 
 me the honour to accept my testimony, as an eye-witness of many 
 demonstrations in that city, and especially during six months lately 
 spent there, I shall indicate a different conclusion. 
 
 I might allude to various occasions on which I was witness of 
 popular manifestations of feeling towards the Pope on his visits 
 to churches or institutions, when there was no circumstance to 
 attract as a pageant, nor, beyond the presence of the Pontiff, to render 
 them interesting. Crowds poured into the streets on his way, and 
 filled the large piazzas of the SS. Apostoli or the Gesu. I par- 
 ticularly noticed that aU classes were represented, and all equally 
 demonstrative. 
 
 One of the greatest and most picturesque demonstrations was 
 made on the annual visit of the Pope in state and procession, on 
 the 2.5th of last March, to the Dominican Church in the Piazza 
 della Minerva, where, according to an ancient custom, he bestows 
 marriage portions on a number of young women. 
 
 From the Papal residence to the Piazza, the streets were hung 
 with flags and devices, houses were decorated, and green leaves 
 and flowers were strewn on the procession, and loyalty and devotion 
 were evinced by the people in every form of Italian grace and fervour. 
 But it happened on this occasion that, through certain streets in- 
 habited by the working classes, there was more than ordinary excite- 
 ment. For the agents of the anti-papal party, who aU the winter 
 had, to our great edification at their veracity, proclaimed through 
 their organs in the Press of North and South Italy — which were 
 echoed by our own — " the dangerous illness and approaching death 
 of the Pope," now circulated a report that he was actually dead, 
 but that the fact was carefully withheld. They afBrmed that in the
 
 200 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 performed in Ireland instead of Italy, would have been 
 visited with all the vengeance of the outraged majesty of 
 the Enghsh law; how young men, peers and workmen alike, 
 rushed to enhst in his army — will understand that Urqu- 
 hart's attitude must have robbed him of every vestige of 
 the influence he still possessed in England — except, indeed, 
 amongst the neghgible minority, who still counted Law 
 and Justice dearer than Romance and Sentiment and 
 grandiloquent phrases. 
 
 The days when The Times, the Morning Advertiser, the 
 Herald, in fact, most of the leading papers, had been glad 
 to publish a series of letters from Urquhart's pen had long 
 passed. One after another they had thrown him over, as 
 he attacked idol after idol dear to the Enghsh heart. Now, 
 however, not only did he heap scorn and contempt on 
 popular idols, but he set up in their place one whom, almost 
 by instinct. Englishmen distrusted, and for whose downfall 
 
 procession, which would equally take place, the Pontiff would be 
 personated by a Cardinal, or other individual, got up in character. 
 Wlien, therefore, the people saw their real Sovereign in his own person 
 they became wildly excited. Long before the Cross-bearer at the 
 head of the procession arrived on the Piazza, we distinguished the 
 shout, " Viva 11 Papa Re." The scene was strikingly impressive 
 and beautiful — full of life, movement, and colour: tapestry hanging 
 from tlie houses, devices of varied design, groups with flowers at every 
 window. At last there was startling transition from comparative 
 tranquillity to enthusiastic animation. The Pope appeared, and 
 like the fiill burst of an organ all the stops of popular feeling were 
 drawn out in the loud, joyous roar of the great Roman crowd beneath. 
 There was animated and sparkling movement over the dense excited 
 mass, fluttering of handkerchiefs, waving of flags, showering of 
 flowers, and the long, continuous shout Avhich rose to the dignity 
 of a prayer, " Viva il Papa Re." 
 
 Later'in the spring the Pope made his annual visit to the ancient 
 Church and Convent of St. Agnes, two miles beyond the gates of 
 Rome. The road was thronged with carriages, and the footway 
 with pcoi)le, and in the crowds assembled there was a repetition 
 of the enthusiasm of the last-mentioned occasion. At night there 
 was an illumination of the Avhole city, and its universality proved it 
 the result of popular impulse, and showed unmistakably how 
 general were the sentiments of attachment to the Pope. My long 
 acquaintance with Rome and with the people enables me to appre- 
 ciate the value and sincerity of these demonstrations. I shall only 
 add that the observations made to me by many of our countrymen 
 and visitors to Rome, men of every variety of creed and opinion, 
 were in perfect accordance with my own.
 
 " UNITED ITALY " 201 
 
 they were eagerly looking. To them Garibaldi and Mazzini 
 stood for Italian Independence and the freedom of man- 
 kind; the Pope stood for slavery and tyranny and the 
 Dark Ages. 
 
 Because Urquhart execrated the methods^ of the Italian 
 Revolution, because he insisted on bare justice for the 
 Pope, he was, in the eyes of the mass of Englishmen, out 
 for Popery, and a foe to liberty and independence. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Urquhart was never opposed to 
 Italian Independence yer se ; this is evident in his letter 
 to Daniele Manin in 1 848. It was Revolution manufactured 
 from without that he opposed — -it was injustice and law- 
 lessness masking themselves under the name " National 
 Union." 
 
 " It is not Italy liberated and united against the foreigner, 
 it is a foreign-bred faction usurping the government of 
 Italy by destroying the separate States and relying for 
 support upon foreign intrigue. If Italy had been threatened, 
 as a portion of it was occupied, by foreigners ; if Italians 
 had only panted for independence, not lusted for partici- 
 pation in tlie crimes of Europe, nor listened to the phrases 
 coined by knaves to pass current amongst fools, Italy 
 might have arrived at a union under one Sovereign, but 
 would have retained its local life and independence. But 
 with a Central Parliament, where all manners, rights, 
 
 ^ Such as tlie following description of tlie working of tlie Plebiscite 
 in Savoy from Jepp's Diplomatic Revelations of a Secret Agent of 
 Count Cavour. London, 1862. 
 
 " We had the registers brought to us that we might prepare the 
 list of electors; we made out all the bulletins. For these first local 
 elections, as afterwards for the annexation vote, only few electors 
 presented themselves to take any part; but at the moment of closing 
 up the urns we threw in the bulletins naturally for Piedmont — not, 
 of course, quite all: we left out some hundreds, or some thousands, 
 according to the population represented by the College." 
 
 " Before the vote was opened, agents of the police and disguised 
 carbineers choked up all the entrances to the hall, and it was from 
 these impartial persons that the President of the Bureau and the 
 scrutineers were always chosen. We were, therefore, not crippled 
 in that regard. In some Colleges, however, this wholesale intro- 
 duction into the urn of the bulletins of the absent, which we called 
 ' completing the vote,' was done with so little care tha,t, upon the 
 proclamation of the result, it was found that there had been more 
 vote;> than electors inscribed."
 
 202 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 opinions, laws, shall be settled for all by the calculation 
 of the votes of some, a condition of prostration is estab- 
 lished for all in the face of the Executive, out of which 
 must come two apparently different results — revolt against 
 the head, and apathy between the parts." 
 
 It was so-called "Legislative Union," not "Italian 
 Unity " that Urquhart resisted— Legislative Union, that is, 
 as opposed to municipal government. In no part of the 
 world, said he, save in Greece and Switzerland, had 
 municipal organisation been more prominent than in the 
 Italian Peninsula. Now, however, " for the control of the 
 municipalities is to be substituted the consent of the Par- 
 liament to everything performed by the Cabinet of Turin 
 and designed by that of St. Petersburg." 
 
 For in St. Petersburg Urquhart had always seen the great 
 foe to municipal government ; everywhere, he said, her one 
 aim had been its suppression. 
 
 In the Papacy he had, on the other hand, always seen 
 the great bar to Russian diplomacy. He had said to 
 Cardinal Capaccini in 1844: "Rome can be saved from 
 Russia only if there is an honest Minister in Sardinia." 
 He had seen in the entry of Sardinia into the Crimean War 
 the first direct move on the part of Russia against the 
 Papacy. He had protested against the interference with 
 Italian affairs by the Congress of Paris. And now, that by 
 his words spoken so long ago, he had again proved himself 
 a true prophet, he declared his high hopes for the future 
 of Italy in one sentence spoken to a Sardinian statesman: 
 "The Pope is the only real thing in Italy. You, as a 
 CathoHc and an Italian, do not see this. If you are to 
 have an Italian Unity, it can only be done by making the 
 Pope King of Italy." 
 
 This was Gioberti's dream, the vision of a Confederate 
 Italy under the Pope, finding expression through an English- 
 man and a Protestant. To him Rome, the capital of Italy, 
 was as much the degradation of a great idea as Cavour's 
 famous " Free Church in a Free State." " Rome was never 
 the capital of Italy," he said; "when Italy was governed 
 from Rome, Rome governed the world."
 
 " UNITED ITALY " 203 
 
 And though Urquhart was never a Catholic, this was his 
 dream — impossible of fulfilment as it proved — for the future 
 of Italy. 1 
 
 ^ It was not in Italy alone that Urquhart fought " Legislative 
 Union." 
 
 In 1847, he wrote a long letter to his ardent friend and supporter, 
 Sir George Sinclair, on the subject of the Repeal of the Union between 
 England and Ireland. 
 
 The letter is too long to quote in full; it is to be found in the 
 Diplomatic Beview of December 5, 1866. Anyone who is sufficiently 
 interested to read it will find little in it which might not have been 
 written to-day. 
 
 In the course of the letter Urquhart says : 
 
 " Now let us drop the case of right. Let us assume it. Is it ex- 
 pedient to stand upon it and deny the wishes of Ireland ? 
 
 "Immediately arise a host of questions. Have results at home 
 proved your faculty to legislate well I Has success in Ireland 
 crowned your past experiments ? Have you obtained material bene- 
 fits from her, equivalent to her resources f Have you acquired her 
 goodwill and affection as the fruits of your justice, wisdom, and 
 moderation ? Do you acquit yourself in the management of her 
 affairs with self-satisfaction and ease ? If the answers are in the 
 affirmative, the question of the expediency of entertaining Ireland's 
 request is opened, not closed; but if, on all or any, the answer is in 
 the negative, then I think the question of expediency settles into 
 its admission. 
 
 " You have oppressed Ireland, and you have alienated her. The 
 one is not your interest nor the other your purpose. She has, 
 therefore, been the occasion to you of a great delusion. The aliena- 
 tion is the result of oppression. The oppression has been for gain's 
 sake, not gain of the English nation, but of some of its servants: 
 you have been deluded to screen their acts. 
 
 " In former times the Court was the acting hand. Now it is the 
 Parhament. The delusion has thus extended from the misrepre- 
 sentation of particular incidents to the falsification of general prin- 
 ciples. How dangeroTis, then, is Ireland to England ! Well might 
 we wish that the Atlantic rolled between. 
 
 " But it may be asked, ' How can we get rid of her ? We cannot 
 sink her nor transport her. There she is. We have extinguished 
 her means of government; we must go on governing her; embarras- 
 sing as she is, she might become more so if we relinquished our hold.' 
 He would be a bold man to say that she could have managed herself 
 worse than we have managed her. Had she done so, still would it 
 not have been our act; then would her eyes, and hope, and heart, 
 have been turned towards England for refuge, remedy, and redress. 
 Left to herself, she must either have been better or as bad. If better, 
 we would have derived the benefit; if as bad, she would not, at least, 
 have domineered over us. . . . Satisfied that the nationality of 
 Ireland could not be destroyed, and, under the purifying process of 
 oppression, would revive, I have long looked to her, as, I may almost 
 say, the only hope I had for England. Suffering at England's hands, 
 I expected she would, in time, repudiate her modern doctrines. I 
 waited to visit her until that hope should be confirmed. For the
 
 204 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 first time I met fellow-countrymen whom I was not asliamed to avow 
 as such; for the first time I found fellow-labourers. They could 
 be made to see that freedom did not reside in Parliamentary omni- 
 potence, and that the ria;lits of freedom did not consist in the electoral 
 franchise. I can compare the effect upon me, oidy to escaping out 
 of a damp mist into the open air to breathe and see. In regard to 
 England, they did labour under misconceptions which nurtured 
 intense hate. I had, therefore, to require from them justice to 
 England. The proposition might excite surprise, but nothing could 
 be more satisfactory tlian the discovery of their mistake; for it was 
 nothing less than the discovery that England was not against them, 
 but only the House of Commons, and that House only when doing 
 things for which it was not sent, and to do which it had no power. 
 They thus saw that it was to England tliat they had to look and trust 
 for help, against a system which betrayed the one country to oppress 
 the other. Then could they justly say, ' Our independence concerns 
 the maintenance of the British Empire and the peace of Europe.' "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 
 
 " That's the appropriate country; there men's thought, 
 Rarer, intenser. 
 Self -gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, 
 Chafes in the Censer." 
 
 Urquhart's connection with the various political move- 
 ments of his time lies outside the scope of the present work. 
 In them all, from the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny 
 to the Italian War of Liberation, his point of view was 
 emphatically not that of the majority of his contemporaries. 
 As regards the last, it was more Catholic than that of many 
 Catholics. 
 
 This was not wholly due to Urquhart's reverence for the 
 great past of the Papacy, though he was intensely conscious 
 of the part it had played in European history, nor to the 
 influence of his Catholic friends ; it was the result of a con- 
 viction, which, it seemed to him, had always been the 
 working principle of Catholic statecraft, that the only 
 possible basis of political action was religion and morality — 
 a conviction which appears very clearly in his association 
 with those foreign Catholics amongst whom, in the latter 
 years of his life, were to be found his closest associates and 
 friends. 
 
 He left England in 1864, suffering from a complete break- 
 down in health, and for the rest of his life made his summer 
 homa in a chalet which he had designed and built for him- 
 self high up on the mountains of Savoy, above St. Gervais. 
 
 The Chalet des Melezes became a Mecca to those for 
 whom Urquhart was a prophet. English statesmen, French 
 bishops, Turkish functionaries high in the Ottoman Govern- 
 ment, visited him there, not to tell, but to learn, what had 
 happened in Europe. There he rested his tired brain by 
 
 205
 
 206 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 making his garden, though it was at an altitude where he 
 had been warned that nothing would grow, the admiration 
 of all who survived the two hours' precipitous ascent from 
 the village of St. Gervais.i He was delighted when the 
 warnings proved wrong. No one had ever seen such roses 
 as made the chalet, during the short summer months, a 
 dream of colour; while the large and luscious strawberries 
 were not only his pride, but the wonder of all the peasants 
 of the mountain-side. His garden was, as indeed were all 
 material things, a symbol to him, 
 
 " I regret that you did not come yesterday," he writes, 
 " for I should have presented you with a rose as an answer 
 to the letter which you did me the honour to write to me. 
 It was the most beautiful rose I had ever seen. When, at 
 this elevation of two thousand metres, I put spade into 
 the ground, everyone ridiculed me. Well, I have not only 
 had crops, Wt the crops have surpassed those of the plains. 
 My potatoes have satisfied the hunger of my neighbours 
 below, when theirs have been a failure. The rose I speak 
 of would have said, ' A thing is not true because people 
 believe it, nor impossible because they say it is.' I should 
 have added, by way of commentary, ' That which a modern 
 European believes is probably false, and that which he 
 calls impossible is a thing to be attemj)ted and accom- 
 plished by an upright heart.' " 
 
 Though Urquhart was in an extraordinary degree beyond 
 the influence of other minds, his residence in Savoy is 
 marked by the exhibition of a phase of his character un- 
 known to most of his intimates. He found himself for the 
 first time in his life in the society of men who had arrived 
 at his own moral standpoint, though by different paths; 
 for the first time he felt himself in the presence of those 
 
 1 The children brought up in the chalet, and as much at home 
 on the mountains as young goats, used to watch with wicked glee 
 the toil-worn and perspiring appearance of portly bishops and high- 
 heeled French ladies as they emerged from the pine-woods below the 
 chalet, on a visit to tlieir father. 
 
 There is a story told in the family that, after such a visit, a friend, 
 encountering an ecclesiastic in the village of St. Gervais, exclaimed 
 with uplilted hands: "Mais, Monsieur I'Abbe, quel air soufErant ! 
 Vous eces, done, bien malade V " Non," replied the other with a 
 meek air of resignation. " J'ai visite M. Urquhart."
 
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 URQUHART IN SAVOY 207 
 
 who had something to teach him, before whom he had best 
 keep silence. "It is curious that I have conversed with 
 three priests," he says in a letter to a friend shortly after 
 his arrival, " since I left England, to whom I had nothing 
 to say, and from whom I had everything to learn." 
 
 He had known and reverenced the great past of the 
 Catholic Church, but he had thought of it as past; when 
 he came to live amongst Catholics, he was brought for the 
 first time since his boyhood into contact with her pulsating 
 inner life, her vital thought, now in a social reformer of 
 world-wide fame like M. Le Play, now in the great Oratorian, 
 Pere Gratry, now in the Bishops of Orleans and Geneva, 
 now in a simple village priest of the Argonne. With all 
 these he found himself in a deep and tranquil agreement, 
 to which his stormy life had been a stranger, on those things 
 which were to him the basis of all ReHgion, Justice and 
 Law.^ 
 
 " Je viens de parcourir," he wrote to Baron d'Yvoire, 
 " Les Sources du Pere Gratry. J'y trouve precisement 
 ce que je voulais dire." 
 
 It was his friendship with such men as these which gave 
 a new direction to Urquhart's efforts after the re-establish- 
 ment of the principles of International Law. He had 
 always maintained that at the root of national peace and 
 prosperity was the Law of Nations. He had set his Foreign 
 Affairs Committees to study Vattel, and he pointed out 
 without ceasing the steady decline of the idea of International 
 Justice since the last great writer on the Law of Nations 
 had published his Droit des Gens in 1758. 
 
 The admiring interest with which he had studied mediaeval 
 institutions, as well as his intercourse with his eccentric 
 and gifted friend, Thomas Anstey, had taught him to look 
 beyond Grotius to the source whence Grotius derived his 
 knowledge. That source he rightly discerned to be the 
 
 ^ " Je suis frapp6," writes M. Le Play, "plus que jamais, de la 
 complete conformite de vucs qui regne entre M. Urquhart et moi 
 toucliant le principe des rapports inteniationaux. Comme lui, 
 je suis convaincu que I'Europe est perdue si eu cette matiere on 
 ne reste pas puremeut et simplement dans les prescriptions du Chris- 
 tianisme."
 
 208 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Catholic Church. But during the earlier part of his life 
 his mind was evidently somewhat vague as to how the 
 Church had expressed herself on points of international 
 morality. He probably thought, and in a measure rightly 
 thought, that each case on its merits formed part of the 
 moral teaching given by the living voice of the Church in 
 each age. It was not until he got into touch with the 
 larger Catholic world, that he realised the existence of the 
 Canon Law, its connection with the Roman Law, the object 
 of his greatest admiration, and its place in the economy of 
 the Church. 
 
 Side by side with this discovery of the existence of the 
 Canon Law he made another discovery, which the great 
 mass of Catholics themselves have not yet made, that the 
 Church has forgotten her great heritage. Even out of her 
 catechisms has slipped the clear, definite, unmistakable 
 teaching of the Law between nations. " Let her once more 
 set it forth," he said, " and the Church will save, not only 
 the Papal States, but the whole of Europe, which is 
 perishing under a reign of lawlessness." 
 
 In the attack on the Temporal Power of the Pope the 
 prevailing lawlessness had, he believed, culminated. 
 
 On the rare occasions in modern history when the Popes 
 had interfered in European statecraft, Urquhart saw them 
 guiding their conduct by a Law as much beyond the moral 
 vision of the modern diplomatist as was the Mussulman 
 code beyond the comprehension of Christian teachers who 
 could applaud the Chinese War. Small wonder, then, that 
 he desired that not only Canonists, but every human being, 
 Catholic and Protestant alike, should be made acquainted 
 with that Law whose very existence was forgotten by the 
 mass of men. 
 
 It was very natural that they should be oblivious of it. 
 Written in a learned language, it was the law of no Court 
 which counted any longer in the world ; it was enforced by 
 no recognised authority. When men thought of the Canon 
 Law, they thought of a set of rules framed by priests and 
 Popes for the guidance of ecclesiastical bodies and religious 
 people, not of laws founded on the Code of Justinian —
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 209 
 
 many of them of universal application. To Englishmen it 
 was reminiscent of nothing but ecclesiastical tyranny and the 
 Dark Ages, before " the glorious light of the Reformation " 
 had dawned upon the lands. 
 
 To Urquhart the discovery of the Canon Law was so 
 great a discovery that the rest of his life is a history of 
 attempts to bring it to the knowledge of men, and to procure 
 its restatement, so sure was he that in it was contained 
 exactly that moral force which would regenerate the world. 
 
 The Canon Law, even had it done nothing else, emphasised 
 the application to nations and communities of those same 
 laws which men recognised in their relation to one another. 
 " Therefore," said Urquhart, " the Canon Law must be 
 restored." 
 
 But how ? His little company of friends had various 
 schemes to propose. Two French priests proposed the 
 foundation of a Society — the CEuvre Apostolique — which 
 should have branches in all countries, and whose object 
 should be to promote the knowledge of the Law amongst 
 CathoUcs. A French barrister, M. Juvigny, wrote a book 
 on the restoration of the Canon Law, which was to be 
 pubUshed in England. Various towns like Rheims, 
 Grenoble and Arras, famous for the study of Law, took 
 up Urquhart and his ideas enthusiastically. The Bishop 
 of Geneva's secretary suggested that modern catechisms, 
 out of which had dropped any teaching on Law between 
 nations, should be revised and the teaching of the older 
 catechisms restored. Those who were still carrying on in 
 England the Foreign Affairs Committees met with an 
 enthusiastic response to their attempts to set forth amongst 
 the working men the ancient Canon Law. 
 
 A very clear indication of the intellectual development 
 reached by the members of the Committees is afforded by 
 their quick response to ideas so entirely new to them. 
 
 Obviously, however, the mass of men would be untouched 
 by these methods. The CEuvre Apostolique would appeal 
 to the devout; works of Jurisprudence to lawyers; the 
 EngUsh Working Men's Associations could only move slowly, 
 learning as they went. 
 
 U
 
 210 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 What the world needed was a voice which could reach 
 to her utmost bounds. 
 
 In 1866 the Pope declared to the Bishops, assembled 
 in Rome to keep the centenary of St. Peter, his intention 
 of holding an (Ecumenical Council. " The Council is neces- 
 sary," he said, " to put in order the affairs of the world, 
 which is crumbling into dust, because it has forgotten the 
 Divine Law which is the foundation of human society," 
 
 This was the voice for which the world was waiting ! 
 
 Pius IX. was now an old man. It was twenty years 
 since the unrest of Italy, culminating in the revolt of 
 Rome, had driven him to exile at Gaeta. During those 
 years, though Rome was for the present under the insecure 
 protection of France, he had watched all the mingled farrago 
 of enthusiasm, ambition, idealism and corruption work 
 itself out into the concrete reality of the new Kingdom of 
 Italy. He had seen the old standards, the old sanctions, the 
 old reverences falhng one by one; he stood now the leader 
 of a small forlorn hope, facing an army that was daily being 
 strengthened by deserters from his own ranks, who declared 
 that old things, amongst which was Rehgion, had passed 
 away for ever, all things had become new; that in the great 
 days that were coming they would have Liberty for Autho- 
 rity, the Rights of Man in exchange for the Moral Law. 
 
 The days were gone, they said, when the sons of the 
 Kings who had oppressed the Church should come kneeling 
 before her ; when Kings and Queens should serve her. It 
 was now for the Church to serve the State, the greatest 
 thing in the world, beyond all law and all authority. 
 
 Pius IX. 's answer was to publish the Syllabus and to call 
 a General Council. 
 
 No General Council had been hekl since the Council of 
 Trent, and the powers of the world did not know whether 
 to be alarmed that the Church, which they had thought 
 was dying, had come to life again, as she had so often done 
 in days of old, or to be angered that the Head of the Church 
 presumed to summon to his side their subjects over whom 
 they, but just now, had been busy asserting their supreme 
 rights.
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 211 
 
 Their alarm and anger were not allayed when it was 
 known that the Council proposed to declare the Dogma of 
 the Papal Infallibility, and the feeling which had been 
 aroused by the Syllabus with its so-called reactionary tone 
 and its strong denunciation of well-established public 
 opinion was increased sevenfold. France was excited; the 
 French Assembly discussed whether the State should not 
 interfere to prevent the bishops obeying the summons. 
 Diplomatists buzzed like flies about the Pope, who preserved 
 a complete calm. 
 
 France, said her Ambassador, would withdraw her 
 troops. 
 
 " Elle pent les retirer," said the Pope. 
 
 M. Beust was opposed to any reference to civil government. 
 
 " M. Beust passera, les Canons resteront," said the Pope. 
 
 But to David Urquhart it seemed as though the sun was 
 rising once more over the world. 
 
 Now there was hope that they might return — those great 
 days when there was public Law in Europe; the days 
 when the Chair of Peter was the Seat of Law; when in every 
 land Doctors of the Church lifted up their voices to pro- 
 claim that Law; when, " to the castles of the Great, to the 
 homes of the Lowly," went from university and monastery, 
 bishops and priests armed with an authority teaching one 
 Law ; when Rome had a definite policy which all men knew, 
 a policy which, in spite of lapses, made for right; when 
 gentle and simple alike thronged the universities, which 
 were the schools of Law; when, though men and nations 
 might disobey and set at defiance the Law, they, at least, 
 had not lost this mark of humanity — that they knew it. 
 Those were the days when the Popes, the Grand Justiciars 
 of Europe, were not afraid to defend the weak against the 
 strong; when it was the proudest boast of the greatest 
 amongst them: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity; 
 therefore I die in exile." 
 
 All this Urquhart saw when he looked back over the 
 ]VIiddle Ages, and though he looked with the eyes of one 
 who loved them, it was not the less a true picture which 
 he saw.
 
 212 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The Middle Ages were the Ages of Law, and it was the 
 Reign of Law that he longed to bring back, in which he 
 saw the only hope for the world. 
 
 The conviction came upon him now, in all its complete- 
 ness, that only through the Church could that reign return. 
 " The Church of Rome," he said, " was in spirit, as she is 
 now in form, judicial." Her very faults were those of a 
 judicial body; the rigidity of which men complained, her 
 close adherence to form, her insistence on legal precedence. 
 These things, in all his relations with her, never estranged 
 Urquhart. His own judicial mind understood the necessity 
 for them. 
 
 The Syllabus, in the eyes of nearly the whole of Europe 
 reactionary and ridiculous, when it was not dangerous, 
 expressed what LTrquhart had been saying all his life. 
 
 He, too, believed that the true motives of action, justice 
 and human right had been lost, and that material force 
 had taken their place. He, too, had been all his life pointing 
 out, at last with the scorn of hopelessness, the certain ruin 
 which would follow if public opinion were taken as the guide 
 of life, instead of Divine and human right. 
 
 " A Society set free from the laws of religion and true 
 justice," said the Pope, " can have no other object than 
 the accumulation of wealth, and no other law in all its 
 acts than the eager desire to satisfy the passions and to 
 procure enjoyment." 
 
 Urquhart had been preaching for more than twenty 
 years that all social evils had come from the overthrow 
 of Law. 
 
 The intense significance of the Syllabus lay, for him, 
 rather in what it was not than in what it was. It was a 
 document of " no political importance, save the use which 
 would be made of it " to destroy the Papal power in Italy; 
 of no originality, for it said what had been said better 
 many times before. In fact, it was of no mark at all save 
 that it showed that the world would have been without an 
 anchor but for one man, who understood the trend of 
 events, and who could expose the idle forms of speech 
 which concealed the most dangerous errors of the day.
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 213 
 
 It was this exposure rather than the denunciations it con- 
 tained which Urquhart held to be vahiable. Had he not 
 preached for years that all language was falsified, and that 
 therefore there was no vehicle in popular language for 
 wholesome and pure ideas, but only for vague and erroneous 
 opinions. 
 
 Thus Rome became at once his great hope for the future. 
 He saw the vision of what might be the result of strong and 
 effective action, such as that of some of the mediaeval 
 Popes, in a world which he, almost alone of his contem- 
 poraries, knew to be in a desperate condition; we ourselves 
 know now how desperate. For one who sees with the eyes 
 of the mind sees, as it were, with telescopic sight. What is 
 far off is brought near, and to him details stand out which 
 to the ordinary onlooker do not exist. 
 
 To his contemporaries, to the greater part of those who 
 read Urquhart' s letters to the press, while indeed the press 
 continued to publish his letters, or heard the speeches of his 
 later years, he seemed exaggerated to the point of eccen- 
 tricity, not to say madness. 
 
 Of his constantly reiterated warning, this was, in effect, 
 the substance : — • 
 
 For all the apparent security in which men had wrapped 
 themselves, the civilisation, nay, the very life of Europe 
 was at stake. The nations were rushing towards a cataclysm 
 the like of which had never yet been seen. The apparent 
 law, order, and decency of government and social state 
 was nothing but a show. Governments were watching to 
 fly at each other's throats, and so were the different classes 
 of society. It was only fear and expediency which held 
 them back. Law was entirely set aside in international 
 relations, it would soon cease to be considered in the internal 
 affairs of nations. 
 
 Truth had ceased to be part of the equipment of diplo- 
 matists; it had ceased to exist in the communications of 
 governments to their people. The newspapers did not 
 exist to communicate facts, but to spread lies, to make 
 the people believe what successive Governments wished 
 them to believe.
 
 214 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 In this way, even by a Government like that of England, 
 which called itself democratic, all power and responsibility 
 was taken out of the hands of the people. 
 
 But not only did the Governments hide truth from the 
 people, they were themselves blind to it. What European 
 Governments had seen the meaning of the German Zoll- 
 verein ? Who had believed him when he pointed out the 
 safety as well as the justice of safeguarding the independence 
 of the Duchies ? How he had been laughed to scorn when 
 he pointed out the danger, to say nothing of the crime, of 
 conniving at the slausrhter of Poland and the fall of 
 Circassia ! 
 
 Greater than all dangers loomed the danger of Russia. 
 Incomprehensible to the mass of Englishmen, a stranger 
 from the East, whose guile was more dangerous than her 
 force, great as that might be; whose cruelty was beyond 
 the imagination of Europeans ; who had not cast aside Law, 
 for she had never possessed it; whose religion under her 
 veneer of Christianity was still barbarism, regarded only 
 by her rulers as a means of extending their power; a great 
 monstrous shadow, rising out of the East, ever creeping 
 on over civilisation, blighting all on which she rested, whose 
 greed for land was insatiable, and whose only mistress, 
 desire. Utterly regardless of human life, she fermented 
 revolution for her own ends. Her agents were spread 
 abroad throughout Europe and the East, she gloated over 
 anarchy, disorder, and unrest, and there was not a dis- 
 turbance or rising in Europe at which she had not been 
 present, leading it on to greater and greater excesses by 
 her whispers and suggestions, or by her open preaching of 
 revolt. In the Cabinets of Europe it had ever been her 
 mission to oppose law and order and justice, to suggest 
 and induce the disregard of law, to foster the deceit and 
 disorder by which she throve. She would not rest, her 
 work would not be done, till the capitals of Europe were 
 heaped-up ruins. Her great strength lay in this, that men 
 did not realise either her aims or in what her power lay.^ 
 
 - See Fallmerayer in Qeschichte de$ Kaiserthvms von Trapezunt, 
 Munich. 1S27.
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 215 
 
 It requires no prophetic vision to see in the fruit what 
 Urquhart saw in the flower. 
 
 The masses are to-day swayed by pubUc opinion, and 
 public opinion is carefully guarded by a press, not only 
 censored but bought. The papers are published not to 
 tell truth but to conceal it. A prominent journalist of the 
 time has described the press as a machine daily plunging 
 the people into darkness to bring out a purpose.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, though the War is over, we are faced with 
 two great dangers. The first is neo-Prussianism. The 
 spirit of the Zollverein, though hard hit, is not yet dead. 
 We are welding the German peoples together by the very 
 severity of the Peace terms as they have never been welded 
 before. 
 
 The second danger is greater because more unknown. 
 What menace to Europe lies hid in that land of mystery, 
 which, always unknown, has. in these days of telegraph, 
 telephone, and wireless, withdrawn itself behind a thick 
 veil of darkness ? 
 
 " Every nation." said Urquhart, " has in the main the 
 government it deserves." What, then, is the real character 
 ot the Russian nation ? Did its duphcity belong entirely 
 to the Czar and his entourage, and are its greed and cruelty 
 buried for ever in the ruins of the old dynasty, or do they 
 still penetrate European countries, a plague and a menace - 
 as they did in the days when the hapless Alexis, so like in 
 character and destiny to the last of the Romanoff Emperors, 
 was tortured and done to death, not by his people, but by 
 his father ? 
 
 From the dangers which, to his prophetic eye, threatened 
 to engulf Europe Urquhart saw one way of escape, and only 
 one — the revival of Law. 
 
 Law, to him, was that by which human beings could weigh 
 their actions and measure their words. It was the earthly 
 manifestation of Divine Justice. It was that without 
 which this ordered Universe would fall into chaos. For 
 
 ^ British Review, December, 1913. 
 
 2 See an article by Ikbar All Shah in the Contemporar)j Review 
 for February, 1919, on the Russian menace.
 
 216 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 the restoration of Law Urqiihart had all his life been strug- 
 gling, by voice and by pen, finding but one here and there 
 who could understand the language he spoke. 
 
 " Voila mon etat," he writes to the Bishop of Rodez in 
 1869, " c'est le monde qui se laisse tuer et qui aide a se 
 faire tuer devant mes yeux et ce n'est pas la voix qui m'est 
 coupee, mais c'est que mes paroles sont incomprehensibles 
 pour ses habitants." 
 
 Urquhart was in this state of despair over the condition 
 of the world when the Pope declared to the assembled 
 bishops his intention of holding a General Council of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 He was not the only social reformer to whom this news 
 came as a ray of hope. " Je viens de decouvrir avec 
 bonheur, un nouveau point de contacte entre M. Urquhart 
 et moi," writes M. Le Play, "en ce qui concerne la re- 
 generation de I'Europe par I'influence bienfaisante directe 
 ou indirecte des conciles cecumeniques. ... H y a une 
 influence bienfaisante qui s'exercera plus utilement encore 
 au profit de la religion et de I'humanite, quand I'Eglise 
 universelle reprenant sa tradition, la plus ancienne, sera 
 de nouveau representee par des conciles reguliers." 
 
 LTrquhart was even more enthusiastic than Le Play. 
 Here was the Head of the only Body in the world which 
 had never let go her hold on the Law, who himself knew 
 the ruin which threatened to follow the arrogance of the 
 modern theory of the State, the lawlessness of all classes of 
 society, proposing to hold a Council to avert that ruin. 
 How else could he propose to do it, except by setting forth 
 the Divine Law, that the nations might see how far they 
 had departed from it ? 
 
 The occasion was unique, the possibilities infinite. The 
 Pope, a temporal sovereign, but unbound by the diplomatic 
 fetters of other rulers, would, from his capital, which was 
 also the capital of Christendom, proclaim the Law. The 
 blind eyes of the nations would be opened. They would see 
 for the first time their danger and their safety: their 
 danger in their own carelessness of right, and their tolerance 
 of acts of lawlessness and international crime; their safety
 
 URQUHART IN SAVOY 217 
 
 in an open, universal return to the obedience of the Law. 
 East and West would unite in the reign of Law. 
 
 Out of the spiritual and moral regeneration of Europe 
 would come peace and brotherhood, an end of war and 
 hatred. Europe would be free from the menace that had 
 hung over her so long, for in the wake of the Council would 
 follow organisations: National Courts, where each nation 
 would decide the issues of peace and war on the ground of 
 justice alone; a great College for the study and codification 
 of Law, for the training of men to think internationally, a 
 school through which the affairs of Europe would pass, so 
 that her councils could no longer be swayed now by one 
 great Power, now by another, anxious only each one for 
 her own self-aggrandisement. 
 
 The baseless fabric of a vision ! The vision of a Utopia, 
 one of those cloudland cities towards which dreamers in 
 all ages of the world's history have stretched forth weary 
 arms and strained aching eyes ! 
 
 But there is no dream without a reality somewhere. 
 And every true dream of a noble dreamer brings the reality 
 nearer. 
 
 Already rose-tinted fragments of Urquhart's Dream City 
 are floating about the world. 
 
 His cloudland City of Law may have remained in the 
 clouds, but since he pointed it out men have seen constant 
 visions of it; our dark and lowering sky reflects stray 
 fragments of it. 
 
 And as men, when they see in the sky strange and wonder- 
 ful mirages of cities and ships, know that, though they 
 behold a vision, the reality is there, so it is with us. The 
 vision is a vision, but it is a true picture of a reality which 
 exists somewhere. 
 
 The world of ideas is as real as the world of facts; nay, 
 more real: it is to ideas that facts owe their birth.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 URQUHART'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CATHOLIC 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 " Heaven, which man's generations draws, 
 Nor deviates into replicas, 
 Must of as deep diversity 
 
 In judgment as creation be." 
 
 Francis Thompson: A Judgment in Heaven. 
 
 At the risk of repetition it seems well, at this point, to 
 attempt some explanation of Urquhart's personal attitude 
 towards the Church of Rome, which, in spite of his great 
 sympathy with her social and political standpoints, and 
 his reverence for many of her representatives, remained to 
 the end of his public life substantially what it was at the 
 beginning. 
 
 It is an impossible task, often as it has been attempted, 
 to make any hard-and-fast rules as to the class of mind 
 on which the Catholic Church is likely to exercise her 
 attraction. 
 
 Many of those who, by every rule of psychology, ought to 
 have fallen under her power remain untouched, while the 
 most unlikely yield to it. 
 
 Urquhart neither resisted her nor wholly yielded. 
 
 It might have been argued that a man to whose nature 
 freedom and independence of thought were the breath of 
 life, who was constantly at variance with things as they 
 were, who was a sworn foe to convention, to a sheep-like 
 following of accepted theories or opinions, who laid on his 
 private judgment all the burden of his right living and 
 thinking, would naturally have been the last to be attracted 
 lo a religious institution which, by common repute, was 
 inimical to liberty either of thought or of action, which 
 insisted on a slavish following of rules, maxims, accepted 
 
 218
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 219 
 
 beliefs and theories, which held men's consciences bound 
 under sin to follow not only the commandments of God^ 
 but the dicta of men, and finally insisted that all private 
 judgment should be surrendered, on demand and irre- 
 vocably, to its asserted authority. Or, on the other hand, 
 if he did admit her claims, it would never be with the intel- 
 lect, it could only be under the stress of such great and 
 overwhelming spiritual emotion as would demand the 
 supreme sacrifice of his whole being, of action, thought, 
 judgment and will, so that whatever might be his attitude 
 towards the rest of the world, it would henceforth be towards 
 the Catholic Church one of absolute submission. 
 
 Neither of these alternative modes of action, however, 
 was Urquhart's ; he adopted instead a course which even to 
 a student of his character, must appear, at first sight, 
 surprising. 
 
 On the one hand he was full of admiration for the Catholic 
 Church: she was for him the only moral force in Europe. 
 Her Head had alone of European Sovereigns commanded 
 the respect of and even put the fear of God into Napoleon.^ 
 
 In 1842 Gregory XVI., "with a solitary regiment of 
 Guards, had dared to do what France, England and Prussia, 
 with a million and a quarter bayonets at their disposal, 
 had feared to do — tax the Emperor of Russia with a 
 lie !" 
 
 Urquhart hailed with joy the remonstrance which the 
 Pope had addressed to the Czar on his breach of the Treaty 
 of Vienna in the persecutions of both Russian and Polish 
 Catholics. His imagination was touched by the spectacle 
 of the Pontiff, powerless and despised, yet alone in Europe 
 venturing to call to account for his deeds the Czar of all the 
 Russias. 
 
 He recalled the great past of the Church — great not in 
 wealth and power, but in the righteousness and justice in 
 which to-day she might be great also : 
 
 " In the early days, the Bishops of Rome supplicated to 
 the strong and interceded for the weak. And they de- 
 nounced where they could not prevent. Through their 
 thousands of priests and monks they laboured in the remote
 
 220 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 boroughs, through their prelates and nuncios in princely 
 halls, to impress respect for law, charity to men. They 
 taught the young, counselled the powerful, protected the 
 weak, and thus by patient, resigned and zealous devotion 
 to the task of teaching, they themselves became leaders, 
 chiefs and princes. This power was gained by their setting 
 their faces against oppression, and as this was separately 
 done in each State of Christendom, the (Uiurch simultane- 
 ously rose to the control of International Relations. Thus 
 did Religion put a check upon the passions of Nation against 
 Nation, and on the power of Prince against Prince. . . . 
 (To-day) the Pope finds Europe exposed, not severally to 
 the feudal opjDression of King and Baron, but to a danger 
 that menaces it altogether. He warns Europe; he must go 
 on to call forth all the mental powers possessed by his See, 
 and they are tremendous, whensoever employed, to resist 
 the common enemy by awakening all other States to a 
 sense of their danger, and by recalling to the hearts of men 
 a sense of Justice, without which that danger cannot be 
 averted. All other Powers having abandoned this defence 
 he stands forth alone as the Defender of EurojDe. It is a 
 mightier task than that of his predecessors — than that by 
 the accomplishment of which his predecessors raised the 
 Popedom to the highest level of earthly dignity and spiritual 
 preponderance over the Western World." 
 
 The Papacy was to Urquhart the earthly representative 
 of the Divine Justice. She was the one Power out of all 
 the world which could stand against the evil incarnate of 
 autocracy, aggression and oppression. She was the source 
 of Law and the Law-giver to Europe. She was the 
 Guardian of the Tradition, which is the safeguard of 
 Doctrine. Her power depended not on circumstances, but 
 on her empire over the hearts and consciences of men. 
 
 The Popes, in the past, had been guilty of pride and 
 arrogance, and, in the present, the fear of man, timidity 
 and vacillation had ruled their counsels; but if the saying 
 "By their fruits ye shall know them" had any meaning 
 at all, then he, and those lilte-minded with him, were right 
 in regarding the Papacy as the one steady light amid dark- 
 ness, the one hope for the safety of Europe; for amid all 
 her failures she had never failed through long centuries to
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 221 
 
 hold up to the Nations the Commandments of God for their 
 entire and unswerving obedience. 
 
 It is perhaps the most irrefutable proof of the justice 
 of the Church's claim to spiritual empire that each man 
 discovers in her the fulfilment of the needs of his own 
 nature. 
 
 Urquhart found in her the fount and guardian of Law; 
 and in the Pope he found the Law-giver. In the Papal 
 Infallibility he firmly beheved, even before the promulgation 
 of the Decree, though perhaps his explanation of it would 
 not have generally commended itself to Catholics. 
 
 It followed in his mind as a natural corollary to his behef 
 in the power of individual man to be right, that there must 
 be an organisation in the world, an authority which was con- 
 sciously able not to err. That organisation, that authority, 
 he found in the CathoUc Church. 
 
 If the Church was able to be right, so must also its head 
 and voice. " To deny it," he said, " makes the body a 
 corpse; it is like the head of John the Baptist in a charger." 
 
 It was, in fact, the Pope on whom Urquhart's eyes were 
 fixed when he spoke of the Church. To him the Pope was 
 not only the great authority and teacher. He was the 
 ideal Sovereign beneath whose rule, founded as it was on 
 absolute justice, the peoples might have dwelt in freedom 
 and security alike from the twin- tyrannies of force and 
 legislation. Such he had been, in theory at least, in the 
 Middle Ages, such he might be now in an even truer sense 
 if he would but stand firm against the Anti-Christ,^ which 
 had overshadowed Europe and over which he alone on earth 
 had power. 
 
 When Urquhart was apprised by an Oxford friend that 
 there were those who were startled, and even shocked, at 
 finding a tendency, if not to a union with the Church of 
 Rome, at least to a great admiration for her doctrines and 
 practice, he answered that in dealing with reUgion he 
 looked '' to the obhgations it imposes, not to the Creed it 
 professes, and it was in that respect that he placed the 
 
 1 To Mm the Anti-Christ was any power wliicli did not acknowledge 
 Law; it was, he believed, incarnate in his times in Kussia.
 
 222 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Church of Rome far above any Protestant body." " The 
 former had," he said, '' preserved traditions of better times, 
 and had not propounded that monstrous doctrine which 
 extinguishes the citizen and the Christian: 'Religion and 
 pohtics are distinct.' "^ 
 
 On the other hand, for all his admiration, Urquhart's 
 atticude towards the Catholic Church was never that of 
 submission; his veneration for the great past of the Papacy 
 went along with a clear view of what he considered to be 
 her faults, and an unsparing denunciation of them. 
 
 In the hey-dey of her power as a temporal Sovereignty, 
 
 1 That the respect between Uiquhait and the Catholic Church 
 was mutual can be seeu iu a Review on his i'reatise "" The Duty ot 
 the Church ot Euglaud in regard to Unlawtul War " which appeared 
 iu the Catholic Magazine tor July, 18-13. In the course ot his remarks 
 the reviewer says: " This is a welcome monograph trom the pen ot an 
 eminent diplomatist ot this country, whose valuable contributions 
 to our store oi knowledge upon the policy ot Russia — more especially 
 as regards our possessions m the East — give him a standing title to 
 tlie pubUc atteniion, whenever he may cnoose to claim it. 
 
 " i'he inferiority of British diplomatists is the laughing-stock of 
 the whole ot the diplomatic world, it the Russians have over-reached 
 and ridiculed us in every negotiation from the Treaty of Vienna 
 downwards, we have only ourselves to thank for it. . . . 
 
 '• Mr. Urquhart, being of too high a mind to engage in diplomacy 
 upon the customary terms of knowing nothing about it, began public 
 lue by making himself master of his subject. This achievement, 
 superadded to a stock of principle and patriotic ardour, altogether 
 irregular and unofficial, very soon insured him the open hostility 
 of ^is already jealous associates. Downing Street and he parted 
 company, and returned, tlie former to its wallowing in the mire, 
 tlie latter to the prosecution of liis generous and far-reaching plans 
 for the salvation of an empire jeopardised by the apathy of the 
 nation and its blind confidence in weak or traitorous servants. The 
 first of the treatises named at the head ot our own article endeavours 
 to set in motion an old Catholic principle, which from the Reformation 
 downwards had gradually subsided into inert and deathlike repose. 
 It seeks to revive amongst Protestants a doctrine that has almost 
 been forgotten in practice among ourselves. In unfavourable days, 
 and to an unbelieving and evil generation, he presents again the true 
 principle that was paramount in the days when Christendom was 
 great. In a land which resounds with the parrot-like repetitions 
 of the same trite phrase, importing a heresy in one of its acceptations, 
 and a silly truism in the other that ' the Church has nothing to do 
 with politics,' this Protestant and diplomatist has not hesitated to 
 avow that it is at all times the duty of the Church of God to make 
 clear what is doubtful in public as well as in private affairs, and that 
 unless it denounces the crime of which the public or the State 
 is guilty or about to become so, its sanction is tacitly given to the 
 wickedness which it has not exerted itself to resist."
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 223 
 
 though she had been free from territorial ambition and 
 had never been guilty of oppression of the poor, she had 
 been lordly and domineering over her equals. 
 
 For the Reformation which was fraught with such dire 
 consequences to the whole of Europe, she was herself largely 
 responsible by her failure to see and reform her own abuses. 
 And though, after that cataclysm, she had been the first 
 to recover herself, and had nobly re-estabhshed Public Law 
 in her place of honour before the Nations of Europe, it 
 was her failure to live up to that law, to maintain it against 
 the powers of the world, which had involved the world in 
 lawlessness. 
 
 Though the Pope had saved his own soul by refusing to 
 take any part in the Holy Alliance, he had failed to rule 
 his own household, and in the eyes of Europe he had been 
 himself incriminated by the part which the ApostoUc 
 Emperor played at that Congress. His own moral force 
 was weakened when, instead of upholding Poland in her 
 resistance to injustice, he had, by his Rescript enjoining on 
 her obedience to Russia, weakly surrendered Right to 
 Mght. 
 
 When the CathoUc Emancipation Act was passed in 
 England, no lead was given to CathoUcs as to the part they 
 ought to play in the nation of which they were once more 
 the potential legislators. The whole modern history of 
 Europe must have been different if Enghsh and Irish 
 Cathohcs, instead of being allowed to drift into traditional 
 party factions, had entered Parhament with some of the 
 spirit of their mediaeval predecessors, and had banded 
 themselves together for the defence of Europe. 
 
 Writing to an Irish Catholic Archbishop in 1840,Urquhart 
 remonstrated as follows with the policy which the Catholic 
 Hierarchy were pursuing: 
 
 '' But, my Lord, I do say that much more laudable it 
 had been for the votes of Cathohc Ireland to have been 
 registered on the side of Law and Justice. The strength 
 wnich placed Downing Street at their mercy would have 
 warded off many a blow from the Empire and its foreign 
 AlUes and well-wishers ; had the Irish members known how
 
 224 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 to keep themselves from faction, Poland would have been 
 free, Circassia would have been at peace. The Ottoman 
 Empire would have been independent. The Peninsula 
 would have been enjoying the blessings of a restored, instead 
 of the curses of a fabricated. Constitution. Austria would 
 have remained what she was, England's bulwark against 
 Russia. China would not have known England, save as 
 her distant and friendly customer. Afghanistan would 
 not have been laid waste, its cities burned, its children 
 slaughtered. . . . The Church, my Lord, was ever the 
 authority between Nation and Nation, King and People, 
 citizen and citizen. The whole field of political science is 
 but an acre in the vast domain of duty. You, my Lord, 
 are one of the tillers of the soil. It is the proper scene of 
 your labours, for it is also your inheritance." 
 
 There is little doubt that had the Catholic Church of 
 those days preserved the tradition of the time when men 
 knew her for the organised Kingdom of Good, ruling earthly 
 kingdoms, and contending against the Kingdom of Evil, 
 Urquhart would have thrown in his lot whole-heartedly 
 with her. He loved her present form because it seemed 
 to him instinct with her ancient spirit. 
 
 " The Church of Rome," he says, "is in form, and was 
 in spirit, more of a legal than a religious body. How else 
 could her jurisdiction have extended beyond the diocese. 
 The Fathers, the writers on Canon Law, the morahsts were 
 all lawyers, making the Law, executing the Law, teaching it 
 to boys, enjoining it on Kings." 
 
 These words contain the kernel of Urquhart's attraction 
 to the Mediaeval Church. It was the home of Law; and 
 Law was to him the earthly expression of the Divine Justice. 
 In her great organisation each kingdom, each diocese, each 
 parish, down to the smallest hamlet of the most remote 
 province had its own Court, its own Tribunal, its own 
 Judge. The Mediseval Church established and maintained, 
 not only the Divine Law against spiritual evil, but she 
 maintained against the feudalism of the Middle Ages an 
 ordered freedom, a reign of Law; in the midst of tyranny 
 she was the champion of the Rights of Man: the only true 
 Democratic Institution then in the world. Here was the true
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 225 
 
 bond of union between Urquhart and the Church. In his 
 love of Justice his soul reached down to a depth where it 
 was at one with the deep soul of the Church, that eternal 
 and universal part of her which is affected neither by time 
 nor place, and takes no colour, as in her outward structure 
 she is bound to do, from the age through which she passes. 
 She was imperfect, though he felt her to be the most perfect 
 reUgious system of which he knew, and the spiritual home 
 he failed to find in her he found nowhere else. 
 
 He had outworn Calvinism in his youth, and though for 
 many years he had nominally belonged to the Church of 
 England, there was scarcely anything in her past history, 
 in her discipline, in her conduct with regard to inter- 
 national affairs, or in the public actions and utterances of 
 her ministers, from the Archbishop of Canterbury down- 
 wards, to which he could give whole-hearted adherence. 
 Her acquiescence in the oppression of the poor and in the 
 abuses of the Poor Law; her attitude towards the wrongs 
 and injustices done to Ireland; her failure to protest against 
 wars of injustice and dishonour, drew from him constant 
 and stern protests.^ The subversion of the clergy to the 
 State had many times forced him to leave some church in 
 the midst of the clergyman's discourse rather than appear 
 to approve it by remaining. But he reached the high- 
 water-mark of his indignation when the Bishop of Oxford 
 condoned, at a public meeting, the iniquitous peace with 
 China in 1859, by proclaiming that through it "God had 
 opened the door for the Gospel in China." 
 
 ^ " The Churcli of England, havmg assimilated itself to tlie Church 
 of Russia, first sanctioned the support of England to such deeds when 
 committed by Russia, and now sanctions them when perpetrated by 
 England herself. ... To the teachers and preachers of our time, 
 the words ' blood ' and ' iniquity ' have no meaning. To them the 
 one is ' war ' and the other ' policy.' With these they have no con- 
 cern, and, neglecting the graver matters of the Law, they attend to 
 the mint and cummin : they can be agitated about surplices, convulsed 
 by an epithet, occupied with baptismal fonts and church architecture. 
 They have wrapped themselves round in a cloak of slime, they have 
 embedded their consciences in lees of mud, and neither arguments 
 from without, nor denunciations from within, the Book of God 
 which they handle, or the denunciations of men which they hear, 
 can touch, awake, arouse, or give lile." Portfolio. New Series. 
 Vol. II. No. 5. "The three Religio-Pohtical Systems of Europe." 
 
 15
 
 226 DAVID URQUHAUT 
 
 He had come across the Oxford Movement to be either 
 entirely untouched by it, or contemptuous of it. ''A 
 religion of pews and surplices," he calls it. His intimate 
 friend and parUamentary twin, Thomas Chrisholm Anstey, 
 had passed through it to develop into an ardent Catholic 
 and a keen disciple of Urquhart. 
 
 The only other Tractarian with whom he came in close 
 contact was William George Ward.^ Urquhart in review- 
 ing^ his famous book, The Ideal of a Christian Church, is 
 divided between admiration for the writer's enUghtenment 
 and surprise at his ignorance. He expresses his astonish- 
 ment at a remark that it v/as " for the Church of England 
 to set forth works on International Morality covering more 
 ground than the Roman theologians," since " neither Paley 
 nor the Romans seem to have gone deeply enough into it." 
 "More ground," says the reviewer, "covered, than by 
 Roman works on International Morality ! Such words 
 proceeding from a man of the powers of Mr. Ward !" 
 
 Urquhart goes on in the same review to describe some- 
 thing of what the CathoHc Church had done in the way of 
 setting forth International Morality, and at the same time 
 expresses great hope for Mr. Ward by reason of his appre- 
 hension of what most men in his day seem to have forgotten 
 or to be unconscious of — the existence of " National fSin." 
 
 ^ There is amongst his papers an account of a visit to Newman 
 at Lifctlemore in 1844. Newman seems to have been impressed by 
 him, introduced him to Charles Marriott and to W. Gr. Ward and 
 suggested him calling upon Mozely. " The man on whom my hopes 
 prmcipally at present depend," he writes, " is Mr Ward. This 
 man was quoted on both sides as the man of greatest intellectual 
 power in the University." 
 
 Urquhart and Monteith seem to have been engaged at this time 
 in making a missionary tour of Oxford colleges. Monteith expresses 
 himself as dehghted v.ith the " quietness, gravity, and indifference 
 to the singularity of facts at first sight " which they found at the 
 University, It reminded him of the operatives' attitude. 
 
 " For my part," he says, " I am delighted, Mr. Urquhart has 
 Been, up to this time, some thirty men at University, Merton, Balliol, 
 and Oriel. A Mr. Woolcombe, Tutor at BaUiol, brought us and Mr. 
 Ward in contact at breakfast. A conversation from 9 till 11, and 
 now they are out walking, from 2 till 5. This is all very sa,tisfactory. 
 
 "iWe dine in Hall at Merton to-morrow, breakast at University, 
 and there are various other appointments." 
 
 ' Fortfolio. New Series, No. 12.
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHUilCH 227 
 
 The review led to several interviews between Ward and 
 Urquhart, who describes them and their result as follows : 
 
 " As for Mr. Ward, no fruits have followed our conversa- 
 tions, though these have been continuous, prolonged, 
 earnest, travelling to past times, remote regions, both for 
 comparison and instruction, and this in reference to our 
 duty, what his, what mine. At the close, the question 
 was what he could effect ; the further path lay through the 
 desert; he had to come out from amongst men and enter 
 into himself ; and in lieu of all that his present position has 
 of enjoyment in the opinion of men, their hate and reviling, 
 as in corrupt times has been and must be the fate of wit- 
 nesses against sin. To these thoughts did he seem lifted 
 up, and to this resolution did his Ups adhere. Nothing has 
 followed." 
 
 However, the following year Ward did go out into the 
 desert, though not in Urquhart's sense. He left his place 
 and work in Oxford and was received into the Catholic 
 Church. Perhaps the discovery which he could not have 
 failed to make during those " continuous and prolonged 
 and earnest conversations," that the Catholic Church had 
 apprehended and condemned National Sin, that it would 
 be difficult for him and his friends to find unbroken ground 
 to dig up in the field of National Morality, led him to throw 
 in his lot finally with the great army which for so many 
 centuries had been fighting National Sin and International 
 Immorality by the Public Law, which was the only effective 
 weapon against it. 
 
 But neither Ward's example nor Anstey's was one which 
 Urquhart found himself able to follow. 
 
 Not all that he knew of the power and virtue of the 
 Church, not all the influence of Catholic friends, not all the 
 admiration and friendship of his later years for many of 
 the eminent Catholics amongst whom his lot was cast, was 
 strong enough to overcome the reasons which he brought 
 forward against such a step. Most of these reasons he 
 attributed to the Church herself, but there are others which 
 we, in looking back on his life, must find in his own character. 
 
 He always thought that the Church laid too much stress 
 on the holding of certain doctrines and of faith in them.
 
 228 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 To Urquhart conduct was all-important. The Church, he 
 maintained, as she grew more stringent in her demands on 
 a man's faith, had become laxer in regard to his conduct. 
 Particularly this applied to his conduct as member of a 
 Community. 
 
 She had, it is true, never dared to take up the doctrine, 
 which certain of the Reformed Churches had adopted at the 
 Reformation, and deny the right of Religion to interfere 
 in Politics, but she had become silent where she used to 
 speak, and had grown complaisant when of old she would 
 have condemned. 
 
 Such of her popular devotions too as had come under his 
 notice seemed to him unworthy. All the various devices 
 for overcoming the resistance of the natural man to piety 
 he could neither understand nor sympathise with. 
 
 He deprecated the loss of freedom and consequently of 
 individuality, strength and vitality which had resulted from 
 the growing centrahsation of her government. 
 
 The reasons which Catholics were accustomed to put 
 before him as motives for his conversion were abhorrent to 
 him. The idea of becoming a Catholic to save his own 
 soul was one which he never entertained for a moment. 
 The ultimate end of religion was not a selfish one; it could 
 not be regarded primarily as a means of salvation — that 
 could only be wrought by resistance to evil in others, and 
 sin in oneself. 
 
 Nor was it a provision for happiness and peace; it was 
 an oath by which one was bound — in his case bound to 
 labour. The removal of hardness from the path of her 
 children, the fact that she no longer demanded strenuous 
 effort from them, but rather seemed, he thought, to en- 
 courage them to inaction, was in his eyes the strongest 
 mark of the modern degeneracy of the Church and enough 
 of itself to bar him from her communion. 
 
 On the other hand, there were reasons, equally potent, 
 in Urquhart's own character why he never became a 
 Catholic. 
 
 He had not, to begin with, the CathoUc conception of 
 Truth. The search after Truth, to him, lay not in any
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 229 
 
 attempt to arrive at a right apprehension of eternal verities?, 
 a true estimate of man's relation to the unseen world, but 
 in sincerity in his actual relations with his fellows. 
 
 So also with his theory of perfection. He saw the human 
 imperfections of CathoUcs. He had his own vision of per- 
 fection, to which the Church in her outward manifestations 
 did not correspond. He constantly found himself criticising 
 her. To have thrown in his lot with her would have meant, 
 in his code of honesty, to signify his approval of all her 
 acts. Therefore he remained apart from her. 
 
 But the most vital reason lay in Urquhart's lack of what 
 we sometimes carelessly speak of as " spiritual life," mean- 
 ing thereby a life of conscious worship, of conscious prayer, 
 of conscious Sacramental union. Such a life is sui generis ; 
 it may be intense, it may be feebly stirring, but in any case 
 it is a different thing from an unconscious life. No one 
 can have had a more intense inner life than Urquhart. 
 That life was one prolonged thought of holiness, one pro- 
 longed prayer of action; one "daily and hourly endeavour 
 to be a Christian." But it was the intense healthful, bound- 
 ing life of youth that has not realised itself— a life so occu- 
 pied with the life of the world around that it cannot be 
 interested in its own. 
 
 Urquhart's life, moreover, was one of heroic reparation, 
 springing from intense repentance for an act which he alone 
 judged and condemned as a crime. 
 
 Just as he stood alone in his condemnation of the age, 
 so he stood alone in his condemnation of himself. 
 
 In this, is he not at one with some of the great saints of 
 the Church — with Ignatius Loyola himself ? 
 
 But as he followed the Truth, as it seemed to him, in his 
 condemnation of himself, so he followed it later on in the 
 judgment he passed on the Church. 
 
 " If the Church is divine," he said to his wife at the time 
 of the Vatican Council, " she will take her stand firmly on 
 the side of right, against all the Governments in the world. 
 If she does so, I will be a Catholic." 
 
 It was a test, and an unfair one, though that Urquhart 
 did not realise.
 
 230 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Man may not, moreover, bargain with God and His 
 Church. 
 
 Therefore, like Moses from the heights of Pisgah, Urquhart 
 viewed a Promised Land which he never entered. 
 
 But, unlike Moses, he came to think that the Promised 
 Land was only a mirage; his want of faith shut him out, 
 not only from the Land, but from the consolation of knowing 
 it was there. 
 
 Nevertheless, those who could best judge of him were 
 more than content to leave him, like Moses, in the hands 
 of the God he had so faithfully served. 
 
 The Catholic priests who knew him most intimately, 
 however much they regretted his attitude towards the 
 Church, were not seriously disturbed by it. 
 
 They stood with veneration before a life of so great 
 devotion. 
 
 They saw that he achieved what others only talked of 
 or aspired to. 
 
 " He followed up to the heights," said one, after his 
 death, " the light he had. God will look after him."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 
 
 " Thou spakest sometimes in visions unto Thy 
 Saints and saidest: 
 
 I have laid help upon One that is mighty, 
 I have exalted one chosen out of the people." 
 
 Psalm Ixxxix. (Prayer Book Version.) 
 
 " Justitia et Judicium prteparatio sedis tuae " 
 
 Psalm Ixxxviii. (Vulgate.) 
 
 ■' For myself, I cease not night or day from the task, nor 
 have ceased since the light broke in upon me and showed 
 me to myself to be a reprobate and an assassin." 
 
 So Urquhart wrote to Baron Schroeder in 1 868. For more 
 than forty years had this ceaseless toil gone on. In the 
 accomplishment of the expiation which he had marked out 
 for himself he had suffered the loss of career, reputation, 
 friends, health, and means. But his efforts had never 
 relaxed. After each losing battle he prepared for another, 
 hoping against hope to open the eyes of his fellow-men to 
 the mortal sin in which the world was involved. In his 
 own country there was a steady design to keep him from 
 gaining the public ear. " For years," he said, " I have 
 tried in vain to get myself prosecuted." 
 
 Joined to the conspiracy of silence was a conspiracy of 
 ridicule, and those who had most to fear from what he 
 could say laughed loudest and longest. 
 
 In the East he had never lost the hearing he had gained. 
 Amongst working men there had always been those un- 
 sophisticated enough to understand the simple morality he 
 preached. 
 
 Now he had gained another public, this time amongst the 
 Catholics of France. " There are two sets of people," he 
 wrote to his friend Rustem Bey, the Turkish Envoy in 
 
 23X
 
 232 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Italy, before the Sultan's visit to Europe in 1867, "with 
 whom it would be worth while to establish an understand- 
 ing — the English working man and the French Catholic 
 party. All the rest are blind." 
 
 It was with the French Catholics that he was to establish 
 his warmest relations. 
 
 The chalet among the snows of the Alps was impossible 
 as a winter residence. The first winter of his life abroad 
 found him with his wife and family at Nice. There he 
 met the Bishop of Orleans, Mgr. Dupanloup. The two 
 were mutually attracted, Urquhart by the Bishop's " im- 
 mense capacity," Dupanloup apparently by Urquhart's 
 deep insight into the political situation, especially as regards 
 Russia. 
 
 It was, however, in the little town of Rheims, thronged 
 with the memories of her past greatness, wistful with the 
 mysterious prophecies of her future sufferings, that the 
 direction of Urquhart's future work was decided. It was 
 one of those strange happenings of which his life was full, 
 one of those chance encounters which point to the guiding 
 of a Providence in the working out of a fate. Rheims was 
 at that time the centre of a little school of French Canonists, 
 a circle of men sufficiently humble but withal learned and 
 devout. They heard of Urquhart and saw some of his 
 writings through the visits to Rheims of a French lawyer 
 of Belfort, Juvigny. They were amazed and delighted. 
 " For years," said one, the Pere JuUion, " have I been cast 
 down by the thought that Justice had left the world; have 
 I been searching in vain for a man who, knowing what we 
 had lost, would work with me to restore it. At last I have 
 found him." 
 
 At the pressing invitation of two members of the little 
 group, Pere JuUion and the Abbe Defourny, Urquhart went 
 to Rheims. 
 
 That visit was the beginning of a close and intimate 
 friendship with Juvigny, Pere Jullion, the Abbe Defourny, 
 Pere Aymond, and " the saint " of the little circle, Pere 
 Philippe. Not only were his words on Righteousness, 
 Justice, the sin, danger, and evil in which the world lay.
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 233 
 
 understood almost before he uttered them, but words from 
 which his own might have been taken went out to answer 
 them. There at Rheims, for the first time, the Canon Law 
 was opened to him. His astonishment and delight knew 
 no bounds. Here was the goal of his lifelong search. 
 
 But, on the very threshold, he was faced with a difficulty. 
 
 ''Why," he asked, "if this is the Law of your Church, 
 does not the Church proclaim it to the world ? Why do 
 Catholics fight in the unjust wars of their Governments 
 without raising a protest ? Why do Catholic nations know 
 no more of public morality than Protestant ?" Pere Collet, 
 the secretary of the Bishop of Geneva, answered him: " It 
 is because out of our Catechisms we have dropped the 
 teaching of the Law; because no longer do we teach our 
 children that unjust war is robbery and murder." 
 
 By this time Urquhart had many Catholic friends in 
 England. Not to speak of his devoted disciples, Monteith 
 and Lord Denbigh, he had gained the ear of Archbishop 
 Manning, to whom Pere Jullion wrote: " I believe that Mr 
 Urquhart, who is evidently chosen of God, who bears in 
 his soul an image come straight down from Heaven in his 
 great intellect, is nearer to the Catholic Church than he 
 thinks, and is at the same time more Catholic than many 
 of our French Catholics. 
 
 " If God had not showered upon him His grace, his 
 intelligence could not have risen to such a height, in his 
 contemplations of the Will of God, his heart could not have 
 breathed forth so much supernatural love for the well-being 
 of all humanity, nor could his will have been strong enough 
 to raise his glorious banner with so full a determination 
 to carry it triumphant through all the world." 
 
 Abroad he had warm friends and allies in Mgr. Mermillod, 
 the Auxiliary Bishop of Geneva, and in the Bishops of Rodez 
 and Mayence, not to speak of Mgr. Franchi and several 
 Eastern ecclesiastics of high rank. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was not by any suggestion on the part 
 of his Catholic friends, but purely of his own initiative, that 
 he decided to appeal to Pius IX. for the restoration of the 
 Canon Law, of whose existence he had but just learnt.
 
 234 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The Appeal was sent to Pius IX. in the first days of 
 1869, under cover of a Latin letter, of which the following 
 is a translation : 
 
 " On this, the first day of a year which will be memorable 
 in the eyes of generations to come, I approach the highest 
 Court of human power and lay this book at the feet of 
 your Holiness. 
 
 " My purpose in writing it, and my object in offering it, 
 is that it may serve to bend human ends to serve your will. 
 
 " That will, so far as I understand it, is that the Law of 
 Nations and the laws of man may be sanctified and pre- 
 served; that laws despised and compacts broken may be 
 so written on the hearts of men that the world may be led 
 back to peace and confidence. 
 
 " Holy Father, you have set in motion a means, in the 
 Council about to be held, whereby a voice which we may 
 regard as the Voice of God Himself may go forth from the 
 Assembly of the Faithful to the whole world. 
 
 " In the name of those who stand without, I declare that 
 we will listen to this voice instead of the voice of Kings or 
 the laws which we accept to-day, if it will show us a way 
 whereby we may be free from public guilt. 
 
 '' Power is two-edged and glory is vain; there is nothing 
 powerful or lasting save that which provides a remedy for 
 the ills and errors of men. 
 
 " In your hands lies that power. Other power or hope 
 is there none. 
 
 " I pray you. Holy Father, to call forth the lofty under- 
 standing which is an everlasting possession of the Roman 
 Church; to exercise that knowledge known of old as the 
 knowledge of things human and divine by which pagan 
 Rome was greatly known and revered. 
 
 " This, too, depends on your Holiness' power and will. 
 
 " By your royal power, by your ancient title, by the 
 memory of the past, by the very language which you speak, 
 I pray your Holiness to come to the aid of an unhappy 
 world which can neither bear nor cure the ills under which 
 it labours. 
 
 " David Urquhart."^ 
 
 1 This letter in Latin, with the five points of the Appeal, is given 
 on p. 1309. No. 3G5 of the Appendix to the " Acta et Decreta SS. 
 Con: Vat: " under the following heading: 
 
 David Urquhart, protestans, rationis in puperiore docnmento pro- 
 positse acer propugnator, dedicat Summo Pontifici libium, quern in-
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 235 
 
 In appealing to the Pope Urquhart appealed to the whole 
 Catholic world. 
 
 But the Appeal is much more than an Appeal. It is a 
 serious indictment of modern Governments ; it is a reasoned 
 and progressive statement of the harm that has been done 
 to the world by the quiet setting aside of Law by those in 
 power, and the silent submission of the people to such 
 disregard — ^a submission born of ignorance and indifference. 
 
 It shows that such indifference was the fault of those 
 who, having received the Law as a sacred deposit, had 
 neglected, through ignorance, cowardice, or self-love, to 
 proclaim it. Now, however, things had come to such a 
 pass, so blinded were men by self-love, so convinced were 
 they that falsehood and wrong were truth and justice by 
 the false use of words such as " civilisation," " progress," 
 "public opinion," that only one voice could reach them, 
 the voice of the Head of Christendom. 
 
 Not only was the Pope alone able to speak to the world, 
 but it was his bounden duty to do it. The Head of a mere 
 Religious Sect might hold his peace and, for his own com- 
 fort and ease, condone the crimes of the civil Government 
 under which he lived. But the Pope lived under no Govern- 
 ment. He was an independent sovereign; moreover, he 
 was the Father of Christendom; all the children of men 
 were his children. Should war break out he must condemn 
 the wrong side, he must show where Justice lay, or how 
 could his cliildren know their duty ? 
 
 scripsit Appel d'un Protestant au Pape pour le ritdblissement du 
 droit public des nations, affirmatque nullam aliam, prseterquam 
 Ecclesia? Catholicse, reperiri auctoritatein quse recto codici juris 
 gentium inter homines restituendo par esse possit. Ad hoc prss- 
 clarum munus vocari futurum Concilium cecumenicum. Hujus 
 silentium violati illius juris comprobatum fore. 
 
 This description may be translated as follows: 
 
 David Urquhart, a Protestant and a fierce protagonist of the policy 
 set forth in the accompanying document, dedicates to the Supreme 
 Pontiff a book which he calls: The Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope 
 for the Pestoration of the Law of Nations. He declares that there is 
 no other authority but that of the Catholic Church, which can restore 
 to man the true code of the Law of Nations. 
 
 He maintains that the (Ecumenical Council is called to this noble 
 task, that for her to be silent would be to condone the violations of 
 that Law.
 
 236 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 The Pope had proclaimed, and rightly proclaimed, that 
 he had authority over " the consciences not only of men 
 but of communities, peoples, and their sovereigns " ; but 
 until he had defined the Law as it was defined in the past 
 he could not exert that authority. The Law must be pro- 
 claimed, and must be applied to present needs, and to each 
 case as it arose. To that end there was need of a School 
 of Public Law where diplomatists could be taught Law 
 and its applications, not only to war, but to Congresses, 
 to Treaties, and to Protocols, and where priests could be 
 trained as in the Mediaeval Universities, that they might 
 teach their people. 
 
 It was false and futile to say that the Church could keep 
 out of politics and ought to do so. She could only do so 
 by condoning wrong. Did not the great Popes of the past 
 exercise authority over the Rulers of the world ? Did not 
 even Alexander VI. interfere to try and prevent injustice 
 on the part of the King of Portugal ? Did Pius VII. keep 
 out of politics when he drew upon himself the vengeance of 
 Napoleon by refusing to subscribe to the Berlin and Milan 
 Decrees ? or when he refused to have anything to do with 
 the Congress of Vienna ? Did Gregory XVI. keep out of 
 politics when he protested before Europe against the cruelties 
 inflicted on Poland by a Power before whom they all 
 crouched, and against whom only he stood upright ? 
 
 No Catholic could keep out of politics; much less could 
 the Head of the Catholic Church. If the Pope did not 
 bring the world under the dominion of Law, the world 
 would bring him under that of force. The sole hope of the 
 world for moral regeneration lay in the Pope. Law was 
 dead; Justice was dead; and Peace and Goodwill had fallen 
 with them into the grave. 
 
 "Pius IX.," so he concludes his argument, "combines 
 qualifications so dissimilar and so eminent that he seems 
 to have been providentially raised up for the need of the 
 world, being at once an Ecclesiastic who has applied his 
 mind to analytical exercises and a Sovereign who is one 
 not in name only, as are the other Sovereigns of Europe, 
 but in power also. Were the Catholic Church of one mind
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 237 
 
 with the Pope the work would be done, or, rather, it would 
 not require to be done. His difficulties are with his own 
 flock, at once incapable of following his thought and com- 
 prehending and admiring the courage displayed on so many 
 occasions by the greatest PontifE who has ever sat on the 
 throne of St. Peter." 
 
 The Appeal was sent to Pius IX. in March, 1869, under 
 cover of a brief personal appeal that the restoration of the 
 Canon Law might be included in the work of the forth- 
 coming Council. It was at the same time circulated both 
 amongst Protestants and Catholics. 
 
 It received a very varied reception. The Bishop of 
 Rodez referred to it in terms of the highest commendation 
 in his Lenten Pastoral; Archbishop Manning expressed his 
 entire concurrence with what Urquhart had said, but dis- 
 approved of any appeal to the Pope, " save by the accus- 
 tomed channels." It is not too much to say that Catholics 
 generally were sympathetic. Urquhart himself said that 
 even when they did not approve they at least understood 
 his meaning. In almost all cases where they showed want 
 of sympathy it was due to political causes. His greatest 
 foe was not Protestantism— Protestants were for the most 
 part indifferent — but Gallicanism. 
 
 Urquhart was an Ultramontane of the Ultramontanes. 
 He was convinced that it was the Pope he wanted and no one 
 else, and he used to the full the opportunities which his 
 position outside the Church gave him of going direct to 
 the fountain head. 
 
 " Si j'eusse ete Catholique," he writes, " au lieu d'avoir 
 eu, comme vous le supposez, un champ plus libre, j'aurais 
 eu la bouche fermee avant, pour ainsi dire, de I'avoir 
 ouverte." But he was determined that his mouth should 
 not be shut until at least he had said his say to the Pope. 
 
 By the unimpeded attraction of his mind towards reality 
 he saw that the Pope was the great need of the world, both 
 as Temporal Sovereign and as Spiritual Head. As the 
 Sovereign of a temporal kingdom, albeit the smallest in 
 Europe, he might make his Court the home of pure diplo- 
 macy based on Law, for on Law alone could his kingdom
 
 238 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 rest amid the armed forces of Europe. Standing there 
 unmolested among them it would be an example of the 
 power of Law. 
 
 If the Law could be re-established and its reign once 
 more set up, the Papacy as a Temporal Sovereignty would 
 stand with it; if not it must go. For no power in the world 
 could exist without force in an age openly lawless. 
 
 The Papal Infallibility was a fact which admitted to him 
 of no argument. It followed directly upon his conviction 
 that it is in the power of man to be right. 
 
 " If truth is to be found anywhere in the world," he said 
 in a letter on the subject, " it can only be found in a com- 
 munity which has the power of not falUng into error. For 
 a Catholic that power must reside somewhere, for that is the 
 foundation of his beUef. And, if it resides in a community 
 it must be crystallised, so to speak, in the head of the com- 
 munity, or where is his authority ? Do you think the 
 InfalUbility means that the Pope may say what he likes 
 and everyone must say Amen ? That would be the only 
 excuse for objecting to it. Instead of calling it the Dogma 
 of InfalUbility it ought to be called the ' Obligation of 
 Denial' The Pope's InfalUbiHty means that he is bound 
 to contradict a novel interpretation; he must denounce a 
 heresy, excommunicate a heretic, displace an Ecclesiastic 
 who has become one, and at once preserve his authority as 
 Chief and the unity of the Faith as a Religion." 
 
 To Urquhart the Pope was to be the Infallible Voice, the 
 Law-Giver to the world, the Sovereign of a State supreme 
 in its perfect obedience to Law. 
 
 Just as the Pope could not submit to any voice within 
 the Church, so he could submit to no authority in the world. 
 
 "II sent," said Pere Jullion, writing of Urquhart to the 
 Bishop of Malines, " que le Pape est pour la societe humaine 
 ce que le soleil est pour la terre, c'est-a-dire le flambeau 
 de la verite. II sent que le Pape seul doit etre pour le 
 monde Tinterprete de la loi de saintete et de justice. II 
 sent que le Pape est le juge supreme qui doit prononcer, 
 au dernier ressort, sur les litiges qui peuvent surgir entre 
 les rois et les rois, entre les nations et leurs souverains." 
 
 It is obvious that such a temper as this would find little
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 239 
 
 favour among those Catholics who were anxious to pro- 
 pitiate their Governments, already restive under what they, 
 for the most part, considered Pius IX. 's high-handed pro- 
 cedure in calling a Council without consulting Kings and 
 Cabinets. 
 
 Above all was this the case with the French clergy of the 
 Galilean school. It seemed to them that the Pope had 
 done his best to quench their hopes of a national Church, 
 not so much by calling a Council, as by the way in which 
 he had done it. M. Ollivier's speech in the Assembly was 
 distinctly disquieting to them. The French Government, 
 he indicated, had never before been so ignored by any Pope 
 in summoning a Council. Pius IX. must not therefore 
 complain if Rome had to put up with the consequences 
 of his high-handed action. " L'histoire le constatera bien," 
 he said, " c'est Rome qui la premiere jette le defi aux 
 societes seculaires, respectueuses devant elle. C'est Rome 
 la premiere qui les agite, les provoque et les appelle a la 
 lutte. C'est Rome qui leur dit ' Je me place en dehors de 
 vous; je brise de mes propres mains le pacte qui nous liait, 
 le contrat qui nous unissait.' " 
 
 It was not to be expected that the Galileans who saw 
 their dearest schemes endangered by a policy which could 
 be so described, however unfairly, should subscribe to a 
 document which placed the Pope on a pedestal above all 
 Governments, and bade him put into the hands of the 
 peoples the means of curbing their power. 
 
 Hence Urquhart lost the support, not only of the extreme 
 Galileans, but also of Mgr. Dupanloup and all his following. 
 For Dupanloup was a keen politician, and, in spite of his 
 subsequent loyal submission to the Decrees of the Council 
 it was scarcely to be expected that he would surrender his 
 political ambitions in order to support a scheme which was 
 after all, to him, but of secondary importance. 
 
 Still, in spite of hard work and disappointment, the three 
 years immediately preceding the General Council of 1870 
 were more full of hope and encouragement than all 
 Urquhart's previous life had been. 
 
 He found, as he said, that Law still existed in the Catholic
 
 240 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Church, though it might be hidden. Catholics understood 
 him at once when he spoke of it, the necessity for its restora- 
 tion, and the havoc which had been wrought by its forsaking. 
 
 There were some also to whom his words were almost 
 like a new Gospel. As he had owed the friends of his earlier 
 life to his exertions for the redemption of England, his 
 efforts against the injustice and despotism of the Govern- 
 ment, his devoted toil amongst the working men, so he 
 now drew around him by this Appeal to the Pope a circle 
 equally devoted but widely different. 
 
 He was now a citizen of the world, and those whom he 
 had known for years were drawn closer to him by a new tie. 
 Such was Frederic Le Play. They had known each other 
 since Urquhart was in the Diplomatic Service and Le Play 
 a young mining engineer to whom an accident had given 
 leisure to reflect on the social miseries of his country. Their 
 minds had journeyed by parallel ways; for both the path 
 of knowledge lay through the East. 
 
 "J'ai lu," writes Le Play in 1868, " avec grand plaisir 
 I'article intitule ' Erroneousness of Modern Ideas.' II est 
 tres vrai que tout homme qui etudie a fond le regime actuel 
 de la feodalite en Orient doit arriver vite a comprendre 
 I'erreur des idees modernes sur le progres, la civilisation, 
 la democratic. Nous sommes, I'un et I'autre, arrives au 
 meme resultat en etudiant cette meme region. . . . Ainsi 
 je vous comprend a demi mot." 
 
 M. Le Play, like Urquhart, was full of admiration for the 
 Eastern peoples, and for their social organisation built on 
 the family. 
 
 "II y vit," writes his biographer, Edmond Bouchie de 
 Belle, " I'existence de chaque homme assure et chaque 
 homme content de son sort. Surtout nul trace de cet 
 antagonisme de classe qui empoisonnait la vie des nations 
 avancees." 
 
 It was in the East that both these truly great men came 
 upon Law as the bed-rock of social existence. Frederic 
 Le Play found it in social relations as David Urquhart 
 had found it underneath the hard, rough life of the Mussul- 
 man soldier.
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 241 
 
 In the Decalogue M. Le Play found the simplest as well 
 as the highest expression of that Law. By his studies in 
 the East he made his way back from Saint-Simonism to the 
 Catholic Church through the avenues of Law and Justice. 
 
 By the same way Urquhart had come to the throne of 
 St. Peter to beg for the re-establishment of Law in the 
 world. 
 
 Both had found that what the world wanted was Law, 
 but Urquhart had gone a step farther than M. Le Play. 
 He had found that at the root of all social disaster was the 
 want of Law between nations, and that without it not only 
 was municipal Law of no avail, but it could not even exist. 
 Unobserved Law, he said, was worse than no Law. It 
 poisons all society at its roots. 
 
 It was from Urquhart that M. Le Play absorbed the idea 
 of International Justice. The references he makes to it 
 in the third and fourth editions of the Reforme Sociale were 
 directly due to Urquhart's influence. 
 
 " Je trouverai," he writes, " une occasion prochaine de 
 propager votre idee favorite de la justice Internationale. 
 Mon editeur m'annonce I'epuisement prochain de la 
 troisieme edition de la Reforme Sociale. Dans la quatrieme 
 edition je me propose d'insister sur I'idee de justice; de 
 citer en regard de ce nouveau paragraph les passages de vos 
 ecrits que vous me signalerez comme resumant votre 
 doctrine sur le moindre volume." 
 
 He had a great admiration for the matter and form of 
 the DiploTnatic Review. 
 
 " I am ill," he says in one of his letters, " but that illness 
 has given me compulsory leisure. 
 
 " I have profited by it to read your pamphlet on the 
 Council, and the French article in the last number of the 
 Diplomatic Review. 
 
 '' I must make an effort to express to you the extreme 
 pleasure which I have received from the perusal of both 
 these works. 
 
 " They have aroused in me, for the hundredth time, the 
 desire of bringing out a weekly organ whose aim shall be 
 to combat the false ideas which are disintegrating Western 
 Society. 
 
 16
 
 242 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " Your ideas would take the first place in this Review, 
 together with those which would tend to re-establish order 
 in the fundamental elements of private life. 
 
 " You help me to understand how it is that the grass 
 grows to-day over the places which were Babylon, Nineveh. 
 Carthage, and many other cities known to fame." 
 
 M. Le Play rejoiced over the General Council. It would 
 be a great thing for the world if the age of Councils were 
 to begin again. But he was not hopeful as to Urquhart's 
 success in bringing before the world ideas whose greatness 
 and importance he himself recognized. For Urquhart was 
 a bad propagandist. He would not put himself in the place 
 of the ignorant and stupid. 
 
 " Voici," said M. Le Play, " trente ans que vous voyez 
 et annoncez la verite et votre nom reste inconnu, en dehors 
 d'un petit nombre d'hommes eminents qui vous ont com- 
 pris. . . ." 
 
 Why was this ? Le Play himself answers the question. 
 
 " Je m'explique I'ignorance oil Ton reste touchant vos 
 excellentes idees par le fait que vous n'avez pas pris la 
 peine immense pour les rendre intelligibles a un public 
 intellectuellement perverti. J'ose vous conseiller ce travail 
 avant toute entreprise de propagande active." 
 
 He goes on to point out the infinite labour he had himself 
 bestowed upon the successive editions of the Eeforftie 
 Sociale in order that they might commend themselves to 
 a public for whom " il faut presque creer le langage, car 
 le public reste entierement etrange aux choses et n'est 
 nullement prepare a les comprendre." 
 
 M. Le Play was one of the few people whose criticisms 
 Urquhart bore with patience. He not only took exception 
 to the want of patience his English friend took in trying 
 to commend his ideas to the public, he fell upon his hand- 
 writing. " Vos idees," he said, " sont mes delices mais 
 votre ecriture est mon desespoir." 
 
 He did not hesitate to animadvert on the extreme in- 
 accuracy which often made it impossible to verify a quota- 
 tion or an historical fact from any references which he gave 
 in his writings.
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 243 
 
 " Mon cher ami," he writes, " Notre celebre Cardinal de 
 Retz, voulant un jour dominer une emeute populaire, an 
 temps de la Fronde, inventa un passage de Ciceron a I'appui 
 de sa politique, et la fit accepter par ses auditeurs, qui 
 chercherent ensuite vainement sa sentence. 
 
 " Je defends en ce moment vos idees sur la Turquie en 
 presence d'Armeniens de distinction; et je leur cite 1' ad- 
 mirable precepte du Koran, cite par vous a la page 57 de 
 la traduction du Portfolio qui m'a ete envoyee recemment. 
 
 " Mes Armeniens m'ont ri au nez, en m'assurant que 
 vous aviez suivi I'exemple de notre Cardinal et que ledit 
 texte etait de votre invention. 
 
 " Je me suis mis alors a lire une traduction estimee du 
 Koran, celle de Kasimirski, et je n'ai point trouve ledit 
 texte. N'ayant pas le temps de relire cet ouvrage avec 
 plus d' attention, je vous serais oblige de me signaler le 
 passage en question, par le chapitre et le verset." 
 
 Urquhart's attitude not only to M. Le Play but to several 
 of his French friends, was his most complete vindication 
 against the charges of those who maintained that Urquhart 
 could not breathe in an atmosphere of criticism. He could 
 not, it is true, bear the criticism of ignorance on subjects 
 on the study of which he had spent the strength and work 
 of a lifetime, and it was not an easy thing to find men 
 whose knowledge was equal to his own. 
 
 But on the rare occasions when he came across superior 
 knowledge he was willing to take the learner's place even 
 on his own subjects. At the Pope's feet he always sat in 
 admiration for his moral character, respect for his know- 
 ledge, and reverence for his position. 
 
 In his relations with many Roman ecclesiastics he had 
 some faint foreshado wings of the fulfilment of a dream which, 
 as he told his wife, had recurred again and again. He 
 seemed, he said, to be in the company of people against 
 whose intelligence and knowledge he could make no head- 
 way; who treated him in argument as he was accustomed 
 to treat those who had the temerity to come to him pre- 
 pared to show him his mistakes. " They take my words," 
 he would say, " and show fallacies in them all, and in the 
 end they oblige me to own myself utterly and entirely 
 wrong."
 
 244 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 To his reverence for the Pope Urquhart added sympathy 
 for his loneliness. He felt that few, if any, understood the 
 deep passion in his heart for Justice; he knew that he him- 
 self did, for it was the passion of his own heart. After his 
 first audience he felt that he had a friend in the Holy 
 Father. " It makes my heart feel warm," he said, " when 
 after a long discussion with some Cardinals or officials, 
 who seem drowned in trivialities, I let my thoughts go back 
 to the Vatican and think he at least is on my side. What 
 else matters ?" 
 
 Perhaps the little scene which Mrs. Urquhart describes 
 in her diary when first he learnt that the Vo^e had received 
 and approved of his Appeal was one of the happiest memories 
 of his life. 
 
 "We went in the evening," she says, "to the Bishop, 
 Mgr. Mermillod,^ and he told us the news from Rome. He 
 took us apart into his study, and said, ' I have just come 
 back from Lucerne, from the Nuncio, and I have a message 
 for you. All is accepted. He has sent on all your letters 
 to Rome and expects very soon to have a written answer 
 for you.' The expression of countenance and eager manner 
 of the Bishop said even more than his words — like those 
 of a man who has much important intelligence to impart." 
 
 In spite of such encouragement, however, the goal was 
 not yet won. Though eminent Roman ecclesiastics or 
 even the Pope himself might sympathise whole-heartedly 
 with Urquhart's ideas, nothing could be done, the re- 
 establishment of Public Law could not even be considered 
 by the Council, unless a proposal for such a consideration 
 were to be laid before it by a definite body of Catholic 
 opinion. 
 
 1 Mgr. IMermillod was one of Urqnliart's warmest sympathisers. 
 In 1864 lie was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Geneva, with the title 
 of Bishop of Hebron, and in 1873 Vicar Apostolic of Geneva. The 
 new Apostolic Vicarate was not acknowledged either by the States 
 Council of Geneva, or by the Swiss Federal Council, and Mermillod 
 was banished from Switzerland. The decree of expulsion was, how- 
 ever, rescinded when, on the death of the Bishop of Lausanne, Mer- 
 millod became Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, and the Apostolic 
 Vicarate fell into abeyance. In ISflO, he was ral-ied to the Cardinalate 
 and summoned to Rome by Leo XIII.
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 245 
 
 Neither Pope nor Council could originate. Here was the 
 great crux. Who was to present that article as a point, 
 indeed Urquhart thought it the chief point, for the con- 
 sideration and decision of the Council ? 
 
 As he looked round upon the ecclesiastics of all European 
 countries he saw no hope that any of them would take so 
 definite a line. There were underlying diplomatic reasons 
 why they should all sit on a hedge. 
 
 Archbishop Manning would fear to offend Mr. Gladstone 
 with whom he was known to be friendly, and the English 
 bishops would follow his lead. 
 
 The position in France was extremely critical, besides 
 which, the Church, as we have seen, was riddled with 
 Gallicanism, and the great aim of the Galilean bishops was 
 to go as far as possible with their Government. 
 
 The Prussian Government would not be likely to favour 
 any strong attempt to proclaim a Law which her great hope 
 was to be able to hide in forgetf ulness ; nor the Austrian 
 to do anything to offend Russia, the fear of whom was always 
 before her eyes. 
 
 Urquhart looked to the East for help. If the bishops 
 of the East would, with the full concurrence of the 
 Ottoman Government, present such an article for the 
 consideration of the Council the chief difficulty was 
 removed. 
 
 As far back as 1850 Urquhart had had intimate dealings 
 with the Armenian Catholic Nation, with its two Patri- 
 archates of Mount Lebanon and Constantinople. These 
 dealings, as well as his long-continued friendship with the 
 Ottoman Government, stood him now in good stead. He 
 would use both Catholics and Mussulmans to help in the 
 great crusade for Law and Justice in which, all unknown 
 to one another, they had often been united. 
 
 It as deeply concerned the Ottoman as it did the Papal 
 Government that Law should once more be observed by 
 the European Powers, since all the disasters which had of 
 late years befallen both were the direct result of its non- 
 observance. It was the part of both to speak out boldly of 
 the dangers which would result from a continuance of its
 
 248 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 non-observance, and to point out from which direction 
 those dangers would come. 
 
 Neither need apprehend any harm from a plain speaking 
 of which all the other Governments were afraid, since on 
 them had already fallen all the evil which could befall them. 
 
 This point of view Urquhart expressed in a letter to the 
 Papal Nuncio as well as to Fuad Pasha, the Grand Vizier. 
 To Fuad Pasha he said : 
 
 " I send you a little leaflet, the (Euvre Apostolique, on 
 the action which we hope the (Ecumenical Council will 
 take with regard to illegal and unjust wars, and to acts of 
 war such as those of Garibaldi and the armed pirates who 
 have infested Bulgaria and Candia. I hope that your 
 Highness will think well to support this undertaking either 
 by recommending it to the Catholic bishops with whom 
 you have occasion to come into contact, or even by a com- 
 munication on your own part to the Holy See itself." 
 
 Urquhart hoped great things from Fuad Pasha, who had 
 an interview with the Pope while he was in Italy in 1868. 
 The Pope, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, received the 
 Grand Vizier with " great cordiality," described the Sultan 
 as his meilleur ami among the Sovereigns of Europe, and 
 spoke gratefully of the just treatment which his children 
 received under the Ottoman rule. When Fuad Pasha 
 expressed his regret that the Sultan on his late tour through 
 Europe had found himself unable to visit Rome, the Pope 
 replied: " Who knows but that I may go and see him in 
 Constantinople ? You are not ignorant that Christ has 
 given me all the earth. My Empire extends far beyond 
 the Dardanelles, but unlike that of a neighbouring Monarch 
 offers no danger to your Master." He laughingly compared 
 his own position menaced by Piedmont to that of the Sultan 
 menaced by Russia, and added, " At least your Sovereign 
 believes in his prophet, but the other Governments of our 
 own day scarcely believe in God." 
 
 Fuad Pasha, to Urquhart's despair, died shortly after 
 his audience, and the hopes which had been placed in his 
 knowledge and sympathy were not realised. 
 
 He redoubled his own efforts to promote a complete 
 understanding between East and West. " If this reaches 
 you at Naples," he wrote to Rustem B ey, " and you return
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 247 
 
 by Rome, pray see yourself the Bishop of Orleans and rouse 
 him up by a few indignant and energetic words. He is a 
 man of such great capacity that you can reprove him and 
 reproach him with profit, and he is so surrounded and 
 drowned in persons and personalities that he requires 
 rousing." 
 
 To the Sultan he wrote himself as follows : 
 
 " His Holiness the Pope has convoked an Assembly of 
 all the prominent Ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome to 
 try to discover some means of arresting the impending ruin 
 of European Society. This means can only be the Restora- 
 tion of Law, for Society is menaced with ruin only because 
 Governments and people meddle in each other's affairs, 
 carry disorder into the dominions of their neighbours, or 
 seize their territories. Since such crimes have been habitual 
 amongst Christians the nations are obliged to be always 
 prepared either for attack or defence. Taxes are an over- 
 whelming burden and the disorder of external affairs has 
 its counterpart in the heart and intelligence of men. It 
 is this state of affairs that the Pope deplores and to which 
 he would put an end. But he cannot do it without the 
 help and co-operation of Your Majesty. 
 
 " The promulgation and restatement of Public Law as 
 a duty and religious obligation is the only measure which 
 will correspond with this pronouncement of the Holy Father, 
 as it is the only possible remedy to the disorders to which 
 he would put an end. The bishops in Christian countries 
 dare not propose that such an article be added to the work 
 of the Council, dependent as they are on their Governments. 
 Bishops, however, living under Your Majesty's sceptre are 
 independent of the secular power, and this power being 
 Mussulman, itself recognises the obligation which it is the 
 object of the Pope to introduce amongst Christians. The 
 bishops of the Ottoman Empire can therefore propose such 
 an article, which the Christian bishops dare not reject, 
 while some of them will receive it with joy. . . . But to 
 give heart to the bishops of the East to risk the disfavour, 
 and to incur the blame of their comrades of the West, it 
 would be well that a word of encouragement should fall 
 from the lips of Your Majesty. . . ." 
 
 This diplomatic letter succeeded. 
 
 The new Grand Vizier, Ali Pasha, was not as favourable 
 to the Council as his predecessor had been, but no obstacle
 
 248 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 was placed in the way of the attendance of the Eastern 
 bishops, and they were distinctly encouraged to support 
 Urquhart's plan. 
 
 But Urquhart did not confine his attentions to the Otto- 
 man Government. He proposed to the Nuncio and to 
 Mgr. Mermillod that an Address should be presented to 
 the Eastern bishops suggesting that they should draw up 
 a Postulatum for the Council. The plan was approved, 
 and both the Nuncio and Mgr. Mermillod agreed in en- 
 trusting him with the task of drawing up the Address and 
 indicating the lines of the Postulatum. 
 
 It was from the Armenian Synod that Urquhart desired 
 the suggestion should emanate, without which the Council 
 could not act. The Armenians of Constantinople and 
 Mount Lebanon were now united under one Head, Mgr. 
 Hassoun,^ Patriarch of Constantinople, and to the Armenian 
 bishops assembled in Synod Urquhart proposed to send 
 a Mission. The difficulty was to find a person qualified to 
 undertake such a Mission. He must be a Catholic, he must 
 understand the East, he must be as enthusiastic as Urquhart 
 about the restoration of Law. Lord Denbigh, one of those 
 proposed, fulfilled one, if not two, of these requirements; 
 Lord Stanley might have accompanied him, but the death 
 of his father and the business connected Avith his taking over 
 the estates prevented it. 
 
 Then Robert Monteith was proposed but held back, 
 feeling his want of intimate knowledge of the East a draw- 
 back. When at last it was settled that Baron Schroeder, 
 who had spent many years in Turkey, should accompany 
 him, the Baron unfortunately paid a visit to Mr. U^rquhart 
 at the chalet, and was so alarmed by the overwhelming 
 nature of Urquhart's discourse on the first evening of his 
 arrival that he fled early in the morning, apparently fearing 
 lest he should be compelled by force to so formidable an 
 undertaking. 
 
 In the end Robert Monteith went alone, accompanied 
 only by the longings and prayers of the little company 
 which saw him off from the chalet, on the "roof of the 
 world." 
 
 ^ See Vernier. Tlisloire da Palriavcliat Armenlen Calkdiqve.
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE POPE 249 
 
 Urquhart's description to Monteith's wife of his going 
 reads like a story of the departure of a knight on some high 
 quest of old. 
 
 " The evening of our arrival," he says, " the Bishop was 
 entirely occupied, and wrote to ask me to bring Mr. Monteith 
 to the Eveche at 10 o'clock next morning. I, thinking 
 that my presence might occasion some restraint, went in 
 to Pere Collet to wait whilst he went up. Presently the 
 Bishop came down for me, and said, ' You must be present.' 
 
 " He then — and his whole look and bearing was, as it were, 
 transformed — said to him : ' You go to the bishops of the 
 East accredited by us, the bishops of the West, to show 
 them how a common centre of action can be found in the 
 CathoUc Church for the protection of the world by the 
 Restoration of Justice against, at the same time, its own 
 decay and the operations of the enemy.' After some words 
 from me^ he continued: 'As you are going from us and 
 from Protestants of a lowly order a providential union has 
 been brought about.' Your husband then knelt down, and, 
 laying his hand upon him, the Bishop said : ' I give you a 
 special blessing for God's work on which you are going.' " 
 
 The Mission thus inaugurated proved successful even 
 beyond the hopes of its inaugurators. The Armenian 
 bishops assembled in Synod gave a reception overwhelming 
 in its enthusiasm to the delegate, who was the more touched 
 by it because he knew the intensity of Eastern reserve. 
 They not only drew up a Petition to the Council, but a 
 Vote of the Synod for the Restoration of the Law of Nations 
 signed by all those present. This they forwarded to the 
 Council by the Patriarch's Vicar-General, Mgr. Azarian. 
 
 The great idea had materiahsed at last. Here was some- 
 thing which the Council could not refuse to consider. When 
 Monteith's telegram containing the joyful news reached the 
 "roof of the world" Mrs. Urquhart wrote in her diary: 
 " Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me 
 bless His Holy Name." 
 
 At once David Urquhart and his wife made preparations 
 to go to Rome for the Council. Robert Monteith lent them 
 his house, the "Tempietto," and there they established 
 themselves in November, 1869. 
 
 1 Urquliiut said: " He goes from you and lie is the representative 
 of a large body of English working men."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 
 
 " Princes in all lands." 
 
 Psalm xlv. (Prayer Book Version.) 
 
 It was as no stranger amongst strangers that Urquhart 
 found himself in Rome at the most unique event in the 
 history of his time— the opening of the Vatican Council on 
 the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. ^ 
 
 Rome was full of friends who were prepared to give him 
 vigorous and generous support ; and in spite of the intrigues 
 of his enemies, in spite of his own refusal to make the very 
 slightest inclination in the House of Rimmon, in spite of 
 his outspokenness in season and out of season, he lost 
 scarcely anyone to his cause and he gained many. 
 
 It was not without extreme misgivings that some of his 
 best friends had heard of his projected visit. Lord Denbigh 
 and Mr. Monteith, with all their affectionate devotion to him, 
 could not with equanimity imagine him riding a-tilt against 
 Catholic deliberation and Italian prejudice. Both wrote 
 urgent letters to Mrs. Urquhart marked " Strictly private," 
 begging her to use all her influence to induce in her husband 
 the " prudence and calmness " so essentially alien to his 
 temperament and methods of work. But their prognostica- 
 tions of disaster were unfulfilled. After all, Urquhart was 
 a man of the world, and a diplomatist by training, and he 
 probably saw for himself that the volcanic methods which 
 had been necessary, in his eyes, to arouse his apathetic 
 fellow-countrymen to action, would not only be unnecessary 
 but wholly unsuitable in dealing with the officials of the 
 Court of the Vatican, men with minds keen and sensitive 
 as his own, for all their caution and deliberation. Urquhart 
 in Rome, without sacrificing one of his principles, allowed 
 
 1 December 8, 1869. 
 250
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 251 
 
 his natural charm of manner to assert itself in a way that 
 won him many friends. 
 
 His propaganda of Turkish baths took the agreeable form 
 of throwing open his own to any rheumatic sufferer whom 
 the keen winds of Rome had shrewdly touched. French 
 and Italian dignitaries forgot to censure the rudeness of 
 " the mad Englishman " who refused to clasp the hands 
 they affably extended to him when, with Eastern grace and 
 dignity, he kissed them instead. 
 
 Urquhart was, moreover, for the first time in his life, 
 thrown into the midst of a diplomatic society which he 
 could respect. Whatever may be said, and said with truth, 
 of the wheels within wheels which were at work in the huge 
 Conciliar machine; whatever may be said of conflicting 
 interests and subterranean plans, of plots and counterplots 
 woven by Governments, who used often unsuspecting 
 bishops as their cats' paws, there is no doubt that the 
 diplomatic atmosphere of Rome was the only one in Europe 
 in which a man of Urquhart's sense — an exaggerated sense it 
 would seem to many— of honour and honesty could breathe. 
 
 He could be himself. He was not for ever on the defensive 
 against the spirit of the age. He could expand and glow. 
 His great fiery soul could radiate light and heat around 
 him when the chilling stream of criticism and contempt was 
 not constantly playing upon it. 
 
 Rome, whether it agreed with him or not, understood 
 him. For the first time in his life he found himself in a 
 society whose native atmosphere was his own, that of the 
 mountain heights of honour and justice, of true charity, and 
 high and noble statecraft. 
 
 There is no part of Urquhart's life which is so pleasant to 
 dwell upon as the story of his life in Rome. All his ap- 
 parently egotistical pride and self-assertion dropped away. 
 Meek he could never be, but he was humble as a gentleman 
 among his like. He never let slip without criticism a loose or 
 vague or mistaken word, but he called attention to it as an 
 equal, not as a schoolmaster. He showed the deep reverence 
 as well as the lofty contempt of which he was capable. 
 
 When her husband's own character and manner would
 
 252 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 have barred the way to success, Mrs. Urquhart was always 
 at his side to open it for him. Always gentle, always 
 courteous, though as firm as he in matters of principle, she 
 moved among the ecclesiastics of East and West who 
 assembled at their house in the Via Sistina, obviously 
 impressing her guests not less by her fine intelligence than 
 by her reverent humility, in the presence of those whom she 
 counted her superiors. Even at great meetings of bishops, 
 when " ladies and laymen were not admitted," her presence 
 as well as that of her husband's was taken for granted. 
 Many of those whom she now met for the first time were 
 prepared to acknowledge their indebtedness to her. She 
 had long acted as her husband's secretary, and had thus 
 had no insignificant share in rendering intercourse with him 
 less of a strain than it might have been, if not to the brain 
 and temper, at least to the eyes. " Mes compliments a 
 votre secretaire," had been the message sent to her by 
 many an overworked bishop whom David Urquhart's 
 epistles, brilliant indeed, but maddening in their illegibility, 
 must have driven to desperation. What her handwriting 
 was in his letters her influence was in the work of his life, 
 something which made it possible for others to appreciate 
 and, whether they sympathised or not, at least to see it 
 presented in its best and most reasonable aspect. Never 
 was that influence more untiringly exerted than in Rome, 
 or with a more beneficent effect. And her work brought 
 its own reward, for through her patience and charity under 
 all that was repellent, petty, and apparently worldly and 
 self-seeking, in the great men as well as the mean men, 
 who took part in that great assemblage, she was enabled 
 to keep her eyes fixed on the power, the virtue, the truth 
 which were the real motive forces in the Council and in the 
 men who made it up. 
 
 Though she did not become a Catholic in effect till seven 
 years later, Mrs. Urquhart was one in spirit before she and 
 her husband turned their backs on the Eternal City in May, 
 1870. Therefore, though, in her humility, she counted 
 herself of less importance in this undertaking than in many 
 another in which she had stood by her husband's side, it
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 253 
 
 was probably the growing attraction of her own mind which, 
 unconsciously both to themselves and to her, drew many 
 of the Catholic ecclesiastics to sympathetic consideration 
 of the great cause. 
 
 The history of David Urquhart's connection with the 
 Vatican Council is a page not only of unwritten but almost 
 of secret history. 
 
 The materials for it, with the exception of the few but 
 important documents contained in the Acta et Decreta SS. 
 Concilii Vaticani, are only to be found in his own and his 
 friends' letters. Official history and contemporary memoirs 
 bestow, if they notice him at all, but a cursory glance on 
 Urquhart and his connection with the Council. 
 
 His theory that Russia and Germany were mancBUvring 
 delays in order to prevent any pronouncement by the Holy 
 See on the Law of Nations is unsupported by contemporary 
 evidence. The fierce emotions which raged round the 
 dogma of Infallibility and the bitter opposition it evoked, 
 are enough in the eyes of most people to account for any 
 effort being made to delay its promulgation. 
 
 On the other hand, in Urquhart's mind, the Papal Infalli- 
 bility and the declaration before the world of the Canon 
 Law were indissolubly united. It is worth noting that all 
 his supporters were not only supporters of the dogma of 
 Infallibility, but supporters of it in its widest sense; at the 
 same time those who opposed the dogma were also enemies 
 to his cause.i 
 
 Moreover, David Urquhart knew the intimate connection 
 between East and West as no one else in Rome knew it. 
 To him Russia's struggle for Constantinople, with all that 
 it signified, was the key to European politics. Both Russia 
 and Turkey in different senses were keenly interested in the 
 proceedings of the Vatican Council. Russia dreaded all 
 signs of a rapprochement between Rome and the East, a 
 
 1- The only two Catholic priests who seriously opposed Urquhart'a 
 proxDosal for the re-establishment of the Law of Nations, were Pere 
 Hyacinth, of Old-Catholic fame, and Father Suffield, the Dominican, 
 who afterwards left the Catholic Church to become a Unitarian. 
 
 It was in answer to Father Suflield that Urquhart wrote his pam- 
 phlet: Effect on the World of the Restoration of the Canon Law: A 
 Vindicalion of the Catholic Chuuh ajainst a Priest.
 
 254 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 dread she showed in her relentless persecution of the Uniats. 
 Urquhart, on the other hand, saw in such a rapprochement 
 the only hope of safety for both; and Mgr. Dupanloup, one 
 of the ablest of politicians, shared his view when it was 
 first presented to him.i 
 
 Whether, however, Urquhart was right in his unswerving 
 conviction that Russia, in her fear that the promulgation 
 by the Pope of a Law that would unite both East and West, 
 used every means in her power, open and secret, to prevent 
 such a promulgation, and that those who were opposing 
 the dogma of Infallibility were unconsciously or, in some 
 few cases, even consciously, her tools, we shall never know, 
 unless the day should come when the secrets of the Russian 
 Foreign Office are completely laid bare. 
 
 Meantime we can but tell the story as it is told in 
 Urquhart's letters, and in those of the many eminent men — 
 cardinals, bishops, priests and laymen — whom he drew into 
 his magic circle. 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart came to Rome in November, 
 1869, they were faced with unlooked-for encouragements 
 as well as unexpected disappointments. Their first dis- 
 appointment was in the attitude of the Cardinal Secretary 
 of State, Cardinal Antonelli, from whom Urquhart had been 
 led to expect not only interest but help. Urquhart's 
 friend Dr. Maupied^ had written that the Cardinal had 
 expressed " le plus vif interet " in his writings and in the 
 Appeal of a Protestcmt to the Pope. He had received the 
 news of Urquhart's projected visit to Rome " avec la plus 
 parfaite bienveillance." " Ainsi," writes his friend, " vous 
 pouvez venir en toute confiance, de ce cote, du moins." 
 Urquhart went to see the Cardinal immediately on his 
 arrival in Rome and found him useless as far as the cause 
 was concerned. " Sincere but frivolous " was the estimate 
 of his character. 
 
 " David," says Mrs. Urquhart in her diary, " has had 
 his interview with Cardinal Antonelli. It made me feel 
 
 ^ See Correspondence between David Urquhart and the Bishop 
 of Orleans published in the Diplomatic Eeview, February 2, 1870. 
 2 Professor at the Sorbonne and Canon of Kheims.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 255 
 
 in despair so that I wanted to leave Rome, for M. Maupied 
 had made me think that he was quite favourable. The 
 want of faith in these Princes of the Church struck me very 
 much, until it came into my mind that it was I who was 
 wanting in faith to be so cast down." 
 
 In spite of this disappointment, however, Urquhart had 
 a unique position in Rome from the moment of his arrival 
 — ^a position which grew more assured and more remarkable 
 as he gained adherent after adherent among the Western 
 bishops: the Easterns were his already. His house was 
 common ground where East and West could meet, under 
 conditions most favourable to a mutual understanding. 
 He rallied round him Armenians, Maronites, United Greeks 
 and Western cardinals and bishops as no one else in Rome, 
 or indeed in Evirope, could have done, for to many of these 
 dignified Oriental prelates his name had been, from their 
 cradles, a household word. 
 
 As soon as the Armenians arrived, with the Decrees passed 
 by their Synod, a meeting was held at which assembled 
 patriarchs and bishops of the East and West. At this 
 meeting, which Mrs. Urquhart in writing to her son in 
 Montreux called " a little Council of our own," Urquhart 
 presided, introduced the prelates to one another, and spoke 
 of the objects they had in view—" the re-establishment of 
 Society on its three bases of justice, statesmanship and 
 charity." 
 
 " And then," he says, writing to an absent friend, " I 
 had nothing more to do. It was no longer for a Protestant 
 and a layman to speak to bishops; it was for the bishops 
 of the East to set forth to the bishops of the West the 
 means of saving Society." 
 
 " You," said the Archbishop of Tyre, speaking at this 
 memorable assembly, to his Western brethren, " are 
 accustomed to call the Turks barbarians, and thereby you 
 have acquired a habit of speaking of yourselves as cmhsed. 
 But we believe these terms ought to be reversed.' 
 
 No Eastern confessor, the Oriental bishops pointed out, 
 could be called upon to absolve a man for murder in an 
 unjust war. Unjust war in the European sense was un-
 
 256 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 known to the Mussulman, " who could not draw the sword, 
 even though he were the Sultan himself, except after a 
 judicial sentence given." The indifference which prevailed 
 in Christian nations as to the justice or injustice of war 
 was to them, they said, living under Ottoman rule, a 
 constant source of shame and terror. 
 
 By his knowledge of Eastern customs Urquhart was able 
 to make life in Rome less strange and wearisome to the 
 Oriental bishops than it might have been. He not only 
 took a fatherly interest in their comfort, but he exerted 
 himself to shield them from the corrupting influence ot 
 Western manners, which he never abhorred so whole- 
 heartedly as when he saw them contrasted with the courteous 
 dignity of the East. 
 
 "Your father," writes Mrs. Urquhart to young David in 
 Montreux, "has great trouble with the Easterns, to keep 
 them to their own habits and ways. PeoiAe will shake 
 hands with them and then, when invited to the large parties, 
 they begin by leaving them to stand up in the crowd, as 
 the Franks do, which they do not like at all. Now at Mr. 
 Bodenham's and Mr. Monteith's last night he had a room 
 settled up for them where they could smoke and sit down, 
 into which ladies were not admitted, for they stare at them 
 and do not behave at all well." 
 
 Urquhart's influence amongst the Eastern prelates was 
 so much a recognised fact that he was begged by the Bishop 
 of Geneva to use ib in order to counteract the dangerous 
 effect of the propaganda which was being carried on amongst 
 them by Mgr. Dupanloup and his following in the Council. 
 
 It is an old story now that the strong opposition of which 
 Mgr. Dupanloup was the leader was firmly convinced that 
 it would not only be inopportune but dangerous to assert 
 at that particular moment the dogma of Papal InfalHbility. 
 In the case of the French bishops, at least, the motive of 
 the opposition was in the main political. Urquhart recog- 
 nised this; he saw, too, that the enemies of the Holy See 
 were making use of it in the hope of preventing any authori- 
 tative pronouncement which would give back peace to the 
 world and strengthen her own position. Neither did he
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 257 
 
 consider the whole of the opposition as single-minded and 
 pure in their intentions as was Mgr. Dupanloup. 
 
 "II y a ici," he wrote to his friend Kinpresti Pasha, 
 une majorite simple, savante, bien-disposee, mais sans 
 connaissance du monde et des affaires ou des pratiques 
 parlementaires. 
 
 " II y a une petite minorite tapageuse, insolente, revo- 
 lutionaire, pan-slavist, bysantine et athee. Cette minorite 
 demande au Pape de se refuser aux voix de la majorite, 
 tout en declarant qu'il cesse d'etre Pape du moment qu'il 
 cesse d'etre en accord avec la majorite." 
 
 That Dupanloup should put himself at the head of this 
 petite minorite tapageuse " was the more grievous to 
 Urquhart by reason of the great hopes he had entertained 
 of him. An integral part of his design for the re-estabhsh- 
 ment of the Law of Nations was that diplomatic relations 
 should be opened up between Rome and Constantinople, 
 and that the two powers which still stood for Public Law 
 in Europe should strengthen each other's hands by union. 
 It was a bold idea to put before a French bishop, but 
 Mgr. Dupanloup, when it was first presented to him in 1867,^ 
 had welcomed it. It would open, as he very well saw, a 
 door for the reunion of the Slav populations with Rome. 
 Counting upon his help, Urquhart had put the Bishop of 
 Orleans into communication with many of his Eastern 
 friends, including the Patriarch of the Maronites and several 
 Oriental bishops. It was with a feeling little short of 
 consternation that he discovered that the Bishop projDosed 
 to use the influence he had thus gained " to come to the 
 Council followed by a phalanx of Eastern bishops prepared 
 to support him against the dogma of Infallibility." 
 
 The Eastern Catholic world was already disturbed. A 
 party among the Armenians, unsettled by the Bull 
 Beversus, in which some of the bishops saw an attempt 
 on the part of Rome to interfere with their freedom of 
 election, had been stirred up by the French and Russian 
 Governments, acting through their Embassies, into open 
 
 ^ Urquhart had, at Mgr. Dupanloup's request, drawn up, in 1867, 
 a short memoir of the effect Russia had had on European politics. 
 It was published in the Diplomatic Review in May, 1870. 
 
 n
 
 258 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 rebellion against the Holy See.^ When, on the top of this, 
 the East was startled by the Bishop of Orleans' Pastoral 
 warning the world that the East would look upon the 
 proclamation of the dogma as an attempt to override their 
 liberties, and that it would set up a barrier between East 
 and West, there was great danger that the presence of 
 the Easterns at the Council would end in a fiasco. " The 
 Russian agents," says an Eastern missionary in 1869, 
 " whether in our midst or among the schismatics or in the 
 subsidised press of Constantinople, all bring forward the 
 Pastoral of the Bishop of Orleans." 
 
 There had evidently been, as Urquhart very well saw, 
 a volte-face on the part of the Bishop since their last meeting 
 on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo in 1867. Since then, 
 the communications between them had been infrequent 
 and by letter, and Urquhart was not entirely certain what 
 new position he would take up. 
 
 The request, however, of Mgr. Mermillod that he would 
 try and counteract his influence with the Easterns required 
 immediate attention. The moment was critical. It was 
 the morning of the very day on which a great meeting of 
 the Eastern and Western bishops with several influential 
 laymen was to take place in order to consider how the 
 Decrees of the Armenian Synod " De re militari et bello " 
 should be presented to the Commission of the Council. 
 
 In the afternoon, before the others arrived, came the 
 Eastern bishops to ask Urquhart what he advised them to 
 do on the subject of Papal Infallibility. 
 
 Now to deny the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, as a 
 doctrine, was in Urquhart's own words to deny the faith. 
 But the word he loathed. It was one of those " hybrid 
 words of modern invention " which obscured thought. 
 Call it anything else: the " necessity of being always right," 
 the " necessity of denial of error," anything but Infallibility, 
 which to most people meant " the Pope can say what he 
 likes, and everyone must say Amen." 
 
 ^ See Le Pairiarche Hassoun, publislied at the Diplomatic Beview 
 office 1873. It contains the history of the schism and its couueotiou 
 with the Council.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 259 
 
 With true diplomatic wisdom he refused to answer the 
 question privately, and begged Mgr. Mermillod to put 
 it to him in the meeting in the name of the Oriental bishops. 
 He then answered as follows: " I understand no more than 
 you do what is meant by the word Infallibility. To me 
 the word is devoid of meaning. It is a modern word of 
 evil days, and was unknown at the Council of Florence, 
 which contains all that is necessary to establish in the 
 Primacy this supreme Authority in the Church, which is 
 necessary, not only for its integrity, but for the rectitude of 
 conscience of each believer." "To this," says Urquhart, 
 " there was neither opposition nor reply. The meeting 
 proceeded with its business. It drew up two Postulata, 
 both based on the Decrees of the Armenian Synod, one in 
 Arabic, signed by the Eastern bishops, and another which 
 was translated into Latin and signed not only by everyone 
 present, but ultimately by many of the most prominent 
 ecclesiastics in Rome.i Thus was justified Urquhart's 
 
 ^ De ke Militari et Bello. 
 
 This Postiilatum, of which the following is a translation, will be 
 found on page 861 of the Acta et Decreta SS. Con. Vat. 
 
 " Postulatum from many bishops to be reverently laid before 
 our most holy Lord, Pius IX. and the Sacrosanct Council of the 
 Vatican : 
 
 " The present condition of the world has become almost insupport- 
 able by reason of the huge standing armies which are raised by 
 conscription. 
 
 " The peoples groan under the burden which is laid upon them. 
 
 " The spirit of irreligion and the neglect of Law in so-called 
 International ASairs open an easy way to wars, unlawful and unjust 
 — or, to speak more truly, to the terrible slaughter which spreads 
 over the world. 
 
 " Hence the resources of the poor are threatened, commercial 
 relations are broken up, the conscience of men is involved in deep 
 and deadly error, or it is grievously wounded, and many souls are 
 plunged into eternal ruin. 
 
 "To so many and great evils the Church alone can provide a 
 remedy. 
 
 " Though all will not listen to her voice, still she will ever stand 
 forth as guide to countless thousands and, sooner or later, must 
 produce an effect. 
 
 " Moreover, whatever is firmly estabUshed by eternal principles 
 approves itself to the Divine Majesty, nor can it be without fruit. 
 
 " There are grave and serious men, versed in public affaii's, who 
 look upon the condition of the world and the Church in these matters 
 in the same light as all holy men devoted to religion.
 
 260 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 prophecy when he sent Monteith to Constantinople, that 
 if the Easterns gave them a lead the Westerns would 
 follow it. 
 
 Armed with this document Urquhart went to see the 
 Bishop of Orleans. He was accompanied by his wife, who 
 gives an account of the interview in her diary. 
 
 " After talldng of the weather and my children, whom he 
 had known at Nice, David said to him, ' Vos moments, 
 Monseigneur, sont precieux. Je veux en profiter pour 
 dire deux choses. La premiere est pour vous demander 
 votre concurrence comme vous me I'avez promise a Orleans.' 
 He then put into his hands the Postulatum. He read it, 
 and putting it back into David's hands said, ' Et la seconde? ' 
 David said, ' Will you support me ?' 
 
 " He answered, ' I cannot support this.' 
 
 May I ask your reasons ?' said David. ' For there is 
 nothing I have proposed which is not in the ancient Canons.' 
 
 " ' I do not dispute the principle,' said the Bishop, ' but 
 I deny the opportuneness.' 
 
 " ' But,' said David, ' we have discussed all these things 
 already at Orleans, and you then promised me your help.' 
 
 " ' II y a erreur dans tout ceci,' said the Bishop. ' II y 
 a eu malentendu. ' 
 
 " David : ' Then that incident is over, and I may put the 
 papers back in my pocket.' 
 
 " Upon this Dupanloup hesitated a little, and then said: 
 ' Si le Pape nous fait ces propositions je les accepterai, 
 mais s'il me consulte sur I'opportunite je le conseillerai de 
 ne pas le faire.' " 
 
 This was the utmost which Urquhart could obtain. The 
 Bishop, whose subsequent conduct gives some reason for 
 the supposition that his own heart sided with Urquhart 
 
 " All these are equally persuaded of the necessity for a declaration 
 of that part of the Canon Law which deals with the Law of Nations, 
 and with the character of war, and defines how it becomes either 
 a duty or a crime. 
 
 "When the moralconscience of men shall have thus been instructed, 
 then shall we see the removal of the dangers which now hang over 
 us, an end which we cannot hope to attain either by worldly j)rudence 
 or by political adjustments. 
 
 " This Postulatum, which was presented February 10, 1870, was 
 signed by forty Conciliar Fathers." 
 
 Postulatum B. — i.e., the Postuhition of the Patriarchal Synod of the 
 Armenians — is given in the Appendix.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 261 
 
 against his policy, refused to give this uncompromising 
 champion of a cause to which he had once admitted his 
 adherence another chance of attacking him in the open. 
 
 Bishop Dupanloup not only abandoned Urquhart's cause 
 himself, but drew away in his train one of his most ardent 
 supporters, a personality even more picturesque than his 
 own, the great leader of the Catholic Pan-Slavist movement, 
 Bishop Strossmayer, who gave as a reason for his defection 
 that the proclamation by the Council of such Decrees as 
 were contained in the Postulatum, would prevent Austria 
 from dismembering the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 " Mgr. Dupanloup," says Urquhart in a letter to Stross- 
 mayer, " gives as a reason for not defining the Law of 
 Nations that such a definition would remain without effect. 
 
 " Mgr. Strossmayer gives as a reason that such a definition 
 would prevent a great crime and a great misfortune to 
 Europe and to the human race. 
 
 " In case your Lordship does not judge it opportune to 
 allow me to discuss the matter with you, I take the liberty 
 of adding here that if you should shed the last drop of 
 your blood, as you declare yourself ready to do, for what 
 you call the liberation of the Sclavonic race, such a sacrifice 
 would only be made for its enslavement, since a successful 
 result of such an undertaking will only reduce the Sclave 
 populations of the Ottoman Empire to the condition of the 
 Poles. . . . Pan-Slavism is nothing in the world but a 
 Russian plot." 
 
 Urquhart's argument, however, proved unavailing. 
 Strossmayer as well as Dupanloup refused to sign the 
 Postulatum. 
 
 Day by day the cause gained fresh adherents, and to its 
 success the Eastern bishops contributed not a little. The 
 Romans could not say that they heard of the courtesy and 
 dignity of Eastern manners only from a Turcophile English- 
 man. They were there before the eyes of all beholders. 
 It was not from the lips of a Protestant layman that people 
 heard that the Justice and Law which Christians had for- 
 gotten were to be found enthroned in the East, in the heart 
 of a nation which they had all their lives despised. They 
 were forced into contrasting with the suspicion and dislike
 
 262 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 shown to the Council by European Governments, the 
 courtesy and generosity of the Sultan, who had not only 
 encouraged the bishops of the Eastern Rites to attend it, 
 but had placed a warship at the disposal of those who 
 wished to go. They could not but connect this respect for 
 Law of the Mussulman with the support which had been 
 given by the Turkish Government to the Decrees of the 
 Armenian Synod assembled at Constantinople, calling for 
 the restoration by the Holy See of Law between nation 
 and nation. They could not fail to perceive that it was 
 due to such support that the Eastern prelates had been 
 able to do what the Western prelates could not, and set 
 aside for the Council the maxim "II ne faut pas sortir de 
 la sacristie " — a maxim diametrically opposed to the claim 
 which the Pope had put forth in the Syllabus, the claim 
 of the Church to rule over the consciences of communities 
 as well as over those of individual men. 
 
 The Eastern bishops, however, were not the only propa- 
 gandists. As the days went by Urquhart's alert figure, 
 with its brilliant blue eyes and soft, fair hair waving round 
 his head like an aureole, became a familiar figure not only 
 in the houses of prominent English laymen, but at the 
 receptions of bishops and cardinals. Amongst his sup- 
 porters he now counted, not only such enthusiastic friends 
 as Mgr. Mermillod, the Bishop of Rodez, the Bishop of 
 Nevers, but many a high ecclesiastic who, having first 
 made his acquaintance in Rome, remained attached to him 
 throughout the rest of his life. 
 
 There was an irresistible charm about him. He was 
 youth incarnate, daring, fearless, capable alike of the 
 keenest enjoyment and the deepest despair. 
 
 Pere Roh,i the Jesuit, meeting him for the first time, 
 says: 
 
 " C'est la franchise elle-meme, la franchise poussee 
 jusqu'a la grosierete. Mais il n'est pas du tout entete. 
 C'est I'homme du monde qui se rend le plus facilement a 
 la raison. Si on veut lui faire faire quelque chose ou ne 
 
 1 Celebrated German Jesuit, Professor of Theology at Freiburg 
 and Paderborn.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 263 
 
 pas le faire on a seulement d'aller chez lui et lui dire les 
 raisons, si toutefois on a des raisons a donner." 
 
 He captured whole sections of Roman society by taking 
 away its breath. The first time he met Mgr. Franchi/ 
 who afterwards became one of his closest friends, he said 
 to him : 
 
 " You must accept what I have to say in all its apparent 
 rudeness and extravagance. I am against everyone, I am 
 a revolutionary in everything. You know well that all I 
 propose is very ancient. But still in each case it is as 
 regards the actual men a new discovery and is in opposition 
 with all that exists." 
 
 Popular as he became, he cared nothing for his popularity 
 save as it served the great cause. " Your father says," 
 writes Mrs. Urquhart to her son, " that we are taking as 
 much pains to save the world as most people do to get into 
 Society, as it is called." Her diary is a record of busy days : 
 
 " January 20th. — Lord Stanley gave a dinner party of 
 bishops and the Postulatum was signed. 
 
 " January 24:th. — David went to Cardinal de Bonnechose's 
 reception with the Bishop de Nevers. Very well received. 
 All the bishops thanked him for what he had done. 
 
 " January 2Qth. — David at the Palazzo Bernini. Very 
 useful. Bishop of Carcassonne. 
 
 " January 31st. — David saw Cardinal Pitra and Cardinal 
 de Angelis. Delighted with Cardinal Pitra; more than hour 
 with each. 
 
 " February 1st. — David in the evening to Cardinal de 
 Lucca's reception. Bishops of Poitiers, Nevers, Mgr. 
 Franchi, and the Comte de Breda dined with us." 
 
 Not only did Urquhart thus get into touch with the great 
 world of Rome, he was, so to speak, in its confidence. His 
 transparent honesty, his innate nobility of soul established 
 for him relationships which were never broken. 
 
 " Nous regardons M. Urquhart tout comme un eveque," 
 
 1 Mgr. Franchi was titular Arclibishop of Thessalonica, Secretary of 
 the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs, and Consultor of Propa- 
 ganda for the Affairs of the Oriental Rites, He had been appointed 
 in 1867 Consulter of the Politico-Ecclesiastical Commission of the 
 Congregation, which had general charge of the arrangements for the 
 Council.
 
 264 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 said a Western prelate to Mgr. Azarian.^ " S'il est eveque," 
 the other answered, " il est d'un Ordre a lui, car il n'y a pas 
 d'autres." 
 
 " Non-obstant le secret," he writes to Rustem Bey, " je 
 suis au courant de tout ce qui se passe." 
 
 On one occasion, whilst he was with the Cardinal de 
 Bonnechose, the bishop of Moulins came in to talk official 
 business. The Cardinal plunged into a discussion about 
 the Council much to the surprise of the visitor, who 
 became very reticent. " You may say anything," said 
 the Cardinal. " M. Urquhart est un de nous." 
 
 The General of the Jesuits came himself to see Urquhart 
 and discuss his proposal for a Diplomatic College, or at least 
 for the training of men in " law, diplomacy and etiquette." 
 
 " The Father listened with great patience," said Urquhart, 
 " and sustained attention, though he had just come from 
 a fatiguing sitting of the Council. I hid from him nothing 
 of my thought, either about the depth of ignorance that 
 exists, or the fatal consequences of crime and infidelity 
 which have followed it. I spoke of the part which the 
 Church or modern ecclesiastics have had in the production 
 of the disasters of the world, and the infidelity of men, and 
 the suffering of Society by not fulfilling its duty as a teacher." 
 
 The interview resulted in the appointment of a small 
 committee of ecclesiastics to consider the possibility of 
 such a College.2 
 
 All this time, however, Urquhart was waiting for the goal 
 of his desire — an audience with the Holy Father. It was a 
 great thing to have gained the ear of these others ; but after 
 all he had come to see the Pope. There was a small but 
 energetic party of men who, for various reasons, were against 
 him. Some, like the Bishop of Orleans and Bishop Stross- 
 mayer, took their stand on motives of high political import ; 
 others objected to the interference of a Protestant layman 
 in matters which they persuaded themselves concerned 
 only Catholic ecclesiastics. Such was a certain French 
 
 1 Vicar-General to Mgr. Hassoun, Patriarch of Constantinople. 
 
 2 This scheme sprang from the suggestions in the " Appeal to the 
 Pope."
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 265 
 
 priest who, in reply to Urquhart's remark that, the Oriental 
 bishops not having yet arrived, he did not know for certain 
 whether the Decrees were passed or not in their entirety, 
 said, " But, of course, you as a Protestant and a layman 
 could not have Decrees communicated to you." Urquhart 
 answered him with the simplicity which was one of his 
 greatest charms, " Mais c'est moi qui les ai rediges." 
 
 But those who feared his methods and tried to reproduce 
 at Rome, happily without success, the indifference with 
 which his own country had treated the high ideals and 
 strenuous work of a lifetime, were his most insidious op- 
 ponents. Happily for him he had influential friends at 
 Court. "I know," he wrote, "that within the last few 
 days, four Cardinals have begged him to grant me the 
 necessary time." Some of his most zealous English friends, 
 moreover, had the ear of the Pope and could refute calumnies. 
 Lord Denbigh had an excellent opportunity when the Holy 
 Father, in reply to a suggestion that he would do well to 
 see Urquhart, answered, " But thej^ tell me he is of no 
 consequence, that it is not worth seeing him, that no 
 one in England listens to him. II a ecrit une brochure, 
 n'est-ce-pas ?" By way of answer Lord Denbigh sent to 
 the Pope a sketch of Urquhart's life as well as a small 
 selection from his written works. 
 
 In spite of opposition Urquhart's friends at last pre- 
 vailed, and on February 9th, 1870, he obtained his long- 
 desired interview with the Pope. It was a private audience 
 of the most friendly nature, and in it the Father of Christen- 
 dom more than justified Urquhart's expectations. 
 
 " I arrived at the Vatican," he says, " on the greatest 
 day of my life at twenty minutes to six. The audience 
 was fixed for six, and I was admitted five minutes later. 
 Having made my reverence as to an Eastern Sovereign 
 with my two hands, he raised me up and made me sit in 
 an armchair close to the one which he occupied himself. 
 ' Enfin je vous vols,' he said, ' Dieu vous a inspire les plus 
 justes vues sur les plus grandes questions.' 
 
 " I had in my hand a copy of the Appeal in Latin and 
 of the Canon Law in French, and said: ' Je depose aux 
 pieds de votre Saintete et de votre Majeste I'appel que je
 
 266 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 lui ai fait au nom du Droit foule et de I'humanite abrutie.' 
 He replied, ' Mais je I'ai lu, je I'ai ici ' (placing his hand on 
 the desk) ' et j'approuve tout ce qu'il contient.' " 
 
 Urquhart then presented to him the petition of the women 
 of Macclesfield, mentioning to him that it had been signed 
 by 400 of the women of Macclesfield in England. 
 
 " Que demandent-elles ?" said the Pope. 
 "La restauration du Droit des Gens," answered Urquhart 
 " Les femmes commencent a jouer un grand role," 
 remarked the Pope. 
 
 After a pause Urquhart begged permission to read to the 
 Pope twelve points^ to which he wished to call his atten- 
 
 * The twelve points were given in French. This is, however, a 
 translation of them from Mrs. Bishop's Life of 3Irs. Urquhart. 
 
 "1. The power possessed hy the Revolution has its origin in the 
 fact that the Public Law of Nations, and consequently the Law of 
 God, is neither comprehended nor applied in human societies. 
 
 " 2. The Revolution is cunning, for it uses the veil of deceptive 
 words, which lead honest men and even bishops astray. 
 
 " 3. Russia uses Revolution as her instrument, and alone profits 
 by its crimes. 
 
 " 4. Your Holiness, who represents the conscience of mankind, 
 is the only man who can re-establish Public Law. 
 
 " 5. Hence it is that in the East it has been sought to lessen your 
 authority, and that certain bishops have not understood that they 
 are serving the purposes of the Revolution and of Russia. 
 
 " 6. In the West we have been able to perceive that the whole 
 debate between Law and Revolution is summed up in your authority. 
 
 Thus at the Peace Congress at Geneva, which personified the 
 struggle, there were but two parties to it — the Pope, defended by the 
 Catholics and me; and Garibaldi, supported by Russia and the Revolu- 
 tionary Party. 
 
 " T. It is for this reason that I have chosen Constantinople and 
 Geneva as residences and posts for my observations, and I have 
 come to Rome as the centre of Light, of Law, and of Respect. 
 
 " 8. The Eastern bishops have been almost unanimous. The 
 bishops of the West who have been the warmest defenders of this 
 question of Public Law are Monsignor Manning, Monsignor Des 
 Champs (Bishop of Malines), and Monsignor Mermillod, all three 
 independent of Governments and diplomacy. AU three they contend 
 in behalf of justice in the cities which are centres of Revolution in 
 the West — London, Brussels, and Geneva. 
 
 9. The practical means is to profit by the Council. 
 
 10. Obedience will return to men when ignorance is dispelled. 
 IL For thirty years I have been solely devoted to this question 
 
 and its issues, 
 
 " 12. Support would be gained by the establishment of diplomatic 
 relations between the Holy See and the Porte, which would facilitate 
 the reunion of the Christian populations of the East." 

 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 267 
 
 tion, and which he had written down in case he should forget 
 any of them. 
 
 "I looked," he said, "to see if he showed any signs of 
 fatigue, but it was with great interest that he observed my 
 large sheet and he listened with unfailing attention to the 
 end, only interrupting me to ask the meaning of some 
 phrase or to signify his approval. 
 
 "When I had finished he remained for some time in 
 silence, and then made sundry observations on the state 
 of the world which I did not altogether catch, and which 
 seemed to me to be interior reflections. Then he said, 
 ' You have been some time in Rome ?' I replied, ' I have 
 been in Rome more than three months. I came here at 
 a very great sacrifice in the hopes that your Holiness might 
 under the circumstances be able to make some use of me 
 ' a I'exterieur ' and for the instruction of others in the present 
 diplomatic conditions. My efforts up to the present have 
 remained fruitless, but I have still a month which I can 
 devote to your Holiness' service.' 
 
 " ' You have travelled in Turkey ?' said the Pope. 
 
 " ' I took a considerable share in the affairs of Turkey 
 at an age when most men are still at college. By the 
 confidence of the Sultan Mahmoud and of his three suc- 
 cessors I took part in the financial and military reconstruc- 
 tion of the kingdom and in interior and exterior politics. . . 
 I was among them as one of themselves, and a late Grand 
 Vizier remarked, ' II est trois fois Turc' " 
 
 In a few words Urquhart indicated the true inwardness 
 of the relations between England and Turkey. 
 
 Then the Pope returned to the consideration of the twelve 
 points, referring especially to his suggestion that diplo- 
 matic relations should be established between Rome and 
 the Sublime Porte. The obstacles to such a proceeding, he 
 said, would not arise in Rome, they would come from 
 France. Neither did he see that such a Mission could be 
 undertaken at that moment, " puisque nous sommes tous 
 occupes tous les moments. Moi-meme "... (and he raised 
 his arms and bowed his head with a gesture of infinite 
 weariness) " j'ai. . . ." 
 
 " I ventured to interrupt him," says Urquhart, " with 
 ' Ce monde la ne doit pas faire beaucoup souffrir de telles 
 epaules.'
 
 268 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " He looked at me fixedly, shaking his head, and I con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " ' Ces choses sont petites et sont pour les grands hommes. 
 Les choses que j'ai a presenter sont de grandes choses. 
 Pour elles il faut de petits hommes.' 
 
 " To this apparently enigmatical speech the Pope made 
 no reply. He returned to the discussion of the Appeal and 
 Urquhart's proposals for the restoration of the Law of 
 Nations, and finished the conversation by saying solemnly, 
 " Maintenant la premiere pierre est posee !" 
 
 " I will keep you ever," he continued, " in my memory. 
 I will pray God to grant you that all may be well with you 
 in this life, and I hope that the day will come in the next 
 when in all things you and I may be at one." 
 
 Urquhart was entirely satisfied with his interview. 
 
 " The Pope," he said, " is extremely wise and shrewd, 
 but at the same time very kind and fatherly." 
 
 " Le Pape," he writes to M. Le Play, " a justifie toutes 
 mes anticipations; j'ai ete aussi loin qu'il m'est possible 
 d'aller. Pendant trois mois on m'a barre sa porte. Elle 
 ne s'est ouverte a la fin que par une decision prise par 
 lui-meme. . . . J'ai trouve ce que j'ai prevu: Le Pape et 
 le Pape seul r 
 
 Immediately after the interview the Pope appointed 
 Mgr. Franchi (afterwards Cardinal Secretary of State to 
 Leo XIII.) to be the intermediary between himself and 
 Urquhart. Between the two men there sprang up a great 
 degree of intimacy. In his intercourse with Mgr. Franchi 
 Urquhart experienced the unusual joy of finding all his 
 projects at once understood and appreciated. The day 
 after the audience he unfolded to him in a three hours' con- 
 versation his long cherished schemes for the establishment 
 of diplomatic relations between Rome and the East, and the 
 foundation of an International Diplomatic College in Rome. 
 
 " Votre plan," said Franchi, "est aussi pratique que 
 magnifique et necessaire. Maintenant la premiere pierre 
 
 est posee." 
 
 " C'est le Saint Pere qui a dit cela a I'audience," said 
 Urquhart. " C'est la secoJide pierre qui vient d'etre posee."
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 269 
 
 Two days later, " by the Pope's desire, Mgr. Franchi 
 called upon David to consult him about the Regulations 
 for the Council,"! says Mrs. Urquhart in her diary, " and 
 asked him to write an article about them. He was here 
 from eleven o'clock till one, and went minutely into all the 
 regulations as they then existed, and mentioned the new 
 ones to be made." 
 
 The same day the Postulatum De re militari et hello, 
 signed by forty Conciliar Fathers, was presented to the 
 Commission for consideration. Thus they had before them 
 not only the Postulatum of the Armenian Synod, but one 
 signed by a large and influential body of Western Bishops. 
 Though it was sent in the name of the Fathers of the Council 
 it was Urquhart's work, and everyone recognised it to 
 be so. 
 
 " Up to the present," he says, in a letter to a friend in 
 England, " no ecclesiastic and no Catholic has taken any 
 leading part in the work. They speak to me of ' your 
 Postulatum ' and ' your business.' The Pope said to 
 Mgr. Mermillod the other day, 'I hope Mr. Urquhart's 
 work is progressing.' " 
 
 But though the work was his there were many who shared 
 his joy in the success which had been obtained and his hope 
 for the future. "1 present," said Mgr. Mermillod, "la 
 semance est jettee, la neige peut venir; cela ne I'empechera 
 pas de pousser." 
 
 Obviously the audience and the Pope's evident considera- 
 tion for the Protestant layman greatly increased his prestige. 
 His name was on all the lists of official receptions. Cardinals 
 eased their anxiety and refreshed themselves in the midst 
 of their strenuous work and harried days by many a visit 
 to the Via Sistina to discuss affairs with a man who always 
 saw behind the scenes, who never took a commonplace 
 view, and who never hesitated to strike a warning note 
 when it might be of use." 
 
 "At five. Cardinal de Bonnechose," writes Mrs. Urquhart; 
 "stayed till 6.30. Had just returned from the French 
 
 ^ Probably with a view to bringing tlieni into line with con- 
 temporary parliamentary procedure.
 
 270 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Embassy. Much depressed and alarmed. Said the Council 
 was now in a state of paralysis and seemed smitten with 
 the impossibility of concluding anything. Blamed regula- 
 tions and spoke of Governments, and ended by acknow- 
 ledging that the Church might declare the Law." 
 
 The delay in the proceedings of the Council was giving 
 much cause for alarm to those who were watching the war 
 clouds gather on the horizon of Europe. Urquhart especi- 
 ally regarded it with increasing uneasiness, convinced as 
 he was that it was engineered from without. 
 
 " You have just a breathing space," he said. " If you 
 allow the opposition to go on so as to be able to do nothing 
 else (than to pass the Decree of Infallibility) events will 
 come which this Declaration as to war might prevent." 
 
 It may seem strange that a " rank outsider " like 
 Urquhart should have been taken so far behind the scenes 
 in Conciliar matters, but it was after all in keeping with 
 his life and character. Even if men hated him they always 
 instinctively trusted him. A curious incident mentioned 
 in Mrs. Urquhart's diary shows how well that trust was 
 merited now. 
 
 " At the Cardinal de Bonnechose's reception David went 
 up to converse with the Archbishop of Westminster and 
 one or two other bishops who were standing together. As 
 he went he found himself considering how much he ought 
 to tell them of what he knew of what was going on. A 
 few days afterwards David met the Bishop of Rodez and 
 asked him how the new regulations worked. ' I do not 
 know,' the Bishop answered, ' whether, or how much, I can 
 tell you of things in the Council.' David answered, ' The 
 last time I saw you I was in the same state with regard to 
 you r " 
 
 Amidst all these absorbing new interests, or, to speak 
 more correctly, new developments of interests, and new 
 friends, Urquhart forgot neither old interests nor old friends. 
 He was corresponding with Karl Marx on the financial 
 position of Europe and the collusion between Governments 
 and great financiers. He was in close touch with the Foreign 
 Affairs Committees, who had just sent a petition to the
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 271 
 
 Popei in which twenty Committees were represented. On 
 February 19th, 1870, he wrote to the Chairman of the 
 Macclesfield Committee : 
 
 " I have submitted to the Pope the Macclesfield Address 
 through one of the chief functionaries. It was accompanied 
 by an Italian translation, which the Pope himself read with 
 great care. He then gave orders that it should be referred 
 to the Commission of the Council with a particular recom- 
 mendation from himself. The petition of the women of 
 Macclesfield I presented myself. His Holiness was much 
 struck by it. I am empowered to convey to them his 
 thanks, and can also convey to them the assurance which 
 I myself derived from the whole conversation that his own 
 desires coincide with the tenor of the Petition. 
 
 " The Postulate representing the ideas contained in my 
 Appeal to the Pope has now been either signed or approved 
 of by all the prelates who have obtained the highest number 
 of votes for the various deputations, as, for instance, the 
 Archbishop of Saragossa, the Bishop of Paderborn (German), 
 the Bishop of Jaen (Spain), the Archbishop of Tyre 
 (Maronite), the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem 
 and Antioch, besides the Bishop of Geneva, the Archbishop 
 of Westminster, etc., etc, 
 
 " The Oriental prelates have fully justified the expecta- 
 tions formed of them, and those belonging to the three 
 principal rites — Armenians, Maronites and Melchites 
 (Greeks) — have signed it. There are also many names of 
 English and Irish bishops, and it is believed that the greater 
 number will support the Proposition although they have 
 not signed. Many bishops have made it a rule not to sign 
 anything out of the Council. 
 
 " In giving you this intimation of so marvellous a result 
 I have to acknowledge how far the Foreign Affairs Com- 
 mittees have contributed to it. Both by their addresses 
 to Eastern prelates, their petitions to the Pope, and the 
 deputation to the Sultan the grounds were laid for future 
 action as regards both Candia and the Council. I enclose 
 a facsimile of the Postulate as originally drawn up and 
 signed by the Armenian prelates which has been deposited 
 in my hands. 
 
 " I have to urge you to spare no pains in obtaining 
 petitions. We are now assured of the concurrence of the 
 Pope and the support of the most eminent members of the 
 
 ^ See Appendix,
 
 272 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Roman Hierarchy which has been given by their signatures. 
 But still it is but a commencement that has been made, 
 and an arduous and precarious struggle has to be gone 
 through before really effective Decrees are passed, and the 
 other collateral but not less imperative measures are 
 adopted. 
 
 " You are at liberty to communicate confidentially this 
 letter to the other Committees." 
 
 By the end of April Urquhart felt that all had been done 
 that could be done. Besides his own appeal and the 
 petitions from English working men and women, the Holy 
 Father had received petitions from French Catholics, 
 English Protestants, and English Catholics, the latter in- 
 cluding a sketch of Defourny's CEuvre Apostolique, all alike 
 urging on the Council the imperative necessity of once more 
 declaring to the world the Law of Nations. 
 
 Before he left Rome he had the joy of knowing that the 
 Postulata had been accepted by the Commission. 
 
 " Voila la position," he writes to M. Le Play. " Les 
 Decrets sur le Droit des Gens (je vous le confie sous le secret 
 le plus absolu) sont rediges et presentes unanimement par 
 la Commission au Pape qui les a envoyes appuyes au 
 Concile. . . . On m'a dit que le Pape en ouvrant le paquet 
 de la Commission a dit ' Ah, nostro Urquhart.' " 
 
 Urquhart felt he could do no more by remaining on the 
 spot. The month of service he had promised to His Holi- 
 ness had lengthened out to three when he and his wife at 
 last turned their backs on Rome. On May 31st, Mrs. 
 Urquhart writes in her diary : 
 
 " Arrived at the chalet. Thank God !" 
 
 We can well imagine that the expression of gratitude was 
 no empty phrase when we realise what it must have cost 
 her to leave four children, one a baby of a year old, for 
 six months to the care of servants, in a country not her 
 own. Only once does she let us see a glimpse of what she 
 felt. In March she wrote to her elder son : 
 
 " You say I will lose all Frankie's comic little ways. 
 My dearest Daisy, you may be sure we would leave Rome
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL 273 
 
 to-morrow if we could without doing wrong. The occasion 
 is so great, it is one that cannot happen again, and what 
 we are striving for is the honour of God and that the name 
 of Jesus may no longer be put to shame by what men do 
 who call themselves Christians. This has been the object 
 of your father's whole life. . . . What would I not give 
 to be able to see you and the girls and the little fellow if 
 only for half an hour and give you all a good kiss !" 
 
 For a month Urquhart and his wife were able to enjoy 
 their peaceful retreat and their reunion with their children. 
 
 Then the blow fell. 
 
 On July 18th the Council overcame the opposition and 
 proclaimed the Dogma of the Papal Infallibility. 
 
 The next day it dispersed amid the first thunders of war, 
 proposing to meet again in November. The day of meeting 
 again never came. 
 
 The delay that Urquhart had known to be dangerous 
 had proved fatal to the fulfilment of his hopes. 
 
 " Le delai etait un crime," said Defourny. " Mais les 
 criminels sont ceux qui du dedans ou du dehors suscitaient 
 le delai." 
 
 But once again these criminals had proved too strong. 
 
 The Postulata over which Urquhart spent himself so 
 freely still lie among the papers to come before the Council, 
 though the hands that signed them are long since cold, and 
 the tireless brain which conceived them has been for forty 
 years at rest. 
 
 IS
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 
 
 " Lofty designs must close in like effects: 
 Loftily lying 
 
 Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects 
 Living and dying." 
 
 The last chapter of David Urquhart's life, the story of the 
 seven years of work which remained after the Vatican 
 Council, is the most difficult of all to write, not from lack, 
 but from superabundance, of material. So many were the 
 threads he held in his hands — those hands which " ought 
 to have been the hands of a sculptor " — threads of inven- 
 tion, threads of statecraft, threads of social reform, the 
 dark and sinister threads of Russian intrigue and Prussian 
 domination, mingled always with the golden strands of 
 Faith and Hope ! So rapidly did the swift shuttle of his 
 thought dart backwards and forwards amongst them, 
 making a pattern which, though it may have been clear to 
 the great spirits, the Angels of the Presence who watch 
 man's destiny, nevertheless dazzled the eyes and bewildered 
 the minds of mortal onlookers ! 
 
 It seems best, therefore, in trying to trace the story of 
 those remaining years to follow the golden thread which 
 was in fact his own guide, the thread of Hope that the 
 salvation and regeneration of the world might still come 
 through the Catholic Church. 
 
 When Urquhart withdrew from Rome his magnetic 
 personality, he left behind him many traces of his presence. 
 
 On the day of his departure he entrusted to Mgr. Franchi 
 a Memorandum of " four things to be done " which he 
 was to submit to the Pope. 
 
 One of these was the establisJiment of diplomatic rela- 
 tions with the Sublime Porte, and another the appoint- 
 
 274
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 275 
 
 ment of the Abbe Defourny to the Diplomatic College, 
 which was on the point, as it seemed, of being established. 
 Urquhart had already drawn up for it a scheme of Educa- 
 tion which the General of the Jesuits had approved. It 
 was such a scheme as would have caused the conventional 
 educationist to gasp with horror, and the European diplo- 
 matist to wag his head with scorn. 
 
 The n«^ophyte was to be trained first in cleanliness, the 
 real cleanliness of the Turkish bath; then in politeness, 
 the real courtesy of the East, to be found in the West only 
 in the ceremonial of the Catholic Church. These two un- 
 Western practices would immediately " set up a barrier 
 between him and the defiling and irreverent spirit of the 
 Age." 
 
 Then would come the study of the Law of Nations ; then 
 the study of History, true History, not such as is taught 
 in school or class book, nor that which has been miscalled 
 History for the last three hundred years. Last of all the 
 student would learn " Metaphysics," beginning with the 
 study of words and their connection with thought and 
 going on to the connection between thoughts and ideas in 
 the minds of men and nations. 
 
 That this scheme was not carried out was due not to 
 any idea among the authorities of its impracticability, but 
 to the chaos into which Rome was thrown by the quick 
 march of sinister events. 
 
 Rome, however, in the midst of all her woes did not 
 forget the meteoric Englishman who had flashed across her 
 skies. Three years after that memorable year of the 
 Council, Cardinal Capalti, Prefect of the Congregation of 
 Studies, spoke with the deepest feeling of " the good Mr. 
 LTrquhart had done " during the Council. " The seeds are 
 sown," he said, " and will bear fruit." 
 
 " He was a great help to us during the Council," said 
 Pere Armellini. The Abbe Sangelgian spoke with tears in 
 his eyes after Urquhart's death of the great work he had 
 done and the astonishment which men had felt at the 
 keenness of his prophetic vision. Long afterwards, in the 
 days of stress which followed those calm months, men
 
 276 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 remembered how he had warned them that the halcyon 
 days of the Council would end in a storm. 
 
 " Je n'avais pas la claire vision comme vous," wrote the 
 Bishop of Rodez shortly before his death, " mais je pensais 
 que les jours de paix accordes au Concile par la Providence 
 etaient comptes; c'est pourquoi j'etais si indigne des efforts 
 de r Opposition pour entraver nos deliberations dans un 
 but d'ajournement indefini." 
 
 In those fateful days of 1870 how many men must have 
 remembered his clear and confident prescience of them ! 
 
 Everywhere confusion reigned. It was as though the 
 very mention of Law had roused to fury all the demons of 
 lawlessness, and had sent them ranging over the earth to 
 do their utmost during the time that might remain to them. 
 
 The Patriarch Hassoun, who had come to the Council 
 bearing the Vote of the Armenian Synod, had gone back 
 to his Patriarchate to find himself face to face with f erious 
 trouble : not only was schism rending the Armenian Catholic 
 body, but the Porte, in absolute contradiction of its hitherto 
 unvarying policy, had sided with the dissidents and was 
 persecuting the Catholics. So fierce became the storm that 
 Hassoun, after vainly trying for a while to stem it, found 
 himself driven into exile at Rome. He had become too 
 dangerous to Russia, said Urquhart, since his action in the 
 Synod, to be left at large in the East.^ 
 
 The distressful state of the Armenian Catholics gave sad 
 point to the mild rebuke of the Pope when he accepted 
 Mgr. Dupanloup's submission to the Decrees of the Council 
 " notwithstanding the harm you have done in the East." 
 
 ^ The dissidents placed themselves under the rule of the Civil 
 Patriarch, John Kapelian, who was recognised by the Porte. The 
 schism lasted till 1879, when Kapelian submitted to the Holy See. 
 Hassoun and Azarian, who had found their exUe in Eome very bitter, 
 and whose letters to David Urquhart during that time would of 
 themselves make an interesting vohime of ecclesiastical history, 
 were restored to their dignities. Hassoun was, however, in 1880 
 made the first Armenian Cardinal by Leo XIII, and returned to 
 Eome under happier conditions. Azarian succeeded him in the 
 Patriarchate. 
 
 See Urquhart's Le Patriarch Hassoun, written in 1873 for the French 
 edition of the Diplomatic Beview, for a full account of the schism 
 and its connection with the Council.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 277 
 
 To the Church in France even the immense catastrophe 
 of tho war had not brought internal peace. Gallicanism, 
 though its wings were clipped, still survived. The internal 
 submission of many of the Bishops was not so generous and 
 entire as that of the Bishop of Orleans: they remained 
 " absolutists," and on their return from the Council the 
 parish clergy underwent in many cases a species of persecu- 
 tion at their hands. 
 
 The Abbe Defourny even during the Council had warned 
 Urquhart that because of this spirit among the Bishops a 
 Papal Proclamation of the Law of Nations would of itself 
 be of little avail in France. 
 
 " It will be of no use," he said, " for the Pope in the 
 Council to define anything, however clearly he does it, if 
 the mode of its application is left to the judgment of the 
 Bishops. The Galileans among them will toss aside, skilfully 
 and boldly, rules of discipline, unless those rules are rigid, 
 unless all the i's are dotted." 
 
 His own Bishop had threatened to " break him " on his 
 return from the Council because he had written a treatise 
 on the dangers of Gallicanism. For years he was kept in 
 a state of " esclavage," and was not allowed to publish 
 anything, not even to write a letter to a newspaper under 
 his own name. 
 
 In the Papal States, in spite of many promises and pro- 
 fessions to the contrary, convents and monasteries were 
 being emptied of nuns and monks. 
 
 Rome itself was filled with an undisciplined mob which 
 had been brought thither to swell the Plebiscite, and was 
 given over to licence. 
 
 " There have been orgies here," writes Mr. Monteith 
 from Rome, at Christmastide, 1870, " not unlike those once 
 performed in Paris. Things impossible at Florence or 
 Turin are put on the stage here. The songs one sees hawked 
 about are awful. The insecurity is very great. Very many 
 people live entirely within-doors. The delivery of bread 
 has been irregular from the necessity of guarding it, two 
 or three stout fellows armed with sticks not always proving 
 sufficient. The address of the new Rector of the Roman 
 College has done some good, for it was distinctly atheistic.
 
 278 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 In fact the reaction and disillusionment is remarkable. 
 De Rossi told me a good deal. An acquaintance of his 
 who carried the banner of the so-called P — • — of the Leonine 
 City to the Campidoglio came to him the other day with 
 open remorse, exclaiming that he would now ' gladly invite 
 the Turks to drive out the Italians.' " 
 
 But at the Vatican itself all was different. It was " like 
 a house of pilgrimage," said Monteith. Pius IX. was full 
 of sweetness and courage and " forgiveness," and the 
 cardinals, who dared not be seen in their official dress in 
 the streets, but who " came to the Vatican in shabby 
 vehicles, covered with old black cloaks and changed in the 
 Ante-Camera," took their tone from him. Monteith could 
 not speak without tears of his Christmas audience with the 
 Pope, nor of the sorrow and desolation of that Christmas- 
 time in the Eternal City, where no Midnight Masses were 
 said and no " cannon sounded at dawn from Sant Angelo." 
 " Perhaps," he said, " they will never be heard again during 
 our time." 
 
 The Temporal Power had gone, the Papal States had 
 gone; the Pope was no longer a temporal Sovereign, his 
 Government equal in rank, by the Law of Nations, to the 
 Government of any Power in Europe. He was a prisoner 
 in the Vatican, not knowing from day to day what might 
 befall. 
 
 The time when as a Sovereign Power he could protest 
 against the ill-doings of his fellow Sovereigns was gone by, 
 frittered away by a " delay which was a crime." 
 
 What, then, was left ? Urquhart, whose disappointment 
 at the fatal blow had been more bitter than that of anyone 
 else, said that everything that mattered was left. 
 
 " The power which resides in the Pope is not so much 
 as touched by the crimes of the Duke of Savoy and the 
 King of Sardinia." 
 
 He absolutely refused to admit that the high hopes he had 
 built on the Papacy had come to nothing. His belief in the 
 Pope was unbounded. 
 
 " The Pope has done everything well — no less and no 
 more than he ought to have done."
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 279 
 
 He rafu^ed to admit that anything had gone whose loss 
 was irreparable or even material. The Temporal Power 
 had gone; let it go: perhaps all the Sovereignties in the 
 world would go. 
 
 " We are," he said, " perhaps but one step nearer to 
 reality by its going. The CathoHc Community still exists ; 
 with knowledge and science it will be irresistible, all the 
 more irresistible because it has at last realised, or it has 
 at least such an opportunity as it never had before of 
 realising, what it has to do and what to fight. 
 
 " Christianity rose into the world out of the Catacombs. 
 Its path was in blood, its own blood. So may it be with 
 the second Resurrection of Christianity." 
 
 If men cared enough for Liberty and Justice that second 
 Resurrection was assured beyond a doubt. But did they ? 
 On the answer to that question must depend the future of the 
 Church, whether it would sink into paganism or would live. 
 
 So he took up again the office of teacher which he had 
 hoped to have left at the Council for ever in the hands of 
 the Church. 
 
 " I do it," he said to one who thought he took too much 
 upon himself, " for the same reason for which I have worked 
 all my life, because there is no one else to do it." " Si 
 ceux que vous appelez croyants et Catholiques compre- 
 naient et faisaient leur devoir," he wrote to Pere Roh, 
 " il y aurait presomption de ma part d'ouvrir la bouche." 
 
 Because there was no one else to do it, both by voice 
 and pen he tried to supply the lack. Much of what he 
 wrote at this time is more concise and more vigorous than 
 any of his earlier work. Of his English writing perhaps 
 the best specimen is the Four Wars of the French Revolution. 
 Like a good deal of his work it is reminiscent, and his 
 reminiscences are like the survey of a traveller looking from 
 a mountain height over the country he has painfully and 
 toilsomely traversed. 
 
 He wrote much in French; it was indeed in French that 
 he wrote one of his most outstanding works, La Desolation 
 de la Chretiente. It made a great impression. Of it 
 M. Le Play said : —
 
 280 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " J'ai lu et je relis avec uiie satisfaction que je ne saurais 
 vous exprimer La Desolation de la Chretiente. Vous avez 
 reussi beaucoup mieux que dans vos autres ouvrages a 
 exprimer votre pensee; cette pensee devient chaque jour 
 plus nette et je crois remarquer que vous avez ete mieux 
 servi par la langue de Descartes que vous ne I'avez ete 
 par votre langue maternelle." 
 
 The Desolation was a short treatise which embodied 
 for the rest of the world the teaching he had mapped out 
 for the Diplomatic College. Its keynote is: " Ce que 
 I'Europeen modern croit est probablement faux, et ce qu'il 
 dit impossible est la chose a tenter et a accomplir par un 
 coeur droit. "^ 
 
 The plan of the work is something like this : In the mind 
 of the modern European right and wrong have changed 
 places. Society is upside down. Thought is completely 
 houleverse. Men pride themselves upon having grasped 
 the deep truths of life and religion when they have merely 
 got hold of a few catchwords which they think stand ior 
 them. 
 
 The human mind is so constituted that it is dependent 
 on language as a vehicle for ideas ; hence the great necessity 
 for guarding the purity and accuracy of language. But 
 in Europe, and particularly in England, language has become 
 vague, and loose, and full of hybrid, abstract words; it is 
 unfit for the conveyance of accurate and sound thought. 
 
 Such a condition of language makes it impossible for a 
 man to perceive its harm to himself since it cuts him off 
 from accurate and coherent thought and thereby from clear 
 mental sight. There is one way to overcome this, and only 
 one, and that is by learning a language still unspoilt. Such 
 a language Urquhart found in Turkish. Nothing showed 
 him more clearly the meaninglessness of European abstract 
 ideas than an attempt to render them intelligible to a Turk 
 in his own language. 
 
 Language, however, is not the only means of communica- 
 tion between human beings; another and one not less 
 
 ^ The text whicli was given liim by the ro.^c in liia garden ! See 
 Chapter XI.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 2Sl 
 
 potent for good or evil is to bo found in a man's bearing 
 towards liis fellows, whieh is speech in action. Ill-bearing 
 means loss of dignity, familiarity, insolence; it is the lan- 
 guage of injustice, want of love, selfishness, cruelty and in 
 the last resort, murder, bloodshed, and wars of contpiest 
 and rapine. 
 
 A riglit bearing or courtesy means that a man retains 
 liis own dignity and respects that of others; it is the lan- 
 guage of love and justice, of national and intei'national 
 Peace, Law and Liberty. 
 
 The " free and easy " manners of Europeans are bad 
 because they are built either on insincerity or on want of 
 honour and of dignity. In European countries the Catholic 
 Church alone inculcates real courtesy. Does anyone in 
 England ever see a schoolboy bow as he stands aside for 
 his father to pass or as he hands his mother some article 
 of domestic use ? Yet he does both as he serves the priest 
 in the sanctuary. Urquhart saw the Eastern boy in his 
 home perform the simplest acts with the courtesy of a 
 prince, and he nearly wept with joy when ho recognised, in 
 the action of a young man kissing tlie foot of the Pope's 
 statue in a Catholic Church and laying on it his forehead, 
 the " temena " or greeting which he had so often seen in 
 the East given by the young to their elders. 
 
 It is on these two things, spoken language and the bearing 
 of men to each other, Urquhart maintained, that human 
 society rests. 
 
 The desolation of Christianity lies in this, that in Christian 
 countries these two bases are crumbling away. They lay 
 four square beneath it in the past. They were the stability 
 of the ancient kingdoms of the East. To tliem Turk and 
 Persian, Japanese, Chinese, and other ancient civilisations 
 owe their extraordinary tenacity of life. Such nations 
 Urquhart was not afraid to hold up for an example to 
 Christians, as a greater than he, he said, was not afraid to 
 hold up the heathen as an example to tiio r(;ligious people 
 of His own time. 
 
 Modern Society is rotten and crumbling away because it 
 is based on rotten and false foundations instciad of the true
 
 282 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 and solid foundations of earlier times. It is for the Catholic 
 Church not to pride herself upon her superiority to pagans, 
 but to learn lessons of them where she can, and boldly to 
 point out to the world its evils and the true reasons for 
 them, its false thought and the immoral actions which 
 spring from it. Of these evils the greatest is War, modern 
 War, which is murder. 
 
 War in ancient days, terrible and devastating as it was, 
 was like one of the forces of Nature; it came like an earth- 
 quake, without hurt to the moral nature of man, and it came 
 from without, from the conquest of some mighty king, from 
 the invasion of barbarian or savage; it was not, as it is 
 to-day, the result of internal degeneration. 
 
 Nations go to war to-day, not to punish wrong-doing, not 
 even to make a larger place for themselves when their own 
 becomes too strait. It is in fact no longer the nation that 
 goes to war; it is a small party in the nation which, for its 
 own advantage, careless of others' good, heedless of the 
 rights of all, sets the mighty ball a-rolling.^ And men have 
 ceased to respect the goods of other men and the rights of 
 other nations because they first ceased to respect the human 
 dignity of others, because for respect is substituted famili- 
 arity, for courtesy if not rudeness, at least " free and easy 
 
 manners." 
 
 With that loss of respect, of courtesy, of human dignity, 
 has come the drawing apart of Society into classes, so that 
 now men live side by side as strangers, without respect, with- 
 out consideration, not to speak of love, for one another. 
 
 " An English writer of the last century," says Urquhart, 
 " Mr. Cobbett, remarked that the change for the worse in 
 England took place when farm labourers no longer sat down 
 at the table of their masters. I would go further and say 
 that decadence began when the vassal and the serf no 
 longer ate at the table of the lord. Once when I was at 
 such a table in the East, with a Prince and a Patriarch at 
 one end and a beggar at the other, I ordered my English 
 servant to seat himself down too. He refused, giving as 
 
 ^ See Arthur Penty, Guilds and the Social Crisis, where he ascribes 
 the Great War of 1914 to the rottenness of the economic condition of 
 the whole world — particularly of Germany.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 283 
 
 his reason that he could not serve a master whom he could 
 not respect, and he could not respect me if he sat down 
 to table with me. Whereupon I sent him away, and I 
 hope he took his place in his own rank. 
 
 " If that man had kissed my hand after dinner he would 
 not have ceased to respect his master for dining with him ; 
 indeed, so to have dined would have increased both his 
 respect and his affection." 
 
 When Society is based on mutual respect there will be 
 revolt against wrong, but not Revolution, as Revolution is 
 understood in Europe to-day. If their rulers break the 
 Law men will enforce it against them, but the Law once 
 enforced, they will revert to old relationship. They will 
 not say, " Our King is a tyrant, we will have a Republic." 
 They will say, " Our King breaks the Law; it is for us to 
 see that he observes it." 
 
 More than this and they would be themselves law- 
 breakers. 
 
 The modern State was in no way Urquhart's idea of what 
 a State should be under the rule of the Catholic Church. 
 She could only be content with it if she ignored both her 
 heritage and her mission. It would only be in a State 
 where Truth and Respect once more reigned that she could 
 rise to her full stature of dignity and beauty. It would 
 only be when all the world consisted of such States that her 
 work for the world would be done. 
 
 The Church could not go about preaching dogmatic 
 theology in season and out of season in such a world as 
 then existed, but she could, like John the Baptist, cry 
 aloud " It is not lawful," when right was outraged and 
 wrong was triumphant. There she had a weapon both 
 against judicial perversion and religious infidelity. 
 
 Such is, in brief, the theme of La Desolation de la 
 Chretiente. It was much appreciated by Catholics every- 
 where. The Pope sjnt, through the Archbishop of West- 
 minster, a brief, thanking Urquhart for it. 
 
 " David Urquhart, Protestant de nom et Catholique de 
 doctrine," says the author of a work on the Council in 
 quoting a long passage from it in his Preface.
 
 284 BAVm URQUHART 
 
 " C'est le fait d'un honnete homme," says Pere Roh,i 
 " qui nous aime et qui nous estime." 
 
 " Monsieur Urquhart," said the Bishop of Geneva, speak- 
 ing to the Pope of the book, " nous prepare une atmosphere 
 a travers de laquelle la lumiere peut se faire jour." 
 
 And His HoUness answered: " L'aurore viendra." 
 
 " Je constate," said M. Le Play, " de plus en plus que 
 nous venons I'un et 1' autre de 1' Orient. C'est la notre 
 parente. C'est ce qui fait que beaucoup de gens nous appellent 
 ' retrogrades.' Le fait est vrai et I'appelation juste. Seule- 
 ment ce qui est dans leur esprit une critique doit etre un 
 eloge." 
 
 The writing of the book and the reception which it received 
 revived in Urquhart all the old courage and fire which the 
 fiasco of the Council had damped. They were indeed 
 needed, for the political situation, though not hopeless, was 
 desperate. 
 
 The letters of his friend Baron Prokesch,^ Austrian 
 Ambassador in Constantinople, grew more and more 
 depressing. 
 
 The Porte, which had hitherto preserved much of its 
 Eastern character, was fast becoming entangled in European 
 politics, and Turkey, thanks to the introduction of European 
 financial methods, was on the verge of bankruptcy. 
 
 ^ Pere Roh wrote of it to Mrs. Urquhart: 
 
 " Mannheim, 
 
 "27 3Iars, 1871. 
 
 "Madame, 
 
 " Quoique je sois bien occupe j'ai aclieve la lecture tres atten- 
 tive de r admirable travail de M. votre inari. C'est uu ouvrage que 
 je re-lirai et que je mediterai souvent. J'eprouve un profond regret 
 et une profoude liuiniliation d'etre arriv6 a I'age de soixaute ans 
 ignorant tant de choses si nccessaires et si simples, apres tant d'etudes. 
 Si j'avais su tout cola, il y a 30-40 ans mon action en classes et a 
 Teglisc cut ete tout autre. C'est bien tard pour moi que de com- 
 nicncer, niais ce n'est pas trop tard pour bien d'autres, et je ferai 
 mon possible, afm qu'ils fassent mieux que moi. Je ra'appliquerai 
 a [aire connaitre en AUemagne cette admirable brochure, et je vous 
 supplie de lui procurer de votre part la plus graude publicit6 possible." 
 
 2 Urquhart liad been intimate with Baron Prokesch through the 
 whole oi his varied political career. In 1839 he was Minister Pleni- 
 potentiary at Athens, in 1852 he was President of the CTcrmanic 
 Diet at Frankfort. His Memoirs are full of interest, showing how 
 deeply he shared Urquhart's feelings on the Russian question.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 285 
 
 One ray of hope he saw. His desire for the opening of 
 diplomatic relations between Rome and the Sublime Porte 
 had been fulfilled by the despatch of Mgr. Franchi to 
 Constantinople as Papal Envoy, to try and disentangle the 
 knot of the Armenian schism. His negotiations were, up 
 to a certain point, successful, and the danger of rupture 
 which would have been disastrous to Catholics in the 
 Ottoman Empire was averted. i 
 
 It is curious to read from the letters of this time that it 
 was to the Grand Vizier, Aali Pasha, that the Comte de 
 Breda betook himself after the disastrous defeat of Sedan 
 with the proposition that Turkey should help to bring 
 about a combination of the weaker States in a Ligue des 
 Faibles against the haughtiness and insolence of the great 
 
 1 Mgr. Franchi wrote to Urquliart from Constantinople: 
 
 " J'ai re§u avec uu grand plaisir votre aimable lettre du 12 
 courant, et je vous reniercie des bienveUIantes paroles que vous 
 avez vonlu exprimer a mon egard. Du moment que j'ai ete nomm6 
 par le Saint P6re pour remplir cette importante mission a Constan- 
 tinople, i'ai pense tout de suite a votre honorable personne. 
 J'etais tres sur que vous en auriez eprouve une joie tout particuliere 
 et que vous m'auriez accompagn6 avec vos voeux s'il vous n'etait 
 pas possible de me faire une visite. Oh ! comme tout ce qui se 
 I)asse ici me rappelle les discours que nous avons faits tant de iois 
 sur rOrient et sur les grands int6rets de la religion Catholique ! 
 
 " Je crois, mon ami, que ma mission a fait quelque chose de bien. 
 L'accord avec la Porte est presqu' a sa fin. La participation des 
 laiques dans Telectiou des Eveques est admise dans le sens que 
 vous aviez indique, c'est a dire au bon temoignage sur les qualit^s 
 des candidats. Des autres points sont arretes sur les garanties 
 de la fidelite relativement aux elus a la dignite episcopale, a 1' ad minis- 
 tration des biens, conservation des rites et des liturgies, etc. De 
 sorte que j'espere d'avoir tout fini dans le courant du mois prochain. 
 J'ai assists bier soir au diner donne par le Grand Vizir dans rocca- 
 sion de I'anniversaire de I'avenement au trone du Sultan, et j'etais 
 place a la droite de ]\Iehmed Kiupresti Pacha, qui m'a dit d'avoir 
 re9U votre lettre, et qui m'a promis de m'envoyer la brochuie de 
 laquelle vous me parlez. 
 
 " Nous parlous toujours de vous avec le Baron de Prokesch et 
 nous nous rapellons toujours vos grands services rendus en g6n^ri^l 
 a la soci^te, et en particulier a la Turquie. Pour ce qui conceDie 
 ma personne je suis tres content d'avoir visits I'Orient, et je suis 
 convaincu que si nous aurions eu une id6e plus exacte des Mussulmans 
 et de leurs int6rets nous aurions pu en profiter d'avantage. 
 
 " Je vous prie de presenter mes compliments a votre femme, et 
 d'agreer en meme temps 1' assurance de ma haute estime et la con- 
 sideration avec laquelle je suis votre devone ami. 
 
 " (Sign6) Alexandre, 
 " Archeveque de Thessalonique."
 
 286 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Etats-Dieu of Prussia and Russia. The Grand Vizier was 
 so impressed with his visit, and apparently so much in- 
 terested in the scheme, that it was the talk of all Con- 
 stantinople how he had kept waiting for twenty minutes 
 the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who was announced during their 
 interview ! 
 
 England was rejoicing over the victory of Prussia, but 
 Urquhart knew it, and proclaimed it to be a disaster for 
 the world. In spite of his hearty contempt for and dislike 
 of Louis Napoleon, he was absolutely convinced that the 
 whole war had been engineered by Prussia, at the instiga- 
 tion, and with the co-operation, of Russia. A declaration 
 of the Law of Nations by the Council might have prevented 
 it, not only because of the effect it would have had on 
 the German Catholic party, but because the only thing 
 which Russia feared was the establishment of Law and 
 Order on a footing which promised permanence. That 
 hope was as yet unfulfilled, but it was Urquhart's goal in 
 all his future work. 
 
 " The Pope, when he said ' I can do nothing unless I 
 am moved from without,' gave me," he was wont to say, 
 " my mission — to be always on guard, that when the 
 opportunity for action comes I may seize it for him." 
 
 For that opportunity he never ceased to watch. He 
 threw himself into any work that might bear within it 
 seeds of hope, were it the CEuvre Apostolique of the Abbe 
 Defourny, or the Union de la Paix Sociale of Le Play. 
 
 The CEuvre Apostolique was a religious society which 
 he had directly inspired, though he did not altogether 
 approve of the form it had taken. The Abbe Defourny 
 and Pere Jullion were its two promoters. Its basis was a 
 purely religious one, and its aim was to re-establish courtesy 
 in the family and justice in the State. 
 
 It was another and practical method of " preparing the 
 occasion " for the Pope. Defourny was convinced that it 
 would be of no use even were the Pope to proclaim the 
 Law of Nations from the Vatican unless the Church both 
 desired that Law and was prepared both in spirit and in 
 knowledge to carry it out. It was to quicken the spirit
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 287 
 
 and supply the knowledge by instruction both to children 
 and their elders that the CEuvre Apostoliqtie was founded. 
 It met at first with much opposition from the ecclesiastical 
 authorities, and its final approval by the Holy See was 
 due to Urquhart himself. When Defourny went to Rome 
 in 1875 for the Jubilee, Urquhart gave him a letter to his 
 old friend, Mgr., now Cardinal, Franchi, begging his good 
 offices for the (Euvre with the Holy Father. So success- 
 ful were those offices that Defourny returned from Rome 
 with great joy, his work approved and an open course 
 before him. 
 
 Of another nature was the Union de la Paix Socials of 
 M. Le Play. It was, as its name indicates, an association 
 to promote internal union within the French nation. But 
 M. Le Play was too much one in mind with Urquhart not 
 to see that International Justice was the only basis of such 
 union. Therefore the re-establishment of the Law of 
 Nations took the first place in the work of the Union de 
 la Paix Sociale. 
 
 Le Play had collected around him many disciples who 
 thus became familiar with Urquhart and his work, and 
 his sphere of influence steadily widened in France. Learned 
 Societies like those of Arras and Lille and Grenoble, asked 
 for monographs from himself and Defourny, whose reputa- 
 tion as a Canonist had steadily grown through years of 
 plodding work. 
 
 Pere Ramiere introduced him to a section of the most 
 thoughtful and learned Catholic public at the time, by 
 writing four articles on the " Restauration du Droit des 
 Gens " in The Ehides, the French Jesuit Review of which 
 he was afterwards editor. The articles are a complete 
 exposition of Urquhart's work. The author describes 
 enthusiastically the " ecoles du Droit des Gens," as he 
 calls the Foreign Affairs Committees, and is most sympa- 
 thetic and far-sighted in the view he takes of Urquhart's 
 life and plans and visions for the future. This is the more 
 creditable to his large-mindedness because he was one of 
 those many Catholics who could not understand the position 
 of a man so thoroughly at one as Urquhart was with Catholic
 
 288 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 morality who yet held aloof from the Catholic Church. 
 Urquhart must indeed have been a mystery to many of the 
 devout Catholics he numbered among his friends. They 
 saw his overwhelming faith in the Church and the deep 
 truth and rectitude of his character and said: " This man 
 is not far from the Kingdom of Heaven; a few more steps 
 will see him there." And they were grievously disappointed 
 when those few more steps were never taken. 
 
 There were others, however, who seemed to have realised 
 that God was leading on His servant by ways they knew 
 not. So they were silent. The Holy Father never spoke 
 a word to him of conversion. And of the Pope Urquhart 
 said: '" Cast lui dont le concours m'est le plus necessaire." 
 
 It was as though between them there was a deep and 
 unspoken bond. 
 
 So with regard to others, and these some of those most 
 eminent Catholic ecclesiastics. They were never troubled 
 about Urquhart's non-adherence to the Church. Probably 
 the saintly Pere Aymond expressed their feelings when he 
 said, " A man must be a man before he is a Christian." 
 
 To some, however, Urquhart's position was a stumbling- 
 block. " When they find that you do not adhere to the 
 Church," said Pere Ramiere, " the Catholics who now 
 believe in your work will forsake you." 
 
 He, like many others, never understood how small a 
 part intellectual assent to dogma had in Urquhart's scheme 
 of religion. That which to them was most important 
 seemed to him quite secondary. In spite of Jeremy 
 Bentham's influence on his early life, intellectual truth 
 was to him only a part of truth. Moral truth was that 
 by which men lived and the world would be saved. No 
 dogmatic truth waS of value to him unless it could be 
 translated into action, and action of a kind which the world 
 needed. Therefore those in whose eyes intellectual assent 
 to the Faith was so important as to obscure the value of 
 moral assent failed altogether or in part to understand 
 him. Catholics, however, on the whole misunderstood him 
 less than most other religious people. For to a Catholic, 
 as to Urquhart, salvation without works was impossible.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 289 
 
 The point of divergence lay in the position assigned to 
 works ; Urquhart put them first. 
 
 He said, " Let the child be taught respect and courtesy, 
 let the man realise the rights and dignity of his fellow-men, 
 let the nations be made up of such men as this and they 
 will be in a position to be Christians and Catholics. At 
 present they cannot be either. ' If any man will do the 
 will of God he shall know of the doctrine.' " 
 
 Many Cathohcs said, "Let the nations come back to God and 
 the Church and they will know how to treat their brethren." 
 
 But he answered, " Catholics and Protestants are alike 
 in their disregard of Law and Justice. ' If a man love not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom 
 he hath not seen ?' " A barren faith will plunge the world 
 into a darker infidelity than it knows now. But Justice 
 will lead men towards the Light. He pointed to men whom 
 the Foreign Affairs Committees had rescued from secu- 
 larism and atheism ; to Singleton, for instance, the quondam 
 leader of a Secularist Society who, in spite of everything 
 against him, had lately become a Catholic. 
 
 There is no doubt but that Urquhart grew more and more 
 convinced that the Catholic Church was the only body in 
 the world where religion was to be found, and that, had 
 he been convinced of the necessity of adhering to any 
 religious community, he would have become a Catholic; 
 but of this he never was convinced. Absolute Justice was 
 the only sheer moral necessity in the world, according to 
 the vision of his youth. Those who had not seen the vision 
 could not see what he followed. 
 
 Urquhart's last and not least important step to translate 
 his truth into action was his endeavour to put before France 
 the idea of a National Tribunal, or Council, for determining 
 causes of war. His idea was that, as in the best days of 
 Rome, Justice was safeguarded by placing in the hands of 
 the College of Fetiales the right of decision in questions 
 involving peace and war, so in the Europe of his day such 
 decision should be taken out of the hands of the Bureau- 
 cracies which modern Governments had become, and 
 entrusted to a body of men which should be able to judgo 
 
 10
 
 290 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 as impartially as a civil tribunal in cases of civil crime. 
 For war is only justifiable if it is the judicial carrying out 
 of a judicial sentence. He proposed this idea to the French 
 Assembly, thinking that France, suffering as she was from 
 the war in which she had just been engaged, might count 
 some among her statesmen who could see the advantage of 
 this proposal. The proposal, though it was initiated by 
 himself, was introduced by a Deputation from the English 
 Working Men's Committees to the French Assembly, through 
 one of its Commissions on the state of the working classes. 
 The Due de Pasquier was in the Chair, and the Deputation 
 was introduced by M. Le Play, a French Deputy, M. Lucien 
 Brun, and the Abbe Def ourny. The Comte d'Harcourt acted 
 as interpreter. 
 
 " The remarkable thing was," says Mrs. Urquhart, " that 
 at first the French Deputies could not understand what it 
 was all about. They imagined that the Deputation were 
 workmen come to state their grievances as working men. 
 They insisted on asking them if they had not something 
 to say about their wages, their hours of work, savings banks, 
 etc. ... It was only, as one after another got up, and 
 spoke almost with indignation at the idea that they were 
 only occupied with class interests, that the notion of some- 
 thing else dawned upon the minds of the French gentlemen. 
 Then they wanted to put the idea of a Tribunal for war 
 aside, saying : ' It is a grand idea, but it has nothing to say 
 to our objects.' On this, the men spoke again, and one, 
 David Rule, in particular, most effectually, and told them 
 that, while they spoke not as working men, solely, and not 
 as forming a class with different interests from the rest ot 
 the nation, that what they desired to effect did concern 
 them and all working men in all countries most deeply, 
 and that while the great and general causes of suffering, of 
 crime, of discontent and disorder existed, it would be use- 
 less for them to be occupied in small palliatives which did 
 not touch the true sources. 
 
 " After that the Petitions were accepted to be presented 
 to the Assembly. 
 
 " You can understand the interest to us of these men 
 doing so well after the interval of years in which David has 
 not seen any of them. M. Le Play wont down to Versailles 
 with them. He has now undertaken to work up the subject."
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 291 
 
 The substance of the Petition presented by the Deputa- 
 tion was that the Assembly " would establish in such a 
 manner as shall seem best a Tribunal without whose sanc- 
 tion no war shall be declared and no treaty ratified, the 
 nature of which shall be rendered independent of all political 
 interference and influence, by the manner and lasting 
 nature of its appointment." 
 
 So bitter was the feeling that had been aroused in France, 
 however, by the callousness of England during the Franco- 
 German War, that the Assembly was not disposed to 
 receive favourably any English suggestion. The whole 
 proceeding, moreover, was so unique, so contrary to any- 
 thing they had been accustomed to connect with the spirit 
 and motives of the working men, and they were so un- 
 prepared for the incident, that they were quite unable to 
 deal with it. The action of Urquhart and the Committees, 
 however, bore fruit later when the Society of Jurisconsultes 
 of Arras made, in 1873, a similar and more detailed proposal 
 to the Assembly, on the same lines. 
 
 Urquhart, in the hope of being supported by the French 
 nation, as a whole, had laid a scheme before all the Bishops 
 urging on them that, if the Church took it up, it would 
 immensely strengthen the hands of the Pope when the 
 world was once more in a sufficiently peaceful state to 
 allow the proclamation of the Law of Nations to be con- 
 sidered by the Council. 
 
 " God grant," wrote Mgr. Franchi, from Constantinople, 
 " that the great ones of the earth may listen to you. The 
 Address to the Assembly will be a great step towards the 
 restoration of Justice and Charity." 
 
 The idea, however, was intensely unpopular in France, 
 and both Russia and Prussia were on the alert to prevent 
 any return to a reign of Law and Order. Every attempt 
 was made to hinder Urquhart's propaganda. 
 
 " The enemy is very sharp," he writes to Lord Denbigh. 
 " The copies of the Address have all been stopped in the 
 French Post Office. They are now being sent out again 
 from Geneva by private hands. Also the little pamphlet 
 Beso'in d'un Tribunal pour la Guerre has been stopped. A
 
 292 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 member of the Swiss Government has come to Lausanne 
 to stop my letters in the Gazette. The Russian Minister is 
 at work with and on each person that I gain here. I am 
 troubled and stopped at every point." 
 
 In France, even in the minds of pious Catholics, there 
 was room for nothing but thoughts of revenge. 
 
 " Your theories are admirable," said more than one of 
 those whom he addressed. " We are entirely at one with 
 them ; let us first be avenged on Germany and then we will 
 consider the question of the Law of Nations." 
 
 One of the most devout of laymen, the Comte de Breda, 
 wrote declining to have anything to do with the Petition : 
 
 " II n'y a, il ne pent y avoir en France aujourd'hui qu'un 
 seul desire, reprendre le guerre des qu'on pourra. Ce n'est 
 pas a nous qu'il faut parler de paix maintenant. ... Je 
 livrerais sans hesiter la France au premier caporal venu, 
 ^i c'etait certain qu'il nous menerait a la destruction 
 de I'Allemagne. ... Je ne connais pas une femme qui ne 
 destine Son fils a tuer un jour les Allemands. ... Si 
 toutes les Puissances Europeennes s'unisaient pour de- 
 truire la Prusse et I'ltalie elles ne feraient que se mettre 
 au service du Droit." 
 
 Such a state of mind was incomprehensible to Urquhart, 
 
 " As for your wishes^ for the destruction of Germany," 
 he Said, " I have no right to judge as a Catholic, but as a 
 citizen and as a man I can judge, and my judgment is that 
 such a wish is altogether irreconcilable with either of the 
 two characters, and the reading of the Fathers of the Church 
 would lead me to the like conclusion." 
 
 The Comte de Breda supported his wish for the destruc- 
 tion of Germany by Saying that it was Protestantism, and 
 particularly German Protestantism, which was responsible 
 for the state of the world — not, as Urquhart had been all 
 his life preaching, " the neglect of the Law of God." 
 
 Urquhart answered : 
 
 " There is no excuse for a Catholic comparing himself 
 with a Protestant, except to find out wherein he might take 
 example from him. I can see no difference between the 
 public conduct of Protestants and Catholics. Both are 
 alike oblivious of the Law of God in public affairs. Only,
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 293 
 
 Catholics have never repudiated, as Protestants have, the 
 right of the Church to give the law to the State. 
 
 "The world is in a bad way because of the want of 
 religion, it is true, but the evil is due to the failure of the 
 Catholic Church to fulfil her duty. 
 
 " La Science des choses divines ne trouve son application 
 que dans la Science des choses humaines." 
 
 " To get the world out of its present tangle a man must 
 be a diplomatist and a metaphysician; but at the root he 
 must be a religious man, and, if possible, a man with a 
 religious authority. He must be able to do what I have 
 been trying all my life in vain to do. A bishop, hearing 
 me speak once, said, ' Est-ce possible que de telles paroles 
 tombent d'une bouche qui n'est pas Catholique ?' 
 
 " I answered, ' The pity is that such words do not fall 
 from the lips of any Catholic' " 
 
 What stirred him to the depths was his conviction that, 
 if Catholic bishops could be thoroughly convinced of the 
 absolute necessity, not only for intellectual assent to the 
 truth of what he said, but morally convinced that it was 
 their duty to act on the world, a great part of the work 
 would be done. 
 
 " A bishop," he wrote to Pere Ramiere, " with the Pope 
 over him, with a diocese under him, with the power to 
 issue Pastorals, to instruct the young to influence indi- 
 vidual souls in the confessional and the whole Church 
 wherein to make his voice heard, what might he not do !" 
 
 " What a difference between us as to our estimate of the 
 Catholic Church ! It ig not a question of the number of 
 steps you can make with me, but of those which you do 
 not make at all, and which you cannot make because you 
 believe the Church to be powerless." 
 
 Urquhart's belief in the power of the Church was un- 
 limited. Hence his bitter disappointment when, as he 
 thought, her failure to act promptly and strenuously meant 
 to the world that what she alone could do remained undone. 
 What baffled him to the end of his days was why a body 
 which possessed boundless power should, as he thought, 
 fail to exert it. 
 
 But though her exertions could have accomplished so 
 much and his so little, that was no reason for relaxing effort.
 
 294 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 He toiled without break, without intermission, even when 
 in the last years of his life he was almost too weak to hold 
 his pen, to raise his voice. Now he was in Paris, now in 
 the northern towns of England, urging the Foreign Affairs 
 Committees to resist the representation of England at the 
 Congress of Brussels, and again at the chalet, trying to 
 gather round him men who might carry on his work. 
 "For," writes Mrs. Urquhart, in 1876, to a promising 
 English pupil, " he begins to grow old, and there is no one 
 to take his place." 
 
 The Diplomatic Review still owed its existence to his 
 constant exertions, and he had a great share in the founding 
 and maintaining of the Rome, a French Catholic news- 
 paper published in Rome, which was yet another of his 
 means of " preparing the occasion " for the Pope. 
 
 In 1875 he paid his last visit to the Committees, speaking 
 with all his old energetic force. His speech to the Keighley 
 Committee is the best and clearest resume that he ever 
 gave of the history of the Chartist Movement and the 
 origin and work of the Committees. 
 
 But he had completely dropped out of English political 
 life. 
 
 His last years were touched with sorrow and disappoint- 
 ment. He saw his friends fall off one by one, some silenced 
 by the hand of death, some overpowered by weariness or 
 taken prisoner by the spirit of the world and chained within 
 its stronghold. But he yielded neither to outward pressure 
 nor inward weariness. Even on his last journey, the voyage 
 which he took to the East in a vain effort to revive the 
 strength which was at last all spent, his brain and his hand 
 never ceased to work. 
 
 He died at Naples on his way home from Egypt on 
 May 17th, 1877. In his portfolio, after his death, was 
 found, amongst other unfinished papers, the copy of a 
 letter he had written to a friend: 
 
 " You speak to me of the religion of the Church, and you 
 say that the object for which I work is a detail, though 
 you grant a very important one. I work to make men see 
 sin where they do not now see it.
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 295 
 
 " When Las Casas worked for the same object, do you 
 know what he answered when men asked him why he 
 worked so hard ? He said, ' I have left Jesus Christ, your 
 Saviour, crucified, not once, but a thousand times by the 
 Spaniards, in the person of the Indian Nations.' 
 
 " Here it is not the Spaniards and some Indian tribes 
 at the other side of the world, it is all of us who are murderers 
 and victims, who crucify and are crucified." 
 
 The words come like a noble melody wherein all the 
 apparent discords of the life are resolved into a great 
 harmony. The disappointments, the human mistakes, the 
 misunderstandings, the sorrows, the irritations, the anxieties 
 which had worn down his strength until the last day of 
 racking pain came to end the strife, are but incidents in the 
 heroic story of that life of gigantic effort — that life of 
 thought in action before which Death sinks into insigni- 
 ficance. 
 
 Among the tributes paid after his death to Urquhart's 
 memory none is more touching than this letter by one of 
 his working-men friends to the Herald : 
 
 " Sm, — 'Most of the London daily newspapers and many 
 of the provincial daily papers and others have had lengthy 
 notices upon the death of the above-named gentleman. 
 Those who have read them will think that they have read 
 something about him. Beyond learning the fact of his 
 death, however, I think that the readers would know less 
 of him than they knew before. At any rate, if they were 
 ignorant of Mr. Urquhart's work and aims before, they 
 Avould not be enlightened after, on anything except upon 
 his endeavours to establish the practice of Turkish bathing. 
 Perhaps we don't need to be surprised at this. A wise man 
 is seldom known in his own generation. It is only neces- 
 sary to mention the case of the great Founder of Chris- 
 tianity, who was reviled and spat upon and crucified by the 
 men of His generation; or of Socrates, who was poisoned 
 publicly by the men of his own country; or the case of 
 our own Shakespeare and Milton, who were little known 
 and appreciated in their own day and generation. It has 
 been for history and men unborn at the time to reveal in 
 after times the greatness and glory of their characters. I 
 am not anxious to anticipate history or to try to write 
 history. All human actions either are or will be reckoned
 
 296 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 at their right value. The law of compensation is a law of 
 God, and it invariably squares matters to a hair's breadth. 
 I may, however, be permitted to say a few words about 
 this great, self-sacrificing man, having known him twenty 
 years, having listened to his words many long hours, having 
 had considerable correspondence with him, and having 
 read nearly all his written works. It is of such knowledge 
 of him that I am able to say that such newspaper notices 
 of his death as I have seen give no account of him at all, 
 and contain no truth in regard to him. Whoever these 
 newspaper remarks may apply to, I am quite certain that 
 they do not apply to him. Prior to a period when I came 
 to know him, in 1857, 1 had been a Feargus O'Connor's man, 
 an admirer of G. W. M. Reynolds, a disciple of Joseph 
 Barker, and a general grumbler against all the institutions 
 of the country, and a rabid advocate in my little way for 
 change and extreme reforms. I did not know the value of 
 law, and I did not respect it. My condition was the con- 
 dition of thousands— perhaps of millions — of my fellow- 
 countrymen, as it is the condition of many now, but I do 
 not think to as great an extent. Mr. Urquhart has changed 
 many, and they, in their turn, have changed others. When 
 I knew him at first, his labours were then directed to the 
 most extreme men — Atheists, Chartists, extreme Radicals. 
 He went from town to town, all over England, to find them. 
 He who might have s^at at home in luxurious apartments, 
 taking his ease, like thousands of the rich at this day, 
 turned out into the crowded cities and towns, and sought 
 out all the active men amongst the working classes, so that 
 he might converse with them, and deal with the fallacies 
 and errors that were in them When men asked him, 
 ' Will you help us to get votes ?' he said, ' I will help you 
 to get knowledge of your country and its concerns, so that 
 if the vote be of any value it will come to you, instead of 
 your spending all your days to try to get it.' When men 
 asked him, ' Will you help us to get the ballot V he said, 
 ' Have you not secrecy enough ? You have secret diplo- 
 macy, great affairs of State conducted in whispers. Well, 
 you clamour to have secrecy in voting instead of spending 
 your time and energy in endeavouring to abolish secrecy 
 in international transactions.' He was successful to a very 
 great extent amongst the active men of the working classes, 
 and I have heard him say over and over again that some 
 of the best workers and the most heroic and patriotic men 
 have been gathered from amongst the active revolutionary
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 297 
 
 men of the working classes. They have turned out to be 
 far more earnest defenders of the Constitution than the 
 great mass of those who have been brought up religiously, 
 and who have been taught ordinarily to respect the Con- 
 stitution. The men that he has picked up from the former 
 class were used to work — they were fighters naturally. 
 Mr. Urquhart's success with them has been to give a new 
 direction to their energies, to direct them to fight for the 
 restoration and preservation of the Constitution, in place ol 
 fighting against it. He visited Preston many times, some- 
 times for the purpose of talking for hours to two or three 
 working men. On two occasions I managed to get the late 
 Canon Parr and him together. Whatever some have said 
 about the late vicar, he was unquestionably a man of a 
 wonderful understanding and an earnest patriot. He 
 could understand and appreciate him. He used to say to 
 me what the Earl of Denbigh afterwards said in the House 
 of Lords, ' Mr. Urquhart is the Cassandra of this age.' The 
 vicar understood with very little effort all the matters that 
 Mr. Urquhart endeavoured to teach us— such as the right 
 of search, the hollowness of the Crimean War, the necessity 
 for the restoration of the Privy Council, the schemes of 
 Russia, the value of the House of Lords, the Treaty of 
 Denmark, maldng over the Crown of Denmark to Russia, 
 and many other questions. The vicar has gone to rest, 
 and I hope from the bottom of my soul that he is in heaven. 
 I am afraid that Ave may never get another minister of the 
 Established Church to listen to us and help us as he did. 
 
 " One lesson that Mr. Urquhart impressed upon all his 
 disciples perhaps more than any other was that man can 
 form no conception of his own capacity. He does not 
 know what he can do, or, rather, what he can't do. That 
 every separate man should always work as if the saving of 
 his nation depended upon his own efforts alone. He im- 
 pressed upon them that it was not their business to be 
 elated by success, or cast down by failure; that it was quite 
 as glorious for a good man to fail in any matter as it was 
 to succeed, always providing he had done his best, and left 
 nothing undone that it was possible for him to do; that 
 God never required a man to do more nor less than his duty. 
 
 " Mr. Urquhart seemed to care most and look most after 
 the intelligent and well-meaning amongst the working- 
 classes. He used to say that they were the easiest to 
 change. They were simple, humble, and without pride. 
 They had nothing to lose, in a social sense, by change.
 
 298 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 They had not an array of rich acquaintances or a lot of 
 customers to please ; their poverty made them independent 
 He said that Christ was most successful among working 
 men, with here and there a rich, influential man to lead 
 them, and what happened in His day would always happen 
 with everyone who sought to recover righteousness amongst 
 men. Working men would take the lead, and the middle 
 and higher classes would fall in without looking singular. 
 Mr. Urquhart has been called an ' extreme man,' and an 
 extreme man he unquestionably was, to all intents and 
 purposes. Not for anything in life would he tell less or 
 more than the truth, for which alone he ' lived and breathed 
 and had his being.' His language ever came burning and 
 bursting fresh from his soul. His denunciation of inatten- 
 tion to public aiiairs and want of patriotism was terrible 
 to the last degree, and it extended to all who were guilty 
 of it. Men of rank, the greatest in the land, were dealt 
 with as mercilessly as others, even more so. Justice and 
 truth and right he loved above all things, and whoever 
 went against them he warred with without stint and with- 
 out abatement. Those who worked for them were his 
 friends. He would have gone miles to see one of them, 
 even if he was a beggar, and to him he would have given 
 the very bread from his mouth. During his long, laborious, 
 and most enthusiastic life he has been variously estimated 
 by various men. Some have called him a Mohammedan, 
 some a Catholic, some a Russian spy, some a friend to 
 despotism, and some have called him a madman. Each of 
 these in his blind classification of Mr. Urquhart has seen 
 his own thought, but has not seen one glimpse of the man, 
 Mr. Urquhart, any more than the writers in the London 
 dailies. The measure of the charge as to his being a Moham- 
 medan is simply and only that he wished justice to be done 
 to Turkey, justice as laid down and prescribed by the Law 
 of Nations, that law which is founded and grounded on 
 the unvarying law of God, which always remains, even 
 although erring nations may break it ten thousand times. 
 The charge of his being a Catholic is true to the extent 
 that he has looked on Catholics as human beings having a 
 great organisation professedly untrammelled by obedience 
 to the potentates of the earth, except in so far as that 
 obedience did not entail the committing of public crime. 
 As he had laboured amongst the dignitaries of his own 
 Church, and as he laboured amongst revolutionary bodies 
 to get both to see that inattention to public affairs was
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 299 
 
 a crime, that unjust war was murder, and that secrecy in 
 international affairs was a standing incentive to corruption, 
 so did he try to reach the great Catholic organisation by 
 appeaUng to its dignitaries, reminding them of their own 
 canons, and impressing them with the necessity of con- 
 demning public crime, so that they might not put obedience 
 to the potentates of the earth before that obedience which 
 all Christian communities first owe to God. This he laboured 
 long and unceasingly to teach all men that he could reach. 
 He never ceased to teach it day and night. For this his 
 health, time, and money were spent without stint. For 
 this he spent thousands of pounds of his own money while 
 often he lived on twopence a day. I am getting an old 
 man. From my boyhood upwards I have seen and heard 
 many public men, and I have read of many others, but it 
 has never yet fallen to my lot to know or to learn of such 
 an instance of pure, unsullied, unselfish patriotism — so 
 great, so earnest, and so fearless a teacher of public duty, 
 who entered into his work with an undivided soul, never 
 tiring, never weary, always fresh, and always earnest to 
 the last degree. I have seen him put important matters 
 aside when three factory lads have presented themselves 
 at the hotel where he had been staying, and for six hours 
 I have heard him address them in earnest and impassioned 
 language on public matters, showing them their duty in 
 relation to them. Many public men have lived to make a 
 jingle or a sound, to catch the ephemeral applause of the 
 multitude and the fine eyes of many, but Mr. Urquhart 
 sought out the thinkers and men who had a passion for 
 justice. He sought to make men who could do their own 
 work instead of being tied to the tail of a leader. He 
 succeeded far beyond his expectations. He has left a 
 number behind him who mourn his loss with real sorrow, 
 and who will honour his memory in the one way which, 
 above all others, will gladden his soul if he can look down 
 upon them, and that is by practising those lessons of public 
 duty which it was the great aim of his precious life to teach 
 them so often and so well. 
 
 " Hoping that you will insert this poor attempt at giving 
 a very faint glimpse of the late Mr. Urquhart, 
 
 "I am, 
 
 "Yours, etc., 
 
 " William Singleton. '"
 
 300 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 This epitaph, composed by the Abbe Defourny, was set 
 over Urquhart's grave at Clarens, near Montreux: 
 
 SIT NOMEN JESU 
 BENEDICTUM 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 APUD BRAELANGWELL IN SCOTIA 
 ORTI A.D. 1805 
 NEAPOLI DEFUXCTI A.D. 1877 
 VIR 
 SUMMO INGENIO INVICTA CONSTANTIA 
 VIXIT LABORAVIT 
 PRISCAE REVERENTIAE INTER HOMINES 
 RESTITUTOR 
 NEFANDAE TRADITIONIS POLITICAE 
 VINDEX 
 JURIS GENTIUM 
 MAXIME VERO BELLI PACISQUE 
 TANTUM HOC ^VO NON DELETI 
 PROPUGNATOR
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 SOME DETAILS OF MAJOR POORE'S LAND SCHEME AS 
 SUCCESSFULLY WORKED AT WINTERSLOW 
 
 With reference to the question of the w orking of the land scheme 
 at Winterslow, it was known that some of the men would liJce 
 to have some land of their own ; they had already tried renting 
 a little land in the neighbourhood, but it had not been a success. 
 
 JMajor Poore felt tliat the lack of success of small holdings 
 was due to faulty administration; he therefore started a scheme 
 to show how a system of small holders can be securely- and 
 permanently established on the land by the action and kno-w ledge 
 of the men themselves, quite independent of, and unhamiDcred 
 by, any outside aid or interference, injurmg no one, not adding 
 a farthing to the rates, and carrying A\ith it automatic means 
 for its own success and endurance. 
 
 In the year 1892 a farm happened to be for sale in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and in consultation with the committee of the village 
 (which had already been instituted by Major Poore as part of 
 his organisation of his County Council division) was bought 
 at public auction, at about £10 an acre, with money borrowed 
 from the bank. Major Poore acting as security. 
 
 Notice was given to the village that anyone requiring land 
 might apply to the village committee, whose meetings were 
 held in the schoolroom or Oddfellows' Hall, Avhere applications 
 for land were gone into. 
 
 Forty-seven people wished to take holdings, consisting of 
 woodmen, carriers, shopkeepers, agricultural lalDOurers, black- 
 smith, builder, postmaster, postman, roadmen, pensioners from 
 H.M. Service, truffle-hunters, hay-trussers, keeper, school- 
 master. 
 
 Men who had Avorked on the farm A\'ere then employed to 
 value the different portions; some they priced at £8 an acre, 
 and some at as much as £30. 
 
 As this was the first venture. Major Poore had it revalued 
 by a professional valuer, who expressed his opinion that the 
 men's valuation could not be improved upon. 
 
 The farm was divided into five sections, and these sections 
 were again divided into small holdmgs, as required by the 
 
 301
 
 302 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 applicants. The largest holding was 16 acres and the smallest 
 I of an acre, with an average oi 2 acres 
 
 To deal with the management of the land, these forty- seven 
 men were formed into groups of about ten neighbours; each 
 group chose its own chairman and vice-chairman, who formed 
 the " Land Court," presided over by Major Poore. The chairman 
 is permanent, the vice is appointed from a rota of the section 
 and holds office for one year. 
 
 The Land Court then proceeded to administer the scheme, 
 and it was decided that a fair but enhanced price was to be put 
 upon the land, and that the average price was to be £15 an acre. 
 
 A Table was drawn up on the basis of fifteen years' purchase, 
 whereby the capital and interest would be paid off, until at the 
 end of fifteen years the man would become the owner. As a 
 matter of fact, the debt to the bank was paid off in 1894; this 
 was partly owuig to some of the holders paying for their holdings 
 right out. All further payments, after paymg working expenses, 
 went to build up a reserve fund. 
 
 The payment took fifteen years to complete. Major Poore 
 holding the mortgage until all was paid up. . . . The sum 
 borrowed for the purchase was repaid, and the surplus, which 
 amounted to about £600, was formed into a reserve fund for 
 the credit of the Land Court. 
 
 The method of administering the reserve fund is for a holder 
 wishing to borrow to have a meeting of his section called; he 
 lays his needs before them, also the security he has to offer, and 
 if his section, from their knowledge of the man and his security, 
 considers the proposition sound (one of the conditions being that 
 the loan must not exceed 75i per cent, of the value of the security 
 offered), they agree, at the next meeting of the Land Court, 
 to advance the mortgage loan. The chairman of the section lays 
 the facts before the court, saying his section recommends it, and 
 if the court approves it, the advance is made. 
 
 The result of this system is that the reserve fund, which has 
 been of enormous benefit to these men, has now more than 
 doubled, and their property has greatly increased in value. 
 
 'The institution of the Land Court gives the small holder full 
 responsibility, and a direct and sole interest in the land he holds, 
 and at the same time sets up a common or mutual interest 
 which, while preserving the personal interest, teaches the judicial 
 method of bringing every mind into unison for the common benefit. 
 
 The Avhole of this organisation has been run -wdthout creating 
 any disputes or ill-feeling among the members, and on such good 
 business lines that, though, of course, he gave much time and 
 thought to it, it cost the organiser nothing, and greatly benefited 
 these men, keeping for them their entire self-respect, as there has 
 been no outside aid or subscription of any sort, and in no respect 
 has it been a matter of politics.
 
 APPENDIX I 303 
 
 The principal object has been to form a common interest 
 which will encourage individual efiort and at the same time 
 show an easy method of united action for mutual trade purposes. 
 
 There Avas no initial advantage in the farm purchased; the 
 land was naturally poor, and, besides, was in a starved con- 
 dition when it was taken, and the water-supply was bad. It 
 is six miles from the nearest market town and four miles from 
 the nearest station. 
 
 jSTot a single holder has regretted his purchase or his work, and 
 husband, wife and children all co-operate to get the most out of the 
 land. A large number keep fowls, and there is a well-supported pig 
 club. The land is now in a highly cultivated state, producing all 
 that small holdings are capable of; the water-suppty has been 
 arranged, and the houses are most cojnfortable, with convenient 
 outhouses, and, above all, there is the pride of ownership; 
 " This is my own land, every penny paid for, and this is my own 
 house." 
 
 A neighbouring farmer, a practical agriculturist, who was much 
 prejudiced against small holdings, has completely changed his 
 views on the subject since this venture was inaugurated, and now 
 takes the greatest interest in its success, as he considers that at 
 least ten times more is being got out of the land than was 
 previously obtained. 
 
 These men, mostly Wiltshire labourers, at 16s. a week or less, 
 have paid for their land, and are now owners. 
 
 They have built for themselves about forty very comfortable 
 cottages. 
 
 The land by their efforts has greatly increased in value. 
 
 There have been no disputes or ill-feelmg. 
 
 The venture has added nothing to the rates, but has added 
 considerably to the rateable value. 
 
 There is a surplus of over £1,500 for the Land Court to apply 
 for its betterment and extension. 
 
 The Land Court also deals with all questions as they arise, 
 collects the rates, tithes, etc., and pays them over as they become 
 due, and after twenty-five years the books show few altera- 
 tions of names, though in some instances the land has been 
 transferred to the sons of the original holders. 
 
 The administration of the Land Court is the application 
 to a modern scheme of the Old English common law (common 
 sense) which separates all administration into two distinct 
 procedures : 
 
 1. To inquire into the facts of the case by the men of the 
 locality, the neighbours on the spot, and to balance such 
 facts to the point that no man can deny in the presence of 
 his neighbour. 
 
 2. To judge for action on such means for decision. If such 
 precautions are taken, judgment will not err.
 
 304 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 There is, and has been, no voting, no decidmg by a majority, 
 there being nothing to vote about when the facts are agreed upon. 
 A fundamental principle of the Land Court is that each man must 
 carefully master the facts of the case before a decision is given, 
 thereby trainmg the holders carefully to consider their actions, 
 both in court and private life, without giving rise to Jealousies or 
 party feeling — once again proving the fact that if you organise 
 a body of men so that they may be capable of Judicial responsi- 
 bility they will act accordingly. No money has been wasted 
 on the payment of clerks or officials. The only salary paid is 
 £5 a year to the village schoolmaster, who acts as secretary in 
 his spare time. 
 
 The following account was written by Mr. Alfred Goodere, 
 Editor of the Salisbury Times, in 1907. It is partly an abstract 
 of notes which had appeared from time to tune in the local 
 papers, and partly the result of his own observations, for he 
 had known the Land Court from the beginning : 
 
 1890. — ^The condition of Winterslow was this: A village, eight 
 miles from the city of Salisbury, large area, scattered population, 
 usual concomitants of rural life — big farms, a few small holdings. 
 Population working in the woods, labourers on the land, with the 
 ordinary tradesmen — bakers, grocers, blacksmiths, etc. Many of 
 the inhabitants housed in thatched cottages, with small windows, 
 few rooms; in some cases congestion, unliealthy to the moral and 
 physical well-being of the occujDiers. Fairly active public spii'it in 
 evidence, but the only forms of corj)orate life besides the religious 
 organisations were a lodge of Oddfellows, a tent of Rechabites, and 
 the administration of pig clubs and a cricket club. 
 
 1892. — A meeting in the village schoolroom. Present, about 
 thirty men, respectably attired, keenly alert; in the chair a 
 gentleman who is the representative of the Whitej^arish Division, 
 including Winterslow, on the Wiltshire County Council. They 
 are met to discuss the affau's of village life, and to consider a 
 project which has been laid before them by Major Poore. It is 
 a Parish Council without the name, and on a more directlv 
 representative basis than any Parish Council I have known. 
 The topic before the meeting is the division of a farm into small 
 holdings, to be bought outright on a system of deferred payment. 
 Free discussion and outspoken opinions about the advantages 
 likely to accrue from peasant proprietorship; also an appre- 
 ciation of the difficulties A\hich may have to be surmounted. In 
 earnest, the men eventually decide to make a trial to participate 
 in a scheme fraught with great possibilities in regard to the 
 landless man and the manless land and the possession of more 
 comfortable dwellings. 
 
 1895. — Another visit to Winterslow. The ideas of three years 
 ago have matured. A farm of 118 acres has been divided into 
 lots, and is now in the possession of nearly fifty families. About
 
 APPENDIX I 305 
 
 ten houses have been erected or are in course of completion, and 
 as a townsman I go round, talk with the men and women about 
 their venture. Ready to communicate, I find them contented 
 with their bargains. Fau'ly optimistic, they do not gush; they 
 are face to face with difficulties, the grappling with which may 
 make or break them. The land Avas in a starved condition when 
 they took it, and they have by their own industry and by their 
 own capital put nearly every bit of value that is now in it. A 
 few, having little hordes of savings, have already paid the 
 purchase money for their holdings. The majority have paid 
 for the first two years' instalments, and have to look forward 
 thirteen years before they can confidently say: "This plot of 
 ground is my very own." 
 
 Tuesday, March 12, 1907.— Work m the West Riding of York- 
 shu-e and in the Midlands has prevented a revisit to Winterslow 
 until to-day. Giving the sum, deferring the circumstance, this is 
 what I find: Thirty-seven houses on about 118 acres; the land 
 in a highly cultivated state, producing all that small holdings 
 are capable of; and the total product at least ten times greater 
 than that which had been produced fifteen years before. All the 
 holders, with one single exception, have paid every penny of the 
 purchase money, and can now say : " This is mine." Many can 
 add : "And this is my own house." 
 
 The Genesis. 
 
 Let me now give the genesis of this transformation. The per- 
 sonal element must be subordinated, but, as it means an important 
 factor, it cannot be eliminated. Three miles away from Winter- 
 slow is a gentleman's house. Old Lodge, owned by Major Poore 
 and Mrs. Poore. Major Poore, by the way, is the father of Major 
 R. M. Poore, 7th Hussars, of Hampshire cricket fame. 
 
 When the County Council Act came into operation in Wiltshire, 
 Major Poore, who had during the Crimean War and the Lidian 
 Mutiny served in the 8th Hussars, was asked to stand as a 
 candidate for the Whiteparish Division, which includes Winterslow. 
 As in most other countries, the initial contests were partly 
 political, and believing that Major Poore belonged to the Con- 
 servative party, he was opposed by a Whiteparish carrier of 
 strong Liberal sympathies and a good deal of native eloquence. 
 It was soon seen, hov/ever, that Major Poore was not a party 
 politician, and that his candidature was not under the aegis of 
 Tory or Radical Association. He was returned for the division 
 with a large majority, and the man who had been his opponent 
 became one of his warmest supporters. Parish Councils were 
 then being talked about, but had not been formed. Winterslow 
 being the nearest village to Old Lodge, Major and Mrs. Poore- 
 took a kindly mterest in the welfare of the community. For 
 
 20
 
 To the King. 
 
 306 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 years Major Poore had been a close student of history, and had 
 a succinct knowledge of the old common law of England. In 
 considermg the decadence of rural life by the gradual absorption 
 of the yeoman class, he was convinced that the system of 
 government had had not a little to do with the partial loss of the 
 small holder and proprietor. Our local government was too 
 much on a machine pattern, and, necessarily failmg to educe 
 the knowledge and judgment of those livmg in the neighbourhoods 
 and those acquainted with the facts of the localities, had to be 
 administered by paid officials and members who often knew 
 nothing (except under hard-and-fast conditions) of the circum- 
 stances under which they so readily passed resolutions. Under 
 the old common law local government, he found, was based from 
 the bottom. 
 
 1. The family corporate. 
 
 2. Ten heads of families, the frankpledge. 
 
 3. Ten heads of frankpledge, the ty thing. 
 
 4. Ten heads of hundreds meeting in four quarters, the 
 
 shire. 
 
 6. The administrative heads of the shires,' 
 
 the country. 
 
 7. From this the Privy Council, a standing 
 
 body of the General Assembly. 
 
 The frankpledge, according to Major Poore' s reading, consisted 
 of a group of the heads of the families; the tything of ten heads 
 of frankpledges; the hundred of a group of the heads of the 
 tything; the council of heads of the hundreds that went to make 
 the shire. This gave a ladder of direct representation from the 
 bottom to the top, and collated the evidence and experience of 
 every householder, from the household to the frankpledge, from 
 the frankpledge to the hundred, from the hundred to the shire, 
 and from the shire to the country and to the King, as the personi- 
 fication of the nation. Was it possible in Winterslow to re- 
 suscitate sonrething of the old frankpledge system ? At all 
 events, the Major would try. He set to work to explain his 
 views to the most intelligent men of the village; the ideas 
 gradually leavened the villagers, and at last the time was ripe for 
 a meeting. Old as was the idea, it appeared absolutely new; 
 yet a shrewd instinct convinced the villagers that a form of 
 representation upon such a basis might be of real value. The 
 population consisted of 786 people, representing about 200 
 families. Heads of households were divided into groups of ten ; 
 each group was called upon to hold a meeting and to appoint 
 its chairman and vice-chairman. Meetings were held and 
 chairman and vice-chairman appointed. The chairmen of the 
 sections became what may be termed the executive committee of 
 the village. They held frequent meetings, with Major Poore as
 
 APPENDIX I 307 
 
 cliaii-man, and sometimes with the friendly presence of Alderman 
 Lovibond, of Sah'sbury, a member of the well-known firm of 
 London and provincial brewers. Organised village in embryo — 
 what would be evolved ? 
 
 In 1912 the Duchess of Hamilton wrote {Maij 30, 1912) to 
 the Daily Mail : 
 
 " If you will permit the space, I would like to add my quota 
 to the striving voices of those who are endeavouring to help the 
 nation to reach a better state of things than the hopeless tangle 
 which exist;: at present . 
 
 " A great deal of talk is heard about the troubles of the working- 
 man — he who must needs be the rock base of all government, but 
 who at present has no voice in it ; and it is said that he is discon- 
 tented for such reasons as the following : 
 
 "1, Because he does work which is dry and uninteresting. 
 "2. That he is misrej)resented. 
 
 " 3, That his wages are not high enough (he should, ac- 
 cording to some, have at least £2 a week). 
 
 " I do not propose to enter into the first of these, as the 
 differences new industrial forces have brought to the conditions 
 of labour are great. My own opinion on the matter is that had 
 every workman a personal interest in the success of the whole 
 business for which he is working, as m the old guild organisation, 
 the question of work being dry would not arise. 
 
 " In regard to the second, this seems to be just where the whole 
 trouble lies. No man of the working class is really represented 
 as he should be in Parliament. 
 
 " We call ourselves a democratic government, and some of us 
 think we have continually improved our method of government, 
 whereas the truth is we now completely waste the millions of 
 intellects which should form, as they did in that ancient form of 
 government, the Witenagemot, the base of a firm rock of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " The Witenagemot, or gathering of wits, may best be described 
 as a gigantic pyramid of government, the base of which was 
 the heads of every family in the kingdom, and the apex the King. 
 
 " This system was arrived at by a series of committees, whose 
 numbers are not larger than about ten members. 
 
 *' Those at the base of this emblematic pyramid were composed 
 of about ten neighbours, heads of their respective families, who 
 lived in juxtaposition to each other. These w^ere called the 
 ' frankpledge ' ; each of these committees chose a leading man or 
 chairman, and these chairmen formed the next committee, ^hich 
 was called the ' tything.' The chairman of the ty thing formed 
 the committee of hundred, and so on till the committee of the 
 Privy Council, in whom were concentrated the minds of the 
 whole people of the country.
 
 308 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 " Of course, the change back to true representation would 
 take some tmie and would have to be done locally by people of 
 the district who grasped the spirit of this administration. In 
 a small May it has been done with complete success by Major 
 Poore, who in 1889 represented a district in Wiltshire on the 
 County Council. He employed this system to organise each 
 village in his district, and whenever there were matters of 
 importance before the County Council he called a meeting of the 
 chairmen of the villages to meet him and laid the matters before 
 them. In their turn they returned to their villages, and were 
 able, by calling a committee of the village, whose members in 
 their turn called one of the tything, and so on, to lay the local 
 matters before every man in the villages. 
 
 " At the next meeting the committee of village chairmen were 
 able to give Major Poore valuable advice on each matter by the 
 light of the collected intelligence of their villages. 
 
 " This form of government, once set going, would entail 
 nothing like the expense of the present one, for there would 
 be far more economy in spending the public funds, each district 
 being responsible for its own concerns. 
 
 " The present stress of living, falling on the poorest, is often 
 lamented, but with the enormous taxation under which the 
 country groans, how can it well be otherwise ? For, with all 
 the assertions to the contrary, it is really the poor who have 
 to bear life's financial burdens. 
 
 " The third cause of discontent I have named is that of wages. 
 In order to demonstrate that prosperity of living has little to do 
 with actual wage, but all to do with method and administration, 
 I will explain an experiment in small holdings carried out by Major 
 Poore in the village of Winterslow, near Salisbury, and which 
 was the outcome of the previously described administration. 
 
 " In 1892, having, as already described, formed a committee 
 of the village, he bought a small farm at an average price of £10 
 per acre ; this he had revalued by the local village surveyors at an 
 average price of £15. A notice was given in the village that any- 
 one requiring land might apply for it to the village committee. 
 Forty-five men applied for and took up the land. These forty- 
 five men were then divided into committees of about ten, accord- 
 ing to their locality, and the chairman of these committees formed 
 the Land Court Committee, which was presided over by Major 
 Poore. To facilitate transfer, the land was leased to the men 
 for 2,000 years. The payment took fifteen years to complete, 
 and is all paid up now. The sum borrowed for the purchase was 
 repaid, and the surplus formed into a reserve fund for the credit 
 of the Land Court. This reserve fund can be borrowed by any 
 member of the Land Court, provided all the other members 
 consent, but must be paid back with interest. 
 
 " It can only be taken out altogether and used for an object
 
 APPENDIX I 309 
 
 which will benefit, not the greater number, but every member 
 of the Land Court. I would now draw my moral, which is this — 
 that these Wiltshire labourers, with a weekly wage of not more 
 (some less) than l6s. per week, have — ■ 
 
 "1. Paid for their leases. 
 "2. Built about thirty-seven new cottages. 
 "3. Have a reserve fund which has reached the sum of 
 £1,450. 
 
 " Also, the organiser, Major Poore, has run the whole thing 
 without creating dispute among members, and on such good 
 business lines that though, of course, he has given much tune 
 to it, he has not lost a penny himself, and has greatly benefited 
 these men — -keeping for them, at the same time, their entire 
 self-respect. Moreover, he has had no State aid or subscriptions, 
 and in no respect has this experiment been a matter of politics. 
 
 "Note. — Witena is the genitive of wit, wisdom; gemots 
 means gathering." 
 
 Winterslow was not the only Land Court founded by Major 
 Poore. 
 
 In 1894 he bought another farm at Bishopstone, six miles the 
 other side of Salisbury. This was a strip of 200 acres extending 
 four miles, and most unpromismg; the cost was about the same 
 as at Winslow. However, on calling a meeting of the village, 
 they appeared ready to take up the land, and it was bought and 
 turned out a success. A local newspaper gave the following 
 account of the dinner given by the landholders to Major Poore, 
 on Tuesday, April 12, 1910, soon after the final payments had 
 been made: 
 
 " Mr. Barter, as sp' skesman for the landholders, said : ' Fifteen 
 years ago you made your appearance in Bishopstone, and I don't 
 think anyone has regretted the day you came. The small 
 holders are very thankful to you for what you have done for 
 them. When we were prosperous no one was more glad to hear 
 it than you; when we had a difficult year you were always 
 ready with advice and help. 
 
 " ' We therefore wish to present you with an Address, in the 
 name of the small holders, and no doubt it will be handed down 
 to your children and grandchildren.' 
 
 " Mr. Barter then handed to Major Poore an illuminated 
 Address, which was in the following terms: 
 
 " ' To Major Poore, oj Old Lodge, Wilts. 
 
 " 'We, the undersigned, members of the Bishopstone Land- 
 holders' Court, desire to record the deep sense of our gratitude 
 to you as one of the pioneers of the System of Small Holdings,
 
 310 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 for having by j^our energy and true devotion to the well-being 
 of the parishes in the country districts of Wiltshire, in the face 
 of many difficulties and at the expenditure of much time and 
 personal trouble, enabled us to achieve such a successful result. 
 It is now fifteen years since the Bishopstone Land Court was 
 first inaugurated. Those years have not been free from anxieties 
 and difficulties for us, but we have been assisted by your ready 
 help and sympathy, and now at length have emerged triumphant 
 — 'the last payments having been made — as freeholders, and we 
 can take our place amongst those who have a substantial stake 
 in the well-being of the country.' " 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 THE TRAINING OF THE COMMITTEES 
 
 Conversation of a Committeeivian with a Fellow -Workman; 
 SENT TO Mr. Urquhart for Criticism 
 
 Patriotism 
 
 Friend. Garibaldi did not murder people; he slew them in 
 fair fight. 
 
 Committeeman. So did Kidd the pirate, but they hanged 
 him for all that; and why shouldn't Garibaldi be hanged ? 
 
 F. He wasn't a pirate. 
 
 C. It was your word not ten minutes ago ; and, moreover, your 
 assertion is supported by international law. 
 
 F. If international law calls such acts as Garibaldi's piracj^ 
 then international law is bad, and ought to be repealed. 
 
 C. I knew you were coming to that. Did you ever tumble 
 off a house-roof ? 
 
 F. No. 
 
 C. Did you ever see anyone meet with an accident ? 
 
 F. Yes; I saw a slater. 
 
 C. Was he killed ? 
 
 F. Yes. 
 
 C. What killed him ? 
 
 F. Why, the fall killed him. 
 
 C. What caused him to fall ? 
 
 F. He lost his balance. 
 
 C. What made him lose his balance ? 
 
 F. What irrelevant questions you put ! 
 
 C. Patience, and answer my question: What caused him to 
 lose his balance ? 
 
 F. I don't know. 
 
 C. Did you ever hear of Su- Isaac Newton ?
 
 APPENDIX 11 Sit 
 
 F. Bo you think I am an ignoramus ? Oi course I have heard 
 of him. 
 
 C. Do you recollect the famous anecdote of his seeing an apple 
 fall? 
 
 F. Of course. 
 
 C. What discovery did he deduce from the apple's fall ? 
 
 F. The law of gravitation. 
 
 C. It was, then, the law of gravitation which brought the 
 apple to the ground, after the tendril by which it hung was 
 no longer strong enough to counteract the operation of that 
 law? 
 
 F. Decidedly so. 
 
 C. Then, when your slater made a false step, the law of gravi- 
 tation not only made him lose his balance, but brought him to 
 the ground ? 
 
 F. Yes, in that way of putting it. 
 
 C. That's the right Avay, I humbly submit; but we won't 
 go into that at present. I have now to ask you whether it was 
 not the law of gravitation which killed your slater ? 
 
 F. Decidedly. 
 
 C. Then I should say the law of gravitation was bad for that 
 man, and those who depend on his labour. 
 
 F. Certainly. 
 
 C. Did they ask for the repeal of the law of gravitation ? 
 
 F. I shan't sit here to be made a fool of. How could they 
 demand the repeal of a law of nature ? 
 
 C. You, by demanding the repeal of international law, are 
 as reasonable as they would be if they clamoured for the repeal 
 of the laAv of gravitation. 
 
 F. Ah ! but the law of nations is not the law of nature. 
 
 C. Did you ever hear of Vattel ? 
 
 F. Yes. 
 
 C. Who was he ? 
 
 F. A writer on international law, I believe. •» 
 
 C. A great authority on that subject ? 
 
 F. I understand so. 
 
 C. Deferred to by all the statesmen of Europe who respected 
 international law ? 
 
 F. I have always imagined so. 
 
 C. Then it is probable his definition of the law of nations is 
 the correct one ? 
 
 F. Perhaps it is. 
 
 C. I presume you will believe me when I tell you what that 
 definition was ? 
 
 F. Oh yes. 
 
 C. He says the law of nations is simply the precepts of the 
 laws of nature ' applied to States. If then, you accept this 
 definition as the correct one, knowing as you do that the laws
 
 312 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 of nature are immutable, it must be plain to you that the law 
 of nations is equally incapable of change. 
 
 F. Well, I'll not admit that altogether. Could the community 
 of nations not agree to pass over without punishment such acts 
 as Garibaldi's, when done with disinterested motives ? 
 
 C. Do you believe in the Ten Commandments ? 
 
 F. I do. 
 
 C. The Sixth says, "Thou shalt do no murder," and the 
 Eighth, "Thou shalt not steal." Now, if the community of 
 nations agreed to pass unpunished the crimes forbidden in these 
 Commandments, would that resolution repeal the Law of our 
 Maker, or exempt the criminals from punishment hereafter ? 
 
 F. God forbid ! 
 
 C. Then, if such is your conviction, how could you put such a 
 frivolous question with regard to the law of nations ? If they 
 agreed to pass unpunished the crime of piracy, their depraved 
 resolution would not repeal the law of nations; they would 
 simply cease to respect it, and would in the end reap their 
 reward . 
 
 F. Well, you have certainly made a great impression on me, 
 but I find it hard to reconcile myself to the idea of punishing 
 Garibaldi. He seems such a true patriot. 
 
 C. There you go again. What do you mean by a true 
 patriot ? 
 
 F. Oh, I can easily define that. One who loves his country, 
 and would sacrifice his hfe for it. 
 
 C. Of what province of the kingdom of Sardinia was Garibaldi 
 a native ? 
 
 F. Nice. 
 
 C. Does Nice belong to Sardinia now ? 
 
 F. No; it was annexed to France. 
 
 C. Sold, in fact ? 
 
 F. Yes; it was a disgraceful affair. 
 
 C. Did Garibaldi take up arms against his monarch for destroy- 
 ing the independence of his native land ? 
 
 F. Well, no. 
 
 C. Then, why on earth call him a patriot ? 
 
 F. Now, look here: I am not going to the witness-box again, 
 so good-night. 
 
 {The Free Press, May 1, 1861.)
 
 APPENDIX III 313 
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 POSTULATUM B.: ARGUMENTUM DE RE MILITARI 
 
 ET BELLO 
 
 QuuM in hisce luctuosissimis temporibus, sicut in diebus Noe, 
 diminutge sint veritates a filiis hominum, et multi jam non 
 regnum Dei et justitiam ejus, sed quse sua sunt, quserant, videre est 
 et imprimis in iis quae ad Rem Militarem spectant, omnem aequi- 
 tatem conculcari et omnia jura permisceri. Itaque, dum quidam 
 hac tristi rerum conditione commoti, sed non secundum scientiam 
 sanctam sentientes, somniant tempus futurum quo homines, 
 licet Deum non secuturi, non tamen amplius ulla bella videbunt, 
 alii e contra bella qusecumque, vel potius strages et homicidia 
 magna et horribilia reputant licita ; ita ut et nocendi cupiditas, et 
 ulciscendi crudelitas, impacatus atque implacabilis animus, 
 feritas rebellandi, libido dominandi, et si qua similia, non jam 
 culpentur in bello. Hinc illae immensae multitudines et exercitus 
 perpetuo armatarum nationum, quasi perpetuo inter se hostilia 
 parantium. Compertum igitur habemus et eos qui bella jubent 
 aut paranl , et eos quibus haec jubentur, non jam amplius imperare 
 et obedire juste, sicut praecipit ordo naturalis, sed oblitos esse 
 aut parvi pendere hoc grave et quidem inter homines gravissimum 
 mandatum Domini, olim per Moysen servum suum dicentis: 
 Non occides. Hand minus oblivioni vel despectui dederunt et 
 antiqua dicta Sanctorum Patrum, et praescripta Conciliorum 
 a Sancta Sede probatorum, necnon et ipsorum summorum 
 Pontificum documenta atque judicia, quibus constat nunquam 
 in Eccles'a sancta Dei damnabiles non fuisse habitos tanti 
 prsecepti in hac parte transgressores. . . . 
 
 Capitulum Primijm. 
 
 De Solemnitatibus Belli. 
 
 Jus Gentium circa Rem Militarem et Bellum ante omnia 
 requirit Solemne Belli. Hinc bellum injustum est, ac proinde 
 homicidiis et latrociniis j^lenum, quod non ex edicto et praeedicto 
 geritur, id est quod non fuerit ante omnia parti adversae indictum 
 ac publice denuntiatum. Denuntiatione autem belli intelligitur 
 gravaminum objectorum publica declaratio, cum legitimaB et 
 competentis reparationis aut satisfactionis petitione, parti 
 adversae per legatos solemniter facta. Indictionis vero nomine 
 intelligere fas est edictum quasi judiciarium quo publice denun- 
 tiantur belli causae, simul ac partis adversae contumacia.
 
 314 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Dominus eniin in veteri Testamento jussifpopulo suo dicens: 
 " Si quando accesseris ad expugnandam civitatem," et agebatur 
 etiam de civitatibus ab ipso Domino rejectis et damnatis,— 
 "offeres ei primum pacem;" et legitur in libro Judicum filios 
 Israel misisse nuntios ad omnem tribum Benjamin, ut traderent 
 viros de Gabaa ad satisfaciendum injurise illatse, antequam 
 bellum inferrent. Quicumque igitur sive princeps, sive dux aut 
 miles aut alius bellum suscipere aut in eo participare, hisce 
 omissis solemnitatibus, prsesumpserit, se sciat mortaliter peccare, 
 et quidem in genere homicidii, tanquam auctorem vel complicem 
 in solidum omnium csedium quae in tali bello vel potius impia 
 strage fierent, atque insuper irregularitatem ex delicto, id est 
 formalis homicidii causa, incurrisse, secundum decreta Patrum 
 ac Summorum Pontificum sancita. 
 
 Capitulum Secundum. 
 
 De necessitate et legitimis causis ad helium jusium requisitis. 
 
 Quia vero pacem habere debet voluntas, bellum necessitas, et 
 bellum vere bellua est quae omnia devorat, ideo non licet absque 
 gravi causa, et nisi vera et quasi extrema necessitate juste 
 imperante, suscipere bellum. Testatur enim Nicolaus Papa in 
 Responsis ad Consulta Bulgarorum, omni tempore armis abstinen- 
 dum, nisi necessitas urgeat atque inevitabilis importunarum 
 rcrum adsit concurrentia. Abhorreant ergo Christiani principes 
 et populi a falsis bellorum causis, sen potius a suggestionibus 
 Diaboli, qui ab mitio homicida erat. Olli non semel aurem 
 praebuere cseci homines, quum ad bellandum se motos prjedicarent, 
 nunc propter vanam gloriam, sen, ut aiunt, jDrsestigium nationale, 
 sub cujus vocabuli fumo latet superbia vitse, apud Joannem 
 damnata, peccatum Draconis qui pugnabat cum Angelis ejus; 
 nunc propter imperii extendendi vel divitiis augendi desiderium, 
 quod non est aliud nisi concupiscentia oculorum, radix omnium 
 malorum cupiditas, et avaritia, ab Apostolo dicta idolorum 
 servitus ; nunc etiam propter invidiam erga cssteras nationes vel 
 principes, furorem hunc Cainicum, quern semper abominabitur 
 Dominus, qui solus est jure semulator justissimus, et cujus nomen 
 privative vocatur Zelotes. Etenim hsec eadem peccata eeque 
 ac magis detestanda sunt in Nationibus et Guberniis, quse in 
 hominibus privatis damnantur. At vere horrendum esset dicere 
 insontes hommcs, qui, sive ut ostentarent se esse validos pugiles, 
 aut gladiatores, sive ut aliena raperent, sive ut invidiee cederent, 
 proximos privata auctoritatc occidere meditarentur. Igitur 
 non moveatur unquam bellum, nisi de necessario repetundis 
 Juribus, vel hostium injuste invadentium propulsandorum 
 causa.
 
 APPENDIX m 315 
 
 Capitulum Tertium. 
 
 De officiis et obedientia Ducum ac Militum. 
 
 Secundum Divi Augustini sententiam, ad malos jure puniendos, 
 bella gerenda ab ipsis bonis suscipiuntur, quum in eo humanarum 
 rerum ordine inveniuntur, ubi eos vel jubere tale aliquid vel 
 in talibus obedire juste ordo ipse constringit. Sciant ergo Duces 
 ac Milites se militare debere tanquani bonos vu'os, Deo Sacra- 
 mento Baptismi ligatos, ac proinde juramentum seu quod vocant 
 sacramentum Militia? non adversari legi Christian83, nee unquam 
 adversari posse, Hinc nihil in bello justo agant contra Jus 
 Gentium; immunitates personarum et rerum Deo sacrarum, 
 necnon ruricolarum et operariorum artibus pacis incumbentium, 
 feminarum, puerorum, senum et omnium innocentium agnoscant, 
 et rite observent; se esse justitise servos ac ministros, non autem 
 crudelitatis, nee cupiditatis, nee vanse glorias, meminerint; 
 contenti stipendiis suis, neminem concutientes, legitime in suo 
 quisque gradu superioribus suis obedientiam prsestent. 
 
 Capitulum Quartum. 
 
 De Auctontate et Consilio in hellis suscipiendis et forma Judicii 
 
 de Justitia Belli. . 
 
 Quoad bellum suscipiendum Auctoritas et Consilium non 
 apud cives singulatim sumptos, sed apud Nationes et earum 
 Principes et Gubernia est. Nam cives singuli, si Isesi fuerint, 
 jure possunt ad superiores appellare vel recurrere, quin inter 
 se aut cum alienigenis pugnent; et ordo naturalis, mortaliura 
 paci accommodatus, requirit ut ita se Pes Militaris habeat. 
 Verumtamen si in Ecclesia Dei cautum est ne episcopus absque 
 Consilio aliquid agat, pari saltem norma circa tanti momenti 
 rem Nationes seu earum Prmcipes et Gubernia uti necesse 
 perspicitur. Quapropter, ut justitia et justitise forma in bellis 
 suscipiendis caute servetur, opus est ut leges cujusque regni 
 et populi statuant viros non tantum peritos, sed et maxime 
 probos consulendos esse, a quibus secundum Jus Gentium et 
 leges evangelicas, necnon et canonicas seu Pontificias, causarum 
 belli justitia prudenter examinetur et libere declaretur. Nam 
 Jure disceptare, est juste judicare; et non est judex, si non est 
 in eo Justitia. 
 
 VoTUM Synodi. 
 
 I. Universi compertum est, quot quantaque scelera et mala 
 tarn spiritualia quam temporalia novissimis prsesertim hisce 
 temporibus ab iniustis bellis dimanaverint, ita ut fundamentales 
 societatis humanae conditiones subverti videantur.
 
 316 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 II. Hsec eadem calamitas Orientem quoque invadit miserrimis 
 suis effectibus, et ad gentem nostram Ecclesiamque, et ad 
 universam in Oriente rem Catholicam teternma exinde damna 
 oriuntur, quibus, ut rem pro veritate dicamus, obnoxium quoque 
 est providissimum paternumque nostrum Gubernium, cui gratum 
 habet animum tota Armena Hierarchia, praesertim pro religiosa 
 libertate, qua ipsa fruitur. 
 
 III. Usee autem calamitosa conditio magis noxia evadere 
 dignoscitur, eo quod sit teterrimus effectus perversorum 
 quorumdam principiorum, quibus iustitia et iura gentium 
 conculcantur. 
 
 IV. Hinc non amplius iustitia, sed ius fortioris, aufc secretarum 
 molimina societatum in humanam societatem ubique grassantur. 
 
 V. Hinc principia quoque Christianse moralitatis sus deque 
 vertuntur per illas neotericas perversasque doctrrnas, quas 
 nonnullse ephemerides, factse iam impietatis instruraenta, et 
 secretarum societatum conatus per omnes regiones excitare 
 atque propagare nituntur, et iam praeruptus tantse impietatis 
 torrens nostras quoque plagas invadit. 
 
 VI. Speciatim vero idea preecepti Decalogi, "Non occides " 
 cuius custos et interpres est ipsa Sancta Catholica Ecclesia, 
 propter iniusta bella tam vitiata est in mente populi, ut inter 
 bella iusta ac iniustas csedes stragemque iam omne discrimen 
 ablatum videatur, nequeinter utrumque populus discernerc valeat. 
 
 VII. Sed quia Christus Dominus noster, cum suam in terra 
 instituit Ecclesiam, illi soli non modo Divinae suae revelationis 
 tradidit depositum, sed et infallibilis magisterii auctoritatem 
 usque ad consummationem saeculi duraturam, ncque per gentium 
 vel regionum amplitudinem limitandum, eius officium est, 
 omnibus gentibus et nationibus iustitiam ac moralom Evangelii 
 legem praedicare ac docere, et haec inerrabilis magisterii inviola- 
 bilis auctoritas in persona Petri legitimis eius Successoribus est 
 concredita. 
 
 VIII. Quamvis autem zelantissimi Ecclesiae Ministri vocem 
 suam extollentes, perversa haec principia impugnare iusque 
 gentium ac sacra moralitatis principia propugnare et bella iusta 
 inter ac caedem stragemque discrimina populos edocere pro viribus 
 conentur, attamen inter clamores impietatis vox zelantissimorum 
 Pastorum iam fernie extingui videtur. 
 
 IX. Quare Patres huius Synodi, miserrimum hoc spectaculum 
 a longe non sine lacrymis aspicientes, et horum principiorum, 
 qucB omnia delere minantur, quaeque libertatis, nationalitis et 
 similium fallaciura nominum sub velo abscondita sunt, giganteos 
 Orientem versus impetus conspicientes, apprime intellexerunt, 
 quod eo magis aggressiones istae noxiae sunt nobis, quo debilior 
 est conditio nostra. 
 
 X. Quapropter haac omnia in hac nationali Synodo contem- 
 plantes et in tribunali iustitiae perpendentes, Patres Synodales
 
 APPENDIX III 317 
 
 vocem suam ad Cathedram Romanam et Tibi Vicario Doiniiii 
 nostri lesu Christi, cui concredita est suprema mfallibilis magis- 
 terii auctoritas, extollunt, et his prsesentibus scriptis Synodalibus 
 consilium suae mentis Tibi proponere festinant, et Te Christi 
 Vicarium adprecantur, ut si opportunum Tibi videbitur, gravis 
 hsec et valde necessaria quaestio imminenti Qj]cumenico pro- 
 ponatur Concilio, et ius gentium solemniter ibidem proclametur 
 atque tyrannica iuris fortioris principia penitus condemnentur, 
 et Divini praecepti "Non occides" vera notio omnibus 
 praedicetur, bellaque iniusta vere caadera stragemque constituere 
 denuo confirm etur. Hinc et solemniter iusti belli conditiones 
 iuxta canonicum ius, quod ubique proculcatur, ab eodera 
 (Ecumenico Concilio infallibili auctoritate pubhcentur. Et quia 
 universa haec impietas, quaa omnia destruere minatur, necessario 
 exigit, ut in applicatione principiorum Christianae moralitatis et 
 canonum Ecclesiae, permanens et incessans veritatis oraculum 
 quocumque vocem suam extendere, omniumque conscientiam 
 tutam reddere possit : Quapropter haec ipsa Synodus illud valde 
 necessarium esse reverenter ac humiliter credit, quod (Ecumenico 
 Concilio, si ita Tibi videbitur, proponatur, ut apud Sedem Petri 
 permanens supremumque ex omnium gentium iuris peritis 
 compositum Tribunal constituatur, quod in verbo belli examinet 
 et perpendat, utrum mutuae societatum relationes cum moralibus 
 Christianae Religionis legibus conveniant; ac nomine Sedis 
 Petri defensor iurium gentis constituatur, cuius vox iuridica ab 
 infallibili Tua auctoritate, qui Vicarius es Christi, confirmata, 
 canon seu regula publicae constituatur conscientiae ; quo fiet 
 etiam ut humana societas ab imminentis ruinae praecipitio 
 erepta, quo perversa praesentis temporis socialia principia 
 trahendo deiicere earn minantur, tandem aliquando quiescat; 
 et Gubernia ab immani ilia necessitate liberentur ingentes 
 perpetuo alendi exercitus, qui cum magno sint mcitamento 
 socialis corruptionis morum, innumeras quoque aerumnas 
 teterrimosque effectus progignunt, populisque iam intolerabile 
 pondus omnino efficiuntur. 
 
 II 
 
 The Petition of English Protestants to the Holy Father for the restoration of 
 the Law of Nations is to be found on page 366 of tlie Acta et Decreta SS. Ccmcilii 
 Vaticami. 
 
 " A Letter from Certain English Protestants to the 
 Supreme Pontiff, in which they intreat him to 
 
 UNDERTAKE THE CHARGE OF GUARDING THE LaW OF 
 
 Nations in regard to those Nations not yet civilised. 
 
 " Having long sought, but in vain, to induce the prelates and 
 ecclesiastics of the divers communions to which we belong to 
 resist the acts, practices and maxims contrary to the Law of
 
 318 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Nations, or at least to denounce them, we address ourselves to 
 Your Holiness, in the hope that you will take means to put an 
 end to this public disorder, and that, in the measures you take, 
 you may understand the particular errors which we submit to you. 
 
 " The ancient relations established by conquest and adminis- 
 tration which have given Great Britain command over regions 
 situated outside Europe, inhabited by Brahmins, Buddhists, 
 Hindus, Mussulmans and Pagans, have endangered in these 
 far-off regions the integrity of the English, by exposing them 
 to more than ordinary temptations. 
 
 " Treaties have been violated, blood has been unjustly shed, 
 outrages of various sorts have been perpetrated on innocent 
 persons. 
 
 " To justify these guilty actions, a maxim has been introduced 
 and even publicly proclaimed by the highest political authority 
 of modern times. Sir Robert Peel, declaring that Christians are 
 not subject to the Law of Nations, nor to the precepts of justice 
 in their dealings with those who are a danger to Christianity or 
 civilisation. 
 
 " We are assured that the Fathers of the Catholic Church, the 
 Popes and the Councils, have condemned and denounced often 
 and with authority such maxims as being contrary to the Will 
 of God and to the laws of man, and exposing all those who 
 execute them or take part in them to being banished from the 
 Christian Communion, 
 
 " Seeing that any State, however powerful it may be, cannot 
 be safe while such practices reign in it ; that any man, however 
 pious he be, is no better than an infidel who in such a matter 
 cannot distinguish between good and evil ; seeing that all bodies 
 of Christians have ceased in this respect to teach the Law of 
 God, we appeal to Your Holiness to declare anew, whether by 
 virtue of your own authority or through the Council which is 
 about to assemble, that Law and those maxims which were 
 declared and imposed of old by the See which Your Holiness 
 occupies to-day, so that they may become a guide for the conduct 
 of those of our compatriots who belong to that Church of which 
 Your Holiness is the Head, as well as a light for the whole 
 world. 
 
 " We have learnt that Your Holiness has refused absolution 
 and the consolations of religion to those who, being impenitent, 
 have repudiated, by a pretended act of their own will, the duties 
 of allegiance towards our Sovereign, and who do not consider 
 themselves guilty of a crime when they commit illegal acts in 
 obedience to the orders of those to whom they have sworn blind 
 obedience. 
 
 " We pray Your Holiness to treat in like manner those Kings 
 and their Ministers who at this time are not controlled by any 
 tribunal nor liable to any punishment,"
 
 APPENDIX IV 319 
 
 ArPE]NDIX IV 
 
 A LIST OF SOME OF DAVID URQUHART'S WRITINGS. 
 
 Political, Socla.l, and Historical. 
 
 1 833 ■ J'grkey and its Resources (5th edition, 1835). 
 
 1 834 '. England, France, Russia and Turkey. PampETet . 
 
 1835. The PortfoHo; or, A Collection of State Papers, etc., 
 
 illustrative of the History of our own Times. 6 vols. 
 
 December, 1835-1837. 
 1839 ^ The Spirit of the Easl^__2 vols., 
 
 1843. The Portfolio. New Series. 6 vols, 1843-1844. 
 
 1844. Reflections on Thoughts and Things. 
 
 1845. Wealth and Want; or, Taxation as influencing Private 
 
 Riches and Public Liberty. 
 
 1849. The Pillars of Hercules. 2 vols. 
 
 1853. Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South. 
 
 1855. Constitutional Remedies. Handbook for the Com- 
 mittees. 
 
 1855. Familiar Words as affecting the Character of Englishmen 
 
 and the Fate of England 
 
 1856. The Free Press. First issued as a penny weekly paper, 
 
 then as a monthly periodical. Editor: Collet Dobson 
 
 Collet. 1856-1866. 
 1866. The Diplomatic Reviev/. (The Free Press was so renamed.) 
 
 A quarterly journal. 1866-1877. 
 1860. The Lebanon. 2 vols. 
 
 Also innumerable pamphlets, critiques, and reviews. 
 
 Writings more directly concerning the Council. 
 
 1874. The Four Wars of the French Revolution. This came 
 
 out first in the Diplomatic Review, and was reprinted as 
 
 a pamphlet. 
 1869. Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope to restore the Law 
 
 of Nations. The same in Latin and French. 
 1869. Effect on the World of the Restoration of the Canon Law; 
 
 being a vindication of the Catholic Church against a 
 
 Priest. 
 1871. Le Patriarche Hassoun ; Le Schisme Armenien et le Concile 
 
 (Ecumenique. 
 1871. Sequel to the Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope: The 
 
 Military Oath and Christianity. 
 1871. La Desolation de la Chretiente. 
 
 Many pamphlets in French appeared about this time ; also 
 a French edition of the Diplomatic Review, which 
 began in 1868 and was continued till 1875.
 
 320 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN 
 * DAVID URQUHART' S LIFE. 
 
 1805. Born. 
 
 18L3. Taken abroad. 
 
 182L Entered at St. John's College, Oxford. 
 
 1827. Takes part in the Greek War of Independence under Lord 
 
 Cochrane. First Lieutenant on Frigate //^eZ^as. Severely 
 wounded. 
 
 1828. Leaves the Greek Navy. 
 
 At Samos with Colleti, the Governor of the island. 
 
 1829. Immediately after the Treaty of Adrianople goes to Con- 
 
 stantinople. Introduced to the Sultan; sent by the 
 Sultan with his own guards and horses on a geological 
 expedition to Thrace. 
 
 1830. For a few months at the Turkish Court. Returns to 
 
 England through Albania. 
 
 1831. Letters to the Courier on the Eastern Question which 
 
 attracts the attention of William IV. 
 Introduced to Sir Stratford Canning, and sent on secret 
 mission to the Balkans. 
 
 1832. Returns to England via Italy, Hungary and Germany. 
 
 1833. Articles on European Commerce, particularly the German 
 
 Customs Union, which results in his being sent on a 
 second secret mission, this time a commercial one. 
 Publishes Turkey and its Resources. 
 
 1834. Preparing commercial treaty between England and Turkey. 
 
 In the East for the second time. 
 
 Intimacy with Lord Ponsonby. 
 
 Visit to Circassia. 
 
 Publishes England, France, Russia, and Turkey. 
 
 1835. During the whole of this year a flood of articles on the 
 
 Eastern and Russian Questions, either written or 
 inspired by him, appears in all the principal periodicals 
 and newspapers. 
 
 Appointment as First Secretary to Embassy at Con- 
 stantinople (Commission gazetted October 3, 1835). 
 
 Portfolio issued from December, 1835, to June, 1836. 
 
 1836. Leaves England for Constantinople in company with Sir 
 
 John McNeil, travelling via Munich, Vienna and 
 Wallachia. 
 
 1837. Recalled. 
 
 1838. Government issues commercial treaty with Turkey. 
 Urquhart begins his crusade. 
 
 Letters to The Times, Era, Morning Advertiser, etc., etc. 
 Midlands and North taken by storm. Invited by city 
 magnates to a public dinner at Glasgow. First public 
 speech . Chambers of Commerce started bj' his influence.
 
 APPENDIX IV 321 
 
 1839. Death of his mother. 
 Publishes the Spirit of the East. 
 Diplomatic Transactions in Central Asia 
 Exposition of the Boundary Differences . 
 First contact with Chartists. 
 
 1840. Attacks Chartists' strongholds; captures man}'' of their 
 
 leaders by preachmg international justice in lieu of 
 class warfare. Forms converted Chartists into *' As^ 
 sociations for the Study of Diplomatic Documents." 
 Gathers round him a large circle of friends. 
 Private mission to the French people on the occasion of 
 the treaty of July 15. 
 1841-1846. Political knight-errantry in France, Spain, and 
 Morocco. 
 Multifarious literary activities amongst ^hich the most 
 prominent are — 
 
 Portfolio, New Series, October, 1843-1844. 
 Beflections on Thoughts and Things. 
 Wealth and Want. 
 1847. Elected by an overwhelming majority as Member of 
 Parliament for Stafford. 
 
 1849. Serious breakdown in health. 
 
 Visit to Syria and in the East; collects materials for The 
 
 Lebanon. 
 Meets the Abbe Hamilton, who is on a mission from Rome 
 
 to the East. From him gains an insight into Uniate 
 
 Question. 
 
 1850. Further visit to Constantinople. 
 Pillars of Hercules published. 
 
 1853. Russian Army mobilised. 
 
 Urquhart begins to preach against the coming war, re- 
 forms the li'oreign Affairs Committees and starts many 
 new ones. 
 
 1854. War with Russia declared in March. 
 Marriage to Harriet Angelina Fortescue. 
 General Election; declines to stand. 
 
 Sheffield Free Press, under the editorship of Ironside, be- 
 comes the Urquhart organ. Eventually transferred to 
 London. 
 Occupied with organisation of Foreign Affairs Committees. 
 Great meetings held in all the chief towns in England 
 185G. Begins his twenty years' crusade against the " Declaration 
 of Paris." 
 Turkish baths established in England. 
 1856-1864. Work of the Foreign Affairs Committees on current 
 events (Indian Mutmy, Chinese War, Polish Insur- 
 rection, American Civil War, Italian War of Liberation, 
 etc.) under his mspiration and guidance. 
 
 21
 
 322 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 1804. Breakdown in health necessitates residence abroad — 
 visits Paris, Rouen, Nice, Genoa. 
 Syllabus of Pius IX. issued. 
 1865. Chalet des Melezes built. 
 
 1807. Pius IX. announces to the Bishops assembled for the 
 centenary of St. Peter his intention of summoning a 
 General Council. 
 Short visit to England. Tour of the Foreign Affairs 
 Committees with a view of preparing them for his appeal 
 to the Pope. 
 1867-1869. Work in ^Dreparation for the appeal to the Pope. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart go to Rome, November, 1869. 
 Vatican Council opened December 8, 1869. 
 
 1870. In Rome till June. 
 Franco-Prussian War. 
 
 1871. Diplomatic relations established between the Vatican and 
 
 the Porte, due to his exertions. 
 
 1872. Desolation, de la Chretiente published. 
 
 Attempts at the establishment in France of a National 
 Tribunal to decide questions of peace and war. 
 1874. Visit to England. 
 
 Tour of Foreign Affairs Committees. 
 
 Great speech at Keighley. 
 
 Reviews origin and work of Committees. 
 
 Successfully resists the designs of Russia to gain England's 
 active participation in the Congress of Brussels. 
 
 1876. Journey to Egypt in a vain search for health. 
 
 1877. Dies at Naples, Zvla}^ 17.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aali, Pasha, Grand Vizier, 247, 285 
 
 Adrianople, Peace of, 8, 9, 44, 55 
 
 Afghan War, 142 ff. 
 
 Albania, 44, 45 
 
 Alexander I. of Russia, 6, 7 
 
 American Civil War, 134, 135, 152 
 
 Angelis, Cardinal de, 263 
 
 Anstey, Thomas Chisholm: impeaches 
 Lord Palmerston, 121; account of, 
 143 note ; introduces Urquhart to 
 Cardinal Capaccini, 185; connection 
 of, with Oxford Movement, 226 
 
 Antonelli, Cardinal, 254, 255 
 
 Armellini, Pere, 275 
 
 Armenian Schism, 276 and note 
 
 Armenian Synod, 249, 258 ff. 
 
 Armenians, 257 
 
 Arras, 209 
 
 Associations for investigating Foreign 
 Affairs: mismanagement of, 116; 
 reasons for failure of, 117 fi. Sec 
 also Committees for the Investiga- 
 tion of Diplomatic Documents 
 
 Attwood, Charles, 81, 95, 103, 107, 
 135 
 
 Attwood, Thomas, 72 
 
 Aymond, Pere, 232 
 
 Azarian, Mgr., 249, 204 
 
 Backhouse, 53 
 
 Barroll, 180 
 
 Barrot, Odilon, 115, 116 
 
 Beaumont, Somerset, 62 
 
 Behrens, 24, 25 
 
 Bell family, 57 
 
 Bell, George, 61 
 
 Benbow, William, 94 
 
 Benthara, Jeremy, 21, 34, 35 
 
 Bentinck, Cavendish, 155 
 
 Benyouski, 89 note, 98 note 
 
 Beust, Count, 211 
 
 Birmingham Mutual Improvement 
 
 Society, 155 JJ. 
 Bishopstone, Landholders' Court, 309 
 Bismarck, Count von, 5, 1:51 note 
 Black, Dr., 71 
 Bod nham, de la Barre, 256 
 
 Bonnechose, Cardinal de, 263, 264, 
 
 269, 270 
 Booth, John, 147 
 Breda, Comte de: in Rome, 263; 
 
 proposes a Ligue des Faihle.^ to 
 
 Aali Pasha, 285, 286; on French 
 
 desire for revenge, 292 
 Bright, John, 146 
 British and Foreign Iteview, 45 note 
 Brun, Lucien, 290 
 Brussels, Congress of, 142, 160, 
 
 161 
 Bucher, Lothair, 130 note, 133 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 62 and note 
 Bums, Sir Alexander, 143, 144, 145 
 
 Cabet, French Deputy, 111 
 
 Canning, George, 9, 10 
 
 Canning, Sir Stratford, 45 
 
 Canon Law, 142, 208, 209 
 
 Capaccini, Cardinal, 22, 185 ff. 
 
 Capalti, Cardinal, 275 
 
 Capodistrias, 44 
 
 Cardo, William, Chartist: gives his 
 adherence to Urquhart, 85 ff. : aids 
 Urquhart' s campaign among work- 
 ing men, 92 ff.; gains adherence of 
 Richards for Urquhart, 97; abuse 
 of, by former associates, 101 ; speaks 
 at meeting at Carlisle, 105, 10(1 
 
 Cargill, William, 81, 95, 96, 117 
 
 Catholic Church, 194, 212, 21 « //. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation Act, 223 
 
 Catholic Magazine, 222 note 
 
 Caucasus, o.), 68 
 
 Cavour, 194, 201 note 
 
 Central Democratic Association, 84 
 
 Chalet des Melezes, 205, 206 note, 322 
 
 Charnowski, General, 110 
 
 Chinese War, 13, 147 ff. 
 
 Circassia, 54 //., 214 
 
 Circassians, 22, ">."> 
 
 Cobbett, James, 94 
 
 Cobbett, William, 282 
 
 Cockrane, Lord, 34 
 
 Coletti, Governor of Samos, 114 and 
 note. 
 
 32.",
 
 324 
 
 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 Collet, Charles Dobson, 136 and note 
 
 Collet, Pere, 233 
 
 Committees for the investigation of 
 Diplomatic Documents, 98. See 
 also Associations for investigating 
 Foreign Affairs 
 
 ConoUy, Lancashire, 135 
 
 Consolato del Mare, 151 and note 
 
 Constantino, Russian Viceroj% 8 
 
 Conversations Lexicon, 46 
 
 Courier Frangais, 108 
 
 Crimean War, 11, 12, 24, 123 ff. 
 
 Def ourny, Abbe : meets Urquhart at 
 Rheims, 232; on the delays of 
 Vatican Council, 273; on attitude of 
 French Bishops to Vatican Coun- 
 cil, 277; promoter of the Societj' 
 of the (Euvre Apostolique, 286, 287; 
 introduces deputation of Foreign 
 Affairs Committees to French 
 Assembly, 290 
 
 Delane of The Times, 13 
 
 Denbigh, Lord, 233, 265 
 
 Detroisier, 71 
 
 Diobitch, 9, 10 
 
 Diplomatic College, 264, 268, 275 
 
 Diplomatic Review, 319 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 23, 123 
 
 Dunlop, 146 
 
 Dupanloup, JIgr. : Urquhart's friend- 
 ship with, 23; first meeting with, 
 232; failure of, to support appeal 
 to the Pope, 239; incites Eastern 
 Catholics against Decree of In- 
 fallibility, 256, 257; Urquhart's 
 interview with, in Rome, 260, 261 ; 
 Pope receives submission of, 276 
 
 Eastern Bishops, 255, 256, 259, 261 
 East India Company, report of, on 
 Afghan War, 143 
 
 Fielden, 72 
 
 Fischel, Edward, 133 
 
 Foreign Affairs Committees: forma- 
 tion of, 120, 124 //.; Urquhart's 
 training of, 125/.. ."{lO; character of 
 members of, 134 /J.; organisation of, 
 136 /J.; insist on publication of 
 suppressed despatches on Afghan 
 Wai-, 142 ff.; issue addresses to 
 soldiers and sailors about to sail 
 on Chinese Exj)editiou, 148, 149; 
 address the Emperor of the French 
 on Declaration of Paris, 153, 154; 
 set forth dangers of Congress of 
 Brussels, 160 /.; petition Disraeli 
 against representation of England 
 
 at Congress of Brussels, 160; 
 manifold activities of, 162; attitude 
 of Press towards, 163 note ; failure 
 of, due partly to Urquhart's own 
 charactei', 172 ff.; respond to teach- 
 ing on Canon Law, 209; lead men 
 from Secularism and Atheism, 289; 
 deputation of, to French Assembly, 
 290, 291 
 
 France: attitude of England and 
 Russia towards, 104; attitude of, 
 towards Vatican Council, 239; 
 Catholic Church in, 277; bitterness 
 of, towards England, 291 ; dislike of 
 "National Tribunals," 291. 
 
 Franchi, Mgr. : Urquhart's friendship 
 with, 23, 233, 263 and note, 268, 
 269; entrusted with Memorandum 
 to the Pope, 274; goes to Constan- 
 tinople as Papal Envoy, 285; 
 approves of " National Tribunals," 
 291 
 
 Franco-Prussian War, 153, 154 
 
 Frankpledge, 306, 307 
 
 Free Press, 135, 147, 319 
 
 French Catholics, Urquhart gains a 
 hearing from, 231, 232 
 
 Frost the Chartist, 89, 98 note, 170, 
 171 note 
 
 Fuad Pasha, 246 
 
 Fyler, George, 81, 86, 87 
 
 Garibaldi, 194, 199, 310 ff. 
 
 German Customs Union, 25, 45, 
 
 215 
 Ghica, I., 63 note 
 Ghizzi, Cardinal, 189 
 Gillies, Dr., 190 
 Gioberti, 191. 202 
 Gladstone, W. E., 155 ff., U2 
 Gratry, Pere, 22, 133; Les Sources, 
 
 207 
 Greece, Urquhart's connection with, 
 
 7, 8 
 Greek War of Independence, 7, 44 
 Gregory XVI., Pope, 22, 180 note, 
 
 184 note, 219 
 Grenoble, 209 
 fJrotius, 207 
 Grove, Mary Ann, 100 
 Guizot, 115 
 
 Hadford, 145, 146 
 
 Hamilton, Abbe, 189, 190 
 
 Harney, Julius, 93 
 
 Hassoun, Patriarch, 248, 276 and 
 
 note 
 Haynau. 84 
 Herald, (Jl note, 200, 295
 
 INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 Hetheiington, Henry, 71, 94 
 Holy Alliance, 223 
 Hyacinth, Pere, 253 note 
 
 Ireland, 203 note 
 
 Italian Unity, 198 ff. 
 
 Italian War of Liberation, 194, 205 
 
 Jesuits, 179, 264; ttudes, 287 
 Jullion, Pere, 232, 233, 238, 286 
 Juvigny, 209, 232 
 
 Kaye, 143, 146 
 Keighley, 161 
 
 Lamington, Lord, 174 note 
 
 Las Casas, 295 
 
 Law of Nations, 207, 208, 253 
 
 Lebanon, Mount, 68 
 
 Le Play: Urquhart's friendship with, 
 23, 207 and note ; agrees with 
 Urquhart in welcoming the Coun- 
 cil, 216; studies social life in the 
 East, 240; Refornie Sociale, 241; 
 criticises Urquhart, 242, 243; in- 
 augurates Union de la Paix Sociale, 
 287; introduces deputation of 
 Foreign Affairs Committees to 
 French Assembly, 290 
 
 Lieven, Countess (later Princess), 10, 
 99 note 
 
 Louis Philippe, 14 
 
 Lowery, Robert: a "Foreign Policy 
 Man," 92; member of Chartist 
 Convention, 95; Monteith's opinion 
 of, 96; goes on deputation to 
 Paris, 105; interviews Faucher, 
 editor of Courier Fraii^ais, 108, 
 109; letter of, from Paris to Chair- 
 man of Newcastle Committee, 
 108 ff.; letter of, to Chairman of 
 London Committee, 110, 111; dis- 
 couraged about future of Com- 
 mittees, 116. 117 
 
 Lucca, Cardinal de, 263 
 
 Macclesfield Foreign Affairs' Com- 
 mittee, 266, 271 
 
 McNeil, Sir John, 24 note 
 
 Mahmoud II., 8ultan of Turkey, 9, 
 44, 45 
 
 Malan, Caesar, 33 
 
 Manchester, 84 
 
 Manin, Daniele. 192 
 
 Manley, General, 190 
 
 Manning, Archbishop, 233, 237 
 
 Marriott, Charles, 226 note 
 
 Marx, Karl, 130 7iote, 270 
 
 Marylebone, 85 
 
 Maupied, Dr., 254, 255 
 
 Mayence, Bishop of, 233 
 
 Mazzini, 194, 195 ff. and note 
 
 Mchemet Ali, 11, 104 
 
 Merraillod, Auxiliary Bishop of 
 (Jeneva: a friend and ally of Urqu- 
 hart, 233; sketch of, 244 ?io<e ; sends 
 Monteith on his mission to the 
 East, 249; supports Urquhart in 
 Rome, 262 
 
 Metropolitan Trades Union, 94 
 
 Metternich, 6, 7, 14 
 
 Middle Ages, Urquhart's love for, 211, 
 212 
 
 Mignet, 114 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 133, 152, 153 
 
 Milosh, Prince, of Servia, 48, 197 
 
 Molesworth, Sir William, 72 
 
 Monteith, Robert: friendship with 
 Urquhart, 62; aids Urquhart's 
 work among working men, 81 : 
 opinion of Cardo, 94; opinion of 
 Lowery, 96; describes Urquhart's 
 campaign among working men, 
 99, 100; assists in founding Com- 
 mittees, 135; a Catholic, 233; goes 
 on a mission to the Armenian 
 Synod, 248, 249; in Rome during 
 the Council, 256; describes Christ- 
 mas at the Vatican in 1870, 278 
 
 Morning Post, 105 
 
 Mozeley, 226 note 
 
 National Tribunals, 289 fj. 
 
 National Union of the Working 
 
 Nevers, Bishop of, 262, 263 
 Newcastle Foreign Affairs Committee, 
 
 144 
 Newman, .T. II.. 226 
 Noe, Comte de. 111 
 Normanby, Lord, 88, 91 
 Northern Liberator, 105, 107 note 
 Northern Political Union, 93, 96 
 
 O'Brien, Bronterre, 86, 87, 01 and 
 
 note 
 O'Connor, Feargus, 91, 116 
 (Eiwre Apostoliqne, 209, 2S6, 287 
 OUivier, Emile, 239 
 Oxford, 34, 44, 226 note 
 Oxford, Bishoj) of, 225 
 
 Palmerston, Lord: character of, 12 // , 
 Urquhart's views on, 12 ff.; sends 
 Urquhart to Constantinople, 48; 
 hostility of, to Urquhart, 52 /f.; 
 recalls Urquhart from Constanti. 
 nople, 54; conduct of, in Vixen
 
 326 
 
 DAVID URQUHABT 
 
 incident, 57, 58; Urquhart's quarrel 
 with, over Turkish Commercial 
 Treaty, 70; antipathy of, to Louis 
 Philippe, 104; impeachment of, 121 ; 
 charge against, in matter of 
 Afghan despatches, 144 
 
 Papacj-, the: Urquhart's view- on, 
 22, 220 ^. ; temporal power of, de- 
 pendent on law, 180, 237, 238; 
 Russia's greatest stumbling-block, 
 195 
 
 Papal Infallibility, dogma of, 211, 
 253, 259 
 
 Paris, Declaration of, 26, 142, 149 If. 
 
 Peel, 14, 318 
 
 Philippe, Pere, 232 
 
 Pisani, 51 
 
 Pitra, Cardinal, 263 
 
 Pius IX. : Urquhart's hope in, 189 ft- ; 
 reforming ideas of, dispelled, 190 //. ; 
 popular feeling towards, in Italy, 
 198 note ; calls a General Council. 
 210, 211; attempts to prejudice 
 him against Urquhart, 264, 265; 
 Urquhart's audience of, 265 fj. ; 
 Urquhart's impressions of, 268; 
 interest of, in Urquhart's cause 
 268; sends Urquhart a brief of 
 thanks for Desolation de la 
 Chretiente, 283 
 
 Place, Francis, 71 
 
 Polish Rebellion of 1830, 8 
 
 Ponsonby, Lord : opinion of Urqu- 
 hart, 23; friendship with Urquhart, 
 48, 51 note; disagreement with 
 Urquhart in Constantinople, 50/7. ; 
 letter of, to Palmerston on Cir- 
 cassia, 55, 56 ; Letters on the Eastern 
 Question, 123 note 
 
 Poore, Mayor, 135 and note, 301 ff. 
 
 Postulatmn de JRe Militari et Bello, 
 259 note, 260, 269, 272, 313 
 
 Prokesch, Baron, 284 note 
 
 Prussia, Urquhart's views vn, 5 
 
 Raniiere, Pere, 287, 288, 203 
 
 Reformation, 223 
 
 Reschid Mohammed, Pasha, 45 
 
 Rheims, 209, 232 
 
 Richards, John, 92. 100, 105, lOl) 
 
 Rickmans worth, 137, 174 note 
 
 Roebuck, Thomas, 72, 143 
 
 Rodez, Bishop of: friendsliip with 
 Urquhart, 233, 262; mentions 
 Appeal to the Pope in liis Lonten 
 Pastoral, 237; mentioned in Mrs. 
 Urquhart's diary. 270; on the 
 delays of the ("ouneil. 276 
 
 Roh, Pero. 262, 263, 284 noti 
 
 RoUand, Major, 135, 136 
 
 Rome, Church of: alone untouched 
 by Russian diplomacy, 184; em- 
 bodies Urquhart's hopes for the 
 world, 213, 274; embodiment of 
 law, 221 ; Urquhart's views on 
 connection of, with the East, 253, 
 254; resumes diplomatic relations 
 j with Sublime Porte, 285 and note 
 ; Rome, condition of, in 1870, 277, 278 
 
 Rosmini, 191 
 I Ross, David, of Bladensburgh : works 
 I for Urquhart in Northern to^^^lS, 
 81; assists in founding Commit- 
 tees, 135; anecdote of Urquhart 
 related by, 137 note ; works for 
 Urquhart's plans in Rome, 189 
 Rule, David, 134, 160, 161, 290 
 Russell, Lord John, 72 
 Russia: Urquhart's views on, 2 fl., 
 47; hostility to Entente Cordiale, 
 104; connection of, with Italian 
 Revolution, 197, 198; mj'sterv of, 
 214, 215 
 : Rustem Bey, 231, 246, 264 
 
 Salisbury Times, 304 ff. 
 I Sangelgian, Abbe, 275 
 ! Sardinia, 202 
 
 Schools of Public Law, 136, 150 
 
 Schroeder, Baron, 231, 248 
 
 Sebastopol, 11, 12, 124 
 
 Servia, 48, 68, 197, 198 
 
 Shepperd, William, 121 and note 
 
 Sinclair, Sir George, 62, 20:{ note 
 
 Singleton, William, 132, 289, 299 
 
 Sraiih, A., 152 
 
 Smith, Gerald, 44 
 
 Sociefcj- for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel, 147 
 
 Soreze College, 20 note 
 
 Stafford, l.M, 147, 148 
 
 Stanley of Alderley, Lord, IjO note, 
 263 
 
 Stapleton, A. G., 133 
 
 Stephens, Chartist Leader, 130, 160 
 
 Stobart, G., 145 
 
 Stonyhurst, 179 ff. 
 
 Strossmayer, Bishop, 261 
 
 Stuart, Lord Dudley, 87 
 
 Suffield, Father, 253 note 
 
 Syllabus, 212 
 
 Szulcheski, 196 
 
 Taylor, Sir Herbert, 44, 197 
 
 Taylor, Dr. John; denounces Foreign 
 Policy of Government, 915; arrest 
 of, 94; interview with LIrquhart, 
 100, 101 ; death of, 101 note 
 
 Taylor, Colonel Pringlc. 86, 102 
 
 Thiers, 24, 104, 115
 
 INDEX 
 
 327 
 
 Thomas, Chartist, 105 
 
 Th.. mason. Chartist, 92, 96, 97, 100, 
 105 
 
 Times, newspaper, 13, 58, 200 
 
 Toqueville, A. de, 109 
 
 Turkey: Urquhart's views on, 2 if.; 
 residence of Urquhart in, 45, 46 
 
 Turkish bath, the, 174 note, 175 and 
 note, 251 
 
 Turlcish Commercial Treaty: Urqu- 
 hart draws up, 46; conceded by 
 Government, 48, 49; increases 
 Urquhart's influence in Turkey, 
 52 ; made public, 58, 59 and note ; 
 Urquhart's quarrel with Palmerston 
 over, 70 
 
 Turkisli Government, 65 Jf., 245, 246 
 
 Turks, Urquhart's intimacy with, 22 
 
 Ullathome, Dr., 190 
 
 United States, 151, 152 
 
 Uukiar Skelessi, Treat}^ of, 47 
 
 Urquhart, Charles, 34 
 
 Urquhart, David: views of, on inter- 
 national politics, 2 ff. ; on Russia, 
 2 if., 47, 167; on Turkey, 2 ff.; on 
 Prussia, 5, 286; on Prussian Com- 
 mercial League, 25 and note ; on 
 Lord Palmerston, 12 ff.; on 
 Medieval and Eastern methods of 
 covemment, 73 ff.; on IVliddle 
 Ages, 77; on government, 90; on 
 Blockade of Mesico, 102, 103; on 
 dialectic, 102; on Treaty of July 15, 
 1840, 105; on failure of associa- 
 tions for Investigating Foreign 
 Affairs, 117; on Declaration of 
 Paris, 150 ff. ; on Right of Search, 
 150; on Congress of Brussels, 159, 
 160; on Catholic Church, 182 ff., 
 218 //., 293; on diplomatic training, 
 188, 189; on Russian influence in 
 Italy, 194, 195; on Italian inde- 
 pendence, 201, 202; on the syllabus, 
 212; on dangers overshadowing 
 Europe, 213, 215; on the Oxford 
 Movement, 226; on Temporal 
 Sovereignty of Pope, 237, 238, 278; 
 on Papal Infallibility, 238; connec- 
 tion of, with Greece, 7, 8; with 
 Turldsh Commercial Treaty, 46, 
 48, 52, 58 ff. ; with Circassia, 54 ff. ; 
 with Chartists, 70, 71, 82 ff.; rela- 
 tions of, with Catholics, 22, 23; 
 with Sultan of Turkey, 44, 48 ; with 
 Lord Ponsonby, 48, 51 note ; with 
 Monteith, 62 and note ; with work- 
 ing men, 81 ff., 169; with Le Play, 
 240 ff. ; with Eastern Catholics, 245, 
 250, 258, 259; describes visit to 
 
 ;M. Thiers, 111 ff.; formation of 
 Foreign Affairs Committees, 125. 
 126; aims of Foreign Affairs Com- 
 mittees, 141; visit to Stonyhurst, 
 179 ff.; audience with the Pope, 
 265; birth and early t)ducation of, 
 20; matriculation of, at Oxford, 
 34; character of, 19, 21, 35 ff., 175, 
 176, 229, 243, 298; popular esti- 
 mate of, 21, 22; attracts notice of 
 William IV., 44; sent on secret 
 mission to Albania, 45; lives in 
 Turkey, 45 ff.; appointed Secre- 
 tary to Embassy at Constantinople, 
 48 ; diplomatic career of, 49 ff. ; lives 
 in Turkish villages, 51; visits the 
 Caucasus, 68 ; reputation of, in the 
 East, 22; influence of the East on, 
 30 ff., 64 ff.; Spirit of the East, 
 63 note, 65; Turkey and Tier Re- 
 sources, 23, 46; Progress of Russia, 
 24; Enrjland and Russia, 4:1; re- 
 called from Constantinople, 54; 
 conduct of, in Vixen incident, 57, 
 58; the Portfolio, 8, 68; views of 
 statesmen on, 22, 23; travels of, 44, 
 45, 121 ; description of, b;^^ a Polish 
 lady, 41 ff.; religious position of, 
 32, 225, 227 ff.; belief of, in the 
 power of man to be right, 26 ff.; 
 campaign of, in favour of Inter- 
 national justice, 61, 62; urged to 
 enter Parliament, 62, 63; laiow- 
 ledge of the East, 65 //. ; sympathy 
 of, with labour troubles, 69 ff.; 
 nominated Torj- candidate for 
 Marylebone, 70, 85; attitude of, 
 towards working men, 73, 74 ; 
 abhorrence of, for factory system, 
 75 ff.; Wealth and Want, 74 iiote, 
 123 note; takes action on Chartist 
 plot, 87 ff.; interview with Dr. 
 Taylor, 100, 101; efforts of, to 
 avert war between England and 
 France, 105 ff.; visits M. Coletti, 
 1 14 and note ; interview with M. 
 Nuber, 114, 115; class of mind 
 attracted by, 118; elected Inde- 
 pendent Member for Sto.fford, 120; 
 Parliamentary career of, 121 ; 
 speaks on motion for impeachment 
 of Palmerston, 121; visits Mount 
 Lebanon, 68, 121; Pillars of 
 Hercules, 121 ff. ; The Lebanon, 121 ; 
 Three Religio-Politicai Systems of 
 Europe, 183; marriage of, 120; 
 Constitutional Remedies, 125, 128; 
 Free Press, 319; method of, in 
 dealing with men, 127 ff., 133, 134, 
 137 //. ; W. Singleton's first meeting
 
 328 
 
 DAVID URQUHART 
 
 with, 131 •". ; letters to working men, 
 13s, 13:i; working men's apprecia- 
 tion of, 139, 140; final rupture of, 
 with Cliurch of England, 147; 
 reviews Ward's Ideal of a Christian 
 Church, 220, 227: influence of, on 
 success of Committees, 167; aliena- 
 tion of, from popular ideas, 172; 
 letter of, to iJaniele Mania, 192, 
 201; visits Mazzini, 196 //.; ostra- 
 cised by the Press, 200; life of, in 
 Savoy, 205. 206 : Diplomatic Bevieiv, 
 241, 294, 319: introduction of, to 
 Canon Law, 208. 209, 232 fl.; Fere 
 JuUion \Trites to ]\Ianning about, 
 233; sympathy of, for the Pope, 
 244; appeal to the Pope, 233 ff., 
 237, 239. 244. 245; works to arouse 
 interest of Ottoman Government 
 in Vatican Council, 246 ff.; letter 
 to >Sultan, 247: in Rome, 250 ff.; 
 position in Rome during the Coun- 
 cil, 255, 262, 263 ff.; brings Eastern 
 and Western Bishops together, 255 ; 
 leaves memorandum of "work to 
 be done" with IMgr. Eranchi, 274, 
 275 ; Desolation de la Chrc'ticHt'^, 
 279, 2S0. 283. 284 note ; lays scheme 
 for National Tribunal before French 
 lisliops, 291; Four Wars of French 
 Revolution, 279; Patriarch Hassoun, 
 258 note ; the Rome, 294 ; attempts 
 of French (iovernment to stop 
 propaganda of, 291, 292; returns to 
 England, 1874. 161; addresses meet- 
 ing at Keiqhlev, 161, 294; last 
 years of. 294:' death of, 294; 
 epitaph. 30<); chief works of, 319; 
 chronological list of chief events in 
 life of, 320 ff. 
 Urquhart. Harriet Angelina, marriage 
 of, 120; account of Lord Ponson- 
 by's reconciliation with her hus- 
 band, 51 note ; on Italian and 
 English Press, 199; importanie of, 
 
 to her husband's cause, 252; 
 writes to her son from Rome, 255, 
 256; extracts from diary of, 263; 
 describes deputation of English 
 working men to French Assembly, 
 290; Mrs. Bishop's Life of, 266; 
 letter of, 272, 273 
 Urquhart, Henrietta, 20 vote 
 Urquhart, Margaret, mother of David 
 Urquhart, 20 7iote, 33 and note. 34, 
 44 
 
 Vatican Council: Pope announces to 
 assembled bishops his intention 
 of holding. 210; dread of, in 
 diplomatic circles, 211; Urquhart's 
 hope in, 211 ff., 216, 217; Le Play's 
 opinion on usefulness of, 242; 
 Urquhart's connection with, 253; 
 dispersion of, 273 
 
 Vattel, 96, 97, 125, 207, 311 
 
 Venice, 191, 192, 193 
 
 Victor Emmanuel, 194 
 
 Vixen, ship, 54, 57, 58 note, 61 
 
 Ward, Robert, Maritime Law, 150 
 and note 
 
 Ward, William George, 226 and note, 
 227 
 
 Warden, Benjamin. Chartist: op- 
 posed to Physical Force policy, 87 ; 
 "Foreign Policy" man, 92; Urqu- 
 hart's influence on, 94; speaks at 
 Carlisle on French crisis, 105, 106; 
 denounces Palmerston, 106 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 47 
 
 Westrup, 86. 87, 92, 95 
 
 White, Sir AVilliam, 46 note 
 
 William IV., 44, 49, 57, 58 
 
 Winters! ow Land Court. 301 
 
 Women's Radical and Female Politi- 
 cal Union of Birmingham, 100 
 
 Zollverein. See iinder German Cus- 
 toms Union 
 
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