ABSTRACT
The condition of France had caused increasing anxiety among her neighbors, as year after year passed on without any promise of a constitutional settlement which would restore confidence and tranquillity. This is not the place to record all the changes that occurred between the beginning of 1848 and the close of 1851. The suppression of the Legislature, the arrest of every eminent man in political life, the subjection of Paris to the military, and the slaughter in the streets of hundreds of harmless persons of all ages and callings, –and all this without the occurrence of any crisis demanding immediate action, –created great horror in England, as in every free country. One effect of the dubious state of our foreign relations was, that domestic politics worked smoothly and easily. In the first session of the Derby Administration, short as it was, several measures of great value were passed with facility.
