One of them, the _Alabama_, was not merely
built in a British dockyard, but manned for the most part by a British
crew. In her two years' cruise she burned sixty-five Federal merchantmen.
The Federal government protested at the time; but it was not till 1872
that the Alabama question was peacefully settled by arbitration in a
conference at Geneva, and we had to pay three millions sterling in
satisfaction of the American claims.
Other events during the Palmerston administration were a tedious native
rebellion in New Zealand (1860-65); the marriage of the Prince of Wales to
the Princess Alexandra of Denmark (1863); the cession of the Ionian Isles
to Greece (1864); and on the Continent there was the Schleswig-Holstein
War (1864), in which, beset by both Prussia and Austria, Denmark looked,
but looked vainly, for succour from Britain.
As the Reform Bill of 1832 excluded the great bulk of the working classes
from the franchise, it was felt by many that it could not be a final
measure; and no long time had passed before agitation for further reform
had commenced.
In the year 1854 the veteran Lord John Russell once more brought the
subject before the House of Commons; but the attention of the country was
fixed on the war with Russia, and it was not thought a good time to deal
with the question of reform. Again, in 1859, the cabinet of Earl Derby
brought forward a scheme; but it also failed.
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