Mr. Gladstone’s five years’ lease of power, which had been signalised by so many important changes, came to an end in 1874, just before the time when Sir Garnet Wolseley, sent to bring the savage King of Ashantee to reason, returned successful to England, having snatched a complete victory “out of the very jaws of approaching sun and fever” on the pestilent West Coast of Africa in the early days of 1874.  The last Ministry of Mr. Disraeli, who now assumed office, was marked by several noticeable events:  the proclamation of the Queen as “Empress of India,” in formal definite recognition of the new relation between little England and the gigantic, many-peopled realm which through strange adventure has come directly under our Sovereign’s sway; the Russo-Turkish war, following on the evil doings in Turkey known as the “Bulgarian atrocities,” and terminating in a peace signed at Berlin, with which the English Premier, now known as Lord Beaconsfield, had very much to do; and the acquisition by England of the 176,000 shares in the Suez Canal originally held by the Khedive of Egypt—­a transaction to which France, also largely interested in the Canal, was a consenting party.  To this period belong the distressful Afghan and Zulu wars, the latter unhappily memorable by the tragic fate that befell the young son of Louis Napoleon, a volunteer serving with the English army.  Deep sympathy was felt for his imperial mother, widowed since 1873, and now bereaved of her only child; and by none was her sorrow more keenly realised than by the Queen, who herself had to mourn the loss of the beloved Princess Alice, the first of her children to follow her father into the silent land.  The death of the Prince Louis Napoleon at the hands of savage Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; but Englishmen, remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal coincidence, while they could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, gallantry, and hope-fulness, cast away in our own ill-starred quarrel.

An agitation distinctly humanitarian and domestic had been going on during the early years of this Ministry, which resulted in the passing of the Merchant Shipping Bill, intended to remedy the many wrongs to which our merchant seamen were subject, a measure almost entirely procured by the fervent human sympathy and resoluteness of one member of Parliament, Samuel Plimsoll; and other measures belonging to this period, and designed to benefit the toilers of the land principally, were initiated by the energy of the Home Secretary, Mr. Cross.  But neither the imposing foreign action of Lord Beaconsfield’s Government, nor the domestic improvements wrought during its period of power, could maintain it in public favour.  There was great and growing distress in the country; depression of trade, severe winters, sunless summers, all produced suffering, and suffering discontent.  An appeal to the country, made in the spring of 1880, shifted the Parliamentary majority from the Conservative to the Liberal side.  Lord Beaconsfield resigned, and Mr. Gladstone returned to power.