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THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE
BRITISH EMPIRE
In 1848, not for the first time in its history, Britainfailed to go
the way of the rest of Europe. While barricadeswent up and
dynasties tottered across the continent - from Palermo to
Potsdam, from Paris to Prague - the British constitution
remained intact. On the British mainland, Chartism revived
briefly, but fizzled out amid the debacle of the Kennington
Commonmeeting and the forged signaturesof the monsterpeti-
tion of 10 April. In Ireland, despite widespreadagrariandiscon-
tent following the Famine, the insurgencyled by William Smith
O'Brien collapsedfarcicallyin a field of cabbagesin Tipperary.
Britain ended 1848 much as it had begun it - easing gradually
into free trade, prosperityand mid-Victorianequipoiseunderthe
benigntutelageof a Whig aristocracy.And while, in the aftermath
of 1848, more liberalconstitutionswere grantedby manyregimes
across Europe, major reforms in both Britain and Ireland were
effectively resisted for another generation. Not until the late
1860s did Britain see the sort of constitutionalchange which,
directly and indirectly, was the legacy of 1848 in Europe. Both
to contemporariesand to posterity, in other words, 1848 was the
year in which British peculiarityseemed to be underlinedonce
again.
What happensto this well-known picture of Britainin 1848 if
our focus is widened to take in the British empire?For what is
striking, yet often overlooked, about some of the European
revolutionsof 1848 is the extent to which they were precipitated
by problemsof imperialoverload.Some of the Europeanpowers,
such as Austria, were well-establishedempires, others such as
Franceor Russia were states whose very recent history had been
one of creeping annexationor colonization- France in Algeria,
1 F. B.
Smith, 'The View from Britain I: Tumults Abroad, Stability at Home', in
Eugene Kamenka and F. B. Smith (eds.), Intellectualsand Revolution:Socialism and
the Experienceof 1848 (London, 1979), 118; L. B. Namier, 1848: The Revolutionof
the Intellectuals(London, 1946), 1; Priscilla Robertson, Revolutionsof 1848: A Social
History (Princeton, 1952), 405; Peter Stearns, The Revolutionsof 1848 (London,
1974), 1-2.
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 147
and Russia with her occupation of Poland and forced Jewish
conscription. Some of the bloodiest episodes in France in 1848
through to 1851 were perceived to have involved the military
latelyreturnedfrom Algeria,while in Russiathe tsaristauthorities
took immediate steps to quell discontent in 1848 by declaring
martiallaw in the recently annexed western provinces.2In other
parts of Europe in 1848, the older monarchicaland imperial
powers fought off the challenge of liberal nationalism: for
example, the forces of the Prussian monarchy in Silesia,
Schleswig-Holsteinand Saxony; Austria in Hungary, as well as
in Lombardy and the Veneto in northern Italy; and Bourbon
Naples, using its Swiss Guard,in Sicily.3In these partsof Europe
liberalnationalistmovementswere spurredon by their hatredof
an alien militarypresence, and, in some cases, an alien religious
faith. Severalof the 1848 revolutionsnot only took place within
multiple-kingdomsor imperial states, they were also triggered
by the financialcrises besetting imperialtreasuriestrying to cope
with territorialoverload.In Austriaand Prussiait was the attempt
to raise new taxes to finance the military infrastructurewhich
was the immediatecause of the food riots and republicanrisings
in 1848.4Pressureon militaryresourcesalso broughton sporadic
disaffection among conscripts and organized resistance among
officers- as with the Petrashevtsyconspiracyin Russia and the
two army regimentsinvolved in the Madridinsurrectionof May
1848.5In these ways the 1848 upheavalsin Europewere in some
2 Charles Andre Julien, Histoire de l'Algerie contemporaine:la conqueteet les debuts
de la colonisation(1827-71) (Paris, 1964), ch. 5; Frederick A. de Luna, The French
Republicunder Cavaignac, 1848 (Princeton, 1969), 169; W. Bruce Lincoln, 'Russia
and the European Revolutions of 1848', History Today, xxiii (Jan. 1973).
3 Veit Valentin, 1848: Chaptersin GermanHistory (London, 1940), ch. 2; Alan Sked,
The Survival of the HabsburgEmpire:Radetzky, the ImperialArmy and the Class War,
1848 (London, 1979); Paul Ginsborg, Daniele Manin and the VenetianRevolutionof
1848-49 (Cambridge, 1979); G. F. H. and J. Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1846-9,
3 vols. (Cambridge, 1936-40), iii, chs. 3, 15; Jonathan Sperber, The European
Revolutions,1848-1851 (Cambridge, 1994), ch. 2.
4Josef Polisensky, Aristocrats and the Crowd in the Revolutionary Year 1848: A
Contributionto the History of Revolutionand Counter-Revolutionin Austria (Albany,
1980), 83-4; Jonathan Sperber, RhinelandRadicals: The DemocraticMovementand the
Revolutionof 1848-9 (Princeton, 1991), 143-4; Istvan Deak, 'Destruction, Revolution
or Reform? Hungary on the Eve of 1848', Austro-HungarianYearbook,xii (1976-7),
5-6. In general, see Sperber, EuropeanRevolutions,105-11.
5 H.
J. Seddon, The Petrashevtsy:A Study of the Russian Revolutionariesof 1848
(Manchester, 1985); ClaraLida, 'La repliblica democraticay social de 1848 y sus ecos
el mundo hispanico', in E. Posada-Carb6 (ed.), 1848 beyondEurope(forthcoming). I
am grateful to Clara Lida for allowing me to consult her work. For 1848 in Spain in
general, see Daniel R. Headrick, 'Spain and the Revolutions of 1848', European
(cont. on p. 148)
148 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
TABLE
THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN 1848-1849 IN A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE*
Population Armed Killed in riots Executions3 Imprisoned
(millions) forces' and risings2 /deported4
Austria-Hungary 29.1 400,000 5,500 6,210 6,400
Prussia 16.0 127,000 250 27 10,000
Russia 68.0 900,000 0 0 21
France 35.0 324,000 1,460 150 15,000
Kingdom of Two 8.0 64,000 1,600 0 30,000
Sicilies
Spain 14.0 105,900 100 13 2,000
England, Wales 37.0 35,000a 5 0 1,771
and Scotland
Ireland 6.6 29,000b 2 0 3,302
British India 120.0 316,300c 1,022 0 0
West Indies 0.9 5,900 8 0 54
Canada 1.6 9,900 1 0 9
Australasia 0.2 5,170 0 0 0
Cape Colony 0.3 4,804 58 2 0
Ceylon 0.2 2,968 200 18 100
Ionian Islands 0.1 2,495 2 21 34
Other coloniesd 0.5 10,257 0 0 0
a
In addition to 85,000 special constables, 1,200 military pensioners and 4,000 police.
b In addition to
13,000 police.
28,300 royal troops and 288,000 East India Company troops.
dFalkland Islands, Gambia, Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Malta, Mauritius,
Sierra Leone, St Helena.
*Sources to Table:
'Austria-Hungary: Alan Sked, The Survival of the HabsburgEmpire:Radetzky, the
Imperial Army and the Class War, 1848 (London, 1979), 44; Prussia: Curt Jany,
Geschichteder PreuJ3ischen Armee vom 15 Jahrhundertbis 1914, 4 vols. (Osnabruck,
1967), iv, 212; Russia: John L. N. Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in
Russia, 1462-1874 (Oxford, 1985), 326; France (1846 totals): David H. Pinkney,
Decisive Years in France, 1840-47 (Princeton, 1986), 143; Kingdom of Two Sicilies:
G. F. H. and J. Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1815-49, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1936-40),
ii, 276n.; Spain (figures from 1843-5 for army and civil guard combined): Raymond
Carr, Spain, 1808-1939 (Oxford, 1966), 283n.; E. Christiansen,The Originsof Military
Power in Spain, 1800-54 (Oxford, 1967), 126; England: Stanley Palmer, Police and
Protest in England and Ireland, 1780-1850 (Cambridge, 1988), 463, 483, 486, 488;
Ireland:ibid., 493, 558; British India (1852 returns): Reportof the Commission
Appointed
to Inquireinto the Organisationof the Indian Army, Parliamentary Papers (hereafter
PP), 1859, sess. 1 [2515], v, appendix, 21; West Indies, Canada,Australasiaand other
colonies: Return of the Numberof Her Majesty's TroopsWho Have Been Employedin
the Coloniesof Great Britain in the Years 1847-8, PP, 1852 [566], xxxi, 4.
2Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Spain:R. J. Goldstein, Political Repressionin Nineteenth
Century Europe (London, 1983), 187, 190-1; France: Frederick A. de Luna, The
French Republicunder Cavaignac in 1848 (Princeton, 1969), 149; Kingdom of Two
Sicilies: Harold Acton, The Last Bourbonsof Naples (1825-61) (London, 1961), 261;
England: Palmer, Police and Protest, 484; Ireland: ibid., 498; British India (British
losses only): R. G. Burton, The First and SecondSikh Wars(Simla, 1911), 142, 145-7;
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 151
West Indies: Times, 25 Sept. 1848 (Jamaica); Palladium, 27 Apr. 1849 (St. Lucia);
Canada: Times,4 Sept. 1849; Cape Colony: H. W. Smith to Earl Grey, 30 Aug. 1848:
PP, 1849 [1056], xxxvi, 46; Ceylon: SecondReportof the Select Committeeon Ceylon,
PP, 1850 [127], xli, qq. 7490-1; Ionian Islands: Papers Relative to the Disturbancesin
the Ionian Islands, PP, 1850 [215], xxxvi, 3.
3Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Spain: Goldstein, Political Repression,186-7, 190-2;
France: de Luna, French Republic, 150; Cape Colony: H. W. Smith to Earl Grey, 30
Aug. 1848, 57; Ceylon: SecondReportof the Select Committee,q. 3600; Ionian Islands:
Papers Relative to the Disturbancesin the Ionian Islands, 3.
4Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Kingdom of Two Sicilies, Spain: Goldstein, Political
Repression,186, 190-1; Russia: J. H. Seddon, ThePetrashevtsy:A Study of the Russian
Revolutionariesof 1848 (Manchester, 1985), 237; France: de Luna, French Republic,
219; England, Ireland (transported convicts): Public Record Office, London, HO
11/21, 30-2; West Indies: Times, 25 Sept. 1848 (Jamaica); Palladium, 27 Apr. 1849
(St Lucia); Canada: Times, 16 May, 4 Sept. 1849; Ceylon: SecondReportof the Select
Committee,q. 3600; Ionian Islands: Return of the ... Courts-Martialheld ... in the
Island of Cephalonia,PP, 1850 [215], xxxvi, 87.
1 Daniel R.
Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International
Politics, 1851-1945 (Oxford, 1991), 12-13; Second Reportfrom the Select Committee
on Steam Communicationswith India, &c., PP, 1851 [605], xxi, qq. 4250-1, 4266,
5695, 5854.
12 [Anon.], 'AustralianColonies or Republics?', Fraser's Mag., xxxvii (May 1848),
567; Sydney MorningHerald, 11 Oct. 1848; William Bland, Lettersto CharlesBuller,
MP, from the Australian PatrioticAssociation(Sydney, 1849), xii-xiii.
13 R. M. Martin, The British Colonies:TheirHistory, Extent, Conditionand Resources,
6 vols. (London, 1848-51), i, xix; cf. David Washbrook, 'South Asia, the World
System and World Capitalism', Jl Asian Studies, xlix (1990), 480-1; Hew Strachan,
The Politics of the British Army (Oxford, 1997), 76.
14 As the
transported 'Young Irelander' John Mitchel put it, 'England was saved
from invasion; her institutions in Church and State from ruin; her game-preserving
aristocracy from abolition and the lamp-iron; her commerce and manufactures were
kept going on a fictitious basis - and India, Canada, Ireland were debarred of their
freedom': entry for 16 Dec. 1848, Jail Journal, 2nd edn (Dublin, 1913), 85.
152 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 166
15
[G. Troup], 'Colonies', Tait's EdinburghMag., xx (Dec. 1849), 756.
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 153
I
There are at least three different explanationscommonlyoffered
for the lack of revolution in Britain in 1848. First, it has been
argued that the Chartistsand the Fenians were quelled by the
combinationof a highly efficientpolice force and a draconianuse
of the criminal law.16 Secondly, historianshave pointed to the
loyaltyof the middle classesto the Britishstate, symbolizedabove
all by the thousandsof men who volunteeredas specialconstables
in London on the eve of 10 April.'7 Finally, successive govern-
ments of the 1840s have been creditedwith reducingthe burden
of indirect taxes on the working classes, thereby alleviatingpos-
sible discontentas well as facilitatingan increasein living stand-
ards.18There is a certainvalidityto all three of these explanations,
yet none of them really work unless they are consideredwithin
an imperial context. Only by mobilizing the resources of the
empire was the British state able to deploy the law and the fiscal
system againstthe forces of revolutionin the late 1840s.
The renewal in 1848 of the transportationof prisonersto the
colonies was the cornerstoneof the Britishstate's containmentof
Chartismand of post-Faminedisorderin Ireland.Although only
thirty or so actual political protesters were transported in 1848-9,
there was a huge increasein the overall numbersexiled, particu-
larly from Ireland.19It is clear that Earl Grey, the colonialsecret-
ary, saw transportationas the means of removing altogether a
16John Saville, 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement (Cambridge,
1987); F. C. Mather, Public Order in the Age of the Chartists(London, 1959).
17
Stanley Palmer, Police and Protest in Englandand Ireland, 1780-1850 (Cambridge,
1988), 484-90.
18
Gareth Stedman Jones, 'Rethinking Chartism', in his Languagesof Class: Studies
in English Working-ClassHistory, 1832-1982 (Cambridge, 1983), 177-8.
19A. G. L.
Shaw, Convictsand the Colonies:A Study of Penal Transportationfrom
Great Britain and Ireland to Australia and Other Parts of the British Empire(London,
1966), 338; George Rude, Protest and Punishment:The Story of the Political Protesters
Transportedto Australia, 1788-1868 (Oxford, 1978), 249-51; Palmer, Policeand Protest
in England and Ireland, 58. 837 males were transported from Britain and Ireland in
1847, 2,441 (1,693 Irish) in 1848 and 2,632 (1,609 Irish) in 1849. See 'Account of
Number of Convicts Transported, 1787-1870': Public Record Office, London (here-
after PRO), HO 11/21, 30-2.
Island
Malta ^
cl
Honduras
.Ascension
St. Helena.
Falkland
Ilslands
rante Islands
.Mauritius
Western
A, ,1 ;
a
MUbudl,id ,- M -- uouin New
Cape Wales Z^Zealand
Colony
Al0
Types of politicalconflict
A Stoppage of supplies
v Martial law
0 Armed rising
O Movements of constitutional reform
156 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
20 Grey to Harry Smith, 6 Aug. 1848: Durham Univ. Lib., Grey Papers, 125/6;
Grey to Robert Gardiner, 25 July 1849: ibid., 87/2.
21
W. T. Denison, Varietiesof Vice-Regal Life, 2 vols. (London, 1879), i, 135-6;
Richard Davis, William Smith O'Brien: Ireland-1848-Tasmania (Dublin, 1989),
28-31; Blanche M. Towhill, William Smith O'Brien and his Irish Revolutionary
Companionsin Penal Exile (Columbia, Miss., 1981), 49-50, 55, 61; Keith Amos, The
Fenians in Australia, 1865-80 (Kensington, NSW, 1988), 16-17.
22John
West, The History of Tasmania,ed. A. G. L. Shaw (London, 1971), 519.
23
Hansard, ParliamentaryDebates, 3rd ser. (hereafter 3 Hansard), cix, col. 867 (14
Mar. 1850); cf. ibid., cx, col. 206 (12 Apr. 1850), cxiv, col. 1089 (4 Mar. 1851);
(cont. on p. 157)
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 157
Trevelyan to Russell, 4 Apr. 1848: PRO, Russell Papers, 30/22/7B, fos. 217-22.
25 Michael S. Partridge, 'The Russell Cabinet and National Defence, 1846-52',
II
The use of empire to appease discontent at home may have
appeared in theory to be a sensible diversion of resources. In
practice it precipitateda wave of discontent which had British
(n. 31 cont.)
was keen to alleviate working-class suffering through reducing the sugar duties: Brian
Jenkins, Henry Goulburn,1784-1856: A Political Biography(Liverpool, 1996), 291-2.
32'Double your colonists, and you will halve your paupers', in Speech of the Hon.
Francis Scott, MP . .. on Moving a Resolutionfor the Establishmentof a Branch of the
ColonizationSociety at Leeds (London, 1848), 16.
33 Edward Gibbon Wakefield, TheArt of Colonization(1849), in The CollectedWorks
of Edward GibbonWakefield,ed. M. F. Lloyd Prichard (London, 1968), 794.
34A. H.
Gordon, Sidney Herbert,Lord Herbertof Lea: A Memoir, 2 vols. (London,
1906), i, 110-20; The ABC of Colonization: In a Series of Letters by Mrs Chisholm
(London, 1850), 26; M. Kiddle, CarolineChisholm(Melbourne, 1950), ch. 5.
35Return of Emigrationfor the Years 1815-63, PP, 1863 [430], xxxviii, 3. For
attempts in Europe (inspired in part by the British) to repatriate the poor and
criminals, see Michael J. Heffernan, 'The Parisian Poor and the Colonization of
Algeria during the Second Republic', French Hist., iii (1989); Richard Evans,
'Germany's Convict Exports', History Today, xlvii (Nov. 1997).
160 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
45 D. L. Burn, 'Canada and the Repeal of the Corn Laws', CambridgeHist. JI, ii
(1928); Ged Martin, 'The CanadianRebellion Losses Bill of 1849 in British Politics',
Jl Imperialand CommonwealthHist., vi (1977).
46Proclamation(21 Aug. 1849), repr. in The Elgin-Grey Papers, 1846-52, ed.
A. G. Doughty, 4 vols. (Ottawa, 1937), ii, 454-5; Peter Way, 'The Canadian Tory
Rebellion of 1849 and the Demise of Street Politics in Toronto', Brit. Jl Canadian
Studies, x (1995).
47J.
Monet, The Last Cannon Shot: A Study of French-Canadian Nationalism,
1837-50 (Toronto, 1969), ch. 19.
48R. F. Hueston, The Catholic Press and Nativism, 1840-60 (New York, 1976),
124; Elgin to Grey, 21 May 1849: PRO, CO 42/558, fos. 226-9; Elgin to Grey, 26
Apr., 4 May, 7 Sept. 1848, repr. in Elgin-Grey Papers, ed. Doughty, i, 144-5, 148-50;
ibid., iv, 1477-80; John Belchem, 'Republican Spirit and Military Science: The Irish
Brigade and Irish-American Nationalism in 1848', Irish Hist. Studies, xxix (1994).
On Fenianism and empire in 1848, I am grateful to John Belchem for allowing me to
read (in English) his 'Das Waterloo von Frieden und Ordnung: Das Vereinigte
Konigreich und die Revolutionen von 1848', in D. Dowe, H.-G. Haupt and
D. Langewiesche (eds.), Europa 1848: Revolutionund Reform(Bonn, 1998).
164 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER166
a cut in soldiers' batta pay. For this precipitate act Napier was
reprimanded by Lord Dalhousie, and later that year resigned his
post, convinced that he had averted 'the most formidable danger
menacing our Indian empire', involving some forty thousand
troops.52
The circumstances surrounding Napier's resignation led to a
long campaign to clear his name, but what was most significant
in the short term was his diagnosis of the Indian empire in peril.
Napier was not a jumpy novice. He was an old military hand, in
his mid-sixties, with radical political instincts. As a veteran of
campaigns in post-Act of Union Ireland in 1803, the Ionian
Islands, and perhaps most significantly, as head of the army in
the northern districts of England at the height of Chartism, he
was extremely reluctant to allow the military to do the dirty work
of the civil authority.53 He believed that in India Britain had
become too reliant on a non-European army, dangerously organ-
ized into native regiments which intensified religious and
'national' feelings among the troops.54 Instead of integrating a
native army with European troops (especially the officers),
Britain, Napier argued, was maintaining a precarious peace
mainly through ostentatious 'pomp and show'. He was particu-
larly critical of the military commander's travelling retinue: the
trains of elephants, camels and all their attendants, and the tents
and tent-pitchers (including the fifty men whose sole function
was to carry glass doors for the canvas pavilion that was the
commander's headquarters).55
52
For contemporaryaccounts of the 'mutiny', see Napier to Ellenborough, 26 Feb.,
28 Mar. 1850: British Library, London (hereafter Brit. Lib.), Napier Papers, Add.
MS 49, 131, fos. 35-41, 43-6; BombayGaz., 15, 25 Feb. 1850.
53 Napier to Dalhousie, 24 July 1849, cited in Life and Opinionsof General Sir
CharlesJames Napier, ed. W. F. P. Napier, 4 vols. (London, 1853), iv, 175-6. For
useful recent assessments of Napier's career and military thinking, see Strachan,
Politics of the British Army, 83-91; T. A. Heathcote, The Military in British India:
The Developmentof British Land Forcesin SouthAsia, 1600-1947 (Manchester, 1995),
86-8. Also, see P. Napier, Raven Castle: CharlesNapier in India, 1844-51 (Salisbury,
1991), 208-11.
54
Napier to the duke of Wellington, 15 June 1850: Brit. Lib., Napier Papers, Add.
MS 49, 131, fos. 69-77; cf. the report of one of Napier's junior officers: Lt.-Col.
Greene, Remarksupon the Late Mutinies in the Bengal Army (13 Mar. 1850): Brit.
Lib., Add. MS 49, 116, fos. 39-48. For the call for more European troops, see Friend
of India [Serampore], 14 Mar. 1850.
55 Charles Napier, Defects, Civil and Military, of the Indian Government,ed. Lt.-
Gen. Sir W. F. P. Napier (London, 1853), 35-6.
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 167
At the Cape, GovernorHarry Smith shared some of Napier's
sentiments. In common with other military commanders and
governors throughoutthe empire in the late 1840s, he had been
charged with effecting large reductions in his army, and, as a
result, had been forced to increasethe non-Europeanelement as
compensation. Initially, Smith joked with the War Office that
retrenchmentmainly affected the supply of grog - 'such a set
of melancholylooking teetotallersI never served with'56- but
he soon faced two rebellions which put severe pressure on his
limited resources.In August 1848 the Boer leader in the Orange
River territory,AndriesPretorius,incensed by the settlementof
Britishemigrantsin Natal, led a risingagainstthe colonialauthor-
ities. Pretorius'timing, noted Smith, was impeccable:'He desires
to establishhimself as the chief of a republic, and then drive us
from Natal; and his observanceof the state of affairsof Europe,
and suppositionthat I was too weak in troops to overpowerhim,
have induced him to seize the present occasion'.57
Smith defeated Pretorius, and in his victorious addressto the
Natal settlers pointed out that his success showed that, unlike the
Germanstates, Britainwas able to maintainunion.58Within three
years, however, Smith faced anotheroutbreakon the Capefron-
tier, at the Kat river, involving a combinationof the Xhosa and
Gaikapeoples, resentful at Smith's replacementof the authority
of tribal leaders by the new native police force. In the midst of
this rising, Smith's own indigenous Cape Corps regiment also
mutiniedand Smith quickly declaredmartiallaw acrossthe east-
ern Cape.59As with the Orange River rebellion in 1848, Smith
interpreted the Kat river incident as a small-scale nationalism
which his reduced force was unable to prevent. He feared its
spreadinto the north, where he reportedthat the Griqualeader,
56
Smith to Fox Maule, 4 Mar. 1848: Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh (hereafter
Scot. RO), Dalhousie Papers, GD/45/8/53/1.
57 Smith to Grey, 10 Aug. 1848, cited in A. L. Harington, Sir Harry Smith: Bungling
Hero (Cape Town, 1980), 133-4; J. F. Midgley, The Orange River Sovereignty
(1848-54) (Archives Yearbook South African Hist., 12th year, ii, Cape Town,
1949), ch. 3.
58 Speech at Grahamstown
by Smith, 12 Oct. 1848, quoted in Harington, Sir Harry
Smith, 143.
59'Proclamation of Martial Law' (25 Dec. 1850): PRO, CO 48/312, fo. 32. On the
Kat river rebellion, see A. E. du Toit, The Cape Frontier: A Study of Native Policy
with Special Referenceto the Years1847-66 (Archives Yearbook South African Hist.,
17th year, i, Pretoria, 1954), ch. 6. Smith referred to the outbreak as the 'Hottentot
revolution': The Autobiographyof Lt.-Gen. Sir Harry Smith, ed. G. C. Moore Smith,
2 vols. (London, 1901), ii, 272; cf. Harington, Sir Harry Smith, 181-94.
168 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 166
Adam Kok, had convinced his people that they were 'an
oppressed and ill-used race'. For these reasons Smith doubted
the wisdom of recruitingindigenoustroops for the colonialarmy
or for local police.60Having effectively armed a 'hostile popula-
tion', he was now, he complainedto Grey, 'sitting on a barrelof
gunpowder', and compared his own difficulties in suppressing
the Kat river rising to the losses being suffered by the French in
Algeria and the Russians in Circassia.As with Napier in the
Punjab, Smith also resented using the military as a tool of civil
government.61
A turbulent frontier pregnant with nationalismwas not the
only problem faced by Smith at the Cape in the late 1840s. In
Cape Town itself Earl Grey's transportationpolicy unleasheda
wave of protest, uniting Dutch and British settlers and leading
to a revival of a campaignfor self-governmentwhich had been
dormantfor severalyears. When it was announcedthat a convict
ship, the Neptune,was on its way to the Capewith 288 prisoners
on board, many of them Irishmenconvicted during the agrarian
agitation of 1848, a petitioning campaign against the Colonial
Office began, coordinated by the newly formed Anti-Convict
Association.62As in the Caribbean,the small Cape legislative
council took what limited action it could, and all the non-
executive members of the council resigned their offices, effec-
tively terminatingpublic business, includingall supplies, leaving
Smith a prisonerin his residence,forced, he complained,to bake
his own bread. Effigies of the official members of the council
were burned in the streets. On its arrivalin September1849 the
Neptunewas not allowed to dock, and all Cape residents joined
60 On Kok, see Robert Ross, Adam Kok's Griquas:A Study in the Developmentof
Stratification in South Africa (Cambridge, 1970), 65. Smith to Grey, 7 Apr. 1852:
PRO, CO 48/325, fo. 159. On Smith's preference for English over indigenous troops,
see Smith to Lt.-Col. Cooper, 23 May 1851: National Army Museum, London,
H. W. Smith Letterbook, MS 6807-352; Smith to Grey, 9 June 1851: Durham Univ.
Lib., Grey Papers, 125/4.
61 Smith to Montagu, 2 Apr. 1851: PRO, H. W. Smith Papers, WO/135/2, 124-9;
Smith to Grey, 5 Feb. 1852: PRO, CO 48/324, fos. 20-7. Back in Britain, Smith's
Cape was frequently referred to as the 'English Algeria': e.g. William Molesworth's
speech in the House of Commons (25 July 1848), repr. in Selected Speechesof Sir
William Molesworth on Questions Relating to Colonial Policy, ed. H. E. Egerton
(London, 1903), 165; [Anon.], 'What has the British Taxpayer to do with Colonial
Wars or Constitutions?', Fraser'sMag., xliv (Nov. 1851), 577.
62 Alan F. Hattersley, The Convict Crisis and the Growth of Unity: Resistanceto
Transportationin SouthAfrica and Australia, 1848-53 (Pietermaritzburg, 1965), ch. 4;
H. C. Botha, John Fairbairnin South Africa (Cape Town, 1984), ch. 8.
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 169
in a 'pledge' not to provide food or any other goods to the ship,
or to any members of the colonial administration.This included
the army and police. Fearful of civil disorder, Smith introduced
a curfew in Cape Town.63Eventuallythe Neptunewas instructed
to move eastwardsto Australia.Not that there was any respite
there. Anti-transportationleagues had already been formed in
Sydney and in Van Diemen's Land.6 In Van Diemen's Land, as
at the Cape, governmenthad been made impossibleby the resig-
nation of the non-officialmembersof the legislativecouncil over
the costs of the island's prison system. Local businesseshad also
signedup to a pledge of non-cooperationwith the colonialauthor-
ities.65In June 1849, five thousandprotestersgreeted the convict
ship when it arrivedin Sydney. Although the governor, Fitzroy,
ignoredlocal protests, and the convicts from the ship, along with
four further shiploads, were disembarkedand quietly secreted
into the colony away from the public gaze, in Sydney, as at Cape
Town, the transportationissue increasedwhite settler demands
for greaterindependencefrom colonialauthority.
Indeed, Grey's transportationpolicy fuelled urban radicalism
across the empire. At the Cape the Anti-Convict Association
formed itself in 1850 into a campaignfor constitutionalreform,
deploying similar tactics of obstruction to those used during
the 'pledge'. From aboard the Neptune, the Irish prisoner
John Mitchel recorded that he had never seen more 'heroic
phraseologyanywhere, not even in the Nation'.66Smith himself
blamed'Dutch radicals'for stirringup trouble,likeningthe 'spirit
of the age' to the times of CharlesI.67Fairly soon government
business ground to a halt as four Cape Town members of the
legislative council resigned and no one could be persuaded to
take their places. Without the approvalof his small legislature,
Smith was forced to continue incurringmilitary expenditureon
the frontier, a bill which would eventually be picked up by the
63
South African CommercialAdvertiser,17 Oct. 1849; Smith to Grey, 18 Oct. 1849:
PRO, CO 48/299, fos. 28-41.
64 West, History of Tasmania,xv-xvi; Hattersley, Convict Crisis, 89.
65 LauncestonExaminer,3 Feb. 1849; William Denison to Grey, 11 Feb. 1849: PRO,
CO 280/243, fos. 145-6.
66
Entry for 20 Sept. 1849, Mitchel, Jail Journal, 183. Back in Dublin the Fenian
Nation, 1 Dec. 1849, described such events as the 'crack of empire', by which 'all
those dependencies are falling away from England like an unfastened bundle of staves'.
67 Smith to
Grey, 22 Sept. 1850: Durham Univ. Lib., Grey Papers, 125/3.
170 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
68
Botha, John Fairburn,251-2; A. H. Duminy, TheRole of Sir AndriesStockenstrom
in Cape Politics, 1848-56 (Archives Yearbook South African Hist., 23rd year, ii,
Pretoria, 1960), ch. 3; Grey to Smith, 14 Dec. 1850: Durham Univ. Lib., Grey
Papers, 125/3.
69 Hattersley, Convict Crisis, ch. 9.
70
WellingtonIndependent,15 Sept. 1849; J. R. Godley to C. B. Adderley, 29 Aug.
1851, cited in W. S. Childe-Pemberton, Life of Lord Norton, 1814-1905: Statesman
and Philanthropist(London, 1909), 97-8.
71
Wood to Grey, 6 Oct. 1848: Durham Univ. Lib., Grey Papers, 105/2.
72
Grey to H. W. Smith, 14 Aug. 1851: ibid., 125/6. For similar fears of urban
electoral predominance in British Guiana, see Brian L. Moore, Race, Powerand Social
Segmentationin Colonial Society: Guyana after Slavery, 1838-91 (Montreux, 1987),
58; for British fears over a landed and mercantile plutocracy in New Zealand, see
James Rutherford, Sir GeorgeGrey, KCB, 1812-98: A Study in ColonialGovernment
(London, 1961), 143.
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 171
III
Peasant risings, simmering ethnic nationalism, mutinous indigen-
ous soldiers, grumpy white settlers insisting on being treated as
freeborn Englishmen, hapless governors caught in the crossfire
it may all appear to be business as usual in the mid-nineteenth-
century British empire, although the rapid compression of events
in such a short space of time is striking. But is there any evidence
of a linkage between what was taking place in Europe during
1848 and 1849 and these conflicts in the far-flung colonies and
dependencies? In Britain's principal Mediterranean dependen-
cies - Malta and the Ionian Islands - there was an unavoidable
overspill from the European revolutions. In both places during
1848 British governors sought to quell radical opposition through
extending the powers of the legislature and lifting press censor-
ship. As O'Ferrall, the governor of Malta, explained to Earl Grey,
'the events of the last year have advanced the world a half-
century ... I would wish to make Malta a model for all sur-
rounding states in the freedom of her government and the admin-
istration of her institutions'.73 In the Ionian Islands Governor
Seaton was accused of a panicky reform policy in which he turned
the constitution into 'one of the most democratic assemblies in
the world'.74 Later in 1848 large numbers of political refugees
from the Italian states sought protection in Malta, and a separatist
movement developed in the Ionian island of Cephalonia, inspired
by the Hellenic nationalism of the Greek mainland. Following
the murder of a British official in Cephalonia in September 1848,
martial law was declared by H. G. Ward, Seaton's successor, and
twenty-one were executed and another eighty flogged. Many of
those flogged died later.75
73 More O'Ferrall to
Grey, 1 Nov. 1848: Durham Univ. Lib., Grey Papers, 118/2;
A. V. Laferla, British Malta (Valletta, 1938), ch. 26.
74 Viscount Kirkwall, Four Years in the Ionian Islands: Their Political and Social
Condition, with a History of the British Protectorate, 2 vols. (London, 1864), 207;
[Anon.], The Ionian Islands underBritish Protection(London, 1851), 41-9; cf. Eleni
Calligas, 'Lord Seaton's Reforms in the Ionian Islands, 1843-8: A Race with Time',
EuropeanHist. Quart., xxiv (1994).
75 Laferla, British Malta, 200-3; David Hannell, 'The Rebellions of 1848 and 1849
in Cephalonia: Their Causes and International Repercussions' (Univ. of Swansea
Ph.D. thesis, 1985).
172 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
IV
A large part of the explanation lies in the nature of authority
exercised in the British empire. Unlike in France, northern Italy,
the Austrian empire, Sicily, and elsewhere in Europe, the military
never attempted to take the upper hand when civil government
proved impossible. The martial law policies of 'Dead-or-Alive'
Ward (as he was dubbed) in Cephalonia and Torrington (the
'British Haynau') in Ceylon were the exception not the rule, and,
particularly in the case of the latter, were considered to be so
contrary to British constitutional practice that they were roundly
condemned, to the point where Torrington's ignominious recall
from Ceylon almost led to the Whigs losing office in 1850.
Elsewhere the British imperial state sought to contain civil dis-
order and mutinous forces through concession and conciliation.
Even military veterans such as Charles Napier and Harry Smith
proved reluctant to use their powers of court martial. In the
longer term, timely constitutional reform throughout the British
empire played a major role in pacifying most of the heightened
political radicalism and mutinous spirit of 1848-9. In the Ionian
(n. 87 cont.)
Gwynn, YoungIreland in 1848 (Cork, 1949), 236-7; Towhill, William Smith O'Brien,
81, 220-2. For ways in which English radicalism in 1848 might be reassessed within
this perspective, see Roland Quinault, '1848 and Parliamentary Reform', Hist. JI,
xxxi (1988).
176 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166
V
Back in Britain the imperial conflicts of 1848-9 did have a longer-
term impact. This can be seen in three main ways. In the first
place, the winding down of transportation (eventually dropped
altogether in 1868), itself brought on by the rebellious spirit of
white-settler legislatures in 1849 and 1850, meant that by the late
1850s the British mainland saw a net increase in so-called 'ticket-
of-leave' men - that is, of paroled prisoners. This precipitated
widespread fears of a dangerous, degenerate criminal class loose
on the streets, a moral panic which culminated in the garotting
scares of 1862 and which in turn led to a much more incarceratory
prison system in Britain.101Secondly, the reform of the franchise
98
Heuman, 'The Killing Time', ch. 6; Swithin Wilmot, 'The Politics of Samuel
Clarke:Black Political Martyr in Jamaica, 1851-1865', JamaicanHist. Rev., xix (1996).
99H. G. Ward to
Henry Labouchere, 26 June 1857: Rhodes House Library, Oxford,
H. G. Ward Papers, MSS Ind. Ocn s. 126, fos. 134-9; J. W. Kaye, A History of the
Sepoy War in India, 1857-8, 7th edn, 3 vols. (London, 1875), i, 322-3; Eric Stokes,
The PeasantArmed: The Revolt of 1857, ed. C. A. Bayly (Oxford, 1986), 51-2; David
Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860-1940 (London, 1994), 2-6.
100Earl Grey, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration,2 vols.
(London, 1853), ii, 303.
101Peter W. J. Bartrip, 'Public Opinion and Law Enforcement: The Ticket-of-
Leave Scare in Mid-Victorian Britain', in Victor Bailey (ed.), Policingand Punishment
(cont. on p. 179)
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 179
and the establishmentof representativeassembliesin many of the
settlementand Crowncoloniesput the parliamentaryreformissue
back on the political agenda, albeit several thousandmiles away
from Westminster.The constitutionalsettlementwhich emerged
in the colonies during the 1850s, that is, an extended suffrageon
the one hand, with the executive retaining the legislative and
fiscal initiative on the other, was precisely the balancestruck in
Britain itself as a result of the Second Reform Act of 1867.
Significantly,some of the key players in the debates over parlia-
mentary reform from the late 1850s onwardswere men such as
the third Earl Grey, Robert Lowe and William Gladstone,who
had all been at the forefront of imperialmatters during the late
1840s and early 1850s. There is an obvious connection between
Lowe's fears of mob rule, Grey's distastefor extravagantpopular
governmentand Gladstone'sfaith in the simple virtues of muni-
cipal accountability,and what they had all witnessed across the
empire in 1848-9.1°2 In these ways, as has been argued recently,
the vocabulariesof mid-Victoriancitizenshipwere indeed shaped
by the experience of empire, but within a conventionaldemon-
ology of democracyratherthan a new discourseof race.103
Finally, the events of 1848 slowed down the process of
retrenchmentin colonial militaryforces. The unleashingof civil
strife and frontierwars acrossthe empire in 1848-51 meant that
the colonies remained a burden in terms of military costs. The
duke of Wellington'sdream of an able and willing British-based
land force ready to see off the Europeanmenace, continued to
be frustratedby disturbanceson the imperialperiphery,disturb-
ances which made it difficult to transfercolonial forces back to
the Europeantheatre.Added to this was the fact that by the time
of the CrimeanWar it was clear that continuedemigrationto the
colonies, especially from the highlandsof Scotland,was making
(n. 101 cont.)
in Nineteenth-CenturyBritain (London, 1981); Jennifer Davis, 'The London Garotting
Panic of 1862: A Moral Panic and the Creation of a Criminal Class in Mid-Victorian
England', in V. A. C. Gatrell, Bruce Lenman and Geoffrey Parker (eds.), Crimeand
the Law: The Social History of Crimein WesternEuropesince 1500 (London, 1980).
102 James Winter, Robert Lowe (Toronto, 1977), 201-2; Earl Grey, Parliamentary
GovernmentConsideredwith Referenceto a Reformof Parliament, 2nd edn (London,
1864), ch. 9. On Gladstone's unpublished reactions to the imperial episodes of
1848-50, see Susan H. Farnsworth, The Evolutionof British ImperialPolicy duringthe
Mid-NineteenthCentury:A Study of the Peelite Contribution,1846-74 (London, 1992),
28-31, 98.
103 Cf. Catherine Hall, 'Rethinking Imperial Histories: The Reform Act of 1867',
New Left Rev., ccviii (1994).
180 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER166