ALFONSO XII PROCLAIMED KING

1874

a considerable number of Carlists. In Navarre the capture of Laguardia by the Carlists under Dorregaray was more than avenged by the defeat which was inflicted upon them at Oteiza on August 11. Still the balance of success inclined to the Pretender's cause. Ultimately the tide of success again turned against the Carlists. Puycerda, threatened by their forces, was relieved by Dominguez and his troops after five encounters. The insurgents received a yet more signal defeat near Pampeluna on September 25, when they attacked Moriones. In November the contest had shifted to the banks of the Bidassoa. Trun was invested by the Carlists and was bombarded. Six days later General Lama advanced from San Sebastian, and, after some resistance, occupied the land from Oyarzum to San Marcial to the south of Trun, and opened fire on the Carlist positions. General Lareras gave effectual assistance. The Carlists retired to Vera. But soon they reinvested Trun, and the victorious army of Lama and Lareras was blockaded at San Sebastian. Pampeluna, too, which the march of Moriones in October had relieved, was again surrounded by the rebel forces. On receipt of this news at Madrid, the President of the Republic, Marshal Serrano, assumed the command of the "Army of the North." Serrano's efforts to stem the tide proved vain. On the last day of the year it was announced that Campos had entered Valencia with two brigades, and proclaimed Alfonso King. Soon the news reached the Hotel Basilevsky at Paris, where Queen Isabella and her son were residing, that the Armies of the North and Centre had made common cause with Campos's battalions, that the Madrid garrison had proclaimed the Prince King of Spain, as Alfonso XII, and that a Regency Ministry had been constituted.

In America ex-President Millard Fillmore died in his seventy-fourth year at Buffalo. Three days later occurred the death of Charles Sumner, the well-known American

1874

JAPAN OCCUPIES FORMOSA

statesman. In New York Samuel J. Tilden was elected Governor, in recognition of his fearless prosecution of the corrupt members of the Tammany and Canal "rings.”

Wars and revolts were abundant among the South American States. In the Argentine Republic a rebellion broke out against the new President, Avellanada, headed by General Mitre, who had formerly held the supreme post. After a few weeks the rebellion collapsed. Mitre fled to Uruguay, and the other rebel chiefs retreated to the interior.

In consequence of repeated outrages upon Japanese shipping by the savages of Formosa, the Mikado, in the spring of this year, despatched Ambassador Soyejima to Pekin. The Chinese Tsungli Yamen disclaimed responsibility for eastern Formosa. On the return of the Embassy, a Japanese expedition of 1,300 men, under command of Saigo Yorimichi, occupied the eastern end of Formosa. When the Japanese soldiers failed to withdraw, the Chinese Government made emphatic protests. For a while war between China and Japan appeared imminent. Finally another Japanese embassy, sent to Pekin under the leadership of Okubo, brought about a peaceful arrangement. The Japanese evacuated Formosa on the payment of an indemnity of $700,000 by China.

enlarged this year by the anEngland paid the King's debts

The British Empire was nexation of the Fiji Islands. of £80,000, and pensioned him.

François Guizot, the French statesman and historian, died at the age of eighty-seven, in Normandy. Ledru-Rollin Guizot's opponent for three generations, also passed away.

By the death of Michelet, France lost another noteworthy historian. He was the author of a very popular "History of France," and was noted for his bold philippics against the Jesuits.

EVENTS OF 1875

Inauguration of Grand Opera House, Paris- - President of France as Arbiter Awards Delagoa Bay, Africa, to Portugal Over Great Britain-Suspicious Death of Chinese Emperor-Deaths of Kingsley, the Novelist, Lyell, the Geologist, Millet, the Painter-King Alfonso Enters Pampeluna-Grant Expresses Desire of American People for Spain to End Cuban Rebellion by Grant of Autonomy-British Government Buys Stock Control of Suez Canal-Japan Cedes Sagalien to Russia.

A

FTER eleven years of intermittent labor, the famous Grand Opera House of Paris was completed under the supervision of its architect, Charles Garnier, and inaugurated on January 5 by President MacMahon. The walls and ceilings were decorated by Baudry with beautiful designs.

The Delagoa Bay arbitration, the decision upon which had been committed to the President of the French Republic, ended this year in favor of the Portuguese Government. The British claim for this bay and its coast was based on the settlement of the Dutch on the English River in 1720, and their subsequent cession to Great Britain of their South African possessions. The Portuguese, however, claimed the territory after the discovery by Vasco da Gama, and its occupancy

since.

On the 12th of February the Emperor of China died, under suspicious circumstances, in his nineteenth year. The Empress Dowager and the Empress's mother selected the only son of the seventh Prince as the successor to the throne.

In England Charles Kingsley, the famous clergyman, novelist, and poet, died at Eversley. In 1848 he published his poem, "The Saint's Tragedy," which was followed in 1849 by the novel "Alton Locke." In 1853 he published "Hypatia" and in 1855 "Westward Ho!" both brilliant his

1875

DEATHS OF LYELL AND MILLET

torical novels. They were followed by "Two Years Ago, "Hereward," and "The Last of the English."

Sir Charles Lyell, the apostle of uniformitarianism in geology, died at a ripe age. He carried to its logical conclusion Hutton's doctrine that past changes of the globe were like those to which present ones are due. Convinced by Darwin, Lyell adopted the transmutation theory of species, and thus completed his doctrine.

One of the foremost artists of the nineteenth century was lost to France by the death of Jean François Millet. He was the pupil of Delaroche and formed ties of friendship with Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Dupré, and Diaz. Most renowned of Millet's paintings is "L'Angélus du Soir." Another of his world-famous pictures is "The Man with the Hoe," sold to San Francisco. On this subject Edwin Markham, later, wrote his celebrated lines, beginning:

"Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,

The emptiness of ages in his face,

And on his back the burden of the world."

In Spain, as soon as the force of the victory of the counter-revolution was felt at Madrid, Loma took command of the Army of the North; Quesada of the Centre, and Campos became Captain-General of Catalonia. The Duke de Serbo, devoted to the cause of Isabella, became Civil Governor of Madrid. Prince Alfonso entered Madrid, where he announced the reestablishment of the monarchy. The Carlist insurgents were then threatening Pampeluna.

They had 25,000 men and the Government 45,000. Laserna's left wing under Moriones relieved Pampeluna early in February, and the King entered the city on the 6th. The Carlists won a victory which checked the progress of the Alfonsists. The war went on. Its narrow area became narrower as the fortunes of the Carlists declined. The expectation that the fall

ENGLAND BUYS SUEZ CANAL

1875

of Leo d'Urgal would prove a turning point in the war was soon borne out.

In the month of November the difficulty of the Spanish Government was increased by a dispute with the United States over the rebellion in Cuba. A note was delivered at Madrid by Cushing, the American Minister, complaining that the Cuban insurrection was daily growing more insupportable to the people of the United States. The President suggested that he did not desire annexation, but the elevation of Cuba to an independent colony. Expectations of war were rife. Happily, the tone of President Grant's remarks in his message on the 7th of December allayed the prevalent apprehension. The United States abstained from any measure so decisive as the recognition of the insurgent Cuban Government.

To the discomfiture of European chancelleries, the announcement was made, on November 26, that the British Government had bought from the Khedive of Egypt for £4,000,000 all his shares in the Suez Canal, about ninetenths of the whole. The main ground of this purchase was a determination to secure for English shipping free passage between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

Admiral Enomoto of Japan signed a convention at St. Petersburg, by which Russia received the island of Sagalien, while Japan obtained all the Kurile Islands.