CHAPTER VI

NEW MASTERS (1866) Among new men, strange faces, other minds. TENNYSON. The year 1866 was one of stirring events both at home and abroad. It saw the downfall of the Whig Administration which, with a brief interval (1858-59), had held office under different chiefs since December 1852. In March Mr. Gladstone, now leader of the House of Commons, introduced a Reform Bill, of which the fortunes were uncertain owing to the dissent of the Adullamites under Mr. Lowe. On April 27 the second reading was carried by a majority of five only. On June 18 the Government was defeated in Committee on Lord Dunkellin's amendment, and resigned. On the day before Lord Russell's Government was defeated war was declared between Austria and her allies on the one side, and Prussia and Italy on the other. Prussia, armed with her new breech-loading gun, quickly defeated Austria. The foundation of the future German Empire under the hegemony of Prussia was laid, and Italy, as part of the price of a victory not hers, received from Austria the province of Venetia. Of these great events, some brought consequences with them to causes in which Miss Nightingale was deeply interested, whilst others made direct demands on her exertions. The earlier months of the year were thus a period of continuous and almost feverish activity on her part. Two of her letters--the former written when the fate of the Government was still trembling in the balance, the latter written when the new Government had been installed and when the war was raging on the continent--will serve to introduce the subjects of this chapter:-- (_Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _May_ 2 [1866].... We have been rather in a fever lately because Ministers were hovering between in and out. Mr. Villiers promised us a Bill quite early in the year for a London uniform Poor Rate for the _sick_ and consolidated hospitals under a central management. (This was before we got our Earls and Archbishops and M.P.'s together to storm him in his den.) We shall not get our Bill this session, for Mr. Villiers is afraid of losing the Government one vote. But we shall certainly get it in time. "In 1860 the consolations of the future never failed me for a moment. And I find them now an equally secure resource." Can you guess who wrote those words? They are in a note from Mr. Gladstone written the morning of his speech on the Franchise Bill. Could you have believed he was so much in earnest? I could not. And yet I knew him once very well. His speech (he was ill) impressed the House very much. "And e'en the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer." ... (_Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 12 [1866]. I have been in the thick of all these changes of Government. I should like, if you had been in England, to have shown you the notes I have had from those going out, and those coming in--especially from my own peculiar masters, Lord de Grey and Lord Stanley. They are so much more serious and anxious than the world gives them credit for. I used to think public opinion was higher than private opinion. I now think just the reverse. As for the _Times_ and about all these German affairs--I believe the _Times_ to be a faithful reflection of the public opinion of our upper classes: see what it is. Last week Prussia and Bismarck were the greatest criminals in Europe. This week the needle-gun (I mean Prussia and Bismarck--no, I mean the needle-gun) is a constitutional Protestant--or a Protestant constitution, I am not sure which.... But I was going to tell you: Lord Stanley has taken the Foreign Office (how he or anybody could take willingly the Foreign Office, England having now so little weight in European councils, in preference to the India Office which Lord Stanley created[67] and where we _create_ the future of 150 millions of men, one can't understand). Lord Stanley accepted the Foreign Office solely because he could not help it--Lord Clarendon (which I saw under his own hand) having "unhesitatingly declined" it, although Lord Derby made the most vehement love to him, even to offering to him the nomination of half the places in the Cabinet. This I heard from Lord Clarendon himself.... Like you, I can't sleep or eat for thinking of this War. I can't distract my thoughts from it--because, you know, it is my business. I am consulted on both sides as to their Hospital and sanitary arrangements.... And then those stupid Italians publish parts of my letter--just the froth at the end, you know, while I had given them a solid pudding of advice at their own request--publish it cruelly, without my leave, with my address--since which my doors have been besieged by all exiles of all nations asking to be sent to Italy, and women threatening to "_accoucher_" (_sic_) in my passage. I sometimes think I must give up business, _i.e._ work, or life. It would take two strong policemen to keep my beggars in check. No one could believe the stories I should have to tell--people who beg of me whom I might just as well beg of ... [a sheet missing]. Of course now I have to begin again at the very beginning with Mr. Gathorne Hardy at the Poor Law Board, to get our Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmary Bill. It was a cruel disappointment to me to see the Bill go just as I had it in my grasp. Also: a Public Health Service organization for Sir John Lawrence in India which I lost by 24 hours!! owing to Lord de Grey's going out. However, I am well nigh done for. Life is too hard for me. I have suffered so very much all the winter and spring, for which nothing did me any good but a curious new-fangled little operation of putting opium in under the skin, which relieves one for 24 hours, but does not improve the vivacity or serenity of one's intellect. When Ministers went out, I had hopes for a time from a Committee of the House of Commons (on which serves John Stuart Mill) "on the special local government of the Metropolis." At their request I wrote them a long letter. Then because it is July and they are rather hot, they give it up for this year. The change of Ministers, which brings hard work to us drudges, releases the House of Commons men. Alas! (There is a pathetic story of Balzac's, in which a poor woman who had followed the Russian campaign, was never able to articulate any word except _Adieu, Adieu, Adieu!_ I am afraid of going mad like her and not being able to articulate any word but _Alas! alas! alas!_)--F. N. [67] Lord Stanley had been President of the Board of Control in 1858, in which capacity he conducted the India Bill through the House of Commons, and on its passage he became the first Secretary of State for India. II Of the events over which Miss Nightingale cried alas! in this letter, the one which came first was the loss of Mr. Villiers's Poor Law Bill. The loss, however, as she rightly surmised in writing to Miss Martineau, was only temporary. The whole subject is connected with a distinct branch of Miss Nightingale's work, of which a description must be reserved for the next chapter. She was in large measure, as we shall hear, the founder of Sick Nursing among the Indigent Poor, and a pioneer in Poor Law Reform. The next event is connected with a subject with which we have already made acquaintance. Miss Nightingale "lost by 24 hours the opportunity of organizing a Public Health Service in India for Sir John Lawrence." The story of this lost opportunity and its retrieval illustrate the truth of something said already;[68] namely, the difference it made that there was in London, in the person of Miss Nightingale, a resolute enthusiast, to whom the question of Indian sanitation was not "one of a thousand questions," but the one question of absorbing interest. That the opportunity of which she spoke was lost, was not, as by this time the reader will hardly need to be told, in any way whatever the fault of Miss Nightingale. It is a curious story, and is the subject of a great mass of correspondence amongst her Papers--a mass eloquent of the eager interest and infinite trouble which she devoted to the matter; but the story itself admits of being told succinctly. A few words, however, are first necessary on the essential issues; it was not a case of much ado about nothing. The whole future of sanitary progress in India was, or might reasonably be thought to be, at stake. Under the energetic rule of Sir John Lawrence, a good start had been made. The Governor-General continued to report progress to Miss Nightingale, and suggestions which she sent were communicated by him to his officers. But the larger questions of organization had still to be settled. Sir John's eagerness as a sanitary reformer was in some measure held in check by shortage of money. "Sanitary works," as Lord Salisbury remarked at a later stage of the affair, "are uniformly costly works." Miss Nightingale's view was that whether advance was to be slower or quicker, the organization should be on lines which would ensure the importance of advance being constantly kept in mind. She insisted that the Public Health Service in India should be a separate service, responsible to the Governor-General in Council, not a subordinate branch tucked away under some other department. This is the burden of many letters and memoranda from her hand. [68] Above, p. 58. Early in 1866 a double opportunity seemed to offer itself to Miss Nightingale for advancing her cause. At the beginning of February Sir Charles Wood resigned office, and her friend, Lord de Grey, became Secretary of State for India in his place. At the same time she had received an important letter from the Governor-General (dated Calcutta, Jan. 19). Her friend, Mr. Ellis, who had been in conclave (as we have heard) with her and her circle, had shortly before submitted proposals to him. Sir John Lawrence wrote to her: "As regards the reconstruction of our sanitary organizations, we are sending home to the Secretary of State a copy of Mr. Ellis's note which he sent me, and are proposing a further change somewhat in accordance with his plan. I have no doubt that you will see the dispatch, and therefore I had better not send it to you." He then went on to give a summary of its contents. The summary was brief, and allowed of different opinions as to the ultimate bearing of the Governor-General's proposals. He had assumed as a matter of course that she would be shown his dispatch, and she applied to her official friends for a sight of it. They would be delighted if they had it, but they had received no such dispatch; perhaps it would come by the next mail. But it did not, nor by the next, nor the next, for a very simple reason, as will presently appear. Miss Nightingale put on her friend Mr. Ellis, who as the head of a Presidency Health Commission had a direct _locus standi_, to inquire and even to search at the India Office. "They swear by their gods," he reported, "that they have no such dispatch." Miss Nightingale was becoming desperate. She was perfectly certain that Sir John Lawrence must have sent it. Meanwhile the Home Government was tottering to its fall; the new Secretary of State might be one who knew not Miss Nightingale. She entreated that a further search should be made. On May 5 she was told that "at last the Sanitary Minute had been found, and a copy of it was sent for her consideration. It had been attached to some papers connected with the Financial Department and thus had escaped attention. Lord de Grey begged Miss Nightingale to let him have the benefit of her opinion upon it as soon as possible." She afterwards learnt that it was the Secretary of State himself who, with his own hands, had searched for and found the Governor-General's Minute. It had "escaped attention" for nearly four months. The incident did not raise Miss Nightingale's opinion of government offices, or lessen her sense of responsibility in the duty of keeping the sanitary question to the fore. She was ill when the Minister's message arrived; but she at once set to work, and on May 7 she sent in a memorandum giving a summary of her views, and pointing out wherein the Governor-General's proposals seemed to require revision if the recommendations of the Royal Commission were to be carried out effectually. The Minister was busy with many things. His own fate and that of his colleagues were in peril every day. A month intervened before the next move was taken. On June 11 Miss Nightingale was asked by Lord de Grey, through Captain Galton, to develop her views further and to draw up, in consultation with Dr. Sutherland, "a draft letter which he could submit to the Indian Council as his reply to Sir John Lawrence." The letter was to take the form either of "a practical scheme to propose to Sir John Lawrence for the sanitary administration of India" or of "such a description of the requirements as would draw from Sir J. L. a practical scheme." It was suggested that perhaps it would be best if the letter (1) shadowed out the requirements and (2) sketched a scheme of administration for carrying them out. This was a large order and took time. On June 19 Miss Nightingale sent in her draft. She was "24 hours" too late, for on June 18 the Government had been defeated. There was, however, a short period of grace owing to the absence of the Queen at Balmoral and to her unwillingness to accept Lord Russell's resignation.[69] Lord de Grey had no time to pass the letter through the Secretary of State's Council, but he did what he could. He left on record at the India Office, he told Miss Nightingale, a Minute[70] closely following the lines of her Memorandum. If his successor let the matter go to sleep again, Lord de Grey would be ready to call attention to it in Parliament. He assured Miss Nightingale that his interest in such questions would remain as warm as ever, and as she was now more likely than he to know what was going on, he begged her to keep him informed. [69] In one of Mr. Jowett's letters to Miss Nightingale (June 1866) there is this story of Lord Russell. "On the evening of the crisis he was not to be found. He had gone down to Richmond to hear the Nightingales (your cousins)! 'And the provoking thing,' as he wrote to a friend, 'was that they did not sing that night.'" [70] The substance of it may be found at p. 11 of the _Memorandum_ (as cited above, p. 34 _n._). III So, then, she had been too late. "I am furious to that degree," she wrote to Captain Galton (June 23), "at having lost Lord de Grey's five months at the India Office that I am fit to blow you all to pieces with an infernal machine of my own invention." She threw some of the blame upon Dr. Sutherland, whose mission to the Mediterranean she had not been able to cancel, and who, for weeks at a time during this year, was absent at Malta and Gibraltar or in Algiers. Algiers, indeed, she wrote tauntingly, "why not Astley's?" That would be quite as good a change for him. Sometimes she varied the figure, and Dr. Sutherland and his party figured in her letters as Wombwell's Menagerie. "The Menagerie, I hear," she wrote (Jan. 26), "including three ladies, H.M. Commissioners, and two ladies' maids, has gone after a column in the interior." Had he stayed at home, he might have been able to find the missing dispatch; and in any case they could have written at leisure, from the hints in Sir John Lawrence's letter to her, the Memorandum which they ultimately had to write in haste. The truant seems to have foreseen what a rod in pickle was awaiting him on his return. "I have been thinking," he wrote to her from Algiers (Jan. 28), "Will she be glad to hear from me? or Will she swear? I don't know, but nevertheless I will tell her a bit of my mind about our visit to Astley's." And he goes on to write an admirable account of his experiences, in which he ingeniously emphasizes the vast importance of his inquiries in connection with their Indian work. Nor was this only an excuse; Dr. Sutherland's Report on Algeria, and the French sanitary service there, was a most valuable piece of work. It is impossible to read his writings--whether in published reports or in his manuscripts among Miss Nightingale's papers--without perceiving how well based was the reliance which she placed upon his collaboration. His wife stayed at home and saw much of Miss Nightingale. Mrs. Sutherland must have reported the state of things in South Street; for a month later Dr. Sutherland wrote thus to Miss Nightingale (Feb. 20): "The mail which ought to have arrived yesterday came in to-day, and I am trying to save the out mail, which leaves the harbour at 12, without much prospect of success. I have had a letter to-day from home about you, and if it had come yesterday, Ellis and I would certainly have been embarking to-day for England. After the account of your suffering, and of the pressure of business under which you are sinking, I feel wild to get away from this. To-night we leave Algeria, and by the time you get this we will be on our way home. God bless you and keep you to us. Amen." Well, I can only hope that Dr. Sutherland enjoyed his trip while it lasted; for I fear that he may have had a bad quarter-of-an-hour when he reported himself at South Street on his return. She had complained of his absence to another of her close allies, Dr. Farr. "I have all Dr. Sutherland's business to do," she wrote (Jan. 19), "besides my own. If it could be done, I should not mind. I had just as soon wear out in two months as in two years, so the work be done. But it can't. It is just like two men going into business with a million each. The one suddenly withdraws. The other may wear himself to the bone, but he can't meet the engagements with one million which he made with two. Add to this, I have been so ill since the beginning of the year as to be often unable to have my position moved from pain for 48 hours at a time. But to business...." One good stroke of business, however, Miss Nightingale had been able to do during Dr. Sutherland's absence. She reported it to Dr. Farr: "The compensation to my disturbed state of mind has been a convert to the sanitary cause I have made for Madras--no less a person than Lord Napier. I managed to scramble up to see him before he sailed." The "conversion" means not necessarily that Lord Napier needed to find salvation, but refers rather to the fact that his predecessor in the governorship of Madras had been unsympathetic. Lord Napier, on receiving the appointment, had expressed a desire to learn Miss Nightingale's views. He had been secretary to the British Embassy at Constantinople during the Crimean War, and had there formed a high opinion of her ability and devotion. She now wrote to him about Indian sanitary reform, and he at once replied:-- (_Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale._) 24 PRINCES GATE, _Feb._ 16 [1866]. I beg you to believe that I am far from being impatient of your communication or indifferent to your wishes. I have read your letter with great interest, and I regret that you had not time and strength to make it longer. You will confer a great favour on me by sending me the 8vo volume of which you speak, and I would not stumble at the two folio blue books.... The Sanitary question like the railway question or the irrigation question will probably remain subordinated in some degree to financial requirements, to the necessity of shewing a surplus at the end of the year; but within the limits of my available resources I promise you a zealous intervention on behalf of the cause you have so much at heart. You say that you do not know me well; but you cannot deprive me of the happiness and honor of having seen you at the greatest moment of your life in the little parlour of the hospital at Scutari. I was a spectator, and I would have been a fellow-labourer if any one would have employed my services. I remain at your orders for any day and hour.--Very sincerely yours, NAPIER. Their interview took place three days later. Lord Napier, during his governorship of Madras, which lasted six years, tried hard to fulfil his promise. To other matters he attended also; but it was to questions connected with the public health that he devoted his most particular attention, and throughout his residence in India he kept up a correspondence with Miss Nightingale about them. IV Meanwhile on the immediate question of the moment she had been too late, and her political friends were out. She was a Whig and a keen Reformer; but she was a sanitarian before she was a politician, and as soon as the Whigs fell she was on the alert to make friends for her causes with the mammon of unrighteousness. She was eager to hear the earliest political news:-- (_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) _June_ 27.... Now do write to a wretched female, F. N., about _who_ is to come in _where_. Does Gen. Peel come to the War Office? If so, will he annihilate our Civil Sanitary element? Is Sutherland to go all the same to Malta and Gibraltar this autumn? Will Gen. Peel imperil the Army Sanitary Commission? I _must_ know: ye Infernal Powers! Is Mr. Lowe to come in to the India Office? It is all unmitigated disaster to me. For, as Lord Stanley is to be Foreign Office (the only place where he can be of _no_ use to us), I shall not have a friend in the world. If I were to say more, I should fall to swearing, I am so indignant.--Ever yours furiously, F. N. Captain Galton replied that he had it from Mr. Lowe himself that he would not join the Tories; that of the actual appointments he had not as yet heard; but that as the Secretary of State's was an impersonal office, Dr. Sutherland's commission to visit the Mediterranean would still hold good--or bad. "You say the S. of S. is an impersonal creature," replied Miss Nightingale (July 3); "I wish he wuz!" When the names of the new Ministers were announced, Captain Galton threw out a suggestion tentatively that Lord Cranborne[71] (India Office) might be approachable through Lady Cranborne. "I have a much better recommendation to him than that," wrote Miss Nightingale in some triumph (July 7), "and have already been put into 'direct communication' with him, _not_ at my own request." The letters tell the story of her