THE SPANISH MARRIAGES,
9”
violent hands on, and deported, our consul at Tahiti, in Poly-
nesia, Firmly faced and threatened with war, they apologized
and paid him compensation. The second quarrel was more
serious: in order to extend his influence over Spain, the old
French king designed to marry one of his sons to the girl-queen
Isabella, F inding that this proposal met with general resent-
ment in Europe, and especially in England, he determined to
Secure his purpose in a more roundabout way. He married
his son, the Duke of Montpensier, to the queen’s ich
Sister, her natural heiress, while he bribed the e
Spanish court and ministry to give the hand of
their unfortunate young sovereign to her cousin Don Francisco,
4 wretched weakling whom she detested (1846). He intended
that Montpensier should be the practical ruler of the country
as long as Isabella lived, and succeed to her throne when she
died, "This villainous plot against a helpless girl succeeded
for the moment, but failed in the end, because Louis Philippe
lost his own kingdom in 1848, and so was not able to support
his son. It was carried out in the last months of Peel’s power,
and the resenting of its successful accomplishment passed to
the Whig cabinet which followed him. Lord Palmerston broke
Sharply with France, but did not press the quarrel to the point
of war, It caused, however, a final rupture with the French
king, with whom we had hitherto been on rather friendly
terms, and the fall of the old intriguer in 1848 was welcomed
by most Englishmen as a righteous judgment on his sins.
Peel’s later years of office (1845-6) were made unhappy by
a domestic calamity of appalling violence—the dreadful potato-
famine in Ireland. In other countries the complete
destruction of the potato crop by blight in two DE
SUCCesSSive years would have caused nothing more
than serious inconvenience, But in Ireland half the nation de-
Pended on the root. "The population had been multiplying with
*PPalling rapidity; in thirty years it had risen from five to eight
Millions, and this not owing to flourishing trade or manufactures,
