1859-] Resignation of Aberdeen to Dissolution in 1859. 419 certain that peace would be definitely secured. Attention might therefore be directed once more to domestic affairs, and if there had been any desire on the part of the Ministry to promote effectual reforms, the fact would have been properly referred to in the Queen's speech. That there was no such desire was proved not by the omission of the subject altogether, but by the terms in which it was treated. " There are many subjects connected with internal improvement," the speech said, " which I recommend to your attentive consideration ; " but when these " many subjects " came to be recited, they resolved themselves into three only as worthy of particular mention. The commercial code of Scotland was to be assimi- lated to that of England ; the law of partnership was to be amended ; and a change was to be made in the local dues and passing tolls to which merchant shipping was liable. Little was done before the Easter recess except to debate matters connected with the war, and to look forward anxiously for the conclusion of peace. On the 3rd of March Palmerston announced that the preliminaries of peace had been signed " one day last week." When the Houses met after the holiday, on the 3 ist of March, they were informed that on the previous day at two o'clock a treaty of peace was signed at Paris. The terms of the treaty did not thoroughly satisfy any English party. Those who wished for the power of Russia to be checked and her influence in Europe to be decreased, received some gratification. The great military empire had suffered a defeat ; her territory was curtailed to form a part of the new Roumanian province ; and she was debarred from constructing an armed fleet in the Black Sea. Both these provisions were subsequently reversed, but that she strove afterwards for their withdrawal was a proof that at the time they were tokens of humiliation. The one object about which the Government had talked the maintenance of the integrity and indepen- dence of Turkey was treated in a very strange fashion, the t Provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, for the defence of which the war had arisen, being separated from the Empire and con- structed into what was practically a separate nation. In con-
