Freedom of speech and freedom of the press, no ineffective safety valves in times of discontent, were tolerated in the United Kingdom--then, as now--far beyond the limits of public security, as these were reckoned by every other European State. But the chief safety of England lay in the faith of the masses in the power of Parliament to devise measures of redress, and their confidence that the Sovereign would interpose no bar to remedial legislation. Nor have that faith and confidence been betrayed. Throughout all the years that have elapsed since the dissolution of the Chartist League, Parliament has been diligent in devising measures to meet the ever-changing and growing wants of the people, and the Royal Assent has always been cordially given to them. The Queen and her Consort do not appear very prominently or very often in the chronicles of these early years, but all the time there had been growing silently that popular affection for the Sovereign which disappeared entirely from practical politics with the active reign of George III. The qualities of Prince Albert, his industry, his untiring anxiety for the welfare of the people, his unobtrusive influence in favour of freedom, were becoming known: the Crown was becoming more than the decorative centre of the Court--the mere frontispiece of the aristocracy--it was becoming recognised as the actual head of the British people. [Illustration: _J. D. Francis._} {_From an Engraving._ HER MAJESTY IN THE WALKING COSTUME OF 1846.] [Sidenote: Growing Affection for the Queen. Its Causes.] [Sidenote: Royal Visit to Ireland.] The growing affection of the people for their Queen was stimulated about this time by the act of a harebrained scamp who, on May 17, discharged a rusty pistol, loaded, it is believed, with no deadly missile, at Her Majesty as she was driving in Constitution Hill with three of her children. The fact that the wretch was an Irishman was regarded rightly as being of no political significance, and it was a happy--it was more, it was a wise--project which was carried into effect by the visit of the Queen and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal, to Ireland in August 1849. The Royal yacht was escorted by four warships, but the reception they met with at Cork, at Dublin, and at Belfast proved that to be but a formal precaution. Perhaps, had it been possible in later years that the Monarch and her family should become more familiar to the warm-hearted Irish, many subsequent misfortunes and misunderstandings might never have taken place. [Illustration: A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM IN 1837 AND 1897.] [Sidenote: The Pacifico Imbroglio.]