Politically, though the year had been eventful, it was not without its compensations. The dying embers of the Indian Mutiny had been extinguished. The war with China had ended with the capture of Pekin, the destruction of the Summer Palace, and the ratification of the Convention of Tchung-Kow and the Treaty of Tien-tsin[87] (24th of October). “At home with ourselves and with our colonies,” Prince Albert says in a letter to Stockmar (28th December), “we have every reason to be satisfied.” One event, indeed, brought grief to the Queen and her family. This was the death of the venerable Earl of Aberdeen, on the 14th of December. Lord Aberdeen was not only the trusted Minister, but the valued personal friend of the Queen and her husband. His experience of public affairs extended from the close of the war with Napoleon to the beginning of the war with Russia, and no English Minister in modern times enjoyed in a higher degree the respect and confidence of foreign Governments and Sovereigns. His stainless integrity and scrupulous honesty won the confidence of the Prince Consort. The high moral courage which led him to speak the truth in public, however unpalatable and unpopular it might be, so endeared him to the Queen that she expressed her admiration for it on the only occasion when she rebuked him for an impolitic indulgence in this virtue. Though a Peelite, he differed from his leader in having greater foresight, and a firmer grip of principle. Aberdeen did not, like Peel, work aimlessly from sheer expediency. He had a theory, a guiding idea, which, rightly or wrongly, always pushed him far in advance of his Party. This theory was that the less people were meddled with by governments, the happier and more prosperous would they become. He carried his principle of non-intervention from foreign to home policy, and acted on the conviction that more good was to be done by repealing old laws, than by enacting new ones. For the salvation of the people, he trusted to independence rather than patronage--to liberty rather than protection. He was blamed for buttressing the petty despotisms of the Continent, but he was blamed unjustly. He shrank from shedding English blood, and wasting English treasure in helping revolutionary movements, and he did so for two reasons. Nations worthy of freedom, he thought, must free themselves; the patronage of revolutionary movements must sooner or later involve England in war with all the Great Powers of Europe. His failure to avert the Crimean War need not here be dwelt on. It was the great blot on his career. Yet it is but due to his memory to say, as even Mr. Disraeli admitted, that if Lord Aberdeen had been head of a Cabinet the members of which all shared his views, and were all loyal in supporting his policy, the Crimean War would probably never have broken out. If Aberdeen had been master in his Cabinet, if he had been served at Constantinople by a loyal Ambassador, and at St.