\ V <p 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <->. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In Monthly Volumes. Is. 
 
 NEW VOLUMES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Eminent Women Series, 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS, 
 
 And RE-ISSUE at the 
 
 Popular Price of ONE SHILLING. 
 
 256 pp. crown 8vo, strongly bound in cloth. With Portrait. 
 
 Ready— 
 
 HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. 
 
 By Mrs. MlLLICENT FAWCETT. 
 June 17th— 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 By Mathilde Blind. 
 
 Other New Volumes will be added, and the Series will include : — 
 EMILY BRONTE. By A. Mary F. Robinson. 
 GEORGE SAND. By Bertha Thomas. 
 MARY LAMB. By Anne Gilchrist. 
 MARIA EDGE WORTH. By Helen Zimmern. 
 MARGARET FULLER. By Julia Ward Howe. 
 ELIZABETH FRY. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman. 
 COUNTESS OF ALBANY. By Vernon Lee. 
 HARRIETT MARTINEAU. By Mis. Fenwick Miller. 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN. By Elizabeth 
 
 Robins Pennell. 
 RACHEL. By Mrs. A. Kennard. 
 MADAME ROLAND. By Mathilde Blind. 
 SUSANNA WESLEY. By Eliza Clarke. 
 MARGARET OF NAVARRE. By Mary A. Robinson. 
 MRS. SIDDONS. By Mrs. A. Kennard. 
 MADAME DE STAEL. By Bella Duffy. 
 HANNAH MORE. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. By John H. Ingram. 
 JANE AUSTEN. By Mrs. Charles Malden. 
 MARY SHELLEY. By Mrs. Rossetti. 
 
 London: W. H. ALLEN & Co., Ltd,, 13, Waterloo Place. 
 
ALLEN'S 
 
 NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 
 
 The extraordinary favour which Jar dine's Naturalist's Library has enjoyed during 
 the last fifty years has induced the proprietors of the copyright to issue a series of 
 volumes, written by some of the most eminent naturalists of the day, under the 
 title of "Allen's Naturalist's Library." 
 
 The Publishers have securedfor the Editorial workthe services of Dr. E. Bowdler 
 Sharpe, of the British Museum, whose long and honourable connection with that 
 Institution, coupled with his experience of the Editorship and publication of many 
 of the most important of modern works on Natural Science, entitle him to be con- 
 sidered one of the fittest men in England for the task. 
 The Editor has obtained the co-operation of the following eminent naturalists : — 
 Mr. E. Lydekker, M.A. (Mammalia). 
 Mr. H. O. Forbes (Mammalia and Birds). 
 Mr. W. E. Ogizvie-Grant (Birds). 
 Mr. W. F. Kirby (Insects). 
 Professor E. H. Traquair, F.E.S. (Fishes), 
 while the Editor undertakes several of the Ornithological volumes. 
 
 Over 1,000 steel-plate engravings, many of them by the most eminent artists of 
 the time, will be utilised for the purposes of the present work, and will be produced 
 in the highest style of modern chromolithography, in addition to which the ser- 
 vices of Mr. Keulemans and other leading artists of the day have been secured for 
 the illustration of those forms of animal life which it has been found necessary to 
 depict, in order to bring the present work up to the standard of Modern Science. 
 
 The volumes are published at the popular price of 6s. Each volume containing 
 about 320 pages of letterpress, together with from 20 to 40 coloured plates. 
 
 TENTATIVE SCHEME OF VOLUMES. 
 
 The following List will give an outline of the General Scheme, but it may be varied if, 
 in the opinion of the Editor and Publishers, an alteration would improve the Series. 
 
 Works set in Clarendon are Now Eeady. 
 
 By Henry O. Forbes, LL.D., &c. 
 MONKEYS, Vol. I. 
 MONKEYS, Vol. II. 
 CETAOEA. 
 
 By E. Lydekker, B.A., &c. 
 CATS. 
 DOGS. 
 
 EUMINANTS. 
 BRITISH MAMMALS. 
 MARSUPIALS. 
 HOESES. 
 PACHYDEEMS. 
 
 By E. Bowdler Sharpe, LL.D. 
 BRITISH BIRDS, Vol. I. 
 BEITISH BIEDS, „ II. [June. 
 BEITISH BIEDS, „ III. 
 
 BEITISH BIEDS, ,, IV. 
 SUN-BIEDS. 
 HUMMING-BIEDS. 
 BIEDS OF WEST AFEICA. 
 
 By Henry O. Forbes, F.L.S., &c. 
 PABEOTS. 
 PIGEONS. 
 
 By W. E. Ogilvie-Grant. 
 GAME BIEDS, Vol. I. 
 GAME BIEDS, „ II. 
 
 By W. F. Kirby, F.L.S. 
 
 BUTTERELIES (with special re- 
 ference to British Species), Vol. I. 
 
 BUTTEEFLIES (with special refer- 
 ence to British species), Vol. II. 
 
 MOTHS, Vol. I. 
 MOTHS, „ II. 
 BEETLES, CEICEETS, &c. 
 BEES. 
 
 By Professor E. H. Traquair, F.E.S. 
 FISHES, Vol. I. 
 FISHES, „ II. 
 FISHES, ., III. 
 
 London: W. H, ALLEN & CO., Ltd., 13, Waterloo Place, 
 
STATESMEN SERIES. 
 
 \ ■ 
 
 VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 (All Rights reserved.) 
 
PALMERSTON. 
 
STATESMEN SERIES. 
 I 
 
 LIFE OF 
 
 VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 BY 
 
 LLOYD C. SANDERS 
 
 »> 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO., LIMITED, 
 
 13, WATEELOO PLACE, S.W. 
 
Ti a s 5 c ■ 
 
 1 - &- 
 
 STATESMEN SERIES. 
 
 Popular Price of ONE SHILLING. 
 
 250 pp., crown 8vo, strongly bound in cloth. 
 WITH PORTRAITS. 
 
 VOLS. ALEE AD Y ISSUED. 
 
 The Rt. Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 By Mr. H. W. Lucy. Ready. 
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 By Charles Lowe, M.A. Ready. 
 
 WELLESLEY. 
 
 By Col. G. B. Malleson, C.S.I. Ready. 
 
 :-• :"' 76 
 oS 
 
 • •• 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The chief authority for Lord Palmerston's life is the 
 biography of which the first three volumes were written 
 by Lord Dalling — better known, perhaps, as Sir Henry 
 Bulwer — and the fourth and fifth by Mr. Evelyn Ashley 
 (1870-76). A condensed, and in many respects im- 
 proved, edition of the whole was published by Mr. 
 Ashley in 1879. It is a mine of information to the 
 student of political history, and we may hope that 
 the value of the concluding chapters may one day be 
 increased by the publication of that fuller documentary 
 evidence which has hitherto been apparently withheld 
 from the necessity of keeping secrets of State. A small 
 biography of Lord Palmerston was published by An- 
 thony Trollope in 1881, but it contains little that is 
 not to be found in Mr. Ashley's volumes. 
 
 Apart from this main source of knowledge, there is a 
 very large quantity of matter illustrative of Lord Pal- 
 merston's private and public life. Lady Enfield tells 
 us something about his youth in her Life and Letters of 
 the First Earl of Minto ; and much that is of interest, 
 
vi PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 about his personal character especially, is to be found in 
 Sir Henry Holland's Recollections, Abraham Hayward's 
 Letters, and his article in Eraser's Magazine, vol. xviii., 
 and the Life of Lord Shaftesbury by Mr. Hodder. 
 For an account of his career as a Tory statesman we have 
 his own short autobiography, published as an appendix 
 to the first volume of Lord Dalling's Life, which has 
 been proved to be inaccurate on various points by Mr. 
 E. Hemes, in his Memoir of the Right Hon. J. C. 
 Herries; and incidental notices in Plumer Ward's 
 Memoirs, Lord Colchester's Diary, also in the Croker 
 Papers, which continue to illustrate his official life 
 down to 1855. j With the formation of the Grey 
 ministry commences the severe criticism of Greville, 
 and with the beginning of the present reign the hardly 
 less hostile comments of Sir Theodore Martin ; still 
 the evidence of both of these writers cannot be neg- 
 lected by anyone who wishes to form a fair judgment of 
 Lord Palmerston's merits. Scattered notices of his 
 foreign policy during the Grey, Melbourne, and Russell 
 ministries are to be found in the third volume of Lord 
 Brougham's Life and Times, Earl Russell's Reminis- 
 cences and Suggestions, the Life of Lord Melbourne 
 by Mr. McCullagh Torrens, and Raikes's Journal', 
 while towards the close of this period, Lord Malmes- 
 bury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister and Mr. Morley's 
 Life of Cobden begin to be valuable sources of fact. 
 The continental view of his policy is to be found parti- 
 cularly in the Memoirs of Prince Metternich and Baron 
 Stockmar, the Life of Count Saldanha, and in Guizot's 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. vii 
 
 Memoires and L'Histoire de Dix Ans, besides works 
 like Theodore Juste's Memoirs of Leopold I., the his- 
 tories of the Revolution of 1848 by Lamartine 
 and Gamier Pages, and Mr. Spencer Walpole's admir- 
 able History of England, which includes also the 
 Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. On the crisis of 
 1845 much valuable information is to be found in an 
 article by A in the Historical Review ; and the Spanish 
 marriage intrigue is to be traced at length in the corre- 
 spondence between Louis Philippe and Guizot, pub- 
 lished by Taschereau in the Revue Retrospective in 
 1848. Mr. Kinglake's views on Lord Palmerston's 
 conduct as a member of the Aberdeen Cabinet may be 
 compared with advantage with those set forth in the 
 Quarterly Review of April 1877. During Lord Pal- 
 merston's first premiership and onwards, Lord Malmes- 
 bury and Mr. Morley continue to be instructive critics, 
 and they are reinforced by Bishop Wilberforce, and Mr. 
 Walter Bagehot in his sketch of The English Constitu- 
 tion. An excellent precis of English foreign policy 
 from 1859 to 1865 is given by Lord Russell in the 
 preface to the second part of his Selected Speeches and 
 Despatches. On Lord Palmerston's later Italian policy 
 abundant information may be found in Bianchi's Storia 
 Document ata delta Diplomazia Europea in Italia, in 
 Mazade's Vie de Cavour, Cavour's Letters and 
 Despatches, notably the private letters to Azeglio pub- 
 lished by Bianchi under the title of La Politique du 
 Comte Camille de Cavour. Not much original informa- 
 tion, as far as Lord Palmerston is concerned, is to be 
 
viii PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 found in Blanchard Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III., 
 but his attitude towards German politics generally, and 
 the Schleswig-Holstein question in particular, are abun- 
 dantly illustrated in Count Beust's Memoirs, Count 
 Vitzthum's St. Petersburg and London, which contains 
 many personal reminiscences of Lord Palmerston, and 
 Busch's Our Chancellor (Eng. trans., 1884). 
 
 L. C. S. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 
 
 1807-1830. 
 
 The Temples — Lord Palmerston' s father and mother — At Harrow. 
 Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A 
 Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden Speech — Secretary at War — The 
 Nexc Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His habits, tastes, 
 and disposition — Development of his political views — Attempt to 
 eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wel- 
 lington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its 
 faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party . . p. 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 1830-1833. 
 
 Palmerston and home politics — At the Foreign Office — Activity of 
 his policy — Its general features — Objections to it — The Belgian 
 Revolution — Meeting of the London Conference — The Eighteen 
 Articles — Possibility of a war with France — Leopold of Saxe- 
 Coburg becomes King of the Belgians — Modification of the 
 Eighteen Articles — The Dutch declare war and the French enter 
 Belgium — Firmness of Lord Palmerston — The Twenty-four 
 Articles — Anglo-French expedition — Feeling in England — Sta- 
 bility of Belgium . . . . . . . p. 32 
 
 CHAPTER ILL 
 
 THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 
 
 1830-1838. 
 
 Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland — Tyranny of Dom 
 Miguel in Portugal — Satisfaction obtained by England and France 
 — Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal — He is aided by English Vo- 
 lunteers — Death of Ferdinand of Spain — Combination of the two 
 Pretenders — The Quadruple Treaty — Its immediate success — 
 Coolness between England and France — Its effect on Spanish 
 politics — The Spanish Legion — End of the Carlist war . p. 52 
 
 b 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 
 
 1831-1841. 
 
 Lord Palmerston and the Porte — Ibrahim Pasha's adrance on Cbn-< 
 stantinople — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Anti-Russian policy of 
 Lord Palmerston — The first Afghan war — Burnea's despatches — 
 Collapse of the Turkish Empire — Divergence of views between 
 England and France — The Quadrilateral Alliance — Lord Palmer- 
 ston's difficulties — His bold course of action — His estimate of the 
 situation — Louis Philippe gives way — The fall of Acre — Lord 
 Palmerston's treatment of Guizot — Settlement of the Syrian 
 question — Lord Palmerston's marriage . . . . p. 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 
 
 1841-1846. 
 
 Lord Palmerston and the Smaller Powers — Lord Aberdeen — The 
 Chinese War — Policy of the Government — Treaty of. 1842— Dis- 
 putes with the United States — The Boundary Question — The 
 Greely and McLeod affairs — Right of Search — The Ashburtom 
 Mission — Lord Aberdeen and Prance — Palmerston and Home 
 Affairs — The crisis of 1845 — His visit to Paris . . p. 82 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 
 
 1846. 
 
 Earlier stages of the negotiations — Louis Phillippe's first condition — 
 The agreement of Eu — The Coburg candidate — Guizot's change 
 of attitude — Lord Palmerston's despatch— Its results— Announce- 
 ment of the marriages — Palmerston's efforts to postpone them 
 
 p. 96 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 / YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 V 1846-1849. 
 
 Results of the Spanish marriages — The annexation of Cracow — Civil 
 war in Portugal — Lord Palmerston's policy — Termination of the 
 struggle — The Swiss Sonderbund — Lord Palmerston's despatch 
 — Settlement of the dispute — Constitutionalism in Italy — The 
 Minto Mission — The fall of Louis Philippe — The Spanish de- 
 spatch — Lord Palmerston and the Provisional Government at 
 Paris — Change in his Italian policy — His attitude towards the 
 Sardinian Government — Suppression of the Revolution — Palmer- 
 ston and Naples — His advice to Austria — The Hungarian 
 refugees . . • p. 107 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 
 
 1849-1852. 
 
 Independence of Lord Palmerston — Differences of opinion with the 
 Conrt — The Danish succession question — The Pacifico affair — 
 Breadown of negotiations — Indignation of France — Chris Roma- 
 nus num. — Effect of the speech — The Queen's Memorandum — The 
 Haynau and Kossuth incidents — The coup d'etat — Dismissal 
 of Palmerston — Constitutional side of the question — The Militia 
 Bill— The first Derby Ministry p. 129 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 
 
 1852-1855. 
 
 Lord Palmerston at the Home Office — Legislation and Deputations — 
 The Reform Bill — Temporary Resignation of Palmerston — Be- 
 ginnings of the Eastern Question — The Menschikoff mission — 
 Lord Palmerston's policy — His popularity with the nation — The 
 Vienna note — The Concert of the Powers — Palmerston's descrip- 
 tion of the objects at issue — Declaration of war by Turkey — The 
 Sinope disaster — Beginning of the war — The Napier banquet 
 and its consequences — Proposal to make Palmerston Secretary at 
 War — The Crimean expedition — Fall of the Ministry . p. 146 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OP THE RUSSIAN WAR. 
 
 1855-1856. 
 
 Attempts to form a Ministry — Lord Palmerston accepts the task — 
 His difficulties — Darkness of the prospect — Harmony of the Cabi- 
 net — Lord Palmerston's tactics — The second Vienna Conference — 
 The Austrian compromise — Conclusion of the war — The Congress 
 of Paris — The Treaty — Lord Palmerston receives the Garter 
 
 p. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WARS AND RUMOURS OP WARS. 
 
 1856-1839. 
 
 Monotony of Home Affairs — Dispute with the United States — Russian 
 chicanery — The Danubian Principalities — Egypt and the Suez 
 Canal — Palmerston and Persigny — The Persian War — The 
 "Arrow" Affair — The Dissolution and General Election — The 
 Indian Mutiny— The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Defeat of the 
 Government ........ p. 175 
 
 <y 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 \S LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 
 
 1848-1861. 
 
 The Willis's Rooms meeting — Defeat of Lord Derby's ministry — Lord 
 Palmerston and Azeglio — The Sardinian Contingent — The Con- 
 gress of Paris — The mission of Kossnth — The treaty of Villa- 
 franca — Policy of the English Cabinet — The cession of Nice and 
 Savoy — Lord Palmerston's efforts on behalf of Italy — His speech 
 on the death of Cavonr . . . . . . p. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOME AFFAIRS. 
 
 1859-1865. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet — His relations with the Radicals 
 and the Opposition — The Reform Bill — Lord Palmerston and Mr. 
 Gladstone — The Paper Duties Bill — His views on the National 
 Defences — The Fortifications Bill — Legislation and Appointments 
 — The Charges commonly bronght against Lord Palmerston's 
 Government — His Irish Policy ..... p. 200 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 1860-1863. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's distrust of Napoleon — Permanent and Special 
 Reasons — Speech on the Fortifications Bill and Conversation with 
 Count Flahault — The Anglo-French Expedition to China — The 
 American Civil War — England's declaration of neutrality — The 
 1 rent, and Alabama affairs — The Mexican expedition . p. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 
 
 1863-1865. 
 
 The Polish Rebellion — Policy of the Cabinet — The proposed European 
 Congress — The Schleswig-Holstein Question — Motives of the 
 Powers — English advice to Denmark — The Cabinet determines on 
 neutrality — The Conference of London — Lord Palmerston on the 
 state of Europe — The Danish debate — Palmerston's last victory 
 The General Election of 1865 — Lord Palmerston's last illness and 
 death — Conclusion .p. 229 
 
LIFE OF 
 
 VISCOUNT PALMERSTON 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LORD PALMEESTON AND TORYISM. 
 
 1807-1830. 
 
 The Temples — Lord Palmerston's father and mother — At Harrow, 
 Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A 
 Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden Speech — Secretary at War — The 
 New Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His habits, tastes, 
 and disposition— Development of his political views — Attempt to 
 eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wel- 
 lington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its 
 faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party. 
 
 The Irish branch of the Temple family, from which 
 Lord Palmerston sprang, was founded in the reign of 
 Elizabeth by Sir William Temple, the grandson of 
 Peter Temple, who was lord of the manors of Stowe and 
 Butlers' Marston in the times of Henry VIII. Sir 
 William, who was secretary to Sir Philip Sidney, and 
 afterwards to Essex, and a typical example of the 
 Elizabethan epoch, withdrew to Ireland after the break- 
 down of the Essex rising* His son, Sir John Temple, 
 was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, wrote an ultra- 
 
 1 
 
2 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALME RSTON. 
 
 English History of the Irish Rebellion, and at one 
 time sat in the English House of Commons as burgess 
 for Chichester. Of his family, the eldest son was Sir 
 William Temple, the well-known diplomatist, statesman, 
 man of letters, and patron of Swift; the second, Sir 
 John, who rose to be Attorney-General and Speaker of 
 the Irish House of Commons, was Lord Palmerston's 
 great-great-grandfather. The title dates from Sir John's 
 son Henry, who was created a peer of Ireland by the 
 titles of Viscount Palmerston, of Palmerston, co. Dublin, 
 and Baron Temple, both in the peerage of Ireland. 
 
 In spite of their long connection with Ireland, the 
 Temples remained for the most part English in interests, 
 and almost entirely English in blood, notwithstanding 
 Mr. Kinglake and other writers who talk about the 
 Foreign Secretary's Celtic temperament. Lord Palmer- 
 ston's father, the second Viscount, succeeded his grand- 
 father in the year 1757, and sat for several years in the 
 English Parliament as member for East Looe, Has- 
 tings, and Winchester. By his first wife, the daughter 
 of a Cheshire baronet, he had no issue ; he married 
 secondly, Mary, the daughter of Mr. Benjamin Mee, 
 of Bath,* and the sister of a director of the Bank of 
 England ; and their eldest son Henry John was born 
 at Broad] ands, Hants, his father's English seat, on the 
 20th of October 1784. The second son, William, who 
 was born in 1788, and died in 1856, became of some 
 note as Minister to the Court of Naples ; and of the two 
 daughters, the eldest, Frances, married Admiral Sir 
 William Banks, and the second, Elizabeth, the Right 
 Hon. Lawrence Sulivan. The story that Lord Palmer- 
 ston's father and mother became acquainted through 
 
 * Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 517, note. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 3 
 
 the peer being thrown from his horse in Dublin, and 
 carried into a neighbouring house where he was ten- 
 derly nursed by his future wife, appears entirely base- 
 less, as there is no reason for connecting the Mees 
 with the Irish capital. The family belonged to the 
 west country. The marriage was solemnized at Bath, 
 where some of Lady Palmerston's relations lived 
 until comparatively recent times, and Miss Mee is 
 described in the papers of the day as " of Fenchurch 
 Street," which was in all probability the home of her 
 brother. The anecdote appears to have been derived by 
 Lord Palmerston's biographer, Lord Dalling, from a 
 not particularly accurate life of the statesman by Mac- 
 Oilchrist, although the latter declines to vouch for its 
 accuracy, and adds, by way of detail, the evident figment 
 that Mr. Mee was a respectable hatter, in middling cir- 
 cumstances. Mr. Ashley is possibly better informed 
 when he describes him, in the revised edition of the 
 biography, as a man of good family ; but nothing 
 seems to be certainly known about him. 
 
 Of Harry Temple's parents, the father seems to have 
 been a good-humoured gentleman, with literary and 
 artistic tastes, and a great fondness for society. " Lord 
 Palmerston," writes Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Lord 
 Minto, to his wife in 1786, " has not got to his second 
 childhood, but only as far as his second boyhood, for 
 no school-boy is so fond of a breaking-up as he is of a 
 junket and pleasuring."** From the same authority we 
 gather that shortly before his death he was constantly 
 repeating Wilkes's mot, that the Peace of 1763 was 
 the peace of God which passeth all understanding. 
 Broadlands, a house which had for nearly two cen- 
 
 * Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, edited 
 by his great-niece the. Countess of Minto, vol. i. p. 107. 
 
 1 * 
 
4 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 tunes belonged to the family of St. Barbe was rebuilt 
 by him from designs by " Capability " Brown, which 
 were supplemented by plans furnished by Holland, the 
 architect of Carlton House. It is a favourable speci- 
 men of the later Georgian period, with the inevitable 
 Ionic portico, and is pleasantly situated on the east bank 
 of the Test, close to Komsey, with its grand old abbey 
 church. Here he made a collection of pictures of some 
 importance, including the " Infant Academy," which 
 was bequeathed to him by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 Of the pair, Lady Palmerston seems to have been 
 decidedly the more popular, and her strong common- 
 sense, even spirits, and unselfish disposition endeared 
 her to a large circle of friends, particularly to the 
 Mintos. They lived chiefly at their houses in Park 
 Lane and at East Sheen, paying, however, several vists 
 to- Italy, where their eldest boy strengthened that know- 
 ledge of the language which he had already acquired 
 through an Italian tutor, and which stood him good 
 service in after life. Believers in the doctrine of here- 
 dity will notice that the dispositions of both his parents 
 were reproduced by Lord Palmerston in a very remark- 
 able degree. 
 
 In due course Harry Temple went to Harrow, where 
 he was a contemporary of Pee] and Lord Althorp, though 
 not, as is sometimes stated, of Lord Byron. There 
 tradition represents him as acquitting himself with 
 credit in a fight with a big boy named Salisbury ; and 
 in an amusing letter written in March 1798, to a young 
 friend Francis Hare, a brother of Augustus and Julius 
 Hare, he describes himself as having begun Homer's 
 Iliad at the " beautifull" episode of Hector's parting 
 from Andromache, as keeping up his Italian, regarding 
 drinking and swearing as ungentlemanlike, and viewing 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 5 
 
 matrimony with qualified approval, " though he would 
 be by no means precipitate in his choice." At the age 
 of sixteen he repaired, according to the educational 
 fashion of the time, to Edinburgh, where for three years 
 he boarded with Dugald Stewart, and attended his 
 lectures at the University, the parents paying £400 a 
 year for those privileges.* " In these three years/' 
 wrote Palmerston in after life, " I laid the foundation 
 for whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I 
 possess." He seems, indeed, to have been a model pupil. 
 Dugald Stewart described his character in the most 
 enthusiastic terms ; and Lord Minto, who was very fond 
 of him, wrote to Lady Palmerston : u Harry is as charm- 
 ing and perfect as he ought to be ; I do declare I never 
 saw anything more delightful. On this subject I do not 
 speak on my own j udgment alone. I have sought oppor- 
 tunities of conversing with Mr. and also with Mrs. Stewart 
 on the subject, and they have made tome the report which 
 you have already heard from others, that he is the only 
 young man they ever knew in whom it is impossible to find 
 any fault. Diligence, capacity, total freedom from vice 
 of every sort, gentle and kind disposition, cheerfulness, 
 pleasantness and perfect sweetness, are in the catalogue 
 of properties by which we may advertise him if he 
 should be lost." To which Lord Minto might have 
 added that he was an extremely handsome and well- 
 grown lad ; for such is distinctly the impression pro- 
 
 * Lord Dalling, in his Life of Palmerston, reproduces a story, ap- 
 parently from MacGilchrist, to the effect that Sir William Hamilton, 
 when he edited Dugald Stewart's lectures on political economy, based his 
 text on some notes taken in shorthand, and subsequently copied out 
 by Henry Temple. A glance at Sir William Hamilton's preface to the 
 lectures would have convinced him that the anecdote was entirely 
 groundless, as the lectures are based on the notes of pupils called 
 Bridges, Bonar, and Dow. 
 
6 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOK 
 
 duced by the interesting water-colour portrait, painted 
 in 1802 by Heapby, which has recently been presented 
 to the National Portrait Gallery. Harry Temple is 
 there represented as looking dreamily at the spectator. 
 The features have a family likeness to those of later life, 
 but the whole expression of the face is completely un- 
 like that of the very wide-awake individual whom Leech 
 has handed down to posterity with a sprig in one corner 
 of his mouth. At the age of eighteen, Harry Temple 
 seemed to be about to develop into a statesman of the 
 Burleigh rather than of the Carteret type, if indeed he 
 took any part in public life at all ; and the change in his 
 disposition between boyhood and manhood seems to 
 have been even more abrupt and complete than is 
 usually the case. 
 
 In 1803 he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 and proceeded in the ordinary course to his M.A* 
 degree, without examination. Though he acquitted 
 himself with credit at the College examinations, he 
 made no permanent additions at Cambridge to his stock 
 of knowledge. 
 
 Before he left Edinburgh, Palmerston lost his father, 
 and in 1805 his mother died. Both of these blows- 
 were a great shock to him, and after the former, Lord 
 Minto, finding him " entirely silent," wrote to his wife 
 that "Harry had too little spring for his age." He 
 probably modified his opinion when, in 1806, his young 
 friend, though he was only just twenty-one, and had 
 not taken his degree, stood for the University of Cam- 
 bridge, where a vacancy had been created by the death 
 of Mr. Pitt. Palmerston's competitors were Lord 
 Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, and his old 
 schoolfellow Lord Althorp, both of whom were to be his 
 colleagues in the Grey and Melbourne ministries ; and 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 7 
 
 the Pitt party in the University being broken up, he 
 found himself, as he had expected, at the bottom of the 
 poll. William Wilberforce, in his diary, ascribes Palmer- 
 ston's defeat in a great measure to the fact that he was 
 supposed, though wrongly, to be an Anti-Abolitionist, 
 whereas Lord Henry Petty was a staunch supporter of 
 the negro cause. Anti-Abolitionist Palmerston can 
 hardly have been, if his subsequent efforts for the sup- 
 pression of the slave-trade are any criterion. At the 
 general election of 1806 he was elected for Horsham 
 with Lord FitzHarris, the son of his guardian, Lord 
 Malmesbury ; but they were unseated on petition, and 
 thought themselves lucky in being so, for, as he wrote 
 in an autobiographical sketch of his early life, " in a 
 short time came the change, and the dissolution in May 
 1807, and we rejoiced in our good fortune in not having 
 paid a£5,000 for a three months' seat." He then 
 stood again for Cambridge, and again without success; 
 though had he not, with great straightforwardness, per- 
 suaded his friends to divide their votes, according to 
 the understanding with his Tory colleague, Sir Vicary 
 Gibbs, instead of plumping, he would have been re- 
 turned. Soon after this he came into Parliament for 
 Newtown in the Isle of Wight, a borough of Sir Leonard 
 Holmes. One condition was that he should never set 
 foot in the place, even for the election, so jealous was 
 the patron of the introduction of a new interest in the 
 borough. 
 
 Palmerston had just before been nominated a Lord 
 of the Admiralty through the interest of Lord Malmes- 
 bury. He was gazetted on the 3rd of April 1807, but 
 it was not until the following February that he ventured 
 to break the ice in the House of Commons. Though 
 silent, however, he was not unobservant ; for a journal 
 
8 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALME RSTON. 
 
 begun in June of the previous year, contains some very 
 acute and detailed observations on the great events of 
 the time, notably on the hideous ruin and combustion 
 of the Austrian and Prussian armies at Ulm, Austerliz, 
 and Jena. Very true is his remark that Napoleon, so 
 far from concealing his designs, published even the . 
 most violent of his projected innovations; for instance, 
 the formation of the Rhenish Confederacy, some time 
 before they were put in execution, whereby the world 
 became by degrees reconciled to them. Less fair is his 
 sneer at the conduct of the Grenville ministry on the 
 question of Catholic Emancipation : iC They insisted," he 
 says, " in retaining both their places and opinions." 
 
 It was upon continental affairs that the future Foreign 
 Secretary made his maiden speech. Acting on secret 
 information, which they were unable to produce, the 
 Government had anticipated Napoleon by sending an 
 expedition to seize the fleet of the Danes, with whom 
 England was nominally at peace. It was entirely suc- 
 cessful, but the Danes resisted, and Copenhagen was 
 bombarded. On February 3, 1808, Mr. Ponsonby, the 
 leader of the Opposition, moved for the production of 
 papers. Canning, in a brilliant speech of three hours, 
 demolished Ponsonby's arguments ; and Palmerston, 
 following somewhat on Canning's lines, pointed out 
 that it would be impossible to produce the papers with- 
 out breach of honour, and without shutting up future 
 sources of information ; while in answer to Windham, 
 who had urged that England had been guilty of a vio- 
 lation of the law of nations, he made the telling 
 rejoinder : " In the case before the House the law of 
 nature is stronger even than the law of nations. It is 
 to the law of self-preservation that England appeals for 
 the justification of her proceedings." 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 9 
 
 " It was impossible," wrote the debutant to his sister, 
 " to talk very egregious nonsense in so good a cause," 
 and the speech was a success, though not thought 
 worthy of a report in the Times. Palmerston was re- 
 garded as one of the rising men on the Tory side of 
 the House ; nevertheless, he was " infinitely surprised " 
 when, in October, 1809, Mr. Perceval, obliged, owing to 
 the quarrels in the party, to form his ministry out of 
 untried material, offered him successively the Chancellor- 
 ship of the Exchequer, a Lordship of the Treasurj', and 
 the Secretaryship at War, in the alternative of their 
 being any of them declined by " Orator " Milnes, the 
 father of the late Lord Houghton.* Palmerston con- 
 sulted Lord Mulgrave and Plumer Ward on the point, 
 and wrote to Lord Malmesbury for advice. As the seat 
 in the Treasury was only offered with the understanding 
 that its occupant should speedily be advanced to the 
 Chancellorship, the choice practically lay between the 
 latter appointment and the Secretaryship at War. With 
 admirable discretion he determined to risk nothing by 
 premature ambition, and accepted the War Office with- 
 out a seat in the Cabinet, rather than the more exalted 
 position of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Cabinet 
 minister. 
 
 Of course [he writes to Lord Malmesbury], one's vanity and ambi- 
 tion would lead one to accept the brilliant offer first proposed ; but it is 
 throwing for a great stake, and where much is to be gained, very much 
 also is to be lost. I have always thought it unfortunate for anyone, 
 
 * So Palmerston told his friend Plumer Ward (Memoirs of R. P. 
 Ward, Esq., edited by the Hon. E. Phipps, vol. i. p. 249). In his 
 autobiography Palmerston says, evidently incorrectly, " he [Perceval] 
 said he had offered it [the Chancellorship] to Milnes, who had declined 
 it." See also Palmerston's letters to Lord Malmesbury in Bulwer's 
 Palmerston. 
 
10 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 and particularly a young man, to be put above his proper level, as he 
 only rises to fall the lower. Now, I am quite without knowledge of 
 finance, and never but once spoke in the House. 
 
 The fear of a breakdown in the House of Commons 
 seems, indeed, to have been his chief deterrent. Besides, 
 he thought that the Government would not last long, 
 and that it was therefore not advisable to be identified 
 with it more closely than was absolutely necessary. 
 "I left him," wrote Plumer Ward, " inclining to the 
 Secretary at War, and admired his prudence, as I have 
 long done the talents and excellent understanding, as 
 well as the many other good qualities as well as accom- 
 plishments, of this very fine young man." 
 
 To the War Office, accordingly, the very fine young 
 man went, and at the War Office he remained conten- 
 tedly for nearly twenty years. During this long period 
 he had several chances of advancement ; the Secretary- 
 ship for Ireland was offered him in 1812, and after Lord 
 Liverpool became Prime Minister he was twice offered 
 the Governor- Generalship of India, and at another time 
 the Post Office and an English peerage. The simple ex- 
 planation of this disinclination to move was that, though 
 fond of official life and extremely reluctant to quit it, 
 he had very little personal ambitition at any period of 
 his career, and probably none at its commencement. 
 In a letter about Lord Palmerston's character, which 
 Lord Shaftesbury wrote at the request of his biographer, 
 Mr. Evelyn Ashley, it is stated that as late as 1826, 
 " he passed for a handy clever man who moved his esti- 
 mates very well, appeared to care but little for public 
 affairs in general, went a good deal into society, and 
 never attracted any other remark but one of wonder, 
 which I often heard, that he had been so long in the 
 same office." He was, in short, content to do carefully 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 11 
 
 and thoroughly what lay before him, but made no 
 attempt to get out of the groove. Mr. E. Herries in 
 his Memoir of the Right Hon. J. C. Herries, accuses 
 Palmerston of " dilatoriness and laxity" at the War 
 Office. But he adduces very feeble evidence to support 
 the charge, and the statement is quite the reverse of 
 what may be gathered from other quarters. 
 
 I continue to like this office very much [he writes to Lord Malmes- 
 bury in 1809]. There is a good deal to be done, but, if one is confined, 
 there is some satisfaction to have some real business to do ; and if they 
 leave us in long enough, I trust much may be accomplished in ar- 
 ranging the interior details of the office, so as to place it on a respect- 
 able footing. Its inadequacy to get through the current bixsiness that 
 comes before it is really a disgrace to the country, and the arrear of 
 regimental accounts unsettled is of a magnitude not to be conceived. 
 We are now working at the Treasury to induce them to agree to a 
 plan, proposed originally by Sir James Pulteney, and reconsidered by 
 Granville Levison, by which, I think, we shall provide for the current 
 business, and the arrear must be got rid of as well as we can contrive 
 to do it. 
 
 This is not the letter of a lax official, and his annual 
 speeches on the Army Estimates show a great power of 
 grappling with details, both during the period of the 
 war and during the years after the peace, when he had 
 to resist the Whig demands for a reduction of the 
 forces. But on subjects unconnected with his depart- 
 ment he was for the most part silent. Brougham, in- 
 deed, went so far as to inform him that he seldom 
 troubled the House with his observations on any sub- 
 ject ; but the statement, like so many of Brougham's, 
 has to be taken with several grains of salt. Besides 
 moving the Army Estimates, Palmerston is frequently 
 to be found in the pages of Hansard during these 
 years defending flogging in the army, the employment 
 of foreign mercenaries, and so forth ; doing sometimes 
 a good deal of not very enviable work, for instance, 
 
12 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 
 
 when he had to defend the cashiering of the gallant Sir 
 Kobert Wilson on account of his conduct at the funeral 
 of Queen Caroline. He was especially happy when 
 answering a pertinacious opponent, for instance, when 
 he informed the habitually inaccurate Joseph Hume 
 that " an ancient sage said that there were two things 
 over which even the immortal gods had no power, 
 namely, past events and arithmetic. The honourable 
 gentleman, however, seemed to have power over both." 
 But the best monument of Palmerston's powers at this 
 time is an admirable paper on the historical character 
 and position of the Secretary at War, which he drew up 
 on the occasion of a dispute between the Commander- 
 in-Chief, Sir David Dundas, and himself as to their 
 respective spheres of action. Addressed to the Prince 
 Regent, who, as usual, solved the difficulty by leaving it 
 alone, it set forth with great clearness and evident re- 
 search, that "it had never belonged to the Commander- 
 in-Chief to issue by his authority orders and regulations 
 respecting the public money," but that the Secretary at 
 War was the accustomed and proper channel for any 
 signification of the royal pleasure on such subjects.* 
 
 Having accompanied Lord Palmerston to the first 
 stepping-stone of his official career, we may as well 
 pause to consider what manner of man he was. The 
 key to his character is perhaps to be found in the 
 fact that while doing the Governments of Perceval and 
 Liverpool genuine service in the House and at the 
 War Office, he was, in conjunction with Croker and 
 
 * There was at this time a Secretary at War who controlled army 
 expenditure, and a Secretary for War, who had the direction of mili- 
 tary operations. Lord Palmerston was simply the financier of the 
 forces, and had nothing to do with the campaigns in the Peninsula 
 and elsewhere. Thus he was hardly an " organizer of victory," 
 though his functions were of considerable importance. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 13 
 
 Peel, amusing himself and his friends, and probably 
 annoying his foes not a little, by a series of squibs con- 
 tributed to the Courier and other Ministerial papers, 
 which were afterwards republished under the title of 
 The Netv Whig Guide. Some of the parodies of Byron 
 are almost worthy of the Anti-Jacobin ; but they were 
 probably Oroker's, not Palmerston's. However, the 
 poem on " The Choice of a Leader/' which may be 
 attributed with confidence to Palmerston, contains 
 some amusing lines, for instance, the following bur- 
 lesque of a famous speech of Sir James Mackintosh 
 against the annexation of Heligoland : — 
 
 But scarcely less vile than the seizure of Poland 
 
 Has been their base conduct to poor Heligoland ; 
 
 That innocent isle we have stolen from the Danes, 
 
 And it groans -with the weight of our trade and our chains. 
 
 On that happy strand, not two lustres ago, 
 
 The thistle was free with luxuriance to grow ; 
 
 The people at liberty starved, and enjoyed 
 
 Their natural freedom, by riches uncloy'd. 
 
 But now all this primitive virtue is fled : 
 
 Rum, sugar, tobacco, are come in its stead. 
 
 And debauch'd by our profligate commerce, we see 
 
 This much-injured race drinking porter and tea, 
 
 And damning, half -fuddled (I tell it in pain). 
 
 Their true and legitimate master — the Dane ! 
 
 Their connection with the New Whig Guide was 
 subsequently the cause of a very animated passage of 
 arms between Croker and Palmerston. 
 
 Though the light and jaunty manner of the author of 
 " The Choice of a Leader," was considerably against him 
 among serious politicians, he could hardly fail to be 
 popular in society. " Cupid," as he was called, was a 
 great dandy, frequenting chiefly the company of the 
 Whigs, notably of Sheridan, at whose table he was 
 present on the famous occasion when the bailiffs acted 
 
14 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 as waiters. Palruerston's account of the dinner, as 
 chronicled by Mr. Hayward, was that " Sheridan, Can- 
 ning, Frere, and others, including myself, had agreed to 
 form a society (projected, you may remember, by Swift) 
 for the improvement of the English language. We 
 were to give dinners in turn ; Sheridan gave the first, 
 and my attention was attracted by the frequent appeals 
 of the improvised servants to ' Mr. Sheridan.' ' And 
 did you improve the language V * Not, certainly, at that 
 dinner; for Sheridan got drunk, and a good many words 
 of doubtful propriety were employed.'" It was pro- 
 bably from the recollection of old acquaintance, though 
 the two men did not frequent the same circles, that 
 Palmerston, when Foreign Secretary, appointed the 
 broken-down Beau Brummel to the British Consulate at 
 Caen. He was admitted to the jealously exclusive circle 
 of Almack's, where, on the introduction of the waltz 
 into England, he might be seen whirling round with 
 Madame de Lieven, the wife of the Russian Ambassador, 
 an intimacy which cooled considerably in after life. 
 Of course he was on the turf, but, though enough to 
 amuse, not enough to ruin ; for he is said seldom to have 
 betted, and throughout his long racing career rarely 
 owned more than three or four horses at a time, and 
 took care that they paid their way.* In fact, beneath 
 
 * Lord Palmerston's connection with the turf began as far back as 
 1815, when he ran a hlly called Mignonette, at Winchester. He was, 
 as " Nimrod " said, almost exclusively a "provincial sportsman," 
 and the only races of importance which he carried off were the Cesare- 
 witch, with Ilione, in 1840, and the Ascot Stakes with Buckthorn, in 
 1852. Mainstone was a strong favourite for the Derby of 1860, but 
 failed completely in the race, not without some suspicions of foul play. 
 Baldwin was the only horse of merit owned by Palmerston after the 
 Mainstone fiasco. He was elected an honorary member of the Jockey 
 Club in 1845, and his colours were green jacket and orange cap. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 15 
 
 the exterior of a man of pleasure lay very shrewd 
 habits of business. He took a share of a slate mine in 
 North Wales, and, in spite of numerous disappointments 
 and a heavy outlay, the speculation proved in the end 
 satisfactory. So, too, when paying visits to his Irish 
 estates, he writes enthusiastically to his brother about 
 the making of roads, the construction of a harbour, the 
 drainage of bogs and the building of schools. It was 
 probably rather in jest than in earnest that he contem- 
 plates finding some evangelical follower of Mr. Simeon 
 at Cambridge, and sending him to win his "Jerusalem 
 spurs by a campaign in the parish of Ahamlish " ; but 
 he shows a real desire to improve the condition of his 
 tenantry, particularly by the extirpation of the middle- 
 men, or petty landlords. The property at Broadlands 
 was throughout his life the subject of quite as much 
 solicitude. 
 
 I have been busy [he wrote to his brother in 1843] reading- books on 
 agriculture and horticulture, and trying to acquire some knowledge on 
 those matters which are now become sciences. If one does not know 
 something of them oneself, one can never hope to get one's estate 
 or garden well managed. I have let all my farms at Broadlands 
 that were out of lease, and tolerably well, in spite of the badness of 
 the times. I had a shocking set of bad tenants, but have got rid 
 of most of them, and brought in people with skill and capital. Our 
 new gardener does pretty well, and understands the theory of his 
 department ; but he is a Methodist and goes preaching on Sunday, 
 and I fear he thinks too much of his sermons to be very successful 
 in his garden. 
 
 Palmerston also preserved game, and seems to have 
 been fond of shooting. Hiding to hounds with the 
 neighbouring packs was another of his relaxations 
 whenever he had leisure for a gallop, which during 
 his later years seldom happened, but exercise on horse- 
 back of a more limited character was one of his daily 
 rules, and the personality of his old grey was almost as 
 
16 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 familiar to Londoners as his own. " Every other 
 abstinence," was his saying, " will not make up for 
 abstinence from exercise." Always an active man, 
 he was but little of a student, although his knowledge 
 of the chief Latin and English classics was fairly exten- 
 sive. The quotations from Virgil and Horace, which 
 are to be found in his speeches and letters, are often 
 extremely happy, and he evidently knew Sheridan's 
 plays pretty nearly by heart. But if his critical taste 
 is to be judged by the pension which he bestowed on 
 the poet Close, it was catholic rather than cultivated ; 
 and it is significant that in the whole of his pub- 
 lished letters there is only one allusion to current 
 literature, and that is to Coningsby. In his later 
 years he was, according to Mr. Hayward, much 
 attracted by the absurd theory that the plays of 
 Shakespeare were really written by Bacon. When 
 the positive testimony of Ben Jonson in the verses 
 prefixed to the edition of 1623 was adduced, he re- 
 marked, " Oh, these fellows always stand up for one 
 another." " The argument," says Hayward, " had 
 struck Lord Palmerston by its ingenuity, and he wanted 
 leisure for a searching exposure of its groundlessness. 
 According to the same authority, the game of billiards 
 was Palmerston's favourite amusement indoors, and 
 " fortune favoured him in this as much as in the 
 political game." After three or four flukes he would 
 say, " I think I had better not name my stroke." 
 
 Palmerston's interests were wide, though possibly not 
 very deep. Sir Henry Holland, his doctor, found that 
 he took pleasure in hearing of the latest discoveries 
 in the physical sciences, more especially astronomy, 
 chemistry, and mechanics, and that he had a singular 
 facility in comprehending the importance of their 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 17 
 
 objects and results. But science had to be made 
 attractive for Palmerston ; and while Sir Heury Hol- 
 land amused him, he was bored by Wheatstone. " I 
 watched him," writes Sir Henry Taylor, " as he 
 listened to a somewhat prolonged exposition by Pro- 
 fessor Wheatstone of certain new devices he had 
 been busied with for the application of telegraphy. 
 The man of science was slow, the man of the world 
 seemed attentive; the man of science was copious, the 
 man of the world let nothing escape him ; the man of 
 science unfolded the anticipated results — another and 
 another; the man of the world listened with all his 
 ears, and I was saying to myself, * His patience is 
 exemplary, but will it last for ever?' wheu I heard 
 the issue : ' God bless my soul, you don't say so ! I 
 must get you to tell that to the Lord Chancellor.' 
 And the man of the world took the man of science to 
 another part of the room, and bounded away like a 
 horse let loose in a pasture."* Where art was con- 
 cerned Lord Palmerston was somewhat of a barbarian. 
 When he paid a visit to Berlin, he was pleased with the 
 frescoes of Cornelius, but chiefly because of their size ; 
 and when it was hoped that the Treasury would buy the 
 Soulages collection, Sir Henry Cole found him quite 
 dead to the beauties of Italian art. " Once or twice, 
 looking at the majolica, he said to me, ' What is the 
 use of such rubbish to our manufacturers ?'" 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell long upon Palmerston's 
 personal character. His was a bright, sunny nature, 
 buoyant and self-reliant; the jaunty gait was an out- 
 ward sign of the inward disposition. Sir Henry 
 Holland, who attended both Lord Palmerston and 
 Lord Aberdeen, notices, in his interesting Recollections,, 
 
 * Sir Henry Taylor's Autobiography, vol. ii. pp. 218-219. 
 
 2 
 
18 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 the singular contrast of their natural temperaments. 
 The inborn vivacity and optimism of the former per- 
 vaded his life, both public and private ; rescuing him 
 in a great degree from many of those anxieties which 
 press more or less upon every step of a Minister's 
 career. He had a singular power of clear and prompt 
 decision ; and was spared that painful recurrence to 
 foregone doubt which torments feebler minds. Lord 
 Aberdeen habitually looked at objects and events 
 through a more gloomy atmosphere. Palmerston, 
 Sir Henry also tells us, had a wonderful power of 
 mastering bodily pain, and would work almost without 
 abatement under a fit of the gout which would have 
 sent other men groaning to their couches. But though 
 he had little consideration for his own infirmities, he 
 was filled with tender solicitude for his friends when they 
 were in sickness or distress. His correspondence with 
 his brother are full of anxious inquiries and affectionate 
 recollections ; while a letter of advice to Lord Shaftes- 
 bury, who had fallen into pecuniary difficulties through 
 the dishonesty of his steward, which is preserved in 
 Mr. Hodder's life of that great philanthropist, proves 
 Palmerston to have possessed a delicacy and refinement 
 of sympathy with those to whom he was attached, for 
 which the outside world would have been slow to give 
 him credit. 
 
 His hearty, jovial conversation and deportment, 
 " the Ha ! Ha ! style," as an observer in the House 
 of Commons called it, which appears, according to Mr. 
 Kinglake, to have been considered not quite correct 
 by the denizens of the Whig Olympus, also made him 
 extremely popular with servants and peasantry. A 
 pleasant anecdote has been recorded of a visit paid by 
 him in 1863 to an old woman named Peggie Forbes, 
 
LORD PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 19 
 
 who had been a servant at Dugald Stewart's in 1801, 
 and of her production of a box of tools, the property 
 of ' young Maister Henry,' which she had preserved from 
 her affection for him. 
 
 His faults, like his virtues, lay rather near the 
 surface; but as the chief of them, flippancy and a 
 certain measure of unscrupulousness, will frequently 
 be exposed in the events of his public life, it is 
 unnecessary to sermonize on them. And as second- 
 hand descriptions of character are flat and unprofitable 
 when the originals are obtainable, it will be enough to 
 add, before quitting the topic, the evidence as to Lord 
 Palmerston's many virtues given by his best friend 
 Lord Shaftesbury, on the occasion of his death. " I 
 lose," wrote Lord Shaftesbury, " a man who, I knew, 
 esteemed and loved me far beyond every other man 
 living. He showed it in every action of his heart, in 
 every expression of his lips, in private and in public, 
 as a man and as a minister. His society was infinitely 
 agreeable to me ; and I admired, every day more, his 
 patriotism, his simplicity of purpose, his indefatigable 
 spirit, his unfailing good humour, his kindness of heart, 
 his prompt, tender, and active consideration for others 
 in the midst of his heaviest toils and anxieties." He 
 was a fine specimen of the English gentleman, and of 
 the long list of his illustrious contemporaries had per- 
 haps most in common with Lord Derby, whom he 
 equalled in Parliamentary courage and excelled in 
 tenacity, though he was inferior to him in oratory and 
 classical culture. 
 
 Such was Lord Palmerston, the man, throughout his 
 life, and such was Lord Palmerston the statesman, down 
 to the year 1827, when the illness of the Premier 
 dissolved the Liverpool ministry. He stood, as Lord 
 
 2 * 
 
20 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Dalling points out, almost alone, belonging to none of 
 the particular sections into which the House of Commons 
 was divided ; indeed, throughout his career he was a 
 parliamentary Ishmaelite, and his intimate friends were 
 almost exclusively non-political. On most subjects, 
 particularly on the question of Catholic Emancipation,* 
 he was in sympathy with Canning, and afterwards ac- 
 cepted with pride the title of Canningite; but he had 
 little personal connection with that statesman, and did 
 not follow him out of office. His contempt for the 
 Eldonite section of the party, " the stupid old Tory 
 party, who bawl out the memory and praises of Mr. 
 Pitt, while they are opposing all the measures and 
 principles which he held most important," was infinite. 
 The Chancellor was to him — in his correspondence — an 
 " old woman," Liverpool a '* spooney/' Westmoreland 
 an "ignoramus," Bathurst a " stumped-up old Tory." 
 Some of them repaid him in kind. About eight months 
 before the dissolution of 1826, he found that he was to 
 be opposed at Cambridge, where he had been returned 
 since 1811, by two of his own colleagues, Copley (after- 
 wards Lord Lyndhurst), the Attorney-General, and 
 Goulburn, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, both, of 
 course, anti-Catholics. A most laborious canvas was 
 thereby entailed, during which Palmerston had to con- 
 tend with all the influence that Lord Eldon, Bathurst, 
 and the Duke of York could bring to bear upon him. 
 In the end he triumphed, for though Copley headed the 
 poll, Palmerston beat Goulburn by 192. "This," he 
 
 * "The day is fast approaching," he wrote to his brother in 1826, 
 " as it seems to me, when this matter will be settled as it must be." He 
 had constantly voted for Catholic Emancipation from 1812 onwards 
 and in 1813 made a clever speech on the subject, basing his support of 
 the measure on grounds, not of right, but of political expediency. 
 
LORD PALMER8T0N AND TORYISM, 21 
 
 writes in his autobiography, " was the first decided step 
 towards a breach between me and the Tories, and they 
 were the aggressors." 
 
 Several incidents of importance, more or less inti- 
 mately connected with his business at the War Office, mark 
 this period of Palmerston's life. In 1815 and 1818, he 
 visited France and recorded his observations in journals, 
 of which extracts have since been published. Written 
 when the memories of great events were fresh in the 
 minds of those with whom he came in contact, they are 
 full of interest, and the Secretary at War's own remarks 
 are well worth perusal. His estimate of the relative 
 merits of the allied armies is striking : — 
 
 Our men certainly do not look so smart and uniform in a body as 
 the Prussians and Russians, but still they have a more soldier-like 
 air ; they look more like business and fighting. The foreign troops 
 look like figures cut out of card, ours like a collection of living men ; 
 the former move like machines, ours without any irregularity or 
 break, yet bear the appearance of individual vigour. Their men 
 seem to depend entirely on each other, ours look as if they moved in- 
 dependently, and yet with equal uniformity, as a mass. In short, one 
 marks a character of individual energy about our people which one 
 does not see in theirs. 
 
 A still more critical event occurred to Lord Palmers- 
 ton in the spring of the year in which he paid his second 
 visit to France. On the 8th of April, as he was ascend- 
 ing the stairs at the War Office, he was shot at by 
 Lieutenant Davies, of the 62nd Regiment. Davies had 
 written two letters to the Secretary at War, requesting 
 an interview; but they were so evidently the work of a 
 madman, that the request was refused. A slight wound 
 •on the back was the only result, and the man, who was 
 defended on his trial at Lord Palmerston's expense, was 
 consigned to Bedlam. 
 
 When, on the retirement of Lord Liverpool in 1827, 
 
22 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Mr. Canning was entrusted by George IV. with the 
 formation of a Government, Palmerston was naturally- 
 one of the men whose co-operation he would be the 
 first to select. A fusion of Canningites and Whigs was 
 inevitable, owing to the refusal of the Eldonite fac- 
 tion to take part in the Ministry ; and the Secretary at 
 War's easy temper and moderate views clearly qualified 
 him to play a prominent part in a coalition ministry. 
 It was but natural that he should be offered the seat in 
 the Cabinet and office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 which he had refused years before, and it was but 
 natural that he should accept the offer. Unfortunately 
 other ministerial arrangements had necessitated a con- 
 test at Cambridge ; so it was decided, on the advice of 
 Croker, that Palmerston, while immediately advanced 
 to Cabinet rank, should remain at the War Office until 
 the end of the session, when, the other contests having 
 been decided, he would be returned unopposed on the 
 acceptance of office. About the middle of the session, 
 however, Canning sent for Palmerston, and told him, 
 with considerable embarrassment, that he found that it 
 was more convenient that the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer should also be First Lord, and that both offices 
 should be united in the person of the Prime Minister, 
 the result being, he said, that he was unable to carry 
 out the intended arrangement. Though he suspected 
 that Canning was being made the cat's-paw of the king, 
 who " personally hated him" and wanted Mr. Herries 
 to take the Exchequer,* Palmerston good-humouredly 
 replied that he was perfectly content to remain where he 
 was ; and he even went out of his way to make the Prime 
 Minister's mind easy, by pointing out that as the 
 
 * Palmerston was mistaken as far as Herries was concerned. See- 
 the elaborate vindication of Herries in the memoir by his son. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 23 
 
 Secretary of War was at present administering the 
 discipline and patronage of the army, the office of Com- 
 mander-in-Chief being vacant through the death of the 
 Duke of York, he might well rest satisfied with his 
 position. In the same pleasant way he brushed aside 
 two attempts to get rid of him, both of which may fairly 
 be traced to the hostility of George IV. When offered the 
 Governorship of Jamaica, he roared with laughter in 
 Canning's face ; and to a third proposal that he should 
 become Governor-General of India, he replied that he 
 had no family to provide for, and that his health would 
 not stand the climate. 
 
 The untimely death of Canning was followed by the 
 ludicrous efforts of " Goody " Goderich to form and keep 
 together an administration, which terminated, as the 
 world knows, by the Premier bursting into tears in the 
 royal closet, and the King lending him a handkerchief 
 to wipe them away. Palmerston was once more offered 
 the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and once more 
 asked to release the Premier from the offer, as the King 
 wished for Herries, though the latter had already declined 
 the post on the ground of ill-health. Again Palmer- 
 ston gave up his claims with easy good humour, though 
 Huskisson, now generally recognised as the leader of 
 the Canningites, told him that he should have pressed 
 them home. With the cat-and-dog existence of the 
 Ministry he seems to have troubled himself very little ; 
 foreseeing, in all probability, that its life would be 
 brief. 
 
 On the resignation of Goderich, the Duke of Welling- 
 ton undertook to carry on affairs, and at once opened 
 negotiations with Huskisson, as the head of the Canning 
 party. Though Palmerston had only a few months 
 before, in a letter to his brother, pronounced against 
 
24 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 the formation of a " Government like Liverpool's, con- 
 sisting of men differing on all great questions, and 
 perpetually on the verge of a quarrel, " the little band 
 agreed that they would accept office — not as individuals, 
 but as the friends of Mr. Canning. Lord Dudley was 
 to carry out the principles of the departed statesman in 
 Foreign Affairs ; Huskisson and Charles Grant (Lord 
 Glenelg)in Colonial and commercial matters; Lamb (Lord 
 Melbourne), as Chief Secretary, would secure toleration 
 for the Irish Catholics; Palmerston kept his old post. The 
 natural results followed ; grave divergences of opinion 
 manifested themselves on every subject of importance, 
 and the Cabinet usually separated without coming to a 
 decision. Abroad, the chief difficulty that pressed for 
 solution was the revolution in Greece, which had been 
 brought to a crisis through the destruction of the 
 Turkish fleet by Admiral Codrington at the battle of 
 Navarino. That independence in some shape or form 
 must be granted to the Greeks by the Powers was now 
 inevitable ; but while the collective voice of the Cabinet 
 pronounced the battle to be "an untoward event," and 
 while the Tory section were in favour of cutting down 
 the territory and liberties of the new nation to the 
 narrowest possible limits, from fear of its becoming a 
 pawn in the hands of Russia ; the Canningites were 
 disposed to let things take their course, and to restore 
 to Greece the sacred places where lingered the memories 
 of her immortal past. As Palmerston afterwards pointed 
 out, a Greece was an absurdity which contained "neither 
 Athens, nor Thebes, nor Marathon, nor Salamis, nor 
 Piatsea, nor Thermopylae, nor Missalonghi." When 
 he proposed that an effort should be made to redeem the 
 Greek women and children who had been carried into 
 slavery at Alexandria, "the Duke received the proposi- 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 25 
 
 tion coldly ; Aberdeen treated the matter as a thing we 
 had no right to interfere with ; Bathurst, as the exercise 
 of a legitimate right on the part of the Turks ; and 
 Ellenborough, as rather a laudable action." On home 
 affairs the same difference of views cropped up at every 
 turn. A dispute between the rival factions of the 
 Cabinet on the duty to be imposed on corn, produced 
 the temporary resignation of Charles Grant; and, 
 fi ually, in May 1828, after five months' tenure of 
 office, the Canningites retired in a body on the trivial 
 question of the disfranchisement of the corrupt borough 
 of East Retford. In the division on the Bill, Huskis- 
 son, who considered himself bound by previous pledges, 
 voted against the Government ; Palmerston and Lamb 
 followed his example. They were in the minority ; and, 
 considering the difficulties with which the Duke was 
 surrounded on all sides, it is improbable that he would 
 have taken any notice of their conduct. Huskisson, 
 however, sent him a foolish letter of resignation, and 
 Wellington, weary of perpetual broils, and disliking the 
 bourgeois assurance of the chief of the Canningites, 
 determined to pin him to his word. In vain the other 
 Canningites attempted mediation : " It is no mistake," 
 said the Duke ; " it can be no mistake, and shall be no 
 mistake." Thereupon they held counsel together and 
 decided, Lord Dudley being sorely unwilling, that, as 
 they had entered the Cabinet in a body, they must retire 
 in a body. Palmerston accordingly shook the dust of 
 " pig-tail Toryism," as he styles it in one of his letters, 
 from his feet, and Sir Henry Hardinge reigned at the 
 War Office in his stead. 
 
 In opposition he found his opportunity. Hitherto 
 the trammels of office and want of ambition had caused 
 him to remain placidly among the second rank of poli- 
 
26 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 ticians ; now he was unmuzzled, and had tried his 
 strength in a succession of cabinets. His correspondence 
 throughout the years immediately preceding his retire- 
 ment shows how great was his interest in continental 
 affairs, and it was to the Greek war of liberation, and 
 to the usurpation of Dom Miguel in Portugal that he 
 turned for the main sources of his inspiration rather thai 
 to startling series of events which began with the return 
 of O'Connell for Clare, and concluded with the passing 
 of the Catholic Emancipation Act ; though he spoke 
 on the measure, and prophesied — though, as the event 
 proved, falsely — that it " would open a career of happi- 
 ness to Ireland which for centuries she had been for- 
 bidden to taste." In 1822 Croker had considered him 
 deficient in that flow of ideas and language which can 
 run on for a couple of hours without, on the one hand, 
 committing the Government, or, on the other, lowering 
 by commonplaces or inanities the station of Cabinet 
 minister.* But in 1829 G-reville called a speech of his 
 " the event of the week," and observed that he had at 
 last " launched forth, and with astonishing success/' In 
 fact, Palmerston set the seal to his fame as an orator by 
 the speech which was made on the 1st of June, and 
 which dealt with the relations between England and the 
 nations of Europe. The display was nominally made 
 in support of a motion of Sir James Mackintosh on the 
 affairs of Portugal, but through the indulgence of the 
 House, Palmerston was allowed to descant on foreign 
 affairs generally. 
 
 The burden of this elaborate indictment is to be 
 found in the statement that England, lately the friend 
 of liberty and civilization, was now the key-stone of 
 
 * Letter from Croker to Peel. Croker Papers, vol. i. p. 213* 
 
LORD PALMJEBSTON AND TORYISM. 27 
 
 that Absolutist arch of which Miguel, the Portuguese 
 usurper, and Spain, and Austria, and the Sultan Mah- 
 nioud were the component parts. He complained that 
 Greece had been treated with scanty generosity; that 
 with regard to the conflict between Russia and Turkey, 
 the Wellington ministry had not made bond fide efforts 
 to bring about peace, and so to prevent the conflagration 
 from spreading over Europe, by " setting their faces 
 on the one hand against territorial acquisition by Russia, 
 and, on the other hand, by resisting stoutly and firmly 
 the intrigues of other powers to stimulate the obstinacy 
 of Turkey." Three-fourths of the speech dealt with 
 the condition of affairs in Portugal, and the speaker 
 undoubtedly made out a very strong case for censure. 
 The Government had professed to act on the principle 
 of non-interference ; in reality, they had interfered con- 
 stantly, " only on the wrong side." In a sketch of the 
 relations which had prevailed of late years between 
 England and Portugal, Palmerston pointed out that it 
 was on English advice that Dom Pedro, the Emperor of 
 Brazil, had acted when he abdicated his rights to the 
 throne of Portugal in favour of his little daughter, 
 Donna Maria. The conditions of that abdication had 
 been the marriage of the young queen, when she was of 
 age, with her uncle, Dom Miguel, who swore at Vienna, 
 in the presence of the British Ambassador, to maintain 
 as Regent the laws of Portugal and the institutions 
 granted by Dom Pedro. Having taken these vows with 
 the intention of breaking them, Miguel paid a visit to 
 the English court on his way to Lisbon, and so " the 
 King of England had been made a stalking-horse under 
 whose cover this royal poacher had crept on his un- 
 suspecting prey." Miguel had marched to his palace 
 surrounded by British troops, and so encouraged the 
 
28 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 constitutional party to make no secret of tbeir aims and 
 aspirations; but when he had broken his oath, dissolved 
 the constitutional chambers, and proclaimed himself 
 king, the contingent of British troops, after playing a 
 tacitly acquiescent part, had been withdrawn from Lisbon. 
 During the reign of terror which followed, under which 
 no less than five British subjects had been imprisoned 
 without trial, the English Government had indeed re- 
 monstrated, but without the slightest result ; "Buona- 
 parte, in the plenitude and insolence of his power, never 
 treated the humble representative of a petty German 
 principality with more contemptuous disregard than 
 that which our remonstrances had met with at the hands 
 of Dom Miguel." If Dom Miguel had been treated as 
 " a spoiled and favourite child," great harshness had, 
 on the other hand, been employed by the Wellington 
 administration towards the Loyalist party. When 
 Miguel had declared their stronghold, Oporto, to be in 
 a state of blockade, the British Government had hastened 
 to acknowledge the blockade. When the Loyalist re- 
 fugees in England had demanded to be allowed to go to 
 the assistance of Terceira in the Azores, which still held 
 out for Donna Maria, permission had been refused on 
 the ground that they could not be allowed to sail from a 
 British port ; and when they had fitted out an expedi- 
 tion in defiance of the Duke's command, they had been 
 stopped by a British vessel, " the blood of unarmed and 
 defenceless men was shed in the only harbour of their 
 sovereign, and under the shadow of her flag ; and the 
 navy of England, heretofore accounted the protector 
 «nd the avenger of the injured, was made the subservient 
 tool of injury and oppression.''' 
 
 This speech is perhaps as characteristic an example 
 as there exists of Palmerston's earlier oratory. On 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 29 
 
 the whole, it must be pronounced decidedly second-rate 
 when compared with the great masterpieces of British 
 forensic art. The reader searches in vain for the con- 
 centrated brilliancy of phrase which has given immor- 
 tality to the utterances of Chatham. The pur pur ei 
 panni are there, and on occasion passages of the most 
 arrant clap-trap — for instance, when the kissing of little 
 Donna Maria by George IV., on the occasion of her 
 visit to England, is termed " a recognition in which the 
 inborn nobleness of royal nature contrived to infuse 
 into the dry forms of State ceremonial something almost 
 partaking of the charm and the spirit of chivalrous pro- 
 tection." Still less should the reader expect to find any 
 of those profound deductions, drawn from the knowledge 
 of mankind and the headsprings of philosophy, which 
 are features of the style of Burke. He is favoured 
 instead with the following reminiscence of Dugald 
 Stewart's pupil-room : — " There is in nature no moving 
 power but mind, and all else is passive and inert; in 
 human affairs this power is opinion, in political affairs 
 it is public opinion ; and he who can grasp the power, 
 with it will subdue the fleshly arm of physical strength, 
 and compel it to work out its purpose." In short, the 
 speech seldom rises above the commonplace, either in 
 thought or in language ; an elaborate metaphor resolves 
 itself on examination into our old friends the great ship 
 and the " puny insect " at the helm. 
 
 Still, with certain deductions, the speech must be 
 pronounced a performance of genuine and peculiar 
 merit. It is evidently, like all of the more elaborate of 
 Palmerston's earlier efforts, the result of very careful 
 preparation, and, taken as a whole, it contains a well- 
 arranged and complete statement of the grounds of 
 righteous indignation entertained by the people at large 
 
30 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMBBSTON. 
 
 against the Wellington administration. Throughout 
 his life, Lord Palmer ston's main strength lay in his 
 ^exposition of a case, whether for the prosecution or 
 the defence ; and this strength is exhibited even more 
 markedly in his despatches than in his set speeches. It 
 is, as Greville acutely remarks, " when he takes his pen 
 in his hand that his intellect seems to have full play"; 
 but in his speeches, though in a less degree, is to be 
 seen an instinctive skill in putting points in their 
 most telling manner, in gliding over awkward admis- 
 sions, and in gauging the intellect and disposition of 
 his audience, whom he was in the habit of tickling with 
 jokes and local allusions. Spoken entirely for the 
 moment, they have not much permanent value, in them- 
 selves and considered apart from their results ; and 
 Palmerston's oratory, like that of all statesmen who 
 aim chiefly at being " Parliamentary hands," was in 
 its day over-estimated, and afterwards consigned to a 
 somewhat too complete oblivion. For in spite of much 
 fustian and not a little insincerity, his are the speeches 
 of a gentleman ; of a brave man, who knew exactly what 
 his aim was, and how it was to be accomplished ; of one 
 who, except when led astray by personal prejudices, had 
 really large views on political morality, and who firmly 
 believed that it was England's mission to help the 
 oppressed of the earth, and that she was thoroughly 
 able to execute that mission. 
 
 Though Wellington can hardly have been grateful to 
 Palmerston for constituting himself censor-in-chief of 
 the Tory foreign policy, he made several overtures of 
 reconciliation to the ex-Secretary at War during the 
 last days of his career as Premier. The first was 
 through Melbourne, who, however, declined to join 
 without Huskisson and Grey. The second, made after 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND TORYISM. 31 
 
 the death of Huskisson, was through Lord Clive ; but 
 Palmerston insisted on the admission of Grey and 
 Lansdowne to office as a sine qua non, proving thereby 
 how closely he was now linked with the Whigs. The 
 third, made through Croker, was brought to a dramatic 
 conclusion. "Well," said Croker, "I will bring the 
 matter to a point. Are you resolved, or are you not, 
 to vote for Parliamentary Reform ?" Palmerston said, 
 "I am." " Well, then," said Croker, "there is no use 
 in talking to you any more on the subject." The Can- 
 ningites were irresistibly compelled, as were the Peelites 
 after them, to throw in their lot with Liberalism. 
 
32 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 1830-1833. 
 
 Palmerston and home politics — At the Foreign Office — Activity of 
 his policy — Its general features — Objections to it — The Belgian 
 Kevolntion — Meeting of the London Conference — The Eighteen 
 Articles — Possibility of a war with France — Leopold of Saxe- 
 Coburg becomes King of the Belgians — Modification of the 
 Eighteen Articles — The Dutch declare war and the French enter 
 Belgium — Firmness of Lord Palmerston — The Twenty-four 
 Articles — Anglo-French expedition — Feeling in England — Sta- 
 bility of Belgium. 
 
 In the Ministry of Lord Grey, Palmerston held the 
 post of Foreign Secretary, for which he had been marked 
 out by his exploits and knowledge, and he continued to 
 hold that appointment, except during Peel's "hundred 
 days " in 1834 and 1835, and his still shorter tenure 
 of office in 1839, until the downfall of the Whigs in 
 1841. During this long period he occupied himself very 
 little with home affairs, and maintained a serene satis- 
 faction with their conduct even under Lord Althorp's 
 management of the House of Commons. He spoke, 
 indeed, on the Keform Bill, replying very effectively 
 to those who taunted him with deserting the principles 
 of Mr. Canning, that the "gigantic mind" of the 
 departed statesman " was not to be pinned down by 
 the Lilliputian threads of verbal quotation/' and that 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 33 
 
 the best key to Canning's opinions was to be found in 
 his saying that " they who resist improvement because 
 it is innovation, may find themselves compelled to 
 accept innovation when it has ceased to be improve- 
 ment." He also, while strongly in favour of a large 
 creation of peers in the last resource, took a creditable 
 part in negotiating the interchange of views which 
 caused the Waverers to desert the Tory majority in the 
 House of Lords, and thereby rendered possible the 
 passing of the Bill. But for the most part he was silent 
 on internal topics ; and as the nation knew little, and 
 cared less, about Belgium and Portugal, Palmerston's 
 name, though renowned on the Continent, was held in 
 light regard in England. Hence it is hardly surprising 
 that in 1831 he should have been beaten at Cambridge 
 for advocating Parliamentary Reform, and in 1835 should 
 have been turned out of his seat for South Hants. It was 
 thought that Lord Melbourne would send him to the 
 Paris Embassy ; but after a few weeks he found refuge 
 at Tiverton, which borough remained faithful to him for 
 the remainder of his life. 
 
 At the Foreign Office he reigned supreme ; though 
 his absolutism was less marked under Lord Grey than 
 under Lord Melbourne, under whose loose and hap- 
 hazard regime the strong-willed Foreign Secretary soon 
 acquired practical independence, and brushed aside with 
 jaunty nonchalance the remonstrances addressed to him 
 by the more energetic of his colleagues, particularly 
 Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon. Under his auspices 
 England entered upon a period of diplomatic activity 
 which for its extent, duration, and success, has but few 
 parallels in our history. It must be acknowledged that 
 Palmerston had peculiar opportunities. During his first 
 years in office the flood of revolution, having burst its 
 
 3 
 
34 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 boundaries at Paris, was sweeping over the face of 
 Europe and shaking the great monarchies to their 
 foundations. Hence, with insurrection menacing them 
 at home, they had but little leisure or inclination for a 
 forward policy abroad ; and the English Foreign Secre- 
 tary had a comparatively unobstructed course before 
 him. Still there were times when his position was 
 extremely critical, and it was chiefly through sheer pluck 
 and address, aided perhaps by a considerable share of 
 good fortune, that he rode over difficulties which would 
 have overwhelmed a warier man. Greville has recorded 
 the admirable dictum of Lord Granville, that contempt 
 for clamour and abuse was one of the finest of his cha- 
 racteristics, and it was one that never failed him. 
 
 He was undoubtedly well served, particularly by 
 Lord Beauvale at Vienna — less well by Lord Pon- 
 sonby at the Porte — and certainly deserved the steady 
 co-operation of his subordinates. His chief faults in 
 dealing with people arose from an inability to see that 
 they might possibly be right if they differed from him 
 in opinion ; and in a want of consideration, which was 
 markedly exhibited in his unpunctual habits. Hence 
 he occasionally annoyed those who came in imme- 
 diate contact with him either at the foreign Office or 
 in the Corps Diplomatique. But the representatives 
 of England at foreign courts knew that in the Foreign 
 Secretary they had a friend who would not stint his 
 praise when it was due, and who would not withdraw 
 his protection from them if they were visited by unjust 
 suspicions or royal caprice. He once answered Mr. 
 Cobden as follows : — 
 
 The hon. gentleman says that all the difficulties which have come 
 upon this country in various parts of the world have been due to my 
 meddling policy, and to my habit of supporting those who act under 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 35 
 
 me. Again I confess to the charge preferred against me. I do think 
 that those who employ officers in distant parts of the globe are bound 
 to support and defend them, as long as they believe that they have 
 done their best according to their sense of duty, and have not acted in 
 a manner deserving of just blame. That has been my practice as far 
 as I have had to deal with such matters ; and, therefore, I am rather 
 proud to have this testimony from the hon. member that our agents in 
 remote parts of the world act in the confidence that they will be borne 
 out and supported by the Government at home. 
 
 On the other hand, they were sometimes apt to hector 
 foreign courts, and to become more Palmerstonian than 
 Palmerston himself. There was, in fact, a good deal of 
 unnecessary friction connected with our relations with 
 theGreatPowers during this period, for which the Foreign 
 Secretary was partly to blame. Though an indefatigable 
 worker, to the extent of denying himself all social 
 pleasures during the Session of Parliament, he seems 
 to have been somewhat deficient in method. Important 
 despatches remained unanswered for weeks, much to the 
 annoyance of foreign statesmen; in his anxiety to prove 
 himself in the right, he sometimes overstated his case 
 and made reconciliation difficult. He was also in- 
 discreet, and some of the private letters accompanying 
 his despatches are written in a very slapdash and incon- 
 siderate manner. Lord Beau vale, it is said, seldom 
 paid any attention to them, but acted solely on his 
 public instructions. A most characteristic instance of 
 his gratuitous flippancy is preserved in the memoirs of 
 Metternich. In 1834, when William IV. dismissed 
 Lord Melbourne's first Ministry, the Foreign Secretary 
 sent a brief notice of the change of Ministry to the 
 Viennese embassy, with the following P.S. : — " Take 
 this note, without loss of time, to Prince Metternich. I 
 aru certain that he will never have been more delighted 
 in his life than when he reads it, and that I shall never 
 
 3 * 
 
36 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 have been so popular with him as on my departure from 
 office." No wonder that the Austrian Minister was of 
 opinion that the English Foreign Secretary's character 
 was " hateful and inexplicable." 
 
 But his genial presence as a rule disarmed resent- 
 ment, and if he was unpopular with the continental 
 courts, he was personally esteemed by the Corps Diplo- 
 matique. They all bore witness to his high character 
 as a man ; and of his general qualifications for the 
 management of foreign affairs, a most favourable esti- 
 mate is to be found even in the memoirs of Count Beust, 
 who had no occasion to love him. The creator of the 
 Dual Monarchy says that " by his easy and attractive, 
 yet very dignified manners, by his knowledge of foreign 
 countries and languages, by his keen sympathy with the 
 national currents which influence the intercourse of 
 England with other Powers, Palmerston was the very 
 ideal of a Foreign Minister." 
 
 As might be expected, Lord Palmerston had no cut- 
 and-dried system of policy. Of course, he had far too 
 much common sense not to be throughout his life a 
 firm believer in the doctrine of balance of power. As 
 he remarked in the last great speech which he ever 
 delivered on foreign affairs — 
 
 We are told that the balance of power is an exploded doctrine 
 belonging to ancient times. Why, it is a doctrine founded on the 
 nature of man. It means that it is to the interest of the community of 
 nations that no one seetion should acquire such a preponderance as to 
 endanger the security of the rest ; and it is for the advantage of all 
 that the smaller Powers should be respected in their independence 
 and not swallowed up by their more powerful neighbours. 
 
 And at the outset of his career, to maintain the balance 
 he saw, indeed, the value of the entente cordiale with 
 Orleanist France, and would have liked, if possible, to 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 37 
 
 make it the basis of an alliance including constitu- 
 tionally-governed Portugal and Spain, and directed 
 against the Absolutist Powers, Prussia, Russia, and 
 Austria. Baron Stockmar was quite right when he- 
 wrote that a fundamental principle of Lord Palmerston's 
 policy was never to employ England's political influ- 
 ence in foreign countries for the oppression of the 
 governed by the Government.* Still British interests 
 were with him supreme, and the moment they clashed 
 with the French course of action he threw Louis 
 Philippe and his ministers overboard without the 
 smallest scruple, and entered into new combinations. 
 The firm was to be England and France, not France 
 and England. Perhaps^ the best description of the 
 Palmerstonian ideal of foreign policy is to be found 
 in a speech which he made in 1848, in answer to one 
 of Mr. Urquhart's attacks : — 
 
 As long as [England] sympathises with right and justice, she will 
 never find herself alone. She is sure to find some other State of 
 sufficient power, influence, and weight to support and aid her in the 
 course she may think fit to pursue. Therefore, I say that it is a 
 narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is marked out as 
 the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no 
 eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests 
 are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. 
 And if I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle 
 which I think ought to guide an English minister, I would adopt the 
 expression of Canning, and say that with every British minister the 
 interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of policy. 
 
 In other words, while ardently sympathising with 
 constitutionalism — or, as Prince Metternich called it, 
 the revolutionary principle, — he allowed for the working 
 of chance in human affairs, and cared little for consis- 
 tency in comparison with success, for means in com- 
 
 * Stocknaar's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 364 (English translation). 
 
38 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 parison with ends. That may not be the highest 
 ideal of statesmanship, hut is the only statesmanship 
 which has accomplished great things for nations. By 
 it Cavour freed Italy, and Bismarck united Germany. 
 All such men are necessarily Opportunists, as it is now 
 the fashion to call the type ; they claim to be judged 
 only by results, by poising the gains against the losses*. 
 It would probably be extremely difficult to make out 
 from Lord Palmerston's despatches and public utterances 
 any more definite system of action than an inflexible 
 determination that his country should get the better of 
 whatever struggle she might happen to have encoun- 
 tered or provoked. He loved her ardently, and believed 
 in his fellow Englishmen as firmly as his fellow 
 Englishmen believed in him. To serve what he 
 honestly believed to be their interests, he was at one 
 time an ally of France, at another of Kussia; he 
 abetted the revolution in Italy, he discouraged it in 
 Hungary. The truth would appear to be that rigid 
 systems are incompatible with creative Foreign States- 
 manship, which has to build with whatever materials 
 it may find to hand ; it is not by systems that a working 
 alliance between Eussia and the Porte can be kept 
 together, as Lord Palmerston kept it together in 
 1840. They can be adopted by financiers, by re- 
 formers of national codes, but not by diplomatists, 
 who frequently have to act under conditions in which 
 unknown plays the major part, and when they have to trust 
 entirely to the impulse of the moment. Metternich is a 
 good example of a Foreign Minister who set a fixed course 
 of action before him ; he outlived the time when pure 
 Conservatism was a benefit to Europe, and was doomed 
 to see his own intellectual bankruptcy, and the almost 
 complete overthrow of his country under the stress ot 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 39 
 
 reaction. Against him stood Palmerston — except during 
 the truce between them created by the Syrian question 
 — in the double capacity of the representative of the 
 greatest of the constitutional Powers and of a man per- 
 sonally disposed to anticipate revolution by reform. 
 The contest between the two men was one of principle, 
 and never extended to the battle-field ; but it was none 
 the less acute. It terminated, as far as Metternich was 
 concerned, with the revolution of 1848 ; but he left to 
 his successors in the direction of Austrian and German 
 politics a legacy of somewhat unreasonable Anglophobia, 
 which pursued Lord Palmerston to the end of his life, 
 and was doubtless in part the cause of his failure to 
 bring the Schleswig-Holstein question to a successful 
 issue. But on the whole Lord Palmerston may be 
 considered to have triumphed completely over his 
 great rival for the leadership of European politics ; 
 though less perhaps in the creation of independent 
 Belgium, than in the constitutionalizing of Spain and 
 Portugal, for to the first the Austriau Chancellor en- 
 tertained no deep-rooted objection. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's foreign policy found its best 
 expression, from the humanitarian point of view, in his 
 efforts to suppress the slave trade ; and from the prac- 
 tical, in the numerous commercial treaties concluded 
 while he was Foreign Secretary. The chief objections 
 to it were, as the statesmen of the Cobden school 
 pointed out with vigorous logic during the later part 
 of his career, that by continually keeping England on 
 the brink of war, it necessitated huge armaments 
 and a heavy burden of taxation. To which Pal- 
 merston would have replied that war was more likely 
 to be avoided by a bold than by a timid policy, and that 
 large armaments were a necessity in any case, considering 
 
40 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 
 
 that British interests were world-wide, and the huge 
 Empire extremely vulnerable. On the latter point he 
 once pointed out, in a remarkable letter to Mr. Glad- 
 stone, that — 
 
 We have on the other side of the Channel a people who, say what 
 they may, hate us as a nation from the bottom of their hearts, and 
 would make any sacrifice to inflict a deep humiliation on England. 
 It is natural that this should be. They are eminently vain, and their 
 passion is glory in war. They cannot forget or forgive Aboukir, 
 Trafalgar, the Peninstila, Waterloo, and St. Helena. . . . Give 
 [the rulers of France] a cause of quarrel, which any foreign Power 
 niay at anytime invent or create, if so minded: give him the command 
 of the Channel, which personal or accidental naval superiority might 
 afford him, and then calculate if you can— for it would pass my 
 reckoning power to do so — the disastrous consequences to the British 
 nation which a landing of an army of from one to two hundred 
 thousand men would bring with it. Surely even a large yearly 
 expenditure for army and navy is an economical insurance against 
 such a catastrophe. 
 
 The passage was written under somewhat abnormal 
 circumstances, when France was " spoiling for a fight," 
 as the Irish say, and it seemed to be quite uncertain 
 with which of her neighbours she proposed to pick a 
 quarrel. But it is capable of general application as 
 well; and, mutatis mutandis, embodies Lord Palmer- 
 ston's views of the true attitude to be adopted towards 
 Eussia, the other Power with whom England is inevit- 
 ably at variance in nine European crises out of ten, 
 and whose inevitable advance towards the frontier of 
 India he foretold as far back as 1847. 
 
 Even those who object to his policy on the ground of 
 its expensiveness, must be willing to acknowledge its 
 honesty and success. He, quite as much as Prince Bis- 
 marck, was a believer in the principle of do ut des, and 
 he had little confidence in sentiment as a permanent bond 
 of union between nation and nation. Les peuples n'ont 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 41 
 
 pas des cousins, was one of his favourite maxims ; he held 
 that hope and fear were the mainsprings of diplomatic 
 action, not a Utopian belief in the perfectibility of the 
 species, that arguments of the prophet and the divine 
 were out of place in despatches addressed to Metternich 
 or Nesselrode. As to its success, it is enough to re- 
 mark, without discussing " might-have-beens," that as 
 long as Lord Palmerston directed foreign affairs, either 
 as Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister, England 
 avoided war, and played a prominent and creditable 
 part in nearly every crisis. There was something in 
 that, whatever the Cobdenites might say. 
 
 In his latter days Lord Palmerston was accustomed 
 to say that of all his achievements, the one of which he 
 was most proud, was his treaty with Brazil for the sup- 
 pression of the slave-trade. But the suppression of 
 Brazilian slavery must have come sooner or later, and it 
 is to independent Belgium that we must look for the 
 most conspicuous and artistic monument of his diplo- 
 matic genius. The revolt of Belgium from Holland, 
 which had taken place during the last days of the 
 Wellington ministry, was obviously completely destruc- 
 tive of one of the most carefully planned of the arrange- 
 ments of 1815. It was the object of the statesmen 
 assembled at Vienna, as it had been the object of Mr. 
 Pitt before them, to create a strong monarchy on the 
 northern frontier of France, as a barrier to French 
 aggression. Belgium and Holland were therefore 
 united under the sovereignty of the House of Orange, 
 and an impregnable line of fortresses was constructed 
 along the southern frontier of the kingdom of the 
 Netherlands, at the cost of the Allies, and under the 
 superintendence of Wellington. Unfortunately the 
 union proved one of hands, not of hearts. The Belgians 
 
42 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 found themselves deprived of their just share of office 
 and representation, and saddled with more than their 
 fair share of debt ; they were compelled to use the Dutch 
 language in their courts of law, and were forced to 
 submit to the systematic appointment of Protestant 
 teachers in their seminaries. Always full of sympathy 
 for French ideas, they naturally found in the July 
 Eevolution of 1830, an example that must be followed 
 immediately and at all hazards. On the 28th of August, 
 Brussels, inspired by the patriotic strains of Massaniello, 
 rose in revolt, and the example of the capital was 
 speedily followed by the provinces. 
 
 Fortunately for Belgium, the autocratic Powers were 
 too busily employed in making head against the Revolu- 
 tion at home to be able to send troops to the assistance 
 of the Dutch Government. The creators of the revolu- 
 tion seem, indeed, to have chosen the moment for action 
 with extraordinary skill, for so weak were the northern 
 Powers, that we find Lord Palmerston writing to Lord 
 Granville that they would have great difficulty in 
 bringing into the field a force at all adequate to make 
 an attack on France ; a statement which is of some im- 
 portance in forming an estimate of the wisdom of the 
 policy of balancing Western constitutionalism against 
 Northern autocracy. Lord Aberdeen, though he dis- 
 approved of the revolution, bore too much good sense 
 to give an affirmative answer to the appeal of the King 
 of the Netherlands. Instead, he hurried on the meeting 
 of the Conference, which had been summoned to London 
 at the instance of the King, and the representatives of 
 the Powers promptly concluded an armistice between the 
 belligerents. It was at this stage of the negotiations 
 that Palmerston replaced Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, 
 and began his great career as Foreign Minister of 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 43 
 
 England. The independence of Belgium, which hung 
 doubtfully in the balance while Lord Aberdeen was at 
 the Foreign Office, was now, in some form or other, 
 assured. 
 
 Though breathing-time had been gained, the situation 
 was evidently full of difficulty. There was a strong war 
 party in the French Chambers, anxious to send armed 
 assistance to their Belgian neighbours, and looking for 
 their reward in the destruction of the barrier fortresses, 
 and a considerable rectification of the French frontier, if 
 not in the absolute annexation of Belgium to France. 
 There was also a possibility that Louis Philippe, wishing 
 to secure popularity for his new dynasty, would play into 
 the hands of that party, even at the risk of war with 
 England. Fortunately, however, the King of the French 
 had too much common-sense, and Talleyrand, his 
 minister at London, held so firmly to the view that a 
 good understanding with England was a vital necessity 
 for the Orleanist monarchy, that he was ready to dis- 
 obey his instructions rather than cause a serious rupture. 
 With moderation in the ascendant on the French side, 
 Palmerston had little difficulty in gaining the consent 
 of the Conference to a principle of separation under 
 which the Powers declared that Belgium should form a. 
 perpetually neutral state, and guaranteed its integrity 
 and inviolability. This important declaration was ac- 
 companied by another, that the Powers in these arrange- 
 ments would seek no augmentation of territory. It was 
 not without considerable difficulty that the English 
 minister succeeded in obtaining Talleyrand's consent to 
 the latter stipulation. The Duchy of Luxemburg had 
 taken part in the rebellion against the King of Holland, 
 but, though he was its ruler, it belonged not to Holland 
 but to the German Confederation. Palmerston's idea 
 
44 LIFE OF VISGOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 was that if the King of Holland would cede Luxemburg 
 to Belgium, the Belgians might consent to place his 
 eldest son, the Prince of Orange, on their throne. Talley- 
 rand's solution of the difficulty was that Luxemburg 
 should be handed over to France, as the French frontier 
 was very weak on that side ; and if this were impossible, 
 that France should at least receive the towns of Marien- 
 burg and Philippeville. Palmerston thereupon gave him 
 a lecture on the impossibility of a continuation of the 
 entente cordiale if France intended to aim at territorial 
 acquisitions ; and by the Eighteen Articles, signed by 
 the members of the Conference on January 27th, 1831, 
 it was decided that Luxemburg should remain part of 
 the German Confederation. These articles, which 
 assigned to Holland the limits which she possessed 
 in 1790, were accepted by the Dutch Plenipotentiaries. 
 The Belgians, however, who had taken the bit between 
 their teeth, declined to accept the Eighteen Articles, 
 their chief grievance being that they were assigned an 
 excessive share of the divided debt of the kingdom of 
 the Netherlands. They proceeded further to assert 
 their independence by electing a sovereign, and, with the 
 obvious design of playing off France against the other 
 Powers, they chose for their King the Due de Nemours, 
 the second son of Louis Philippe. The French King's 
 well-known instincts as pere de famille were at once 
 brought into full play, and a grave crisis began which 
 extended over several weeks. Nothing could have been 
 firmer than Palmerston's conduct. He informed Talley- 
 rand that the acceptance of the Belgian crown by 
 Nemours, would be looked upon as a union between 
 Belgium and France, and would be made at the risk of 
 war with England ; he persuaded the Conference to sign 
 & self-denying ordinance by which they pledged them- 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 45 
 
 selves to reject a prince who should be chosen from the 
 reigning families of the five Powers. Louis Philippe 
 gave way for the moment, and informed the Belgian 
 deputation that his regard for the peace of Europe 
 rendered it imperative for him to decline the proffered 
 honour; but the Parisians were wildly excited, the 
 French Government began military preparations on a 
 large scale, and Count Sebastiani, the Foreign Secretary, 
 let fall a remark about France being the dupe of England, 
 which nearly set Europe ablaze. 
 
 It was unlikely that Lord Palmerston would put up 
 with language of the sort. " Pray take care/' he wrote to 
 Lord Granville, our Minister at Paris, " in all your con- 
 versation with Sebastiani, to make him understand that 
 our desire for peace will never lead us to submit to an 
 affront either in language or in act " ; and in a private 
 letter to Lord Granville, sent through the French Foreign 
 Office,* where it was opened and read as a matter of 
 course, Sebastiani was informed that " we are not used 
 to be accused of making people dupes." 
 
 The resolute language had excellent effect, and the 
 crisis passed off. Sebastiani lowered his tone, Talleyrand 
 was unceasing in his pacific efforts, and a political 
 change in France placed at the head of the French 
 Ministry a resolute friend of peace in the person of 
 Casimir Perier ; Sebastiani, however, retaining the post 
 of Foreign Minister. Palmerston was delighted with 
 the altered aspect of affairs, and Perier on his side, 
 after throwing out a hint that France would like the 
 Duchy of Bouillon, directed Talleyrand to accept 
 without qualifications the " bases of separation," as the 
 Eighteen Articles were called. Further, the Belgians 
 
 * According to Lord Dalling, this is a not uncommon method of 
 giving a very strong hint. 
 
46 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 were informed that if they refused to accept the bases 
 of separation by the 1st of June the five Powers would 
 at once break off diplomatic relations. 
 
 The Belgians failed to accept the bases of separation, 
 and diplomatic relations were suspended. People 
 thought they were mad, but Palmerston observed a good 
 deal of method and calculation in their madness. The 
 probable explanation of their proceedings is that, con- 
 fident of the support of either England or France, or 
 possibly of both, they saw that everything was to be 
 gained by playing a bold game. The next step taken 
 by them was at any rate greatly to their credit; of 
 the candidates for the crown that were still available 
 they chose the most suitable, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 
 the widowed husband of the Princess Charlotte of 
 England, and the Prince who had with remarkable 
 prudence rejected the unstable throne of Greece. He 
 was elected with the understanding that he should 
 marry the daughter of Louis Philippe. The wisdom 
 of their choice of a candidate likely to propitiate both 
 England and France became further evident when 
 Leopold declined to accept the crown until the Belgians 
 had accepted the bases of separation, and thereby forced 
 the Powers to reconsider their ultimatum. Concessions 
 were made ; Luxemburg, instead of being definitely as- 
 signed to Holland, was to be made the subject of ulterior 
 negotiation ; so also was the town of Maestricht ; the 
 debt was to be divided into fairer proportions. These 
 resolutions were embodied in a fresh set of eighteen 
 articles, accepted by the Belgian Parliament, and Leo- 
 pold became King of the Belgians. 
 
 The commencement of his reign was not propitious. 
 As Belgium had refused to accept the bases of separa- 
 tion, so did the Dutch reject their modification. The 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 47 
 
 King of Holland resolved to follow up this determination 
 by a bold stroke ; he declared the armistice to be at an 
 end, and despatched an army of 50,000 men to the 
 frontier. Thereupon began a fresh crisis of considerable 
 acuteness. Without consulting the Allies, Louis Philippe 
 sent a force to the assistance of the Belgians under 
 Marshal Gerard, and it was only by the exercise of the 
 utmost promptitude that Sir Robert Adair, the English 
 ambassador, prevented the outbreak of hostilities which 
 could hardly have failed to resolve themselves eventu- 
 ally into a European war. 
 
 Even though the situation was saved for the moment, 
 there appeared for the second time during the negotia- 
 tions an imminent possibility of war between England 
 and France. Marshal Gerard was in possession, and 
 the French Government declared that he could not 
 possibly be withdrawn without a quid pro quo. While 
 Perier was plausibly explaining to Lord Granville that 
 the departure of the French troops would be followed 
 by the overthrow of his ministry, unless some salve was 
 offered to the vanity of his countrymen ; Talleyrand was 
 hinting at the partition of Belgium between France, 
 Prussia, and Holland ; while Sebastiani, braggart to the 
 last, though consenting to withdraw 20,000 men from 
 Belgium, stated that a decision must be taken on the 
 destiny of the frontier fortresses before the French 
 army would entirely evacuate the country. Lord Palmer- 
 ston's reply was decided in the extreme. He pointed out 
 to Lord Granville that " the only value to England of 
 Perier and his Cabinet was that they were believed to be 
 lovers of peace, and observers of treaties ; but if they 
 were to be merely puppets, put up to play the part cast 
 for them by the violent party, what was it to England 
 whether they stood or fell ? " To Sebastiani it was 
 
48 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 explained that the French pretensions with regard to the 
 fortresses were utterly inadmissible. They had been 
 built by the Allies at a great cost and as a barrier 
 against French aggression, and it was therefore im- 
 possible to make France a party to the treaty for their 
 demolition. To dismantle them while the French had 
 them in possession would be a disgrace to the five 
 Powers. At the same time Palmerston promised, that 
 if the French would withdraw, the Powers would lose 
 no time in beginning the discussion with Leopold for 
 the purpose of selecting the fortresses to be dismantled. 
 The weakest point in Palmerston's position was that 
 Leopold was anxious that a portion of the French troops 
 should remain for his protection, but by the conclusion 
 of a six weeks' armistice between Holland and Belgium, 
 the Foreign Secretary was able to obviate any objections 
 that might be raised either by the French or Belgian 
 Governments against the departure of Gerard. His 
 mingled conciliation and firmness gained the day, and on 
 the 15th of September, Talleyrand told the Plenipoten- 
 tiaries that all the French troops would be immediately 
 withdrawn from Belgium. 
 
 Though the obstinacy of the Dutch King delayed the 
 final establishment of Belgian independence, there was 
 no longer any danger of a rupture between England 
 and France, and the rapprochement between the two 
 Powers greatly facilitated the last stages of the negotia- 
 tions. A fresh set of conditions, known as the Twenty- 
 four Articles, were agreed upon by the Conference on 
 the 14th of October, and, on the 15th of the following 
 month, embodied in a formal treaty which the Powers 
 were to enforce upon Holland and Belgium, if either of 
 them refused to accept it. As might be expected, the 
 conduct of the Dutch King had not strengthened his 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 49 
 
 cause. He was now required to surrender part of 
 Luxemburg in exchange for a portion of Limburg, to 
 give the Belgians a free passage through Maestricht and 
 the free navigation of the Scheldt. It was in vain that 
 during the following year Holland attempted to detach 
 first Prussia and then Russia from the European concert ; 
 Prussia was afraid to act alone, and Russia was bound 
 to Britain by pecuniary ties, which Palmerston seized 
 the first opportunity to renew. At the same time he 
 made one more effort to smooth away difficulties, and 
 his Theme, as the document was called in which he 
 attempted a final compromise between the rival Govern- 
 ments, is one of the finest examples that the State 
 Papers can furnish of his power of manipulating the 
 minutiae of diplomacy. Its ungracious rejection by 
 the Dutch Plenipotentiaries placed them completely in 
 the wrong, and enabled the Western Powers to resort 
 to immediate coercion. In September, 1832, Talley- 
 rand and Palmerston had exhausted their stock of 
 patience, and, unsupported by the representatives of the 
 other Powers, who withdrew from the Conference, they 
 decided that the time for action had come. The King 
 of Holland was informed that if the Dutch would not 
 retire from the citadel of Antwerp before the 12th of 
 November, force would be employed. With commend- 
 able punctuality a French army corps under Gerard 
 marched on Antwerp, while an English fleet blocked the 
 Scheldt. After a bombardment, the citadel surrendered 
 on the 23rd of December; and though the King of 
 Holland declined to recognise the kingdom of Belgium 
 until seven years later, its existence was none the less 
 an assured fact. 
 
 The verdict of posterity has recognised that the crea- 
 tion of a free Belgium was almost exclusivelv the work 
 
 4 
 
50 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 of Palmerston, and has reckoned it as perhaps the 
 greatest of his many great achievements. To the people 
 of his generation it did not appear in quite so satisfac- 
 tory a light. It seemed to them that the employment 
 of force robbed the arrangement of much of its credit. 
 The spectacle of two powerful nations combining to coerce 
 a weak people is seldom calculated to provoke enthu- 
 siasm, and it was remembered that if the Dutch had 
 been left to themselves they would have beaten the Bel- 
 gians out of the field. Lord Palmerston, in a speech 
 made on Feb. 18th, 1833, justly complained that 
 
 He had been ridiculed on all hands, and held up to the derision of 
 that House and that of the country ; but the country was too en- 
 lightened to ridicule him for endeavouring to preserve peace by 
 protocols, as it had been called. The hon. member for Essex had 
 talked contemptuously of his hammering out protocols ; he found 
 fault with the Ministers' adherence to pacific counsels ; and he was 
 no less displeased, it appeared, with the departure from them in the 
 case of the attack on Antwerp. Whether they attempted to pre- 
 serve the peace of Europe, so much endangered by the quarrel of 
 the Dutch and Belgians —whether they endeavoured to preserve peace 
 by persuasion or by force, the course which they thought it advisable 
 to pursue was equally distasteful to these hon. gentlemen. He 
 trusted, however, that the House and the people would better appre- 
 ciate their endeavours to prevent a war in Europe, and the conflict of 
 political principles which would inevitably have arisen if such a war 
 had taken place. 
 
 Moreover, of the coercing Powers, France had 
 taken the more brilliant share in the combined ope- 
 rations ; and the memories of Waterloo were too recent 
 for the more hot-headed of Englishmen, among whom 
 might be reckoned King William, to be able to con- 
 template with equanimity the spectacle of England 
 putting up with the second place when France had the 
 first; indeed, they would barely contemplate the idea 
 
BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 51 
 
 of an Anglo-French alliance at all.* These vapour- 
 ings found, however, but little voice in the House of 
 Commons, where an attack on Palmerston's treatment 
 of the Dutch, which was made on the motion of Sir 
 Robert Peel, collapsed completely. 
 
 The wise government of King Leopold completed the 
 stability of the edifice which Palmerston had set up, 
 " his experimental little Belgian monarchy," as it was 
 called at the time ; and when the year 1848 witnessed 
 a second opening of the flood-gates of revolution, Bel- 
 gium was one of the very few of the monarchies of 
 Europe which was not temporarily submerged. Under 
 the prudent rule of Leopold's son, the arrangement has 
 held good down to our day, but its existence appears to 
 be imperilled now that the nation chiefly interested in 
 its continuance is inferior in military strength to those 
 which might be disposed to its violation. This much 
 must be said of Lord Palmerston's creation, even by 
 the most hostile critic : that it was in accordance with 
 justice, that it was in accordance with expediency, and 
 that it has stood thus far the test of time. 
 
 * This feeling found expression in " H. B.'s " cartoons, in one of 
 ■which Lord Palmerston is depicted as a blind man led by the French 
 poodle Talleyrand to the brink of a precipice. 
 
52 LIFF OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE QUADEUPLE ALLIANCE. 
 
 1830-1838. 
 
 Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland — Tyranny of Dom 
 Miguel in Portugal — Satisfaction obtained by England and France 
 — Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal — He is aided by English Vo- 
 lunteers — Death of Ferdinand of Spain — Combination of the two 
 Pretenders — The Quadruple Treaty — Its immediate success — 
 Coolness between England and France — Its effect on Spanish 
 politics — The Spanish Legion — End of the Carlist war. 
 
 During the first years of his reign at the^ Foreign 
 Office the affairs of Belgium appear to have absorbed 
 Palmerston's attention almost entirely. He played only 
 a subordinate part in the negotiations which seemed for 
 the time being to have brought the Greek troubles to a 
 close, when in February 1833 Prince Otho of Bavaria 
 was sent by the Powers to rule over the Hellenes, with a 
 guaranteed loan and a considerably better frontier than 
 that which had been offered to Leopold of Saxe- 
 Coburg. His comments, however, show a just appre- 
 ciation of the worth of the settlement ; the new 
 frontier was " beautiful," but he saw that the choice of 
 a youth of eighteen to govern the distracted kingdom 
 was to be deplored. In a similar spirit he contented 
 himself with a mere expression of adverse opinion 
 
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 53 
 
 when Austria proposed to tighten her hold on Italy 
 through the device of a confederation under her pro- 
 tection, and wheu Metternich endeavoured to persuade 
 the Diet of Frankfort to compel the minor potentates 
 of Germany to abrogate the free constitutions which 
 had been granted under stress of popular discontent. 
 With regard to the rebellion in Poland, he maintained 
 an attitude of almost ostentatious indifference, taking 
 his stand on the ground that the Treaty of Vienna must 
 be maintained. This appeal to a treaty which he was 
 doing his best to convert into a dead letter, as far as 
 Belgium was concerned, had in it not a little inconsis- 
 tency ; the real fact was that the British Government 
 had no ships to send into the Baltic, and was too pru- 
 dent to threaten intervention, even in concert with 
 France, when unable to follow up its words by deeds. 
 * l God is too high," runs a Polish proverb, " and 
 Poland too far." The Foreign Secretary ventured, in- 
 deed, when the gallant resistance of the Poles had been 
 finally crushed, to try to obtain a little relaxation of 
 their punishment, by appealing again to the Viennese 
 compact. Under that treaty it had been declared that 
 Poland should be attached to Kussia by its constitution. 
 It was fair, therefore, urged Palmerston, to consider that 
 the Polish constitution existed under the sanction of the 
 treaty. "Not in the least," was the upshot of the curt 
 reply of the Kussian minister, Count Nesselrode, " the 
 constitution was not at all a consequence of the treaty, 
 but a spontaneous act of the sovereign power of the 
 Czar ; it had been annulled by the fact of the rebel- 
 lion." After a final remonstrance, sent through Lord 
 Durham, who was then on a special mission to St. 
 Petersburg, Palmerston ceased to press for better terms 
 for the conquered race. It is difficult to see what more 
 
54 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 he could have done, and the most bitter of critics must 
 acknowledge that his action was at any rate straight- 
 forward. He did not, as did the French ministry, 
 encourage the Poles during the brief hour of their 
 success, and desert them in their despair. 
 
 While defending his Polish policy in a somewhat 
 angry House of Commons, Palmerston pointed out that 
 no effectual aid could be given to the insurgents with- 
 out involving Europe in a general war, in which the Poles 
 would have been crushed by the joint forces of Russia, 
 Prussia, and Austria, long before aid could reach them 
 from the west. There was, however, a quarter of 
 Europe where English intervention could be employed 
 with effect, and upon it Palmerston, the Belgian affair 
 being practically settled, proceeded to focus his atten- 
 tion, waiting for an opportunity to strike. This was the 
 Peninsula, where anarchy was rapidly gaining the upper 
 hand, with the usual results that foreigners were being 
 maltreated, and satisfaction was difficult to obtain. 
 In Portugal, Dom Miguel had rapidly become unen- 
 durable. His officers imprisoned and ill-treated British 
 subjects, and his captains seized British vessels. At 
 first, what Palmerston termed " a peremptory demand 
 for immediate and full redress," was sufficient. The 
 offending officials and captains were dismissed, and full 
 compensation was paid to the victims of Miguel's tyranny 
 and inefficiency. When, however, the French Govern- 
 ment made similar demands, Miguel had the effrontery to 
 ask for English protection, land to refer the French to Eng- 
 land for satisfaction. Though Lord Palmerston sternly 
 informed him that the British Government was not 
 bound by its treaties with Portugal to " blindly take up 
 a quarrel into which a Portuguese administration might, 
 by its infatuation, plunge its country," he remained firm 
 
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 55 
 
 in his obstinacy, with the result that a French squadron 
 was despatched to the Tagus, which captured his ves- 
 sels one by one, and finally took the whole of the 
 Portuguese fleet without firing a shot. 
 
 The Tory party, as usual, was highly indignant at 
 these French successes, but, as Palmerston subsequently 
 pointed out, it would have been absurd for England to 
 exact reparation on her own account, and at the same 
 time to prevent France, on her side, from obtaining 
 redress. And the value of the good understanding with 
 France became even more clearly evident when, on the 
 arrival of Dom Pedro of Brazil in Europe to support 
 the forlorn fortunes of his daughter, Dom Miguel had 
 recourse to a fresh reign of terror, which filled the 
 Lisbon gaols with more than a thousand additional 
 victims. Of course, Englishmen and Frenchmen were 
 soon involved in this wholesale persecution, and Eng- 
 lish naval officers were beaten in the streets of Lisbon. 
 Acting in concert with his French colleague, Captain 
 Markland, the commander of the British squadron in the 
 Tagus, immediately sent ships up the river to protect 
 British residents, and Palmerston, thoroughly endorsing 
 his conduct, sent two men-of-war to his support. During 
 the civil war which followed it was, as Peel pointed out 
 in a spirit of censure, the " actual assistance of France 
 and the countenance of Britain," which enabled the 
 cause of Dom Pedro to hold its own, and ultimately to 
 prevail. Vessels were fitted out in French and English 
 ports without any opposition from the authorities ; there 
 was a large contingent of English volunteers in the 
 army with which Pedro entered Oporto ; it was an Eng- 
 lishman, Captain Charles Napier, who commanded his 
 fleet when, on July 2nd, 1833, it annihilated Miguel's 
 navy off Cape St. Vincent, " to the great delight," wrote 
 
56 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 
 
 Greville, " of the Whigs, and equal mortification of the 
 Tories. 5 ' A month before the Duke of Wellington had 
 carried, in a sense condemnatory of the Government, an 
 address in the House of Lords in favour of a policy of 
 neutrality, which was met in the House of Commons by 
 a resolution approving Palmerston's conduct of affairs. 
 Speaking to the nation, Palmerston, as in duty bound, 
 contended, with some plausibility, that the British 
 Government had acted with perfect good faith to both of 
 the belligerent parties. His supporters made little 
 attempt to conceal their satisfaction at the wholesale 
 breaches of the Foreign Enlistment Act committed by 
 English volunteers when they joined Donna Maria's 
 army and saved constitutionalism in Portugal. 
 
 For the moment it seemed as if Napier's victory had 
 ruined Dom Miguel's fortunes, but when all seemed lost 
 his cause received considerable reinforcement through 
 the raising of the Carlist banner in Spain. On the 
 29th of September 1833, Ferdinand VII., the most 
 worthless of an indifferent race, died, leaving behind 
 him two little daughters by his fourth wife, Christina, 
 whom on his death-bed he had appointed Regent. Upon 
 Spain was immediately inflicted a succession question 
 precisely similar to that which was ruining Portugal. 
 By the Pragmatic Sanction, or edict, of 1713, the suc- 
 cession of females had been limited, through a modifi- 
 cation of the Salic law, to cases in which there was no 
 direct or collateral male issue, and during the earlier 
 years of Ferdinand's reign the heir to the throne had 
 been his brother Don Carlos, in whom were centred the 
 hopes of the Ultra- Absolutists and Clericalists. Shortly 
 after his fourth marriage, however, Ferdinand issued a 
 new Pragmatic Sanction repealing that of 1713, and 
 restoring the old Castilian custom under which females 
 
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 57 
 
 could inherit, and to this arrangement he adhered 
 during the last year of his life. In Spain, therefore, as 
 in Portugal, an uncle representing the Absolutist cause 
 was opposed to a niece whose friends, whether they 
 wished it or not, were forced to become Constitutional- 
 ists. At the time of Ferdinand's death, Carlos was 
 with Miguel at Evora, and it was probable that if he 
 were to make a dash for the throne, he would meet with 
 but feeble resistance. 
 
 The moral support of England and France, implied 
 in their prompt recognition of the child-queen Isabella, 
 saved her throne for the moment, but it was evident that 
 a mere declaration of sympathy was not enough. A deci- 
 sive blow must be dealt at both the Pretenders; and Lord 
 Palmerston so contrived it that, as he wrote to his 
 brother, not only did it " settle Portugal, and go some 
 way to settle Spain also, but, what is of more permanent 
 and extensive importance, it establishes an . . . alliance 
 among the constitutional States of the West which will 
 serve as a powerful counterpoise to the Holy Alliance 
 of the East." Like all strokes of genius, the proceed- 
 ing was extremely simple. On the 22nd of April 1834, 
 a Quadruple Treaty was signed by England, France, 
 Spain, and Portugal, by which the four Powers bound 
 themselves to compel Carlos and Miguel to withdraw 
 from the Peninsula. 
 
 I carried it through the Cabinet by a coup de main [wrote Palmer- 
 ston to his brother, with a chuckle] taking them by surprise 
 and not leaving them time to make objection. I was not equally suc- 
 cessful with old Talley and the French Government, for they have 
 objections in plenty. But they were all as to the form in which I 
 had proposed to make them parties to the transaction [i.e., that 
 France should give her consent to an arrangement previously con- 
 cluded between England, Spain, and Portugal], not to the thing 
 itself. 
 
58 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Palmers ton's triumph was immediate and apparently 
 complete. Metternich was much annoyed, and would 
 certainly have interposed on behalf of Don Carlos if 
 Palmerston had not taken the initiative. " Isabella," he 
 wrote to the Austrian minister at Paris, " is the Revolu- 
 tion incarnate in its most dangerous form ; Don Carlos 
 represents the monarchical principle hand to hand with 
 pure revolution." But the instant collapse of the Pre- 
 tenders left him no excuse for intervention. Miguel 
 threw up the game and went to Genoa, Carlos to 
 London. 
 
 Nothing [writes Palmerston on June 27] ever went so well as the 
 Quadruple Treaty. It has ended a war which might otherwise have 
 lasted months. Miguel, when he surrendered, had with him from 
 twelve to sixteen thousand men, with whom he could have marched 
 into Spain, forty-five pieces of artillery, and twelve hundred cavalry. 
 Had he dashed into Spain, and taken Carlos with him, there was only 
 Kodil with ten thousand men between him and Madrid, and part of 
 Rodil's army was suspected of Carlism. But the moral effect of the 
 treaty cowed them all — generals, officers, and men; and that army 
 surrendered without firing a shot. 
 
 " The cause of Carlos/' continued Palmerston, " is 
 desperate "; but there he made a mistake. Carlos re- 
 appeared in Spain, and his arms, though confined to the 
 northern provinces, were there, thanks to the abilities 
 and ferocity of bis general Zumalacarregui, uniformly 
 successful. The Isabellists were unfortunate in their 
 chief; for Christina, though a woman of great ability, 
 was wholly ignorant of government, and much addicted 
 to gallantry. But, worst of all, Constitutionalism in 
 Spain proved to be a plant of sickly growth ; the forms 
 of party government were there, a ministry and an 
 opposition, Moderados and Progress. but the spirit 
 was wanting; there were no fixed principles, no political 
 creeds, nothing but envy, strife, division, and a struggle 
 
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANGE. 59 
 
 for the loaves and fishes of office. These evils were 
 intensified by the growing want of cordiality between 
 France and England ; for when the British minister at 
 Madrid gave advice to a Progressist premier, it was an 
 effective counterblow for the representative of France to 
 promise moral support to the Moderado leader of the 
 Opposition. 
 
 It was in 1835, after the Whigs had returned to office 
 under Melbourne, that the entente cordiale between 
 England and France, which had won Belgium its 
 liberty and saved Portugal from Miguel, began to wane 
 and perish until, to anticipate a saying of Palmerston's 
 at the time of the Spanish marriages, there was neither 
 entente nor cordialite. This unfortunate coolness may 
 undoubtedly be traced, to a considerable extent, to 
 personal causes. Talleyrand, the doyen of the diplo- 
 matic world entertained strong feelings of antipathy 
 towards Palmerston, who probably spoke as he wrote of 
 him, as " old Talley," and who certainly treated him, 
 though quite unintentionally, with scanty courtesy. 
 Madame de Lieven, with the usual exuberance of femi- 
 nine spite, informed Greville that it was impossible to 
 describe the contempt as well as dislike which the 
 whole Corps Diplomatique had for Palmerston, and, 
 pointing to Talleyrand who was sitting close by, surtout 
 lux. In 1835 the old Prince returned to Paris, and 
 promptly took his revenge on the English secretary by 
 informing Louis Philippe that intimate relations with 
 England were no longer worth preserving, and that 
 Palmerston was hopelessly untrustworthy. The result 
 of these representations was that France began to draw 
 rapidly nearer „he autocratic Powers, whereby, as 
 Palmerston pointed out in a letter to Lord Granville, 
 "she [a constitutional monarchy] was placing herself 
 
60 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 in a false position, and at no distant time would find her 
 mistake." 
 
 The informal dissolution of the Quadruple Alliance 
 naturally had its effect upon the fortunes of Isabella. 
 Little or no head was made against the Oarlist generals, 
 whose hideous ferocity was almost worthy of Alva; 
 ministry succeeded ministry ; and the constitutional 
 cause, assailed by the forces of absolutism from with- 
 out, was nearly shattered by a revolutionary outbreak 
 from within. The Queen Kegent soon discovered that 
 the Quadruple Treaty was far from proving a good 
 working plan. The joint intervention of England and 
 Trance, which would have ended the war in a moment, 
 was out of the question; and neither of the Powers 
 was willing to act as the other's catspaw by marching 
 into Spain alone. " France," said Louis Philippe to 
 the Chambers, "keeps the blood of her children for 
 her own cause. - " There was even a time when Lord 
 Pahnerston accused the French Court of openly sym- 
 pathising with the Carlists, and when the Pretender's 
 bands were allowed to smuggle arms across the Spanish 
 frontier in direct contravention to the supplementary 
 articles of the Treaty. 
 
 Under the circumstances, Palmerston was forced to 
 play a somewhat unsatisfactory part. At one time, in 
 accordance with the terms of the Treaty, a British 
 squadron was stationed on Spanish coasts with orders to 
 co-operate with the Isabellists ; but such assistance was 
 only partial in its operation, and had but little effect 
 on the ultimate result of the war. Even less effective 
 was the British legion which in 1835 was allowed by an 
 Order in Council to volunteer for Spanish service under 
 •Colonel de Lacy Evans. All the arguments that had 
 been used against the volunteers to Portugal could be 
 
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 61 
 
 used, and were used, with even greater strength on the 
 present occasion. Lord Mahon pointed out in an ex- 
 ceedingly telling speech, made on March 10th, 1837, 
 that, even if it were allowed that intervention in the 
 affairs of Spain were justifiable, the means adopted 
 were the worst that could have been chosen. "It was 
 peace without tranquillity, war without honour. ... If 
 the noble lord was determined to unclose the temple of 
 peace for war, he should have thrown open the main 
 portal through which British soldiers could have walked 
 upright ; and not have sent them through a side door, 
 by which they had to creep upon their hands and knees 
 through the slimy and intricate intrigues of the court of 
 Madrid." On the 17th of April, Sir Henry Hardinge 
 criticised the military side of the question, and argued 
 that Spain, where the butchery of prisoners was the 
 order of the day, was no school for British soldiers. He 
 had been for a long time in the army, but he had never 
 witnessed or heard of such acts of insubordination, 
 mutiny, and ferocity, as had been committed by the 
 soldiers of the Legion. Palmerston made brilliant 
 replies to these attacks, and, as usual, carried the House 
 with him, but his examples, taken from the Elizabethan 
 epoch, of auxiliary forces sent to the aid of the 
 Huguenots and the Protestants in the Low Countries, 
 were really not much to the point, any more than his 
 periods about the advantages of a Constitutional over 
 an Absolutist government. The success of the Legion 
 would have cut the ground from under the feet of the 
 Tories ; but, alarmed by a proclamation issued by Don 
 Carlos that all foreign prisoners would be shot, half- 
 disciplined, half-starved, and grossly neglected by the 
 Spanish Government, General Evans's force accom- 
 plished little beyond co-operating in the important 
 
62 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 relief of Bilbao, and, after a bad defeat at Hernani, it 
 was eventually disbanded in 1838. Of course, the 
 Foreign Secretary's best excuse for this intermittent 
 form of armed assistance would have been that, in face 
 of the suspicious attitude of France, direct intervention 
 would have been attended with the utmost risk, but it 
 was impossible to make use of that argument in 
 public. When civil war ceased in Spain through the 
 sheer exhaustion of the Oarlists, Palmerston could 
 claim, indeed, that the Liberal cause had been trium- 
 phant, but not that the victory had been speedily gained 
 or that its results were likely to be permanent ; for after 
 the Carlists came military pronunciamientos, and Con- 
 stitutionalism, buffeted by the winds of faction, was 
 very slow to take root. It might fairly be said, how- 
 ever, that he had done his best with unpromising mate- 
 rials, and that, if Louis Philippe had proved true to his 
 word, the result would have been very different. 
 
63 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE QUADKILATERAL ALLIANCE. 
 
 1831-1841. 
 
 Lord Palmerston and the Porte — Ibrahim Pasha's advance on Con- 
 stantinople — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Anti-Russian policy of 
 Lord Palmerston — The first Afghan war — Burnes's despatches — 
 Collapse of the Turkish Empire — Divergence of views between 
 England and France — The Quadrilateral Alliance — Lord Palmer- 
 ston's difficulties — His bold course of action — His estimate of the 
 situation — Louis Philippe gives way — The fall of Acre — Lord 
 Palmerston's treatment of Guizot — Settlement of the Syrian 
 question — Lord Palmerston's marriage. 
 
 Though Lord Palmerston, when Minister at War, had 
 viewed the Greek straggle for independence with ardent 
 approval, and though his aphorism concerning the 
 Turks — " What energy can be expected from a people 
 with no heels to their shoes ?" — has passed into a pro- 
 verb, he was never a believer in the hopeless degeneracy 
 of the Ottoman Porte. " All that we hear every day of 
 the week," he once wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, " about 
 the decay of the Turkish Empire, and its being a dead 
 body or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure and un- 
 adulterated nonsense. . . / If we can procure for it ten 
 years of peace under the joint protection of the five 
 Powers, and if those years are profitably employed in 
 
64 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 
 
 reorganizing the internal system of the Empire, there is 
 no reason whatever why it should not become again a 
 respectable Power.'^ This opinion, even if not perma- 
 nently tenable, was probably that of the majority of 
 Englishmen at the time of the formation of Lord 
 Grey's ministry, when the Sultan Mahmoud was making 
 real, if somewhat rough and ready, attempts to intro- 
 duce reforms into his dominions. Palmerston further 
 thought that the downfall of the Porte would be far more 
 likely to occur through external violence than through 
 internal combustion. For the moment, however, the 
 final blow seemed likely to come from one who was 
 nominally its subject. (For in 1831 Mahomet Ali, the 
 crafty Albanian who had risen from the position of 
 tobacco-seller to that of the Pasha of Egypt, sent his 
 adopted son Ibrahim against Acre, the fortress which 
 had defied Napoleon ; its fall in the following May 
 placed all Syria at his mercy. The surrender of Damas- 
 cus and Antioch followed ; the line of the Taurus was 
 crossed in July; in October the brilliant Ibrahim 
 scattered to the winds at Konieh the last of the Turkish 
 armies, and there was nothing to prevent his casting 
 out his shoe over Constantinople^ 
 
 / The peril of the Porte was undoubtedly extreme, and 
 "Palmerston was anxious that an affirmative response 
 should be made to the Sultan's appeals for assistance, 
 which reached England about the time of the battle of 
 Konieh. 'The Cabinet, however, overruled his opinion, 
 and he must have felt considerably annoyed when it fell 
 to him to defend English non-intervention in the House 
 of Commons, on the ground that our naval operations 
 on the Dutch coast and elsewhere were so extensive, 
 that it would have been impossible to send to the 
 Mediterranean such a squadron as would have served 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 65 
 
 the purpose of the Porte, and at the same time have 
 comported with the naval dignity of England. His 
 appeal rejected, though with regret, by England, and 
 with less ceremony by France, where public sympathy 
 was wholly with the Pasha, Mahmoud, in his despair, 
 applied to his ancient euemy, Nicholas of Kussia, The 
 response was prompt; a Russian army was despatched 
 to the mouth of the Bosphorus, Ibrahim retired before 
 it, and Constantinople was saved.) But the price was 
 heavy; by the treaty of Unkiar Stelessi, signed by the 
 representatives of the two Powers, on the 8th of July 
 1833, the Porte bound itself, in return for a promise from 
 Russia of military and naval assistance whenever re- 
 quired, to come to an " unreserved understanding " 
 with that Power "upon all matters which concern their 
 respective tranquillity and safety," that is, to allow 
 Nicholas to interfere when he pleased in Turkish 
 affairs. A secret article further engaged the Porte " to 
 close the strait of the Dardanelles, that is to say, not 
 to allow any foreign vessels of war to enter therein 
 under any pretext whatsoever. " In short, the treaty 
 made Mahmoud the vassal of Nicholas, and the Black 
 Sea a Russian lake. 
 
 The natural result of this master-stroke of Russian 
 diplomacy, the terms of which were known throughout 
 Europe within six weeks, was that Palmerston, with the 
 full approval of his eccentric sovereign, and the ap- 
 plause of the Radicals in Parliament, was during the 
 remainder of the reign of William IV. decidedly anti- 
 Russian in his policy.. He joined with the French 
 Government in a vigorous protest against the treaty, but 
 it was, of course, mere waste-paper. The destruction 
 of the liberties of Poland in the previous year ; the con- 
 clusion in the following year of a new treaty with the 
 
 5 
 
66 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Porte, by which Eussia acquired fresh territory in Asia ; 
 the mandate issued by Eussia, Prussia, and Austria, for 
 the occupation of the little republic of Cracow, the last 
 remnant of independent Poland, by Austrian troops ; the 
 presence of Eussian agents at the court of the Shah of 
 Persia ; the Eussian intrigues for the ruin of Colonel 
 Chesney's expedition to open up the Euphrates route to 
 India — all these facts taken together seemed to point 
 to a systematic attempt on the part of Nicholas to 
 aggrandize his dominions, and that at the expense of 
 England. ) " Eussia," wrote Palmerston to his brother, 
 " is pursuing a system of universal aggression on all 
 sides, partly from the personal character of the Emperor, 
 partly from the permanent system of her government." 
 In the House of Commons, O'Connell, Mr. Attwood, and 
 other Eadicals, hurled abuse at the Czar, and the 
 British fleet was sent to cruise in the neighbourhood 
 of the Dardanelles; but though the two countries were 
 on the verge of a quarrel, no actual outbreak took place. 
 If Palmerston shrank from war with Eussia from 
 motives of prudence, Nicholas refrained from direct 
 hostilities with England because he found others to 
 fight his battles for him. The mission of Eussian 
 agents to Teheran and Cabul was the means employed, 
 not for the last time, to lure England into operations 
 beyond the Indus, and to drain her of wealth and 
 strength without hazarding a single Cossack or a single 
 rouble. Excuses may be advanced for the first Afghan 
 war, as for every war. The Persian attack on Herat 
 was undoubtedly of the most formidable nature, and was 
 only averted by chance in the person of Eldred Pot- 
 tinger, and Melbourne's cabinet were of opinion that 
 " decisive measures " in Afghanistan were necessary to 
 counterbalance Eussian preponderance in Persia. Lord 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 67 
 
 Heytesbury, the Governor- General of India, who was 
 known to be an admirer of Nicholas, was accordingly 
 recalled ; and Lord Auckland sent out with instructions 
 to inaugurate a forward policy. Translated into action, 
 the forward policy resolved itself into Burnes's mission 
 to Cabul, which was checkmated by the counter mission 
 of the Russian Vicovitch, and next into the expedition 
 to Cabul with the object of deposing Dost Mahommed, 
 who had proved an able ruler, and crowning in his 
 stead the incompetent refugee, Shah Soojah. Endea- 
 vours have been made to fix the blame for this mad 
 leap in the dark upon Palmerston ; Lord Auckland, it 
 has been said, was his Governor-general, but though 
 there is strong presumption, documentary proof is 
 wanting. Certainly Lord Palmerston was the man of 
 action in the Melbourne Cabinet, and at this time was 
 full of distrust of Russia. On the other hand, it may 
 be noticed that though he strongly approved of the 
 expedition, he did not, even when its prospects were 
 most favourable, assume any direct responsibility for it. 
 In a letter to Lord Melbourne, he said : 
 
 Auckland seems to have taken a just view of the importance of 
 making Afghanistan a British and not a Russian dependency, since the 
 autocrat has determined that it shall not be left to itself. If we suc- 
 ceed in taking the Afghans under our protection, and in garrisoning 
 (if necessary) Herat, we shall regain our ascendancy in Persia, and 
 get our commercial treaty with that Power. But British ascendancy 
 in Persia gives security on the eastward to Turkey,, and tends to make 
 the Sultan more independent, and to place the Dardanelles more 
 securely out of the grasp of Nicholas. Again, our baffling on so large 
 a scale the intrigues and attempts of Russia cannot fail to add 
 greatly to the moral weight and political influence of England, and 
 to help us ia many European questions, while it must also tend to give 
 us strength and authority at home. 
 
 This is the language of the supporter, rather than of 
 the creator, of a line of action, but it must be owned 
 
 5 * 
 
68 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 that it is exceedingly compromising. The idea that 
 Cabul was the centre whence prosperity was to illumi- 
 nate the British Empire, is completely unlike the 
 sobriety of most of Palmerston's conclusions, and shows 
 that his judgment was for the time being completely 
 clouded by irritation. The actual result of the cam- 
 paign was indeed a grave comment on his extravagant 
 anticipations, and his argument that the disaster was 
 caused by the neglect of proper military precautions will 
 not bear investigation, [for the second Afghan war 
 proved conclusively, even if the first did not, the 
 futility of an attempt on N the part of England, to keep a 
 permanent hold on Cabul. \ But Lord Palmerston and his 
 colleagues were able to reap the credit which attended 
 the commencement of operations, while to their succes- 
 sors fell the task of dealing with the collapse. 
 
 Connected with the declaration of the Afghan war 
 was a proceeding of political expediency, the mention 
 of which would probably be omitted by a panegyrist of 
 the Melbourne ministry — possibly without much danger 
 of detection — but which a candid biographer of the 
 most important member of that ministry can hardly 
 leave unnoticed. We allude to the suppression of pas- 
 sages in the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes which 
 were unfavourable to the forward policy of the Govern- 
 ment, with the general result that the unfortunate envoy 
 became the ostensible defender of a course of action to 
 which he was directly opposed. The proceeding was, 
 to say the least of it, one of doubtful morality, and if 
 Burnes had lived, a speedy detection must have cer- 
 tainly ensued. As it was, the murderous hand of 
 Akbar Khan saved the Government from an ignomi- 
 nious exposure. The stigma of complicity in the war 
 was allowed to remain on Burnes's memory, and, though 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 69 
 
 the truth had leaked out in driblets, it was not until the 
 next generation that the whole scandal became publicly 
 known. Here, again, it is impossible to fix on Palmer- 
 ston more than a share in the responsibility for the 
 collective sins of the Melbourne Cabinet ; but his line of 
 defence, when in 1861 the whole question was brought 
 before the House of Commons by Mr. Dunlop, would 
 seem to prove that he was more than a tacitly consen- 
 tient party to the transaction, and even regarded it as 
 rather praiseworthy than otherwise. 
 
 It is quite true [he said] that several of the despatches were cur- 
 tailed and parts omitted, but enough remained to reveal the outline of 
 affairs which I have traced. ... If, on the one hand, passages con- 
 taining the opinions of Lieutenant Burnes have been omitted, on the 
 other hand, a despatch written by Sir William Macnaghten, by the 
 order of Lord Auckland, censuring in very severe terms and disavow- 
 ing totally the policy of Lieutenant Burnes, has also been omitted. 
 The opinions of Lieutenant Burnes which are omitted from the 
 despatches formed no elements in the policy which was adopted, and 
 it was unnecessary to state reasons and opinions by which the Indian 
 Government had not been guided. It is not necessary when you give 
 reasons for a course you pursue to give also the reasons against that 
 course. They form no part of your case. You state reasons why 
 you do not do a thing, but it is not usual to state reasons which you 
 refuse to accept and do not act upon. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's views as to the composition of 
 State Papers may be left severely alone. If all Blue 
 Books are compiled in this fashion, they are indeed, as 
 Sir John Kaye, the historian of the Afghan war, termed 
 those containing the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes, 
 counterfeits which the ministerial stamp forces into cur- 
 rency, defrauding a present generation, and handing 
 down to posterity a chain of dangerous lies. 
 
 Long before the horrors of the retreat from Cabul 
 had been avenged by General Pollock, the development 
 -of events in Europe had converted Palmerston from an 
 
70 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 attitude hostile to Russia to one of cordial co-operation 
 with the Czar. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi had 
 gained the Porte a respite ; it had by no means re- 
 duced Mehemet Ali to impotence. The Pasha was 
 determined to make himself Lord of the Levant: 
 Mahmoud, untaught by his previous disasters, was 
 panting for revenge. It was only by supreme exertions, 
 by threats, cajoleries, and naval demonstrations, that 
 the Powers, forced by the acuteness of the crisis to act 
 with some appearance of concert, were able to prevent 
 the two from flying at each other's throats. At last, in 
 1839, the inevitable collision occurred ; once more 
 Ibrahim Pasha smote the Turkish troops hip and thigh ; 
 their ruin was followed, in startling succession, by the 
 death of Mahmoud, who was succeeded by a feeble boy, 
 Abd-el-Medjid, and the treachery of the Turkish ad- 
 miral, who handed over his fleet to the triumphant 
 Mehemet Ali.) 
 
 Once more the Turkish empire seemed to be in 
 extremis, for Mehemet Ali declined to be satisfied with 
 anything smaller than the entire and hereditary posses- 
 sion of his conquests, the concession of which would 
 at once have reduced the Porte to the position of a 
 second-rate Power. Intervention was necessary, and 
 collective intervention, for if Russia had been allowed 
 to go to the rescue alone, the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi 
 would certainly have been renewed in some more objec- 
 tionable form. It was, therefore, Palmerston's object 
 to obtain united action, and so to merge the Unkiar 
 Skelessi agreement in some more general arrangement 
 for which the Powers would be conjointly responsible. 
 But directly the coercion of Mehemet Ali came under 
 discussion, a complete divergence of opinion between 
 France and England was forced into prominence. How- 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 71 
 
 ever anxious the French Ministry might be to keep on 
 good terms with England, there could be no doubt 
 , that the people were all in favour of the Egyptian./ 
 The establishment of French influence in the land of 
 the Pharaohs/ the high-road to India, had been a long- 
 cherished dream, which Napoleon for a moment had 
 made a reality ; and if it/was a dream of pleasant antici- 
 pation for the patriot Frenchman, it was not the less 
 delectable because it was a familiar nightmare to Eng- 
 lish ministers.; When therefore Palmerston urged that 
 Mehemet Ali should be compelled to restore the Turkish 
 fleet without delay, Marshal Soult, the French Premier, 
 flatly declined to adopt the proposal ; and subsequent 
 negotiations showed that while England was desirous 
 of confining Mehemet Ali to Egypt, Soult would gladly 
 see him in possession of Syria and Arabia.^ M. de 
 Remusat, at a later stage of the complication, avowed 
 in the Chamber that the aim of the French Government 
 was to establish a second-rate Power in the Mediter- 
 ranean, whose fleet might unite with that of France as 
 a counterpoise to that of England. 
 
 Inaction at such a crisis would have resulted, as 
 Palmerston afterwards wrote to Lord Melbourne, in the 
 " practical division of the Turkish empire into two 
 separate and independent States, whereof one would be 
 the dependency of France, and the other a satellite of 
 Russia ; and in both of which our political independence 
 would be annulled and our commercial - nterests sacri- 
 ficed." [He resolved, therefore, to throw aside the 
 entente cordiale, and to enter into intimate relations 
 with the autocratic Powers, of whom the Czar, delighted 
 at the discomfiture of Louis Philippe, whom he scorned 
 as a constitutionalist and & parvenu, was more than ready 
 to meet him half way. » Baron Briinnow was sent to 
 
 / 
 
72 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 London, and soon came to terms with Palmerston, who 
 weot, as he wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, on the sound 
 principle that " there was no wise medium between con- 
 fidence and distrust ; and that if we tied up Kussia by 
 treaty we might trust her, and, trusting her, we had 
 better mix no evidence of suspicion with our confi- 
 dence." fit was agreed that England, Austria, and 
 France — unless she chose to hold aloof — should operate 
 against Mehemet Ali on the coasts of Syria, Egypt, and 
 in the Mediterranean, that to Russia should be entrusted 
 the defence of Constantinople from Ibrahim Pasha, it 
 being understood, however, that her forces were under 
 the control of the Allies, and — the additional stipula- 
 tion was Palmerston's — that in the event of a Russian 
 fleet entering the Bosphorus, a British and French fleet 
 should simultaneously enter the Dardanelles. ) 
 
 Neither Soult nor Thiers, who succeeded him as head 
 of the Ministry in March 1840, dared to steer a bold 
 course. They feared public opinion if they joined the 
 Powers ; [their sovereign would not allow them to 
 espouse the cause of Mehemet Ali. Thiers was indeed 
 suspected, probably unjustly, of trying to countermine 
 Palmerston by inaugurating a fresh negotiation between 
 Mehemet Ali and the Porte. /^Lord Palmerston at once 
 decided upon action. On the 15th of July he signed a 
 Quadrilateral treaty with Russia, Austria, and Prussia 
 on the one hand, and the representative of the Porte on 
 the other, by which the four Powers bound themselves 
 to carry into effect the arrangements already concluded 
 for defending the Porte and bringing the Pasha to 
 reason. The latter was informed that he should receive 
 the hereditary sovereignty of Egypt and the Pashalic of 
 Acre for life if he submitted within ten days ; if he was 
 obstinate, Egypt alone should be his portion. Pharaoh's 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 73 
 
 heart was hardened, and he refused to accept any terms 
 which did not include Egypt and the whole of Syria. 
 
 Lord Palmerston had a most difficult game to play at 
 this crisis, but his nerve and resource, or, as his enemies 
 were wont to term the quality — and sometimes with 
 perfect justice — unscrupulousness, enabled him to sweep 
 the board. It was almost a case of Athanasius contra 
 mundum, for, with the exception of the Czar, the mem- 
 bers of the Quadruple Alliance were by no means dis- 
 posed to go to extremes. Metternich had no sooner 
 agreed to help to coerce the Pasha than he began to 
 throw cold water on the scheme, and the Prussian 
 Minister followed his directions with dog-like fidelity. 
 /The English Government was informed that Austria 
 had only joined the Quadrilateral Alliance with the 
 weight of moral support, her position as a purely conti- 
 nental Power not allowing her to play any other part in 
 active operations against Egypt. Lord Granville, our 
 Minister at Paris, was also of opinion that Palmerston 
 had embarked upon a most dangerous course. At 
 home the Court was against him, chiefly through the 
 representations of the King of the Belgians, who was 
 thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of a war between 
 his niece and his father-in-law. Even from his col- 
 leagues Palmerston met with opposition rather than 
 encouragement. The Whig members of the Cabinet, 
 especially Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon, were by 
 no means in favour of a rupture of the French alliance, 
 and Palmerston, in his letters to his brother, constantly 
 complained of " intrigues and cabals," instigated appa- 
 rently by " Bear M Ellice, who, although not a member 
 of the Ministry, had great influence with the chiefs.* 
 
 * Mr. Ellice, who married Earl Grey's sister, and held the appoint- 
 ments of Secretary to the Treasury and Secretary of War from 1830 
 
74 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 When Lord John Kussell, who had at first approved of 
 the good understanding with Russia, suddenly veered 
 round and joined the malcontents, the Foreign Secre- 
 tary's bed was by no means one of roses. 
 
 Palmerston, however, confidently steered his way 
 through the storm. His chief protection was the want 
 of initiative in Lord Melbourne, who, although he was 
 so worried that he could neither " eat, nor drink, nor 
 sleep/' failed to summon up resolution enough to take 
 to task his resolute brother-in-law — a relationship which 
 had begun in the previous year when . Palmerston mar- 
 ried the Premier's sister, the widow of Lord Cowper. 
 The reluctant consent of the Premier to the Quadruple 
 Treaty was extorted from him by Palmerston through 
 the simple device of threatened resignation, and the 
 Greville Memoirs contain an amusing account of elabo- 
 rate preparations for a battle royal in the Cabinet which 
 broke down through Melbourne's reluctance to speak 
 his mind. On another occasion it appears that Lord 
 Holland was prepared to attack the management of the 
 Syrian question, but was completely non-plussed by 
 Palmerston, who produced a letter of warning from Sir 
 Henry Bulwer, then Charge d' Affaires at Paris, which 
 proved that Palmerston's enemies did not scruple to 
 
 to 1834, is probably the " E " of whom Palmerston wrote to 
 
 Lord John Russell in 1842 that, " upon every great matter which we 
 have had to deal with in our foreign relations while we were in office 
 he was strongly against me, and was always trying to get up a cabal 
 to thwart me ; and upon every one of these matters, whether in regard 
 to Belgium, Portugal, Spain, India, Syria, or any other, he was proved 
 by the result to have been wrong. Now one of his most approved 
 methods of cabal is to write away every day to all the leading mem- 
 bers of the Whig party, to instil into them or to extract from them 
 opinions adverse to what he thinks my opinions to be. He practised 
 this method very extensively, and with much momentary success, 
 about the Syrian question." 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 75- 
 
 divulge the future proceedings of the English Cabinet 
 in the capital of a nation with whom we were within a 
 little of going to war. It must be admitted that the 
 conduct of the Foreign Secretary was very irritating to 
 an earnest colleague. ^Our Cabinet," wrote Greville, 
 "is a complete republic" ; he might have added, with 
 an imperium in i?nperio, for Palmerston had established 
 a complete despotism in the Foreign Office. The most 
 important arrangements were concluded entirely on his 
 own responsibility and without consulting anyone ; and 
 when he disarmed opposition at home by concessions to 
 France, he took care to neutralize those concessions by 
 inspiring, and perhaps actually writing, the most bitter 
 articles against Louis Philippe in the Morning 
 Chronicle. In short, he seemed to look upon the whole 
 affair as an exciting game in which both sides might be 
 pardoned if they hit a little wildly, and did not scruple 
 to trample under foot every tradition which regulated the 
 conduct of Cabinet business. \ He was not in the least 
 angry with Lord Holland or' Lord John Russell ; and 
 when the former died, within a few days of the trial of 
 strength in the Cabinet, Palmerston, with his usual 
 magnanimity, hastened to acknowledge that though 
 Lord Holland " thought, or rather felt, strongly on poli- 
 tical affairs, he never mixed any personal feeling with 
 his public differences." It cannot be said that Pal- 
 merston appeared in an equally favourable light in a 
 war of words waged by him at this time against an 
 obscurer foe, Mr. Urquhart. .^Furious at hi3 dismissal 
 from the embassy at Constantinople, Mr. Urquhart 
 retaliated by accusing Palmerston of having, in 1836, 
 favoured the voyage of the Vixen to the coast of Cir- 
 cassia though it was an infringement of the Russian 
 blockade, and of having formerly countenanced tho 
 
76 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 publication in the Portfolio, a periodical edited by Mr. 
 Urquhart, of various Eussian despatches obtained from 
 the Polish insurgents, which constituted a complete 
 exposure of the Machiavellism of Czars and their 
 ministers. Lord Palmerston met both statements, 
 which were of course calculated to damage not a little 
 the friendly relations recently established with Eussia, 
 with a flat denial Kbut the subsequent admissions of 
 Mr. Backhouse, the permanent Under-Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs, tended to throw considerable doubts on 
 his veracity ; doubts which are, perhaps, strengthened 
 by the complete silence of Lord Palmerston's biographers 
 about the Portfolio. 
 
 The best defence for Palmerston's high-handed and 
 reckless conduct at the outset of the new reign is that 
 he, almost alone in Europe, had accurately estimated 
 the relative strength of the various factors in the Syrian 
 problem, and was therefore justified in seeking at all 
 hazards to get his own way. He knew that the boasted 
 military strength of Mehemet Ali was a mere impos- 
 ture, and that though his troops might defeat the Turks, 
 they would crumple up like paper when opposed to 
 Europeans. He knew also that, even if Thiers meant 
 to go to war, the King had too much sense, and that 
 Guizot, then French minister in London, might be relied 
 upon to thwart the extravagances of his truculent little 
 rival. " Thiers will probably at first swagger," he wrote 
 to his fidus Achates, Sir Henry Bulwer, "... but 
 Louis Philippe is not a man to run amuck, especially 
 without an adequate motive/' It was in vain that Thiers 
 tried to impress the Charge d' Affaires by solemn assur- 
 ances that le roi est Men plus belliqueux que moi. 
 
 If Thiers [was Palmerston's reply] should again hold out to you 
 the language of menace, however indistinctly and vaguely shadowed 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 77 
 
 out, pray retort upon him to the full extent of what he may say to you, 
 and, with that skill of language which I know you to be a master of, 
 convey to him in the most friendly and unoffensive manner possible, 
 that if France throws down the gauntlet of war, we shall not refuse 
 to pick it up ; and that if she begins a war, she will to a certainty 
 lose her ships, colonies, and commerce before she sees the end of it ; 
 that her army of Algiers will cease to give her anxiety, and that 
 Mehemet Ali will just be chucked into the Nile. 
 
 Events bore out Palmerston's anticipations to the 
 letter. When Louis Philippe found that language in 
 King Cambyses' vein, formidable preparations at Toulon, 
 and plans for effecting a landing in Turkey, and the 
 seizure of the Balearic Isles, were met by counter decla- 
 rations of equal spirit and a considerable increase of 
 the English navy, his prudence got the better of him. 
 In October 1840, Thiers was dismissed, Soult was re- 
 called to power, and the cautious Guizot undertook 
 the Foreign Office. The collapse of Thiers anticipated 
 by only a few weeks the collapse of his protege Mehemet 
 Ali. Acting with surprising vigour, the allied fleet bom- 
 barded Beyrout on September the 16th ; on the 26th of 
 that month, Commodore Napier took Sidon ; and on the 
 3rd of November Acre, the renowned fortress which had 
 defied Napoleon, surrendered, after being exposed for 
 less than three hours to the guns of the allies. Ibrahim 
 Pasha was thereby cut off from Egypt, and had to effect 
 an immediate retreat from a position that had become 
 utterly untenable. " Napier for ever ! " wrote Palmer- 
 ston to Lord Granville. " Pray try to persuade the King 
 and Thiers that they have lost the game and had better 
 not make a brawl of it." 
 
 ( The sacrifice of Thiers by his master to the fates that 
 wait on failure, undoubtedly smoothed the way to a re- 
 conciliation with France, and rendered compromise pos- 
 sible without loss of dignity, where it had been impossible 
 
78 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 before. In the face of threats and armaments, it was out 
 of the question for Palmerston to agree to any of Thiers' 
 proposed terms, even if they had been admissible in 
 themselves, which they were not, unless England wished 
 the Levant to become a French lake, and France the dic- 
 tator of Europe. But concessions might fairly have 
 been made to Guizot^and a generous policy, by healing 
 the wounded amour propre of the French nation^ would 
 have led in course of time to a complete reconciliation^ 
 (^ Palmerston, however, declined to move an inch out of his 
 way. It was not that he was puffed, up with pride, on 
 the contrary, even Greville acknowledges that nothing 
 could be more becoming than his bearing in the hour of 
 success ; but simply that he hated Louis Philippe, and 
 was determined to pay him out. It is at this point, and 
 not before, that personal motives appear to be predo- 
 minant in his mind. 
 
 In your letter of the 20th [he wrote to Lord Granville] you say that 
 what the French wish is " that the final settlement of the Eastern 
 question shall not appear to have been concluded without their con- 
 currence." But that is exactly what I now wish should appear. If 
 France had joined us in July, and had been party to the coercive 
 measures we undertook, we should have been delighted to have had 
 her assistance, and she would have come in as an ally and protector 
 of the Sultan. But France having then stood aloof, and having since 
 that time avowedly taken part with the Pasha, morally though not 
 physically, if she were now to come in and be a party to the final 
 settlement, it would not be as a friend of the Sultan, but as the pro- 
 tector of Mehemet Ali ; and of course we should not permit her to 
 meddle with the affair in that capacity and with such a view. 
 
 At the same time the question of prestige undoubtedly 
 entered to a considerable extent into the Foreign Secre- 
 tary's calculations. He felt that France had defied 
 England and must be made to eat the leeki he was cruel 
 only to be kind, though his kindness took a rather irri- 
 tating form. In the same way he felt that Mehemet 
 
c 
 
 THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 79 
 
 Ali could not be allowed to retain Syria, less, perhaps, 
 because Syria was of very much importance, than because 
 concessions to Mehemet Ali in the midsummer madness 
 of his triumph would inevitably pave the way to fresh 
 aggressions and impertinences. 
 
 What Guizot had desired was that the Quadruple 
 Alliance should be dissolved as a preliminary to peace. 
 Palmerston, however, was determined that France should 
 be kept out in the cold until Mehemet Ali had made 
 his humble submission to the Sultan, and had received 
 in return the hereditary Pashalic of Egypt on terms 
 which emphasized the suzerainty of the Porte in the 
 most unmistakable manner. Having thus guarded against 
 the possibility of Egypt becoming a dependency of 
 France, Palmerston carried] out, by a Convention con- 
 cluded at London on July 13th, 1841, the second part 
 of his programme. Turkey was saved from the clutches 
 of Russia, and the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi reduced to 
 waste paper, by a clause which closed the Dardanelles 
 and the Bosphorus to the ships of war of all Powers. ) 
 
 When the Melbourne Ministry, which had only 
 tottered through the last few sessions on sufferance, 
 finally fell in August 1841, Palmerston, though with- 
 out any following in Parliament, and without much in- 
 fluence in the country, had raised the prestige of England 
 throughout Europe to a height which it had not occu- 
 pied since Waterloo. ' He had created Belgium, saved 
 Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey 
 from Russia, and the highway to India from France. He 
 had in fact reached the zenith of his career as Foreign 
 Minister, and Canning, though far greater in his concep- 
 tions, had been completely outdone by his disciple in 
 performances. \ The happy marriage to which allusion 
 has already been made, had completed Palmerston's good 
 
80 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 
 
 fortune. Lord Melbourne's sister, Lady Cowper, had 
 long been acknowledged as one of the leaders of the 
 fashionable world. With her. friends Lady Tankerville 
 and Lady Willougby she made up a triad of great im- 
 portance in society. During the remainder of his 
 life, her charms, talents, and enthusiasm were, as even 
 the coldly critical pages of Greville witness, by no 
 means the least important of her husband's sources of 
 strength. In an obituary notice of her by Mr. Hay- 
 ward, to the fidelity of which Lord Shaftesbury her son- 
 in-law, Mr. Cowper (the present Lord Mount-Temple) 
 her son, and Mrs. Norton, all give evidence, it was said 
 that — " to place her husband and keep him in what she 
 thought his proper position ; to make people see him as 
 she saw him ; to bring lukewarm friends, carping rivals, 
 or exasperated enemies within the geniai atmosphere of 
 his conversation; to tone down opposition and conciliate 
 support — this was henceforth the fixed purpose and 
 master passion of her life. . . . The attraction of Lady 
 Palmerston's salon at its commencement was the mixed, 
 yet select and refined, character of the assemblage, the 
 result of that exquisite tact and high-breeding which 
 secured her the full benefits of exclusiveness without its 
 drawbacks. The diplomatic corps eagerly congregated 
 at the house of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. So 
 did the politicians; the leading members of the fine 
 world were her habitual associates, and the grand dif- 
 ficulty of her self-appointed task lay in recruiting from 
 among the rising celebrities of public life, fashion or 
 literature. . » . The services of the great lady to the 
 great statesman extended far beyond the creation of a 
 salon. What superficial drawers mistook for indiscre- 
 tion was eminently useful to him. She always understood 
 full well what she was telling, to whom she was telling 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 81 
 
 it, when and where it should he repeated, and whether 
 the repetition would do harm or good. Instead of the 
 secret that was betrayed, it was the feeler that was put 
 forth ; and no one ever knew from or through Lady 
 Palmerston what Lord Palmerston did not wish to be 
 known." 
 
 If the evidence of contemporaries is to he believed, 
 this accomplished lady was ready on occasion to serve 
 her husband by very vigorous action. Greville records 
 an occasion on which Lord Brougham was compelled 
 by her indignant remonstrances to convert what would 
 have been a formidable attack on the management of 
 foreign affairs into a mere demonstration ; and Count 
 Vitzthum tells us of her relentless ostracism of Liberal 
 members who spoke or voted against Lord Palmerston. 
 She could also crush with an epigram ; thus — "I can 
 never forgive Nineveh for having discovered Layard." 
 Of the English stateswomen of the past generation she 
 was by far the most able. 
 
 6 
 
82 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ABEEDEEN AT THE FOREIGN' OFFICE. 
 
 1841-1846. 
 
 Lord Palmerston and the Smaller Powers — Lord Aberdeen — The 
 Chinese War — Policy of the Government — Treaty of 1842 — Dis- 
 putes with the United States — The Boundary Question — The 
 Greely and McLeod affairs — Right of Search — The Ashburton 
 Mission — Lord Aberdeen and France — Palmerston and Home 
 Affairs — The crisis of 1845 — His visit to Paris. 
 
 Though Palmerston's administration of foreign affairs 
 during the Grey and Melbourne Governments had been 
 distinctly inspiring and eminently successful, it left very 
 bitter recollections behind it in the hearts of many 
 continental nations. Even when the Foreign Secretary 
 was in the right, he had sometimes a wrong way of show- 
 ing it ; and the " swagger and bully " of which he was so 
 fond of accusing the French Ministers was frequently to 
 be found in his own treatment of the minor States of 
 Europe. For instance, in 1838, a paltry dispute about 
 a sulphur monopoly granted by the Government of the 
 Two Sicilies to a French company was terminated by 
 naval hostilities and the capture of Neapolitan vessels 
 by the Mediterranean fleet. " I dined with Lady Hol- 
 land on Sunday," writes Greville iu January 1842, 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 83 
 
 "and had a talk with Dedel (the Dutch Ambassador), 
 who said that Palmerston had contrived to alienate 
 all nations from us by his insolence and violence, so 
 that we had not now a friend in the world, while from 
 the vast complication of our interests and affairs we 
 were exposed to perpetual danger." Of course a Dutch- 
 man would hardly be an impartial witness in this 
 instance, but the statement probably contains a modicum 
 of truth. 
 
 Greville consoled himself with the reflection that 
 " Aberdeen was doing well, avoiding Palmerston's im- 
 pertinence of manner and preserving his energy as to 
 matter " ; and certainly the Conservative Foreign Secre- 
 tary was an adept at the soft answer which turneth away 
 wrath without being an expression of pusillanimity. In 
 the course of one of his philippics against Sir Kobert 
 Peel's Government, Lord Palmerston said that since 
 they had come into office they had been " living on (the 
 Whig) leavings. They have been subsisting on the 
 broken victuals which they found upon our table. They 
 are like a band of men who have made a forcible 
 entrance into a dwelling, and who sit down and carouse 
 upon the provisions they found in the larder." Now 
 two of Palmerston's "leavings" were a war with 
 China and a most complicated dispute with the United 
 States, and Lord Aberdeen would probably have gladly 
 dispensed with both of them. 
 
 The Chinese war, though perhaps unavoidable, was 
 but little calculated to provoke enthusiasm, inasmuch 
 as it was an " opium " war. The trade in that article 
 of commerce had been expressly declared by the Ver- 
 milion Pencil to be contraband ; but it had been 
 openly carried on for years without the smallest objec- 
 tion on the part of the Mandarins, until in 1837 the 
 
 6 * 
 
84 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Chinese Commissioner Lin was sent to Canton with 
 orders from the Emperor to stop it entirely. Now the 
 attitude of the English Government towards the trade 
 had heen one of benevolent neutrality. It had been 
 sanctioned by a Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons, and it formed a valuable source of revenue to 
 India. It was, therefore, allowed to continue, but our 
 superintendents of trade were given to understand that 
 they must on no account mix themselves up with the 
 opium traders. This position was emphasized in a 
 memorandum of the Duke of Wellington, written in 
 March 1835 ; in the instructions taken out by Captain 
 Elliot on his appointment as Superintendent ; and in new 
 instructions sent to him by Lord Palmerston in June 
 1838. In the last he was told that " with regard to the 
 smuggling in opium . . . Her Majesty's Government 
 could not interfere for the purpose of enabling British 
 subjects to violate the laws of the country with which 
 they trade." It is true that Palmerston afterwards 
 changed his ground, and, in a debate raised by Sir James 
 Graham in 1840, appeared to maintain that the opium 
 traffic was justifiable because the objections of the 
 Celestial authorities to it were not sincere. Opium, he 
 pointed out, was freely grown in China, and the ques- 
 tion with the Mandarins was really " an exportation of 
 bullion question, an agricultural protection question " ; 
 that is, they did not wish that silver should leave the 
 country in payment for opium, and did wish to encourage 
 Chinese poppy-growing. But so flimsy an excuse was 
 probably a mere ad captandum argument advanced 
 during the stress of discussion. The real case for 
 Government was that they could not, if they would, 
 suppress the traffic. As far as every country except 
 China was concerned, opium was a perfectly legitimate 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 85 
 
 article of trade, and therefore could not be suppressed 
 in the Indian harbours; while it was an important 
 source of revenue which could not be suddenly cut off. 
 If they had established courts in Canton with power of 
 expelling Englishmen who were detected in smuggling 
 the drug, the only result would have been that the trade 
 would have sought other ports along the coasts of 
 China, and that a shriek of indignation against Govern- 
 ment interference would have been raised throughout 
 India and England. In short, it was the business of 
 the Chinese to carry out their own laws by keeping up 
 an effective set of custom-house officials, and the Bri- 
 tish Government might fairly wash their hands of the 
 whole question. 
 
 It is clear that as far as the British Government was 
 concerned there was no attempt to force the trade upon 
 the Chinese, and Captain Elliot at Canton had done his 
 best to discountenance it. Circumstances changed when 
 Lin ordered the merchants to deliver up the drug that it 
 might be destroyed, and proceeded to enforce his order 
 by blockading them in Canton with every sort of vio- 
 lence. Then Captain Elliot felt bound to identify him- 
 self with the trade, " on the principle that these violent 
 compulsory matters were utterly unjust per se," He per- 
 suaded the merchants to surrender the opium into his own 
 hands before handing it over to the Chinese, and gave 
 them bonds on the British Government for its value. 
 Though the position he had taken up was apparently 
 inconsistent with his instructions, it is absurd to blame 
 him for not having left his fellow-countrymen to the 
 mercy of Lin ; and his conduct was further justified 
 when the Chinese Commissioner, having destroyed the 
 opium, refused to raise the blockade unless Elliot 
 would promise to enter into an agreement by which all 
 
86 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 smuggling vessels were for the future to be confiscated 
 to the Celestial Government and their crews condemned 
 to death. It was felt at home that, even if Elliot had 
 made mistakes, he had tried to do his duty, and must 
 be supported at all hazards. That was the view, not 
 only of Palmerston, but of the great Duke, who, when 
 Lord Stanhope brought on a debate in the House of 
 Lords, threw him over and asserted the justice of the 
 quarrel. His followers were annoyed to the last degree. 
 " I know that," said he to Greville, " and I don't care 
 one damn. T was afraid Lord Stanhope would have a 
 majority, and I have no time not to do what is right." 
 
 The opium war, though attacked in both Houses of 
 Parliament, was on the whole popular with the nation. 
 Palmerston and his colleagues, however, did not reap 
 much benefit from it. The operations at the outset 
 were not particularly successful. The island of Chusan 
 was occupied, but proved a hot-bed of fever, in which 
 one man out of every four died, and more than one-half 
 the survivors were invalided. The resistance of the 
 Chinese was so feeble that little glory was to be reaped 
 from the bulletins of victory, while the obstinacy of the 
 Emperor rendered negotiations unavailing until after the 
 downfall of the Whigs. It was left to Elliot's successor, 
 Sir Henry Pottinger, to put a stop to the slaughter of 
 the unfortunate Chinese by a treaty concluded in 1842, 
 by which Hongkong was ceded to England in perpetuity, 
 five ports were thrown open to British traders, and 
 consuls established in them, and an indemnity of nearly 
 four millions and a half sterling agreed upon, in addi- 
 tion to one million and a quarter extracted from Canton 
 by way of ransom. Though the slaughter of the un- 
 fortunate Chinese was to be deplored, Lord Palmerston 
 was in all probability only expressing public opinion 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 87 
 
 when in one of his letters he rejoiced at the " exemplary 
 good licking" which had been inflicted on the Celes- 
 tials. 
 
 The quarrel between England and the United States 
 bequeathed by Lord Palmerston to Lord Aberdeen was 
 of a more serious nature than a little war in which the 
 enemy frequently saved our soldiers the necessity of 
 killing him by putting an end to his own existence. 
 When the Conservatives came into office the two coun- 
 tries were engaged in a diplomatic controversy, con- 
 ducted on both sides with much acrimony, and having 
 little prospect of termination. One of the subjects at 
 issue was connected with the war of American inde- 
 pendence. After the conclusion of the war, the treaty 
 of 1783 had defined the boundary between the States 
 and Canada. But it had been drawn up on defective 
 information, and hence left unsettled almost as many 
 points as it had determined. For instance, the river 
 St. Croix was to be the dividing line on the Atlantic 
 coast. There were about a dozen rivers called St. 
 Croix. It was supposed that a ridge of hills ran be- 
 tween the St. Croix and the St. Lawrence ; there 
 was no such ridge. A Commission solved the St. 
 Croix question ; the other points in dispute were 
 referred to the King of the Netherlands, who, in 1831, 
 made an award which Lord Palmerston agreed to accept 
 but which was rejected by the Senate of the United States. 
 Subsequent attempts at a compromise, among which 
 was a characteristic proposal of Palmerston's that the 
 disputed territory should be divided into halves between 
 Canada and the States, came to nothing; and the dispute 
 continued to smoulder. It is extremely difficult to form 
 any decided opinion on the relative merits of the rival 
 views advanced, but as neither party was contending for 
 
88 LIFE OF , VISCO UNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 any very valuable natural frontiers, Lord Palmerston 
 may, perhaps, have been too much inclined to stand out 
 about trifles. 
 
 Towards the end of the Whig Ministry the question, 
 which had chiefly been one of academic importance, 
 began to have practical bearings. In 1837, Ebenezer 
 Greely, an official of the State of Maine, who was 
 engaged in making a census, was arrested by the autho- 
 rities of New Brunswick, on the ground that he was 
 conducting his operations on the wrong side of the 
 frontier. Palmerston thought the Canadians in the 
 right, and Greely remained in prison, until the Governor 
 of New Brunswick set him free out of gratitude for the 
 strict observance of neutrality by Maine during the Cana- 
 dian rebellion. Far more serious than the arrest of Greely 
 was the McLeod affair. In 1840 a Canadian named 
 McLeod, while on a visit to the State of New York, boasted 
 that he had taken part in the burning of the Caroline, 
 a disreputable little American vessel which had conveyed 
 stores during the Canadian rebellion to a promiscuous 
 collection of border ruffians, who had established them- 
 selves on Navy Island in the Niagara river, and made 
 common cause with the rebels. The act of destruction, 
 which was directed by a British officer, Colonel McNab, 
 was in itself praiseworthy. Unfortunately, as the 
 destruction of the Caroline took place in American 
 waters, and several American citizens were killed during 
 the affray, it provoked considerable and not unnatural 
 indignation in the United States, of which Palmerston 
 took no notice whatever. McLeod, the indiscreet, was 
 promptly seized by the authorities of New York, thrown 
 into prison, and charged with murder. 
 
 Lord Palmerston at once rushed to his rescue with more 
 than his usual impetuosity. " The British nation," he 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 89 
 
 wrote forthwith to Mr. Fox, our Minister at Washington, 
 "will never permit a British subject to be dealt with 
 as the people of New York propose to deal with McLeod 
 without taking a signal vengeance upon the offenders. 
 McLeod' s execution would produce war, war immediate 
 and frightful in its character, because it would be a war 
 of retaliation and vengeance. - " He also instructed Mr. 
 Fox to demand, in the name of the British Govern- 
 ment, the immediate release of Alexander McLeod, who 
 had been engaged in " a transaction of a public character 
 ... an act of public duty," for which no Englishman 
 could be made " personally and individually answerable 
 to the laws of any foreign States." Unfortunately, 
 this was the first occasion on which Palmerston, in spite 
 of American remonstrances, had taken any notice what- 
 ever of the destruction of the Caroline ; and Mr. Daniel 
 Webster, the American Secretary of State, did not fail 
 to point out the omission in his very able reply. He 
 also scored a point off Palmerston, who had styled the 
 crew of the Caroline " American pirates," by recalling 
 the Oarlist war and the equipment of the Spanish 
 Legion, "for the avowed purpose," he added, rather in- 
 exactly, " of aiding a rebellion against a nation with 
 which England was at peace. . . . And yet it has not 
 been imagined that England has at any time allowed 
 her subjects to turn pirates." In fact, Palmerston 
 found in Daniel Webster an opponent worthy of his 
 steel. The American Secretary of State declared that 
 the United States Government could not stop the legal 
 proceedings begun against McLeod by the State of New 
 York, and that the trial must take place. At the same 
 time, while returning a stout answer to Palmerston's 
 somewhat peremptory demands, he took care that 
 McLeod should be well represented by counsel, and 
 
90 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 thus succeeded in procuring his acquittal. The game 
 had been well contested, but on the whole Webster 
 must be allowed to have won the greater number of 
 
 tricks. 
 
 There was a third subject of dispute between England 
 and America at this time which Palmerston bad far 
 more closely at heart than the boundary or the fate of 
 McLeod. We have mentioned his noble efforts for the 
 suppression of the slave-trade. They were continuous 
 and energetic ; and when in 1841 he succeeded in per- 
 suading the five Powers, Great Britian, France, Austria, 
 Prussia, and Russia, to sign a treaty by which they 
 allowed one another a mutual right of search, they 
 seemed to have been crowned with considerable success. 
 Guizot's refusal to ratify the treaty was considered by 
 Palmerston — and rightly— to be a mere piece of spite, a 
 counterstroke to the Quadrilateral Alliance ; and far more 
 serious was the refusal of the United States to be a party 
 to it at all. The result was of course that slavers 
 hoisted the American flag, and so escaped unscathed. 
 The British tar, however, was equal to the emergency ; 
 it was true he might not search an American vessel, but 
 surely, he contended, he miefht detain a vessel under an 
 American flag to see if she really was what she pro- 
 fessed to be. These proceedings of course produced 
 more diplomatic correspondence of an angry character. 
 Here Palmerston had decidedly the better of the argu- 
 ment : — 
 
 What would be the consequence [he wrote] if a vessel engaged in the 
 slave trade could protect herself from search by merely hoisting a United 
 States flag? Why, it is plain that in such case every slave-trading 
 pirate, whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Brazilian, or English, or French, 
 or of whatever nation he might be, would immediately sail under the 
 colours of the United States ; every criminal could do that, though he 
 could not procure genuine American papers ; and thus all the treaties 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 91 
 
 concluded among the Christian Powers for the suppression of slave 
 trade could be rendered a dead letter; even the laws of England 
 might be set aside by her own subjects, and the slave traders would 
 be invested with complete impunity. 
 
 Everything seemed to point to a prolonged alienation 
 between England and the United States, if not to an 
 absolute rupture. 
 
 It was immediately after the hurling of this Palmer- 
 stonian thunderbolt that Lord Aberdeen assumed the con- 
 trol of our foreign relations. Under his serener influence, 
 and through the exertions of Lord Ashburton, who was 
 sent by the Peel Ministry on a special mission of conci- 
 liation to Washington, compromises were effected on the 
 three points under dispute which were perhaps as satis- 
 factory as compromises can ever be. The Caroline- 
 McLeod affair was settled by an apology for the viola- 
 tion of American waters, though Lord Ashburton 
 maintained that the burning of the vessel was in itself 
 justifiable. With regard to the slave-trade, the United 
 States, while declining to submit their ships to search, 
 agreed to maintain an adequate squadron on the African 
 coast for its suppression. The boundary question was 
 far more difficult to handle, and though the utmost mo- 
 deration and good sense was brought to bear upon it by 
 Webster and Lord Ashburton, their final definition came 
 in for a good deal of abuse from the " no-surrender " 
 party on both sides of the Atlantic/ 
 
 Palmerston, who was a very active member of the 
 Opposition, set himself to work to holloa on the hounds. 
 The treaty of Lord Ashburton, " that half-Yankee," as 
 he calls him in one of his letters — he had married an 
 American lady — was denounced as weak retreat before 
 encroachment ; and the member for Tiverton expressed 
 a fear lest "the system of purchasing temporary secu- 
 
92 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 rity by lasting sacrifices, and of placing the interests of 
 foreign ministers above those of this country, could ever 
 be other than a fatal one to the country, or to the admi- 
 nistration which pursue such a course." So sweeping 
 were the charges brought against the Aberdeen foreign 
 policy by the Morning Chronicle and other Palmer- 
 stonian organs, that Lord John Bussell, in the name of 
 the Whig chiefs, ventured on a remonstrance, but the 
 only satisfaction that he received was a reply that " a 
 horse sometimes goes the safer for having his head 
 given to him." And Greville, when. he visited him at 
 Broadlands in January 1845, found him : — 
 
 Full of vigour and hilarity and overflowing with diplomatic swagger. 
 He said we might hold any language we pleased to France and 
 America, and insist on what we thought necessary, without any appre- 
 hension that either would go to war, as both knew how vulnerable 
 they are, France with her colonies and America with her slaves ; a 
 doctrine to which Lord Ashburton by no means subscribes. 
 
 But, of course, Lord Palmerston in private conversation 
 and Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons were 
 two very different persons. 
 
 On the whole Palmerston's warnings were spoken to 
 deaf ears, in spite of the strong confirmation they received 
 almost immediately from the bellicose attitude assumed 
 by the United States, when Lord Aberdeen, encouraged 
 by the successful delimination of the eastern boundary, 
 attempted to settle that on the western or Oregon side, 
 and had once more to give up a certain amount of 
 English pretensions in order to secure the remainder. 
 Quite as vigorous were Palmerston's denunciations to his 
 friends of the renewal of the entente cordiale with 
 France, and the sacrifices made by Lord Aberdeen from 
 time to time for its preservation; particularly during 
 the somewhat supine acquiescence in the outrages on 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 93 
 
 Queen Pomar6 of Tahiti and the missionary Pritchard 
 by the French Admiral Thouars, though he was willing 
 to own that ample satisfaction was obtained in the end. 
 He also approved of Lord Aberdeen's attempts to pre- 
 serve peace when France became embroiled in Morocco, 
 and when the appointment of one of Louis Philippe's 
 sons, the anti-English Prince de Joinville, to command 
 the French squadron in the Mediterranean, seemed to 
 portend the occupation of Morocco and possibly war 
 with England. But, on the whole, Palmerston's 
 opinion of Lord Aberdeen's foreign policy may be 
 summed, up in his memorable phrase " antiquated im- 
 becility." 
 
 Though he generally addressed himself to foreign 
 affairs, Lord Palmerston did not spare the colonial 
 or domestic concerns of the Peel administration. The 
 speeches that are most to his credit during this 
 period are those on the suppression of the slave-trade, 
 upon which, because his spirit was really stirred 
 within him, he delivered himself with earnestness and 
 effect. He was not silent during the debates on the 
 Corn Laws, the abolition of which he urged with the 
 weight of a free-trader of many years standing. But his 
 remarks, though extremely sensible and well chosen, do 
 not seem to show any very intimate knowledge of the sub- 
 ject ; white his good-natured banter of the Protectionists, 
 " whose songs of triumph had been turned into cries of 
 lamentation," has about it little of the permanent inte- 
 rest that is attached to Mr. Disraeli's parallel between 
 Peel and the Turkish admiral who " sailed his fleet into 
 the enemy's port/' or even to the savage personalities of 
 Lord George Bentinck at the expense of his former 
 leader. Nor did he go to the length of Cobden and 
 Bright ; but attempted to steer a middle course, advo- 
 
94 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 eating a small fixed duty rather than total abolition. 
 It was about this period that Lord Ashley, who was 
 Lady Palmerston's son-in-law, began to acquire a re- 
 markable influence over his somewhat secular relative. 
 Lord Melbourne had commented on the intimacy in 
 1841, and hinted that Palmerston might go over to the 
 Tories ; and its consequences are to be traced in Pal- 
 merston's support of the Factory Bill, and of the curious 
 measure for establishing a Protestant Bishopric at Jeru- 
 salem. While he was at the Foreign Office, Palmer- 
 ston, through the English Minister at the Porte, Lord 
 Ponsonby, had greatly contributed to the realisation of 
 the latter project, though his frame of mind was not 
 altogether satisfactory to its originator, who found that 
 his interest was confined to the political and commercial 
 side of the question. 
 
 It would appear from the evidence of contemporary 
 observers that Palmerston's speeches on ecclesiastical 
 and commercial topics were hardly noticed ; while his 
 continued hostility to France and the States was the 
 subject of a good deal of comment, and his possible 
 return to the Foreign Office of a good deal of appre- 
 hension. That prospect seems also to have alarmed 
 his nominal friends, the Whigs, quite as much as his 
 opponents. There was a decided anti-Palmerstonian . 
 feeling among the party and at Court, which found 
 powerful expression when, on Peel's resignation in 
 1845, Lord John Russell attempted to form a govern- 
 ment. The Queen was much alarmed, and expressed 
 her earnest desire that Palmerston should take the Colo- 
 nial Office ; but Lord John found him determined to be 
 the director of Foreign Affairs or no minister at all. 
 The present Lord Grey, then better known as Lord 
 Howick, was even more adverse to Palmerston than 
 
ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 95 
 
 her Majesty, and positively declined to be a member 
 of the same Cabinet with him. 
 
 I could not [Lord Grey afterwards wrote to Lord John by way of 
 explanation] be blind to the notorious fact that, justly or unjustly, 
 both friends and opponents regarded with considerable apprehension 
 the prospect of his return to the Foreign Office, and the existence of 
 such a feeling was, in my mind, no slight objection to the appointment. 
 But, further, when he formerly held this office, events occurred which 
 were by no means yet forgotten, which have created feelings of appa- 
 rent alienation between him and some of the chief statesmen and diplo- 
 matists of foreign countries, more especially of France. 
 
 It is well known that Lord John, bewildered by the 
 difficulties of reconciling conflicting claims, and an- 
 noyed at the impossibility of extracting from Peel any 
 specific pledges of support, seized Lord Grey's re- 
 fusal to serve with Palmerston as a pretext for aban- 
 doning the attempt to form a ministry, and the Whigs 
 were condemned to a further period of opposition. 
 
 When, however, Peel was* finally overthrown in the 
 following year, there was no opposition to Palmerston's 
 return to the Foreign Office for the third time. Accor- 
 ding to Greville, Lord John undertook to control him, 
 and to secure the Cabinet against the consequences of 
 his imprudence. It is also to be remarked that the 
 settlement of the Oregon boundary question had re- 
 moved all danger of a rupture with the United States, 
 while Palmerston had shortly before taken the prudent 
 course of paving a visit of reconciliation to Paris, which 
 to all appearance was a complete success. While at Paris 
 he seized the opportunity of an abortive attempt on 
 the life of Louis Philippe to hold out the olive branch 
 in the shape of a letter of congratulation, the general 
 effect of which upon French public opinion was all that 
 -could be desired. 
 
96 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SPANISH MARKIAGES. 
 1846. 
 
 Earlier stages of the negotiations — Louis Philippe's first condition — 
 The agreement of Eu — The Coburg candidate — Guizot's change 
 of attitude—Lord Palmerston's despatch — Its results — Announce • 
 ment of the marriages — Palmerston's efforts to postpone them. 
 
 Though Lord Palmerstonhad apparently won all hearts 
 during his visit to Paris, it soon appeared that he had 
 only effected a momentary reconciliation with (Louis 
 Philippe and Guizot. This was but natural. They could 
 hardly fail to fear and suspect the statesman who had so 
 completely ruined their Egyptian policy in the past; and 
 who was pretty sure in the future to treat certain matri- 
 monial schemes which they were pushing forward in 
 Spain, in a very different spirit to that in which they had 
 been regarded by the pacific Aberdeen.) It is unneces- 
 sary to discuss at any length the earlier stages of the 
 Spanish marriages. The first conclusion arrived at was 
 this :— vWhen the Regent Christina proposed that her 
 daughter Isabella should marry a French prince, Louis 
 Philippe declined the proposal from fear of the jealousy 
 
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 97 
 
 of England ; but at the same time insisted that the 
 choice of the Queen of Spain must exclude a member of 
 the reigning families of Europe, and must be confined 
 to the Spanish Bourbons. iThe Bourbon candidates 
 ultimately resolved themselves into Isabella's cou- 
 sins, the sons of her uncle Don Francisco de Paula. 
 But both of them were disliked by Christina, especially 
 the younger, Enrique, who had taken part in Progressist 
 intrigues, and had been sent into exile. The elder 
 brother, Francisco, Duke of Cadiz, was politically les* 
 .ojbjectionable ; but he was notoriously effeminate, accor- 
 ding to Christina, " not a man/' and Palmerston after- 
 wards termed him " an absolute and Absolutist fool. * 
 Isabella was known to contemplate the idea of marry- 
 ing him with the utmost repugnance. Aberdeen thought 
 that Don Enrique was the less objectionable of the 
 two ; but he informed the Spanish ambassador that if 
 it should be found that no descendant of Philip V. can 
 safely be chosen ... it would be no cause of displea- 
 sure to Great Britain if they (the Spanish Government) 
 were to select a prince from some other family." 
 
 Lord Aberdeen's conduct, if somewhat unnecessarily 
 yielding, was, at any rate, in the highest degree straight- 
 forward, and so far the conduct of Guizot and his 
 master had been quite above-board. ( But in 1845 it 
 appeared that, although the French Court had no wish 
 for a marriage between the Queen of Spain and one of 
 the Orleanist princes, they were most anxious to secure 
 her sister and heiress for Louis Philippe's youngest 
 son the Due de Montpensier. This step looked^ very 
 much like an attempt to secure the Spanish thronej/>ar 
 un detour.* But Guizot denied emphatically that there 
 
 * Gnizot's expression to M. Bresson, the French Minister at 
 Madrid. 
 
98 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 was any hidden end in view ; and on the occasion of the 
 Queen's visit to Louis Philippe at Eu in September of 
 that year, he voluntarily promised Aberdeen that " the 
 Montpensier match should not be proceeded with until 
 it was no longer a political question, which would be 
 when the Queen was married and had children/' 
 
 How far Louis Philippe and his Minister would 
 have kept faith with Aberdeen if the eligible Bour- 
 bon had been forthcoming for Isabella, it is unneces- 
 sary to enquire. At the same time, it is only just 
 to say that they gave some indication to the English 
 minister of their contemplated volte-face. On the 
 27th of February, 1846, a memorandum was written 
 by Guizot to be shown to Aberdeen, in which it 
 was declared that if the marriage either of the Queen 
 or of the Infanta to a prince who was not a de- 
 scendant of Philip V. became " probable and immi- 
 nent," France would consider herself free from her en- 
 gagements, and at liberty to demand the hand of the 
 Queen or of the Infanta for the Due de Montpensier. 
 Upon this memorandum Guizot laid considerable stress 
 when afterwards accused of underhand conduct. But 
 it should be observed that the language was studiously 
 vague, France being left sole judge of the " probability 
 and imminence," and that the memorandum was only 
 read to Aberdeen. No copy of the document was left 
 with him, and so little importance did he attach to it, 
 that he said nothing about it to Mr. Bulwer, our mini- 
 ster at Madrid, or to his own successor, Lord Palmer- 
 ston. ('Now, the candidate other than a Bourbon 
 alluded to in the memorandum was Prince Leopold of 
 Saxe-Coburg. Louis Philippe affected to be greatly 
 afraid of him on account of his family connections ; 
 his brother was King of Portugal, aud his cousin Prince 
 
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 99 
 
 Consort of England. Aberdeen, however, did his very 
 utmost to calm his susceptibilities on the point. He 
 actually acquainted Guizot with the fact that Christina, 
 not for the first time, was trying to secure Prince Leo- 
 pold for her daughter, and had even made a formal offer 
 to Leopold's father through Mr. Bulwer ; and he sent the 
 most ample assurance to Guizot that the English Court 
 would give no support to the candidature. 
 
 It appears incredible that Louis Philippe can ever 
 have considered the Coburg marriage as really "immi- 
 nent," and it is difficult to see that any real excuse can 
 be made for the complete change of attitude adopted by 
 the King and Minister almost simultaneously with the 
 formation of Lord John Russell's Ministry. The con- 
 dition that the Montpensier marriage should not take 
 place until Isabella had had children was allowed to 
 drop out of sight altogether, and it was determined that 
 the luckless Queen should marry the cretin Don Fran- 
 cisco. It is true that the turpitude of the two conspi- 
 rators was not as black as it has sometimes been 
 represented. Francisco was practically the only 
 Bourbon left, as far as they were concerned, his brother 
 being intimately connected with the anti-French party ; 
 and the fact that for many months they had actively 
 supported another candidature, Count Trapani, is incon- 
 sistent with the charge commonly brought against them, 
 that their idea was to force the Queen to marry an in- 
 competent husband so as to place Montpensier on the 
 throne par un detour. Towards the English Govern- 
 ment, however, they acted with the grossest treachery. 
 When Bresson, the French Minister at Madrid, acting 
 on his own responsibility, obtained on the 12th of July 
 Christina's consent to the Cadiz alliance on condition 
 that the Infanta should simultaneously marry the Due 
 
 7 * 
 LofG. 
 
100 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 de Montpensier, he was rebuked, and apparently dis- 
 avowed, but only on the ground of simultatieite* f^As 
 Guizot subsequently pointed out to his master, Chris- 
 tina would only accept Cadiz with Moutpensier for a 
 pendant ; and to ensure success, it must be understood 
 that as soon as one marriage was completed, the second 
 must be discussed and arranged. 
 
 It is clear, then, that Louis Philippe and Guizot had 
 resolved to depart from the agreement of Eu before they 
 were acquainted with the " astonishing and detestable 
 despatch " of Lord Palmerston, which they afterwards 
 alleged as the cause of their change of plan and the 
 simultaneous celebration of the Cadiz and Montpensier 
 marriages, with terrible consequences to the unhappy 
 Isabella and still more unhappy Spain. That despatch 
 was dated July 18th, 1846, and explained to Mr. Bulwer 
 the views of the new Government on the double ques- 
 tion of the marriage of the Queen and the political 
 condition of Spain. 
 
 In regard to the first [he wrote], I have not at present any instruc- 
 tions to give you in addition to those which you have received from 
 my predecessor in office. /'The choice of a husband for the Queen of 
 an independent country is obviously a matter in which the Govern- 
 ments of other countries are not entitled to interfere unless there 
 should be a probability that the choice would fall upon some prince 
 . . . directly belonging to the reigning family of some foreign state. 
 But there is no person^ of this description among those who are 
 named as candidates for/ the Queen of Spain ; those candidates being 
 reduced to three, namely, the Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and 
 the two sons of Don Francisco de Paula. ... As between the three 
 candidates above mentioned, Her Majesty's Government have only to 
 express their sincere wish that the choice may fall upon the one who 
 
 * This point appears to be overlooked by Mr. Spencer Walpole 
 in his otherwise well-considered defence of Louis Philippe and 
 Guizot, but it comes out very clearly in the letters between the 
 two published after 1848 in the Reviie Retrospective. 
 
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 101 
 
 may be most likely to secure the happiness of the Queen and to pro- 
 mote the welfare of the nation. 
 
 The second part of the despatch was a vigorous 
 onslaught on the Spanish Government in true Palmer- 
 stonian style ; it was one of absolutism, force, and 
 tyranny, a mockery of constitutionalism, and so forth. 
 Bulwer, however, was told in conclusion that 
 
 Her Majesty's Government are so sensible of the inconvenience of 
 interfering, even by friendly advice, in the internal affairs of indepen- 
 dent States, that I have to abstain from giving you instructions to 
 make any representations whatever to the Spanish Minister on these 
 matters ; but though you will, of course, take care to express on no 
 occasion on these subjects sentiments different from those which I 
 have thus explained to you, and although you will be careful not to 
 express these sentiments in any manner, or upon any other occasion, 
 so as to be likely to create, increase, or encourage discontent, yet 
 you need not conceal from any of those persons who may have the 
 power of remedying the existing evils, the fact that such opinions are 
 entertained by the British Government. 
 
 Of this despatch, Palmerston, who seems to have 
 gathered from Lord Aberdeen no idea that the marriage 
 question was at all serious, rather imprudently gave a 
 copy to Jarnac, the French Ambassador, and at once set 
 the French and Spanish Courts ablaze. Christina saw 
 in it a design to effect a revolution in Spain which 
 would overthrow the Moderado Ministry, and sur- 
 round her with the leaders of the Progressist party, 
 Espartero, Olozaga, and the rest, who had already 
 driven her from Madrid, and would probably try 
 to expel her again. There can be no doubt also that 
 Louis Philippe and Guizot were seriously alarmed for 
 the moment ; the language of the latter to Greville on 
 the occasion of his visit to Paris proves that real 
 alarm was mingled with his hypocrisy. From the day 
 of Palmerston's arrival at the Foreign Office they 
 
102 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON'. 
 
 had been shaking in their shoes, and it was in vain 
 that the Minister attempted to keep up the King's 
 spirits by assurances that " les prospects du cabinet 
 Whig sont bien gloomy" Themselves conspirators 
 against the agreement of Eu, they were, inclined to sus- 
 pect a countermine at every turn. /It was certainly 
 rather rash of Palmerston to mention the Coburg prince 
 as if his chances were equal to those of the sons of Don 
 Francisco de Paula, and it gave Gruizot a certain handle 
 for his contention that Palmerston intended to depart 
 from the engagement with Aberdeen. Pourquoi nom- 
 mer le Coburg ?" asked Madame de Lieven of Greville 
 after all was over ; and to confirm Guizot's suspicions, 
 /Jarnac's letter arrived at Paris about the same time as a 
 mission from Christina, the object of which was to effect 
 a retreat from the Cadiz arrangement, and obtain for 
 Spain the French King's permission to choose a king 
 for herself. At the same time the mere mention of the 
 Coburg marriage could not be said, even by the most 
 extreme alarmist, to render it " imminent," and a 
 categorical demand for an explanation would have 
 immediately dissolved his fears. As Queen Victoria 
 pointed out in the crushing rebuke — a "twister," 
 her Foreign Secretary admiringly called it — which she 
 afterwards addressed to the French Court through the 
 Queen of the Belgians, Lord Palmerston mentioned 
 Leopold among the candidates merely as a fact known 
 to Europe ; and he referred Bulwer to the last instruc- 
 tions which he had received from Lord Aberdeen : — 
 
 In which, in terms most explicit and most positive, he asserts the in- 
 controvertible right of the Queen of Spain to marry what prince she 
 pleases, even although he should not be a descendant of Philip V., 
 adding, at the same time, what I give in his own words : " that we 
 ventured, although without any English candidate or English pre- 
 
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 103 
 
 ference, to point out Don Enrique as the prince who appeared to us 
 the most eligible, because the most likely to prove acceptable to the 
 people of Spain." 
 
 Greville's conclusion was that the mischief had arisen 
 from Palmerston being careless and thoughtless, Guizot 
 suspicious and alarmed. The Foreign Secretary was cer- 
 tainly rather careless, and perhaps not sufficiently awake 
 to the importance of the Spanish marriage question, but 
 he was also overwhelmed with business on entering into 
 office. But the month's delay which occurred between 
 the general demand on the part of Guizot for an ex- 
 position of the English policy and Palmerston's reply 
 was undoubtedly most unfortunate, and tended to give 
 further colour to his suspicions. There can be no 
 doubt that they were quite baseless as far as the 
 Coburg marriage was concerned. Palmerston's only 
 reason for advocating that alliance was, as he cha- 
 racteristically wrote to Bulwer, that " the English 
 Government would see with pleasure a good cross in- 
 troduced into the family of Spain ;" on the whole he 
 thought, considering the average tif intellect in his 
 father, brother, and sister, that the chances were against 
 Leopold being anything remarkable. The prince whom 
 he really wished to see on the throne of Spain was En- 
 rique, of whose abilities he seems to have formed a very 
 exaggerated opinion, and who was very acceptable on 
 account of his Progressist leanings. 
 
 Upon the best of consideration we can give to the matter [he wrote 
 to Bulwer] and according to the information which we hitherto 
 possess, we think it best for all parties concerned that Enrique should 
 marry the Queen, and that Coburg should marry the Infanta ; and 
 that is the arrangement we wish you to try for. ) 
 
 Upon the question of the Montpensier marriage, 
 however, even when safeguarded by the conditions 
 
104 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 into which Guizot had voluntarily entered at Eu, it 
 appeared that Palmerston, instead of being neutral like 
 Aberdeen, was most emphatically hostile.^ 
 
 The language I hold to Jarnac [he tells Bulwer] is purposely 
 general and applicable to Montpensier's marriage with the Infanta as 
 well as with the Queen. I tell him that it is a great and paramount 
 object with us that Spain should be independent, and that her policy 
 should be founded upon Spanish and not upon French considerations : 
 so that if ever we should have the misfortune of finding ourselves 
 engaged in war with France, we should not merely on that account, 
 and without any separate quarrel with Spain, find ourselves involved 
 in war with Spain also. That this independence of Spain would be 
 endangered, if not destroyed, by the marriage of a French prince into 
 the royal family of Spain ; and that as, on the one hand, France 
 would be entitled to object to such a marriage being contracted by an 
 English prince, so England is entitled to object to such a marriage 
 being contracted by a French one. That such an objection on our 
 part may seem uncourteous, and may be displeasing ; but that the 
 friendships of States and Governments must be founded upon natural 
 interest, and not upon personal likings. 
 
 After this decided harangue, it was absurd for Guizot 
 to complain, as he subsequently did, that he had been 
 kept in ignorance of the strong objections ©f the Eng- 
 lish Government to the Montpensier marriage.] His 
 game, as time went on, evidently was to use the Coburg 
 scare as an excuse for hastening on the simultaneous 
 marriages of Cadiz to the Queen, and Montpensier to 
 the Infanta coute que coute. Indeed, his own panic does 
 not seem to have lasted more than three or four days ; 
 for as early as July 31st he had come to the conclusion 
 that neither the English Cabinet nor Palmerston 
 himself had any serious projects for a Coburg, and in 
 the following month the unconditional refusal of the 
 Coburg family to accept Christina's proposal was 
 actually sent to Madrid. While Palmerston was playing 
 for the Enrique and Coburg combination with his cards 
 
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 105 
 
 on the table, Guizot, while artfully pretending to follow 
 his lead, as far as Enrique was concerned, a choice 
 which he mendaciously declared " would be perfectly 
 satisfactory to France," was urging Bresson at Madrid 
 to bring matters to an issue. Christina's remaining 
 scruples were removed by her fears of " the English and 
 the Revolution," and on the 2nd of September, Jarnac 
 announced to Palmerston that the two marriages of the 
 Queen to Cadiz and her sister to Montpensier, had 
 been arranged on the 28th of August. 
 
 The indignation entertained by the English Court 
 and the English Ministry against the pair of tricksters 
 who had deliberately broken their word, and that to 
 further projects which, under the most favourable con- 
 struction, were those of sordid fortune-hunters, was 
 expressed without much circumlocution : <f Je ne vous 
 parlerai plus d'entente cordiale," wrote Palmerston to 
 Jarnac, " parce-que ce qu'on nous annonce par rapport 
 aux affaires d'Espagne ne nous prouve que trop claire- 
 ment qu'on ne veut plus a Paris ni de cordialite ni 
 d'entente." " If this marriage takes place," he wrote 
 later on, " it will be the first time that the promises and 
 declarations of a French king are not realised."" His 
 royal mistress was, as we have seen, quite as out- 
 spoken, and vigorously denied Louis Philippe's insinua- 
 tion that she looked at these affairs only through the 
 medium of Lord Palmerston. Even Metternich was 
 disgusted. 
 
 Tell M. Guizot from me [he said] that one does not with impunity 
 play little tricks with great countries. He knows I do not think 
 much of public opinion, it is not one of my instruments, but it has its 
 effect. The English Government have done their best to establish 
 Louis Philippe in public opinion. They can withdraw what they 
 gave, and I have always said the moment he loses that he is on the 
 verge of a war, and his is not a dynasty that can stand a war. 
 
106 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 This stern warning had no effect ; indeed, Guizot had 
 gone too far for retreat to be possible. Still less 
 efficacious were the makeshifts devised by Palmerston's 
 nimble mind to secure the defeat, or, at least, the post- 
 ponement of the scheme. In a vigorous protest against 
 the marriage he appealed to the treaty of Utrecht, but 
 arguments based on what had occurred in the refgn of 
 Queen Anne naturally appeared to Guizot to be " old 
 and strange," and the Duke of Wellington pronounced 
 them to be " damned stuff." Equally futile was his 
 plan for re-establishing the Salic law against the 
 children of the Montpensier marriage. Considering that 
 Isabella reigned solely through the abrogation of that 
 ordinance, there would have been, as Greville says, 
 much levity in re-establishing it against her sister. His 
 machinations for a divorce were equally futile. Possibly 
 his designs for stirring up an agitation in Spain through 
 Bulwer, " of course avoiding schemes for insurrection," 
 might have had more effect if time had been allowed 
 for their development. Events, however, moved too 
 quickly for him ^the marriages were celebrated on the 
 10th of October, and the French claimed the game. It 
 remained for Palmerston to show them that it was not 
 worth the candle. / 
 
107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 1846-1849. 
 
 Results of the Spanish marriages — The annexation of Cracow — Civil 
 war in Portugal — Lord Palmerston's policy — Termination of the 
 struggle — The Swiss Sonderbund — Lord Palmerston's despatch 
 — Settlement of the dispute — Constitutionalism in Italy — The 
 Minto Mission — The fall of Louis Philippe — The Spanish de- 
 spatch — Lord Palmerston and the Provisional Government at 
 Paris — Change in his Italian policy — His attitude towards the 
 Sardinian Government — Suppression of the Revolution — Palmer- 
 ston and Naples — His advice to Austria — The Hungarian 
 refugees. 
 
 Though the conclusion of the Spanish marriages was 
 followed by no actual rupture between England and 
 France, the relations between the two countries were 
 cold to the last degree. It was particularly unfortunate 
 that at this crisis England should have been represented 
 at Paris by Lord Normanby, a very green ambassador, 
 as Madame de Lieven said, who made matters worse by 
 his social gaucheries, and who entered into unwise rela- 
 tions with Thiers, and other leaders of the Opposition. 
 Nor did his chief receive with particularly good grace the 
 advances of the French ambassador, St. Aulaire. " The 
 
108 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 thing remained," Lord Palmerston said, " and as long 
 as it did remain there was no civility and no procede 
 which would permanently alter the state of things be- 
 tween England and France." In the end the results of 
 the estrangement were far more serious for France than 
 for England. The Orleanist dynasty had lost its only 
 friend in Europe, and it had been found out. The 
 4( matrimonial blockade " established by the autocratic 
 Powers against the upstart family was only the more 
 rigidly enforced on account of the new methods of 
 courtship patented _bJ-M. Guizot ; and when at last 
 Palmerston's continued efforts on behalf of the op- 
 pressed of Europe drove the northern Powers to seek 
 a common basis of action with the French Court, it 
 was too late. An alliance between Austria, Russia, 
 Prussia, and France against England, was, if Count 
 d'Haussonville is to be believed/* to have been concluded 
 in March 1848. But in February the Orleanist dynasty 
 succumbed before the combined effects of its previous 
 isolation abroad, and the fatuity of the juste milieu 
 policy at home ; and Palmerston could have boasted, with 
 a considerable amount of truth, that he had driven 
 Louis Philippe from the Tuileries. 
 
 The dissolution of the entente cordiale, which was 
 fatal to the junior member of the firm, by no means 
 strengthened the position of the other partner. Between 
 the Liberalism of the Russell Ministry and the totter- 
 ing Conservatism 6f Metternich a modus vivendi was 
 impossible, more ■ especially as the English Foreign 
 Secretary continued to pursue what the Austrian 
 Chancellor termed the " (Eolian policy inaugurated by 
 
 * Histoire de la politique exterieure du Gouvernement Frangais, torn. 
 ii. p. 381. It is curious that there is no mention of this agreement in 
 the Memoirs of Metternich. 
 
YEAB8 OF REVOLUTION. 109 
 
 Canning," by giving vigorous support to continental 
 Liberalism. The Austrian Chancellor was not slow 
 to retaliate. By the annexation of the free city of 
 Cracow, the last remnant of independent Poland, to 
 Austria, with the full consent of Prussia and Russia, 
 he dealt a counterblow at Constitutionalism which 
 was for the moment peculiarly effective, though it 
 is inexpedient in the long run for Governments 
 whose chief strength is the vis inertia, to begin 
 to tear up treaties. As Palmerston had pointed 
 out in the Bouse of Commons at the end of the pre- 
 vious session, if the Treaty of Vienna, under which the 
 independence of Cracow had been guaranteed, " was not 
 good on the Vistula, it might be equally invalid on 
 the Rhine and on the Po." The immediate effects of 
 the annexation, however, were to point the moral that 
 while the champions of personal government were ap- 
 parently united and determined, Constitutionalism was 
 under a cloud. England and France made formal pro- 
 tests against the breach of faith on the part of the 
 northern Powers ; but no regard was paid to them, since 
 their separate action only pointed out more clearly than 
 ever that there was no possibility of their coming 
 together, and that the protests were really addressed, 
 not to Vienna, but by way of apology for what 
 could not be prevented, to the constituencies at home. 
 A second attack on the annexation of Cracow was 
 made in the Queen's Speech of January 1847, but 
 Palmerston took little by it, as the three -Powers made 
 a very effective rejoinder by directing their ambassadors 
 to stay away from the House of Lords. 
 
 Palmerston bore the reverse with great philosophy. 
 a Even if France and England had been on good 
 terms," he wrote to Lord Normanby, " they have no 
 
110 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 means of action on the spot in question, and could only 
 have prevented the thing by a threat of war, which, 
 however, the three Powers would have known we should 
 never utter for the sake of Cracow." The temporary 
 check, indeed, seems only to have inspired him with new 
 funds of confidence, and during the months that pre- 
 ceded the cataclysm of 1848, his diplomatic activity 
 was phenomenal, even for " the accursed Palmerston," 
 who haunted the pillows of German statesmen. His 
 hand was everywhere, " getting the affairs of Europe 
 into trim," as he called it ; and, of course, he was par- 
 ticularly active in the Iberian peninsula, where he had 
 a prescriptive right to interfere. Palmerston's Quad- 
 ruple Treaty had placed Donna Maria on the throne of 
 Portugal, and two years later she was provided with a 
 Coburg husband by old Stockmar. The marriage was 
 a happy one, but the young Prince was unpopular with 
 the Portuguese) chiefly because they regarded him as a 
 puppet in the hands of his factotum Dietz, whom, un- 
 warned by the experiences of King Otho at Athens, 
 he had brought with him to Lisbon. Opposition in 
 Portugal took the form, not of votes of censure, but of 
 street fighting, and Kadicalism, getting the upper hand, 
 forced upon the Court a democratic constitution, f The 
 natural result was that Donna Maria became con- 
 firmedly absolutist, and all influence passed into the 
 hands of a clique known as the Camarilla, in which the 
 obnoxious Dietz was suspected of playing a prominent 
 part. Opportunity for action was found by the Court 
 party in outbreaks which occurred in 1846, and Count 
 Saldanha was the willing instrument of a coup oVetat 
 which closed the Cortes and established a state of 
 siege in the capital. Constitutionalism found refuge, as 
 on previous occasions, at Oporto, a leader in Count das 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. Ill 
 
 Antas, and once more Portugal became a prey to civil 
 war.X 
 
 There was little dignity in the struggle, and the 
 ridiculous would have been its most prominent feature, 
 were it not for the fact that the " swell-mob riots*' — to 
 use Palmerston's apt definition — were rapidly ruining 
 the country. Of course, the Court party, by essaying a 
 counter-revolution, had put itself completely in the 
 wrong ; the cabal had no hold on the country, and could 
 not even justify its existence by success. On the other 
 hand, the Das Antas Junta was evidently animated by 
 faction rather than patriotism ; it did not hesitate to 
 make common cause with the resuscitated Miguelite 
 party, to threaten Donna Maria with the fate of Louis 
 XVI., to vie with the Camarilla in the barbarity of its 
 methods of war. It was evidently not desirable that 
 the dynasty should be upset for the sake of a gang of 
 adventurers. That was Palmerston's view, and he 
 offered to negotiate between the two parties, but only 
 on condition that Donna Maria would put her house in 
 order. The well-meaning attempt failed completely. J 
 Palmerston's envoy, Colonel Wylde, could not get a^ 
 hearing at Oporto, and it was evident that the insur- 
 gents, who believed themselves to be on the eve of 
 victory, were not going to surrender to arguments. 
 Equally clear was it that the Camarilla were looking to 
 foreign intervention as the means for securing them 
 selves in power. Their overtures were favourably 
 received by the Spanish Government, which saw that 
 the revival of Miguelism in one part of the Peninsula 
 would be followed by that of Carlism in the other ; and 
 by France, where Guizot was anxious to recover his 
 lost prestige by any action, however inconsiderate. 
 Palmerston was the last person to allow the superior 
 
112 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 activity of a rival to deprive him of the supreme influ- 
 ence in the Peninsula which he had acquired by the 
 masterstroke of 1834, especially as that intervention 
 would certainly have resulted in the restoration of a 
 despotic form of government. Hitherto he had agreed 
 that the Quadruple Treaty did not apply, inasmuch as 
 the present quarrel was one, not of dynasties, but of par- 
 ties, and therefore a matter which the Portuguese should 
 be left to settle by themselves. He still maintained 
 that reasoning, but adroitly excused his change of policy 
 by laying stress on the hopelessness. of terminating the 
 war through the obstinacy of Saldanha on the one side, 
 and Das Antas on the other, while he anticipated 
 France and Spain by himself taking the initiative. / If 
 there was no prospect of a compromise, he promised 
 Donna Maria to " concert with the Governments of 
 France and Spain" as to the best means of affording her 
 effectual assistance, on condition that she would agree 
 to (1) a full and general amnesty, (2) the revocation of 
 all decrees passed since the coup d'elat, (3) a general 
 election and the convocation of the Cortes, (4) the for- 
 mation of a neutral ministry in place of the Camarilla. 
 
 Immediate and complete success followed this bold 
 change of front. Donna Maria found it advisable to 
 sacrifice Saldanha to Palmerston, much as Louis Phi- 
 lippe had sacrificed Thiers in 1840. The Oporto Junta 
 gave England and Spain the trouble of sending a fleet 
 and an army respectively to the scene of operations 
 before it collapsed} /Civil war came to an end, and 
 Palmerston could boast with reason that he had " saved 
 the Portuguese Crown without oppressing the Portu- 
 guese people, by transferring the struggle from the field 
 of battle to the arena of Parliamentary debate/0 It was 
 not long before he could report that Constitutionalism 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 113 
 
 was working most satisfactorily in Portugal. Palmer- 
 ston, the peace-maker, was, however, attacked from both 
 sides of the House of Commons, by Hume and the Radi- 
 cals, on the pedantic ground that he had departed from the 
 Liberal doctrine of non-intervention in internal affairs, 
 by Lord George Bentinck and the Protectionists, who 
 retained a sneaking affection for Dom Miguel. Lord 
 Stanley took up the matter in the Upper House, and so 
 serious was the crisis, that Lord John Russell wrote to 
 the Queen that the days of his ministry were num- 
 bered. Peel, however, came to the rescue ; the attack 
 resolved itself into some most unjust aspersions on 
 Colonel Wylde, who had the misfortune to be attached 
 to the Prince Consort's suite, and was therefore supposed 
 to have acted in Coburg interests ; and Lord George 
 Bentinck, not feeling sure of a majority, allowed the 
 House to be counted out before Palmerston had opened 
 his mouth. Great was the astonishment in the House 
 of Lords, where the discussion also collapsed, and 
 ministers found themselves in possession of an unex- 
 pected majority of twenty. 
 
 The English intervention in Portugal would probably 
 have evoked some token of displeasure from Met- 
 ternich, had it not been that his attention was con- 
 centrated on the affairs of Switzerland. There, though 
 he was unaware of the fact, his system was on its trial, 
 and its inability to contend with the spirit of the time 
 was a sign of weakness which the revolutionary party 
 turned to account throughout Europe in the following 
 year. It was a very confused struggle that was 
 threatening to destroy the congeries of peoples and lan- 
 guages which had organized itself into an inharmonious 
 whole among the mountains. But two facts seem to be 
 beyond dispute, that in the religious disputes between 
 
 8 
 
114 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 the Protestant and Catholic cantons, the latter were the 
 aggressors, and that the decree for the expulsion of the 
 Jesuits passed by the Protestant majority in the Swiss 
 Diet was really an act of self-defence ; secondly, that 
 when the Catholic cantons, instead of submitting to the 
 vote of the majority, seceded from the Confederation, 
 and formed a Sonderbund or league of their own, they 
 were putting themselves outside the law of the land. 
 " No alliances," ran the sixth article of the Swiss con- 
 stitution, " shall be formed by the cantons among each 
 other, prejudicial either to the general confederacy or to 
 the rights of other cantons "; and Metternich would 
 have done well to hesitate before he gave the support 
 of his authority to a course which, though professedly 
 Catholic and Conservative, was separatist, and therefore, 
 in reality, revolutionary, according to his theory of 
 politics. It was a strange contradiction to find Austria, 
 the ruler over millions of unrepresented aliens, sup- 
 porting the principle of cantonal sovereignty in Switzer- 
 land, declaring that the action of the Sonderbund had 
 dissolved the Diet, and demanding the joint intervention 
 of the Powers. Even Guizot seems to have been in 
 some degree sensible of the perplexities in which the 
 Powers were likely to be involved through Metternich's 
 unswerving confidence in the sanctity and unchangeable- 
 ness of political phraseology, and his terror of the Kadi- 
 cal spectre. Though willing to agree to the eventual 
 dissolution of the Confederation, Guizot wished first to 
 invoke the arbitration of the Pope for the settlement of 
 the religious dispute, and a conference of ambassadors for 
 the modification of the Federal compact. Even so, the 
 destruction of the Swiss Confederacy was only removed 
 by one degree, for French and Austrian sympathy was 
 wholly on the side of the Sonderbund ; and there was in 
 
TEARS OF REVOLUTION. 115 
 
 addition the prospect of a European quarrel over the 
 destiny of Switzerland, as was afterwards the case with 
 Schleswig-Holstein. 
 
 The despatch by which Palmerston averted immediate 
 intervention was a diplomatic masterpiece, though 
 amusingly inconsistent with his proceedings in Portugal. 
 Its burden throughout was the blessedness of peace and 
 the danger of interference in the internal affairs of other 
 nations. 
 
 c. 
 
 Her Majesty's Government, he declared, could not go to the length 
 of thinking that either the formation of the Sonderbund, or the appeal 
 which the seven Cantons composing it have made to foreign Powers, 
 or the civil war which has broken out, can entitle the Powers of 
 Europe to consider the Swiss Confederation as dissolved, and to 
 declare themselves released from their engagements towards that 
 Confederation. 
 J 
 
 Mediation might be offered, but for it to be success- 
 ful, it was desirable that the five Powers should come to 
 an understanding among themselves : /Her Majesty's 
 Government, therefore, would suggest that the basis of 
 the arrangement to be proposed by the five Powers to the 
 contending parties in Switzerland should be the re- 
 moval of the Jesuits. This would abolish the practical 
 grievance of the Diet, the Sonderbund was to be con- 
 ciliated by the assertion of the principle of can- 
 tonal sovereignty, and that declaration having been 
 made by the Diet, the seven seceding cantons could no 
 longer have any pretence whatever for continuing that 
 union which was called the Sonderbund. Even if me- 
 diation failed, the British Government declined to be a 
 party to armed interference in the affairs of Switzer- 
 land, and wished the functions of the mediating Con- 
 ference to be confined to the settlement of present 
 differences : — 
 
 8 * 
 
116 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 
 
 The constitution of the Confederation provides the means for 
 making such improvements as circumstances and the altered state of 
 things may from time to time render expedient in the Federal com- 
 pact ; and such matters do not appear to Her Majesty's Government 
 to require the intervention of Foreign Powers. 
 
 The effect of Palmerston's proposals would simply 
 have been to decide every point under dispute in favour 
 of the Diet, and there was a touch of the sublime in his 
 suggestion that the Conference should look upon the 
 expulsion of the Jesuits, the principal question at issue, 
 as settled without discussion. The real truth was that 
 Palmerston was simply playing out diplomatic rope in 
 order to gain time. It mattered little to him that Eng- 
 land was completely isolated for the moment ; there was 
 no real cohesion between France and Austria, and but 
 little chance of Guizot's being able to avenge the 
 moral defeat of France on the Syrian question by ex- 
 cluding England from the settlement or unsettlement 
 of Switzerland. / The promptitude with which General 
 Dufour brought the military operations ordered by the 
 Diet against the Sonderbund to a successful conclusion,* 
 and the moderation which the Diet displayed in the 
 moment of victory, deprived Metternich of all excuse for 
 mediation ; and having egged on the secession of the 
 Sonderbund, he had to sit by and witness its extinction. 
 The conduct of Palmerston attracted but little attention 
 at the time ; but there can be no doubt that Switzerland 
 owed its continued independence to his refusal to join in 
 coercive measures against a law-abiding majority, and in 
 favour of a faction. 
 
 The revolutionary principle which had showed itself 
 
 * It was strongly suspected that Mr. Peel, our consul at Lucerne, 
 advised General Dufour to hasten his operations, but Palmerston 
 afterwards denied that he had written a single syllable that could 
 justify such a message. 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 117 
 
 in clerical garb in Switzerland * was raising its voice 
 throughout Italy during these months of anticipation 
 and fear with considerably greater vehemence, and in 
 Italy, as in Switzerland, Metternich and Palmerston 
 found themselves in direct antagonism. Metternich 
 was determined upon the blind repression of all move- 
 ments that could be construed into efforts for the pro- 
 motion of Italian unity. " Italy was," according to his 
 famous apothegm, to remain " a geographical expres- 
 sion "; no departure could be permitted from the state 
 of affairs established by the Treaty of Vienna, a quarter 
 of a century before ; and/he saw in the tardy efforts of 
 Carlo Alberto of Savoy, the Arch-duke of Tuscany, 
 and the newly-elected Pope Pio Nono, to liberalise their 
 institutions, the approaching end of the Austrian rule 
 throughout the Peninsula. .Palmerston, more truly 
 Conservative, thought that reform was not necessarily 
 identical with revolution ; though the direction of affairs 
 was fast slipping from their hands, he held that the 
 Italian princes might possibly save themselves even yet 
 by timely and sincere concessions, and he sent warning 
 to Austria that she must abandon all idea of making 
 any reforms that the Italian States might adopt a pre- 
 text for invading their territories. The Italian question 
 was one of European importance. " Italy," he wrote 
 to Lord John .Russell, soon after his return to the 
 Foreign Office, " is the weak part of Europe, and the 
 
 * Count Beust, in his memoirs, has pointed out with admirable 
 force that while the Revolution of July was purely French in its 
 origin, that of February was European. " The true date of its com- 
 mencement," he says, " is not 1848 but 1847. In that year the feeble- 
 ness of the great Governments became apparent to the European 
 party of agitation, and from that moment the first trivial cause (such 
 as the Parisian conflict really was) sufficed for its outbreak. Memoirs 
 (Eng. trans.), vol. L pp. 43-44. 
 
118 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 next war that breaks out in Europe will probably arise- 
 out of Italian affairs. . . . Leave things as they are, 
 and you leave France the power of disturbing the 
 peace of Europe whenever she chooses." That his 
 prophecy of French intervention was not fulfilled to the 
 letter, and that the Crimean war anticipated that of 
 Italian liberation, is no real argument against its 
 wisdom. For Lamartine in 1848 would certainly, if he 
 could, have antidated the events of 1859, and actually 
 offered assistance to the insurgents. Whether at thi& 
 juncture the mission of Lord Minto to Italy with 
 the view of strengthening by seasonable advice the 
 feeble knees of the princes in their progress along the 
 paths of constitutional government, r ,was a particularly 
 wise step may perhaps be doubted. Mr. Disraeli's 
 sneer at the despatch of a British agent " to teach poli- 
 tics in the country where Machiavelli was born," was 
 perhaps hardly to the point, because the petty despots of 
 the Italian Peninsula were very feeble imitations of the 
 ideal Prince of the great Florentine, even in their vices.. 
 But the Minto mission should have started two 
 years earlier, if it wished to be successful. In 1847, 
 while it contended fruitlessly with the animosity of 
 Austria, and the insincerity of the pretended reformers, 
 its presence was turned by the Young Italy party into a 
 pretext for renewed agitation. The revolutionary out- 
 burst in Sicily, followed by the general upheaval of 
 Italy against Austria and her puppets, showed that 
 affairs had passed beyond the stage in which platonic 
 advice was of avail ; ) that it was too late, to quote a, 
 phrase used later by Mr. Disraeli, to try " to found in 
 Italy a Whig party, a sort of Brooks's club at Florence/*' 
 But there is no reason to consider the Minto mission 
 other than a perfectly honest attempt to save the Aus- 
 
TEARS OF REVOLUTION. 1L9 
 
 trian empire in Italy in spite of itself. For to Lord 
 Palmerston, as to the rest of the world, the programme 
 o^ Young Italy seemed totally incapable of execution. 
 
 France, however, not Italy, as Lord Palmerston had 
 expected, was the site of the first revolutionary vic- 
 tories; but they soon ran their course over Europe, 
 driving Louis Philippe from the Tuileries, Metternich 
 from Vienna, and shipwrecking autocracy at Berlin. 
 England may then be said to have become by force of 
 circumstances the arbiter of the destinies of the conti- 
 nent. Little Belgium alone rode the gale by her side, 
 and by every post, as Palmerston wrote to Lord Nor- 
 manby, a lamenting Minister threw himself and his 
 country upon England for help. It is a remarkable 
 proof of how strong was the element of common sense 
 in Palmerston's character, that he refrained, with one 
 or two possible exceptions, from injudicious action, and 
 left the Powers to put their houses in order as best they 
 could without attempting to interfere with their arrange- 
 ments. > The most striking exception was in the case of 
 Spain, whither Palmerston thought it advisable to send 
 a lecture on constitutional government, which, though 
 sound in argument, and justified to a certain extent by 
 the semi-domestic relations established between England 
 and Isabella by the Quadruple alliance, was decidedly 
 too peremptory in tone. The Queen of Spain was 
 informed that she "would act wisely in the present 
 critical state of affairs if she was to strengthen her exe- 
 cutive government by widening the bases on which the 
 administration reposes, and in calling to her counsels 
 some of the men in whom the Liberal party reposed 
 confidence." The Queen of Spain retaliated by return- 
 ing the despatch, and, after a heated controversy, by 
 ordering our minister, Sir Henry Bulwer, to quit the 
 
120 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 
 
 kingdom within forty-eight hours, and Palmerston was 
 powerless to avenge the insult which his inconsiderate 
 zeal had brought on England. ) It seems that the 
 despatch was sent in direct defiance of Lord John Rus- 
 sell's directions, and the Ministry was naturally not 
 sorry to retaliate on their headstrong colleague by 
 refusing to support his proposals for the coercion of the 
 Spanish Government. 
 
 Otherwise, his conduct of affairs was thoroughly 
 pacific and sane. ( It was not in human nature for the 
 Foreign Secretary to refrain from expressing satisfaction 
 at the overthrow of Louis Philippe ; but no trace of 
 malignancy is to be found in his satisfaction, and his 
 hospitable doors were thrown open to the fallen Guizot. 1 
 To Lamartine, whose splendid efforts as head of the 
 Provisional Government at Paris against socialism and 
 anarchy were attracting the admiration of Europe, 
 he held out the right hand of fellowship.") Lord Nor- 
 manby was directed to remain at his post; and was told 
 that whatever rule possessed prospect of permanency, 
 would be acknowledged by the British Government. In 
 the same spirit our ambassadors at Berlin and Vienna 
 were directed to use their influence to prevent the Ger- 
 man Powers from attacking France. " For the present/' 
 Palmerston wrote to Lord Ponsonby, " the only chance 
 for tranquillity and order in France, and for peace in 
 Europe, is to give support to Lamartine. I am con- 
 vinced the French Government will not be aggressive if 
 left alone ; and it is to be hoped that Apponyi (the 
 Austrian ambassador) and others will be allowed to re- 
 main in Paris till things take a decided turn. If a 
 republic is decidedly established, the other Powers 
 of Europe must, of course, give credentials addressed 
 to that Government, or they will have to give billets to 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 121 
 
 its troops." Not even Lamartine's circular, declaring 
 that the treaties of 1815 had ceased to exist, could 
 frighten Palmerston out of his confidence in the high- 
 minded orator ; he saw in it a mere paper concession to 
 the French war party, and Lamartine's cold recep- 
 tion of Smith O'Brien's deputation confirmed his good 
 opinion of the intentions of the French Provisional 
 Government. 
 
 Palmerston's Italian policy naturally changed with 
 the times. With the Austrian provinces of Italy in full 
 revolt, it was impossible to keep to the programme of 
 the Minto mission. Even the sovereigns whose laggard 
 steps the Foreign Secretary had attempted to quicken, 
 had severed themselves from the Austrian connec- 
 tion ; and whether from dynastic ambition as in the 
 case of Carlo Alberto, or from prudential motives as 
 that of Tuscany and Naples, were sending troops to the 
 aid of Lombardy and Venetia. Palmerston thought, under 
 the circumstances, that the Austrian rule, south of the 
 Alps, must come to an end, and the Sardinian dynasty 
 take its place. " Northern Italy," he wrote to Lord 
 Minto, "will henceforward be Italian, and the Austrian 
 frontier will be at the Tyrol. ... Of course, Parma 
 and Modena will follow the example, and in this way 
 the King, no longer of Sardinia, but of Northern Italy, 
 will become a sovereign of some importance in Europe. 
 This will make a league between him and the other 
 Italian rulers still more desirable, and much more 
 feasible. (Italy ought to unite in a confederacy similar 
 to that of Germany, commercial and political, and now 
 is the time to strike while the iron is hot." j No very 
 ambitious scheme this, and certainly falling far short of 
 the dreams of Mazzini and Young Italy, since it left 
 Florence to the Medici, Naples to the Bourbons, the 
 
122 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Papal States to ecclesiastical misgovernment. f Per- 
 haps Palmerston felt that the important point for the 
 moment was to secure the freedom of North Italy, that 
 with the Hapsburgs gone, the Bourbons and their kind 
 must follow. Anyhow, when the old Austrian com- 
 mander Eadetsky was compelled to retire from Milan, 
 and take refuge in the Quadrilateral fortresses behind the 
 Mincio, with Venice triumphant in his rear, it seemed as 
 if Italy, to use the phrase afterwards made by Napoleon 
 III., would be free from the Alps to the Adriatic. 
 
 The temptation to throw the military strength of 
 England into the scale was possibly considerable with 
 the Foreign Secretary ; but the Austrian sympathies of 
 the Court, the Conservative party, and a not incon- 
 siderable section of the Whigs, were far too vehement to 
 warrant such an undertaking, and Palmerston had to be 
 content with that position of "judicious bottle-holder '* 
 which he afterwards described himself as having taken 
 up with regard to the Hungarian insurgents. Carlo* 
 Alberto was told that " he was engaged in a struggle of 
 doubtful result, and that the principle upon which it 
 was commenced was full of danger ;" but Austria was 
 informed again and again that " things had gone much 
 too far to admit of any future connection " between the 
 Italians and herself. In the actual result his anticipa- 
 tions proved far too sanguine. The recuperative power 
 of Austria was greater than Europe imagined ; and the 
 want of cohesion among the Italians, on account of the 
 treachery of the King of Naples, the insincerity of the 
 Pope, the deep-rooted antipathy of the republican party 
 to the Sardinian dynasty, the inability of Carlo Al- 
 berto to control the forces he had brought into activity, 
 rendered them impotent to work out their own salvation. 
 French intervention alone could have saved Italy after 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 123 
 
 Eadetzky had stamped out the insurrection in Venetia, 
 and by that time the turbulence of Paris had compelled 
 the substitution at the head of affairs of the unimagina- 
 tive Cavaignac for the cosmopolitan Lamartine. 
 
 Perhaps Lord Palmerston ought to have foreseen the 
 fatal consequences of Italian disunion, but he only erred 
 with the rest of Europe in believing, after the fall of 
 Peschiera, that Carlo Alberto could hold the whole of 
 North Italy, and it is improbable that he could have 
 persuaded the Sardinian Government to accept less 
 terms than the surrender of the whole of Venetia and 
 Lombardy, even if he had wished to do so. There was, 
 too, an insincerity about the Austrian overtures which 
 disgusted both Palmerston and the advisers of Carlo 
 Alberto. It was found that the proposals for an 
 armistice, of which Palmerston consented to be the 
 mouth-piece, were only made to gain time for the ad- 
 vance of Austrian reinforcements, and for attempts to 
 sow dissension between Lombardy and Sardinia. And 
 the maximum of Austrian surrender, the cession of 
 Lombardy minus Venetia, seemed ludicrously inadequate 
 at a moment when everyone expected to hear that 
 Badetzky was in full retreat to the Alps. Things had 
 gone too far, was Palmerston's opinion, and the British 
 Government were unwilling to enter upon a negotiation 
 which, in their opinion, offered no prospects of success ; 
 and to make a proposal, which they felt confident be- 
 forehand that one of the parties, Sardinia, would posi- 
 tively refuse to accept. He pointed out besides, what 
 subsequent events amply proved to be true, that Austria 
 could only hold Venetia by military occupation pure 
 and simple, and that any possessions south of the Alps 
 must, therefore, be a source of weakness to her rather 
 than of strength. The retort of the Austrians, that 
 
124 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 the loss of prestige would be far more serious than the 
 expense of maintaining troops in Italy, was perhaps 
 natural ; and in the impregnable defences of the 
 Quadrilateral, and the Fabian skill of Eadetzky, they 
 had ample means for closing the discussion for the 
 time being. Lord Palmerston's attempts to mitigate 
 the punishment of the Italians, when the recapture of 
 Milan proved how completely the tide had turned, and 
 during the cessation of hostilities which preceded the 
 final overthrow of their hopes at No vara, were vigorous, 
 but of course unsuccessful ; and it was left for Napoleon 
 III. and the present Emperor of Germany to accomplish 
 by blood and iron what Palmerston had so nearly 
 •effected by diplomacy. The rapture with which the 
 news of the Austrian victory was received at Court and 
 in London society, proved that in his faith in the cause 
 of Italy, Palmerston was in advance of his time by at 
 least a decade. At all events, he had the courage of 
 his opinions. 
 
 Yesterday [writes Greville in March 1849] there was a Drawing- 
 room, at which everybody, the Queen included, complimented and 
 wished joy to Oolloredo (the Austrian ambassador), except Palmer- 
 ston, who, though he spoke to him about other things, never alluded 
 to the news that had just arrived from Italy. . . . Nothing could be 
 more striking than this marked difference between the Foreign Secre- 
 tary and his Sovereign, and all his countrymen, and we may be pretty 
 sure Oolloredo will not fail to make a pretty story of it to his Court. 
 
 The Foreign Secretary about this period was doomed 
 to witness the temporary overthrow of all his Italian 
 projects. His protege, Pio Nono, proved unsatisfactory ; 
 reforming zeal was evanescent at the Vatican, and the 
 Holy Father was eventually forced by the outbreak of 
 the revolution at Rome to summon French bayo- 
 nets to support him against his own subjects, whose 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 125 
 
 sympathies were for a republican form of govern- 
 ment. Equally disappointing were Lord Minto's efforts 
 to mediate between the King of Naples and the insur- 
 gent Sicilians ; the revolt was drowned in blood, and the 
 hideous ferocity of the bombardment of Messina and 
 Palermo gained for Ferdinando the nickname of 
 " Bomba/' by which he is chiefly remembered. Un- 
 fortunately for himself, Palmerston did not confine his 
 efforts to mediation, but overstepped the limits of 
 friendly neutrality by allowing arms to be supplied to 
 the Sicilian insurgents from the Ordnance — as usual, 
 without informing his colleagues. The matter was 
 taken up by the Times, and in the House of Commons, 
 but Palmerston escaped unscathed. He had, it is true, to 
 apologise to Bomba, but apologies never cost him a very 
 violent pang of regret ; while Greville was constrained 
 to record the complete success of his answer to Mr. 
 Barker. " a slashing, impudent speech, of sarcasms, 
 jokes, and clap-traps," scarcely deigning to notice 
 the question. A more dignified course of conduct 
 was bis remonstrance to the % Neapolitan ambassador 
 on the infamous misgovernment disclosed by Mr. 
 Gladstone's famous letters to Lord Aberdeen on the 
 state prisons and state trials of King Bomba's Govern- 
 ment. Prince Castelcicala was informed that Mr. Glad- 
 stone's letters presented a picture of illegality, injustice, 
 and cruelty, such as might have been hoped would 
 not have existed in any European country. The re- 
 monstrance was, however, burked by the Neapolitan 
 ministers until the outcry had passed away, and pro- 
 duced no effect, though Palmerston supplemented it by 
 a fine speech in the House, in which he eulogised Mr. 
 Gladstone's sympathy for the oppressed. 
 
 The fulness of time has so amply demonstrated the 
 
126 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 justice of Palmerston's contention that the Austrian 
 rule in Italy was an anachronism, and that freedom 
 would certainly he accomplished, if not hy the unaided 
 efforts of the Italians, yet certainly through foreign 
 intervention, that to defend it would be a mere waste of 
 words. Italy, as he says in one of his letters to Lord 
 Ponsonby, was to Austria the heel of Achilles, not the 
 shield of Ajax. The Alps were her natural barrier, and 
 her best defence. Palmerston was no enemy to Austria ; 
 on the contrary, he wished to see her empire north of 
 the Alps in a condition of strength and prosperity to 
 act as a counterpoise to France. She was "the pivot 
 of the balance of power in Europe." His advice during 
 the crisis was thoroughly sound, and was actually adopted 
 in part. The abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand, " an 
 implumis bipes, a Guy Faux, a perfect nullity, next thing 
 to an idiot," as Palmerston rather imprudently styled him 
 in his private letters, was in conformity with his recom- 
 mendation ; and he may be forgiven for not being ac- 
 quainted with the good qualities of the " lad of sixteen 
 or twenty,''' Francis Joseph, who mounted the tottering 
 throne in the place of his uncle; And with regard to 
 the revolution in Hungary, his conduct was equally dis- 
 interested. The idea of armed intervention was never 
 entertained for a moment, though the sympathies of this 
 country were as active in favour of the Magyars — thanks 
 to the picturesqueness of Kossuth — as they were tepid 
 with regard to the Lombards. He even declined to 
 recognize the insurgents by giving an audience to their 
 representative. At the same time he interceded on 
 their behalf at Vienna; but to his admirable advice 
 Schwarzenberg, the successor of Metternich, turned a 
 deaf ear. In the hour of victory the Austrian Govern- 
 ment was urged to make a generous use of the successes 
 
YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 127 
 
 which it had obtained, by restoring to Hungary its due 
 constitutional rights ; and Palmerston did not fail to 
 point out that, by calling in .Russian aid to crush the 
 rebellion, Austria had set open a door which it might 
 not be easy to shut.* When the full details of the 
 brutal suppression of the rebellion, the flogging of 
 women and other atrocities, reached England, he allowed 
 his righteous indignation full play ; and directed Lord 
 Ponsonby to maintain the dignity and honour of Eng- 
 land by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust 
 which such proceedings excited in the public mind. 
 
 Though Palmerston's good offices on behalf of Italy 
 and Hungary were of no avail for the time being, the 
 diplomatic campaign against Prince Schwarzenberg 
 closed with a brilliant triumph. After the end of the 
 war, numerous fugitives, among whom were Kossuth 
 and Bern, a Pole who had commanded the Hungarian 
 insurgents with conspicuous success, took refuge in 
 Turkey. The Kussian and Austrian ambassadors at 
 Constantinople took upon themselves to demand their 
 surrender, with a threat that if their demands did not 
 receive a categorical answer within a limited time they 
 would suspend diplomatic relations ; and their high- 
 handed conduct received the full sanction of their 
 respective Governments, who appealed to loosely-worded 
 treaties extorted from the Porte in former days of 
 humiliation. An immediate surrender would have fol- 
 lowed, had not Stratford Canning been at hand to 
 
 - * Cobden blamed bim for not baving sent a vigorous protest against 
 tbe Russian expedition, and tbougbt tbat it would bave so strength- 
 ened tbe hands of tbe Russian ministers tbat tbe Czar -would bave 
 countermanded bis troops (Morley's Cobden, vol. ii. p. 67). Tbe idea 
 tbat a Czar, especially Nicbolas, would allow himself to be swayed by 
 ministerial advice, is one of exquisite simplicity. 
 
128 LIFE OF VISCOUUT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 inspire the Sultan with a week's resolution ; and Palmer- 
 ston availed himself of the opportunity with his accus- 
 tomed skill. Baron Briinnow, the Russian minister in 
 London, was informed before the determination of his 
 Government was known, that the British fleet was to be 
 sent to the Dardanelles — "just as one holds a bottle of 
 salts to the nose of a lady who has been frightened " — 
 remarked the flippant Foreign Secretary ; and the alter- 
 natives of the withdrawal of the obnoxious demands, 
 or war, were placed plainly before him and his Aus- 
 trian colleague. In vain Schwarzenberg attempted to 
 effect a retreat through a back-door, by moderating his 
 demands to a request that the fugitives should be 
 detained by the Porte in the interior of Turkey ; it was 
 incompatible with the dignity of the Sultan, said Pal- 
 merston, that he should act as the gaoler of the 
 Emperor of Austria. When, two years later, the 
 Sultan summoned up courage to set Kossuth and his 
 companions free, Palmerston could claim to have won 
 all along the line. 
 
129 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 
 1849—1852. 
 
 Independence of Lord Palmerston — Differences of opinion with the 
 Court — The Danish succession question — The Pacifico affair — 
 Breakdown of negotiations — Indignation of France — Civis Roma- 
 nus sum — Effect of the speech— The Queen's Memorandum — The 
 Haynau and Kossuth incidents — The coup d'tftat — Dismissal of 
 Palmerston — Constitutional side of the question — The Militia 
 Bill— The first Derby Ministry. 
 
 Though Lord Palmerston's policy since the return of 
 the Whigs to power had been on the whole remarkably 
 sober and sagacious, the Bulwer fiasco at Madrid and 
 the Sicilian incident proved that the old Adam of in- 
 subordination was not wholly dead within him. Nor 
 were these the only occasions on which, forgetful of 
 the flight of time, he attempted a repetition of the 
 tactics which had been so successful in the good old 
 days of Lord Melbourne, and sent off important 
 despatches without submitting them to Lord John 
 Russell and the Sovereign, or without inserting the 
 alterations which he had been directed to make. And 
 the necessity of coming to a previous understanding 
 
 9 
 
130 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 upon important steps was all the greater because the 
 opinions of the Court and the Foreign becretary 
 were distinctly at issue on many questions of Eu- 
 ropean importance. The sympathies of the Court 
 were with Austria, those of Palmerston with Italy 
 and Hungary, and his views were the wiser of the 
 two ; but about North German politics he was rather 
 prejudiced and rather ignorant, yet he paid small 
 attention to the opinions of Prince Albert, who was 
 unquestionably better informed. Among the many wise 
 memoranda which are to be found in Sir Theodore 
 Martin's Life of Prince Consort, perhaps the most re- 
 markable are those in which he urged the necessity of 
 German unity under Prussian leadership. Palmerston, 
 though, as can be seen in an interesting letter written by 
 him during a visit to Berlin in 1844, he was not without 
 some insight into the great part that Prussia would some 
 day be called upon to play, cared little for German 
 unity ; and while Prince Albert saw in the Zollverein, 
 or customs union, a feeble beginning of a one and un- 
 divided Fatherland, Palmerston resented its existence 
 as an arrangement for placing prohibitive duties on 
 British exports. 
 
 Indeed, if the Danish succession question may be 
 taken as a test, Palmerston's want of information 
 on the inner workings of Teutonic politics was very 
 considerable. Count Vitzthum, in his memoirs, goes 
 so far as to state that the Foreign Secretary was 
 actuated by personal motives in the matter, his aim 
 being to purchase the non-interference of Baron 
 Briinnow in the Don Pacifico affair by giving Russia 
 a free hand at Copenhagen, and supporting, or at 
 all events acquiescing, in the claims put forward by 
 the Kussian dynasty to a portion of the Danish terri- 
 
PALMEBSTON AND THE COURT. 131 
 
 tory, which included the important harbour of Kiel. 
 Even if this account of the history of the Protocol of 
 July 4th 1850, upon which was based the Treaty of 
 1852, guaranteeing the crown of Denmark to Prince 
 Christian of Glucksburg, be not accepted as gospel, 
 there can be no doubt that the continued exclusion of 
 Germany from the Baltic by the maintenance of the con- 
 nection between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein was 
 far more a matter of interest to Russia than to England. 
 And though there may be some question as to the 
 motives which dictated the arrangement, there can be 
 none as to the carelessness with which it was executed. 
 The choice of the negotiators fell upon a prince who, 
 whatever claims he might have to the throne of Den- 
 mark, was regarded by German jurists to have a right 
 to the Duchies inferior to no less than nineteen other 
 members of the house of Schleswig-Holstein. The 
 renunciations of these " agnates " were never obtained, 
 nor was the consent of the Estates of the Duchies. 
 Lastly, though the Duchies were indisputably members 
 of the German Federation, no attempt was made to 
 obtain for the arrangement the sanction of the Federa- 
 tion in its collective form, for Austria and Prussia 
 signed the Protocol not as mandatories of the Ger- 
 man Diet, but individually, as great Powers. 
 
 It seemed quite on the cards that a trial of strength 
 between the Court and the Foreign Secretary might be 
 averted by the retirement of Lord Palmerston from 
 office, in consequence of a hostile opinion in the House 
 of Commons as to the merits of Ms treatment of what is 
 generally known as the Don Pacifico affair. LordPalmer- 
 ston's defence of the Porte against the menaces of Russia 
 and Austria had been generally approved, but there was 
 naturally some revulsion of public feeling when it was 
 
 9 * 
 
132 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 discovered that the fleet which had been so honourably 
 employed at the Dardanelles was immediately after- 
 wards despatched to coerce the weak little kingdom of 
 Greece for the non-compliance with the demands of the 
 British Government for compensation for various acts 
 of violence committed towards British subjects. There 
 was even a feeling of dismay when the intelligence 
 leaked out that the French Government had actually 
 recalled its Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, from London, 
 because it believed that his attempts to patch up the 
 dispute between England and Greece had been treated 
 with scanty respect, and that the Kussian Government 
 had demanded an explanation of Palmerstons's proceed- 
 ings in rather a serious tone. 
 
 Perhaps the points at issue were hardly understood. 
 The seizure of the Greek gunboats and Greek mer- 
 chantmen by Admiral Parker was regarded as a piece 
 of bullying, by people who argued as if the feebleness of a 
 State was a reason for allowing it to commit crimes with 
 impunity. There was also a disposition to minimise 
 the amount and duration of the wrongs committed, and 
 to overlook the utter impossibility of obtaining redress 
 through the Greek courts of law or by any means short 
 of the employment of force. Because one of the com- 
 plainants, Don Pacifico, was a Jew adventurer who seized 
 the opportunity to put forward some utterly extortionate 
 claims for compensation, there was no reason why satis- 
 faction should not be exacted for the destruction of his 
 house by an Athenian mob. At any rate, Mr. Finlay, 
 the historian, whose 'land had been seized by King 
 Otho without a drachma in return, was a perfectly 
 reputable person; and, of the other offences of the 
 Hellenic authorities, the torture of an Ionian who was a 
 British subject, and the arrest of the coxswain and boat's 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 133 
 
 crew of H.M.S. Fantdme, were unquestionably outrages 
 of a very serious nature. 
 
 The British case against the disreputable little Greek 
 Government was really perfectly clear, but to apportion 
 the blame for the breakdown of the negotiations was 
 a nicer question. The offer of French mediation was 
 certainly made in good faith, though Palmerston 
 strongly suspected that the intrigues of the French 
 minister at the Greek Court were at the bottom of King 
 Otho's obstinacy. But when Baron Gros, the French 
 Commissioner, arrived at Athens, his proceedings 
 resembled those of an advocate rather than those of an 
 arbitrator ; the terms of his settlement were rejected by 
 our ambassador, Mr. Wyse, as inadequate, and he 
 thereupon gave notice that his mission was at an end. 
 Meanwhile, a parallel series of negotiations had been 
 going on in London between Drouyn de Lhuys and 
 Palmerston, which had issue in a convention signed on 
 the 18th which disposed of the whole question under dis- 
 pute. Intimation of the terms of the proposed arrange- 
 ment, of which the essential was that if the negotia- 
 tors at Athens could not agree, they should refer their 
 differences to London, reached Baron Gros on the 24th, 
 and was communicated by him to Mr. Wyse ; but the 
 latter, who had received no fresh instructions from 
 London corresponding to those that his French col- 
 league had received from Paris, did not venture to 
 depart from his previous instructions and postpone the 
 employment of force. The embargo was renewed on 
 the 25th, and on the following day the Greek Govern- 
 ment submitted unconditionally. 
 
 It was but natural that the French Government 
 should feel that they had been treated with disrespect, 
 and resent that treatment accordingly. Drouyn de 
 
134 LIFE OF VI800UNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 Lhuys was recalled from London, and General Lahittei- 
 the French Foreign Minister, openly charged the British 
 Government with duplicity. A dispassionate examina- 
 tion of the whole affair would probably have acquitted 
 Palmerston of a more serious offence than neglect to 
 keep Mr. Wyse constantly and accurately informed 
 on the progress of negotiations in London. But 
 he did not improve matters by trying, in answer to 
 Mr. Milner Gibson, to explain away the recall of 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, who, said he, had^ gone to Paris " in 
 order personally to be a medium of communication 
 between the two Governments." The excitement was 
 great, though the danger of war was in reality quite 
 remote ; many of Palmersfcon's colleagues were anxious 
 to be rid of him, and the Opposition in the House of 
 Lords seized the opportunity to win a bloodless victory 
 by carrying a hostile resolution on the motion of Lord 
 Stanley by a majority of 27. The Cabinet, after delibe- 
 ration, decided to stand or fall together, and resolved 
 to cancel the bad effects of the vote in the Upper House, 
 by availing themselves of a resolution of which Mr. 
 Koebuck had given notice — that the principles on which 
 the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government had 
 been regulated had been such as were calculated to 
 maintain the honour and dignity of this country, and 
 in times of unexampled difficulty to preserve peace 
 between England and the various nations of the 
 world. 
 
 The debate of four nights which followed was made 
 memorable by the last speech that Sir Eobert Peel ever 
 made, by Mr. Oockburn's brilliant "Crown and An- 
 chor" harangue, as Mr. Disraeli termed it, by one of 
 the greatest of Mr. Gladstone's oratorical displays, and 
 by Palmerston's magnificent defence of his policy in a 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 135 
 
 speech lasting " from the dusk of one day till the dawn 
 of another."** Of that magnificent specimen of sus- 
 tained and elaborate argument it is impossible here to 
 give more than a very meagre account. Part of it was 
 a well-considered apologia pro vita sua, in which he 
 passed the whole of recent European history before him 
 in skilful review, by a series of graceful transitions 
 from the " sunny plains of Castille and gay vineyards 
 of France " to the " rugged Alps and smiling plains 
 of Lombardy." Incidentally he managed to make a 
 remarkably neat cut at his enemies in Paris, and to 
 those who listened to them in England, by laughing 
 to scorn the idea that the French had driven out M. 
 Guizot at the instigation of a knot of foreign con- 
 spirators who were " caballing " against him, " for no 
 other reason than that he upheld, as he conceived, the 
 dignity and interests of his country." On the Greek 
 question his argument was temperate and lucid, except 
 when it concerned the breakdown of the mission of 
 Baron Gros, and there leakages are to be discovered in 
 abundance. But little exception can be taken to his 
 contention that if British subjects could get no redress 
 from foreign courts of law, they were not to be con- 
 fined to that remedy only, but were entitled to receive 
 the protection of their own Government; or to his 
 arguments that Mr. Finlay had no redress because the 
 Greek revolution of 1843 had thrown a veil over the 
 unconstitutional acts of the Monarchy, and that with 
 respect to Don Pacifico it was impossible to take pro- 
 ceedings against a mob of five hundred persons. The 
 orator brushed aside the flimsy objection that, because 
 
 * The speech I had to make [he wrote to his brother] could not 
 be comprised within a shorter time than from a quarter before ten to t 
 twenty minutes past two. 
 
136 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 M. Pacifico was a person of doubtful antecedents, he 
 could be maltreated with impunity. 
 
 The rights of a man depend on the merits of the particular case ; 
 and it is an abuse of argument to say that you are not to give redresa 
 to a man because in some former transactions he may have done 
 something which is questionable. Punish turn, if you will — punish him 
 if he is guilty, but don't pursue him as a Pariah through life. ..." Oh, 
 but," it is said, " what an ungenerous proceeding to employ so large 
 a force against so small a power ! " Does the smallness of a country 
 justify the magnitude of its evil acts ? Is it to be held that if your 
 subjects suffer violence, outrage, and plunder, in a country which is 
 small and weak, you are to tell them, when they apply for compensa- 
 tion, that the country is so weak and so small that we cannot ask it 
 for compensation? Their answer would be that the weakness and 
 smallness of the country makes it the more easy to obtain redress 
 
 At the dose of the speech came the well-known 
 peroration in which the Foreign Secretary extolled the 
 dignity of English citizenship. He did not, he said, 
 blame the Opposition for attacking Ministers ; for the 
 government of England was an object of fair and 
 legitimate ambition for men of all shades of opinion. 
 
 For while we have seen .... the political earthquake rocking 
 Europe from side to side, while we have seen thrones shaken, 
 shattered, levelled, institutions overthrown and destroyed, while in 
 almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged 
 the land with blood, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the 
 Baltic to the Mediterranean, this country has presented a spectacle 
 honourable to the people of England and worthy of the admiration 
 of mankind. We have shown that liberty is compatible with order, 
 that individual freedom is not irreconcilable with obedience to the 
 law. We have shown the example of a nation, in which very 
 class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence 
 has assigned to it, while at the same time every individual of each 
 class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale — not by 
 injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality — but by persever- 
 ing good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion of the 
 moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed 
 him. To govern such a people as this is indeed an object worthy 
 of the ambition of the noblest man who lives in the land ; and there- 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 137 
 
 fore I find no fault with those who may think any opportunity a fair 
 one for endeavouring to place themselves in so distinguished and 
 honourable a position. . . . But, making allowances for those diffe- 
 rences of opinion, which may fairly and honourably arise among 
 those who concur in general views, I maintain that the principles 
 which can be traced through all our foreign transactions, as the 
 guiding rule and directing spirit of our proceedings, are such as 
 deserve approbation. I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict 
 which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a con- 
 stitutional country, is to give on the question before it ; whether the 
 principles on which the foreign policy of this country has been con- 
 ducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound 
 to afford protection to our fellow subjects abroad, are proper and 
 fitting guides for those who are charged with the government of 
 England, and whether, as the Roman in the days of old held himself 
 free from indignity when he could say Civis Romanus sum, so also a 
 British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the 
 watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect him against 
 injustice and wrong. 
 
 This speech not only gave the Government a hand- 
 some majority of forty-six, but it raised the reputation 
 of Palmerston to a height to which none of his con- 
 temporaries, not even Lord John Russell himself, could 
 hope to aspire. " We are proud of the man who delivered 
 that most able and temperate speech " was Sir Robert 
 Peel's generous acknowledgment ; and Palmerston wrote 
 to his brother, that he was for the present the most 
 popular Minister that for a very long course of time had 
 held his office. The Don Pacjlico debate was un- 
 questionably an important landmark in the life of Lord 
 Palmerston. Hitherto his merits had been known only 
 to a select few ; for the British public does not read 
 Blue Books, and as a rule troubles itself very little about 
 foreign politics at all. His greatest achievements had 
 passed almost unnoticed by the electorate, though they 
 had certainly looked upon him as a strong and capable 
 man. But the Pacifico speech caught the ear 'of the 
 
138 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 nation, and was received with a universal verdict of 
 approval. From that hour Lord Palmerston became the 
 man of the people, and his rise to the premiership only a 
 question of time. As Mr. Morley has pointed out in his 
 Life of Cobden, Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were un- 
 able to keep in power if they got there ; the Whigs were 
 steadily losing ground in popular opinion ; the Man- 
 chester School was out of the question. Lord Pal- 
 merston's only possible rival was Sir Robert Peel, and 
 he met his death the very day after he had taken part in 
 the Pacifico debate. 
 
 At the same time there were breakers ahead. The 
 distrust of the Court continued without abatement, and 
 attempt was made, with the concurrence of Lord John 
 Russell, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lansdowne, and 
 Lord Clarendon, to induce the Foreign Secretary to 
 accept some other office, which, however, he declined to 
 do. Fresh negligence brought down upon him fresh 
 rebukes from the Queen, culminating in the famous 
 Memorandum of August the 12th, in which she required 
 that, under penalty of dismissal, (1) he would distinctly 
 state what he proposed in a given case, in order that 
 the Queen might know as distinctly to what she had 
 given her Royal sanction ; (2) that, having once given 
 her sanction to a measure, it should not be arbitrarily 
 altered or modified by the Minister^ Palmerston, with 
 tears in his eyes, protested to Prince Albert that he had 
 been accused of being wanting in respect to the Queen, 
 which was an imputation on his honour as a gentleman : 
 pleaded stress of business, and the loss of time incurred 
 by sending despatches to the Queen through the Premier r 
 and promised amendment. He did not resign, he after- 
 wards explained, for several reasons, because he had no 
 reason to believe that the memorandum would ever be 
 
PALMERSTON AND TEE COURT. 139 
 
 made public ; because he had recently gained a signal 
 victory in the Commons, and to have resigned then 
 would have been to have delivered the fruits of victory 
 to the adversaries whom he had defeated ; and thirdly, 
 because he would have been bringing to the bar of 
 public opinion, a quarrel between himself and his 
 Sovereign, the result of which course must have been 
 fatal to himself or injurious to his country. 
 
 Within a month he had submitted a letter of regret for 
 the maltreatment of the " Austrian butcher " General 
 Haynau, by Messrs. Barclay's draymen, to Baron Koller 
 the Austrian Charge d'Affaires, without consulting the 
 Premier or the Queen, which contained a paragraph to 
 which they both objected, and which they forced him to 
 withdraw. This was early in September. Early in 
 November, Kossuth arrived in England, and Palmerston, 
 dissuaded by the united representations of the Cabinet 
 from receiving him at Broadlands, relieved his feelings by 
 receiving a deputation of Islington and Finsbury Radicals, 
 to whom, in return for their denunciations of the Em- 
 perors of Russia and Austria as "odious and detestable 
 assassins " and " merciless tyrants and despots," he de- 
 livered the "judicious bottle-holder" oration, and thanked 
 them for their flattering and gratifying expressions of 
 opinion. \ 
 
 The impropriety of such language was so obvious, 
 that the virulence of the Kossuth mania in England was 
 probably the only reason which prevented Lord John 
 Russell from effecting his long meditated manifestation 
 of authority. " I think," was Greville's comment, " this 
 is on the whole the worst thing he (Palmerston) has 
 ever done." Certainly Lord John Russell, who had 
 swallowed the camel, seems to have strained at a gnat, 
 when he ejected Palmerston from office on the 19th of 
 
140 LIFE OF VISQOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 December, for having^ expressed his approval of Louis 
 Napoleon's coup d'etat, in a conversation with the 
 French Minister,] Count Walewski ; and Greville's sur- 
 mise, that the occasion was made a casus belli because 
 Palmerston had taken the unpopular side, was probably 
 right. No doubt it was extremely inconvenient, when 
 Lord Normanby informed the French Foreign Minister 
 that he was directed to observe a policy of strict 
 neutrality, that he should receive intimation that, two 
 days before, Count Walewski had conveyed Palmerston's 
 entire approbation of the act of Louis Napoleon. Our 
 Minister and Government were placed in an extremely 
 false position. Still Lord John Eussell never at- 
 tempted to deny that he, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir 
 Charles Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had 
 also expressed their approval of the coup aV'etat to 
 Count Walewski in conversation ; and there is, as diplo- 
 matists know, considerable force in^Palmerston's argu- 
 ment that his communication was " unofficial." * \Lord 
 John probably thought that the sum total of Palmerston's 
 offences was so great that any harshness towards him 
 was justifiable, even the crowning indignity of the offer 
 of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. When the usual 
 explanations took place in the [House of Commons, he 
 was even more relentless, and produced with crushing 
 effect the Queen's memorandum of August 1850. , Pal- 
 merston, who had refused to believe that so complete an 
 
 * Lord Malmesbury clearly acknowledges the distinction between 
 an " officious" and " official" conversation (Memoirs of an Ex- Mini- 
 ster, i. 303, note). On the other hand the Duke of Wellington pro- 
 nounced most decidedly against any attempt to establish a distinction 
 between private and official opinions. " Oh, but that won't do," he 
 said to Prince Albert, " That would be dishonest. It would be 
 appearing in two characters. No ! No ! We are very particular on 
 that point." (Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii., p. 427.) 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 141 
 
 execution was imminent, was exceedingly inefficient in 
 his defence ; and most people would probably have agreed 
 with the comment in Macaulay's diary, " Palmerston is 
 out. It was high time; but I cannot help feeling 
 sorry." 
 
 The constitutional questions raised by the struggle 
 between the Foreign Secretary and the Court were of a 
 very complicated nature. Let us say at once that 
 Lord Palmerston cannot be held to have been actuated 
 by any deliberate disrespect for the Crown./ His 
 contention was this — that his experience in foreign 
 affairs was more extended than that of Prince Albert, 
 and that he might therefore claim an immunity from 
 supervision in matters of detail, though he acknow- 
 ledged that both the Crown and the Premier had a right 
 to consider the draft of despatches upon matters of im- 
 portance, j He was also of opinion that the transmission 
 of despatches involved great waste of time in cases of 
 urgency, that their alteration was frequently the cause of 
 grave ambiguity of language, in short, that too many 
 cooks spoil the broth. Such contentions are evidently 
 of considerable force. But there can hardly be any 
 doubt that(Lord Palmerston really aimed at a far greater 
 measure of independence than he professed X that if he 
 had been able to get his own way, he would have 
 secured the imperium in ■imperio of Lord Melbourne's 
 time ; and that, failing to get it by direct means, he had 
 resort to subterfuges and neglects of duty, the ultimate 
 object of which was to steal a march upon his Sovereign 
 and colleagues when they happened to disagree with 
 him. 
 
 On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that the 
 Court, through want of judgment, by no means adopted 
 the most straightforward means of reconciling their 
 
142 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 views with those of the Foreign Secretary, /instead of 
 encouraging him to lay his opinions freely before them 
 in frequent interviews and direct intercourse, they treated 
 him with distrust and appeared to shun his society). 
 The interposition of Lord John Eussell was invoked, the" 
 arrangement being that " the despatches submitted for 
 (the Queen's) approval must pass through the hands of 
 Lord John Russell, who, if he should think that they 
 required any material change, should accompany them 
 with a statement of his reasons." To the transmission 
 through the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston agreed ; 
 and the fact says volumes for his generous and loyal 
 disposition. For if the arrangement had been carried 
 out to the letter, the result would have been, that while 
 the Foreign Secretary prepared the drafts, they would 
 have been discussed and settled between the Prime 
 Minister and the Sovereign.* He would thus have 
 been reduced from a confidential servant of the Crown, 
 to the position of a mere clerk, indeed his position 
 would have become almost intolerable for a man of any 
 self-respect. Even with the most delicate treatment, the 
 system could hardly fail to create and perpetuate a feel- 
 ing of antagonism between the Prime Minister and the 
 head of the Foreign Department, and it should certainly 
 never have been proposed to Lord Palmerston as a law 
 of conduct. Though approved by Lord John, it seems 
 to have been almost entirely the work of Stockmar, and 
 expressive of the feelings of the Court. Fresh suspicion 
 and confusion was the inevitable result ; and Lord 
 Palmerston's admirers might fairly have advanced as an 
 excuse for some of his escapades, that he was proscribed 
 and subordinated to another, in a place where he had 
 every right to play the part of a familiar friend. 
 
 * Mr. Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years, vol. i. p. 87. 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 143 
 
 " There was a Palmerston," said Mr. Disraeli ; and 
 Guizot, himself in exile, raised a Nunc dimittis when he 
 heard of his enemy's overthrow. The member for 
 Tiverton bore his temporary adversity with that entire 
 absence of rancour which is perhaps the most delightful 
 trait in his fine nature. " Ah, how are you, Granville ? " 
 he said to his successor; " Well, you have got a very in- 
 teresting office, but you will find it very laborious," and 
 proceeded to give him every assistance in his power. 
 There was no ill-feeling in his mind against the Court, 
 though he imagined that they had been influenced by 
 foreign, especially Orleanist, influences in his dismissal. 
 This view he communicated to his brother without 
 circumlocution, together with a curious story about 
 a contemplated descent upon the French coast by 
 the Orleauist princes, the Due d'Aumale and the 
 Prince de Joinville, which he believed to have preci- 
 pitated Napoleon's coup d'etat, and which induced 
 him to express his warm approval of that measure. 
 Nor did he bear any unworthy resentment against 
 Lord John Russell. According to Lord Shaftesbury, 
 he never alluded to him but with a laugh, and 
 " Oh, he's a foolish fellow, but we shall go on very well 
 now." 
 
 It is onlv fair then to consider that Palmerston was 
 not influenced by personal motives in his attack upon 
 Lord John's Militia Bill, by which, within a very short 
 space of time, he so signally avenged his own dismissal 
 from office. " I have had my tit-for-tat with John 
 Russell," he wrote to his brother, " and I turned him 
 out on Friday last "; but he hastened to add that his only 
 object was to persuade the House to reject the feeble 
 plan of the Government. Indeed, few statesmen of the 
 day had taken more honourable interest in the state of 
 
144 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 
 
 our defences, or had spoken more frequently on the 
 subject. A memorandum which he addressed to Lord 
 Melbourne, set forth the liability of England to invasion 
 •with a fulness of knowledge that a military authority 
 might envy. During Peel's ministry he had examined the 
 Government on harbours and fortifications with a per- 
 sistency which aroused the wrath of Oobden, and which 
 calls forth the mirth of Oobden's biographer, Mr. John 
 Morley. Nor can it be questioned that Palmerston's 
 amendment, which made the militia generally instead of 
 " locally " available, was a vast improvement to the 
 measure. It might have been accepted by the ministry 
 without loss of honour, and he suspected them of incur- 
 ring the defeat because they were anxious to escape from 
 the responsibility of carrying on the Government any 
 longer. A passage in Lord John Kussell's He?ninis- 
 cences proves that the guess was correct. 
 
 The tit-for-tat naturally drew attention once more to 
 Palmerston's political isolation. In spite of his long 
 service in the Whig ranks, he was still a political free 
 lance ; and Lord Derby, to whom fell the formation of a 
 ministry, thrice made overtures for his services ; in 
 February 1852, again in July, and for a third time in 
 December. All proposals were, however, declined, 
 chiefly because of the Protectionist colour of the ad- 
 ministration, though Palmerston gave valuable support 
 to their Militia Bill, and even prolonged their existence 
 at the opening of the new Parliament by bringing forward 
 an amendment to Mr. Charles Villiers' free trade reso- 
 lution which they were able to accept without loss of 
 dignity. Conscious of his own strength, he was but 
 little troubled by the gloomy looks of his former col- 
 leagues, whom from time to time he treated rather un- 
 kindly. When at the Tiverton hustings, the local orator 
 
PALMERSTON AND THE COVET. 145 
 
 the butcher, Kowcliffe, attempted to rally him on his 
 position, Palmerston blandly replied that whatever Go- 
 vernment he meant to join, he would never join a 
 Government called a Kowcliffe Administration. His 
 letters show that he was equally determined not to serve 
 again under " Johnny "; and the admission which he went 
 on to make, that Johnny was not likely to serve under 
 him, proves that he felt that his" own hour was not yet 
 come. There happened at this time to be a movement 
 on foot among the Whigs for uniting the Liberal party 
 under the eminently prudent leadership of Lord Lans- 
 downe ; and though it was not initiated in any way by 
 Palmerston, he gave it his cordial support. Age and 
 ill-health, however, compelled Lord Lansdowne to deter- 
 mine upon a nolo episcopari ; and on the retirement of 
 the Derby Ministry, Lord Aberdeen constructed a cabi- 
 net of Peelites and Whigs, with Sir William Molesworth 
 as the representative of Philosophic Kadicalism. 
 
 10 
 
146 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 
 
 1852-1855. 
 
 Lord Palmerston at the Home Office — Legislation and Deputations — 
 The Reform Bill — Temporary Resignation of Palmerston — Be- 
 ginnings of the Eastern Question — The Menschikoff mission — 
 Lord Palmerston's policy — His popularity with the nation — The 
 Vienna note — The Concert of the Powers — Palmerston's descrip- 
 tion of the objects at issue — Declaration of war by Turkey — The 
 Sinope disaster — Beginning of the war — The Napier banquet 
 and its consequences — Proposal to make Palmerston Secretary at 
 War — The Crimean expedition — Fall of the Ministry. 
 
 In the Coalition Ministry Lord Palmerston, rather to 
 the general surprise, was persuaded to take the Home 
 Office. He did not yield until after considerable pres- 
 sure had been put upon him, conscious, perhaps, that 
 he was open to a charge of inconsistency if he served 
 under a premier whose continental policy he had 
 criticized so mercilessly. But the co-operation which 
 he refused to Aberdeen was conceded to the solicita- 
 tions of Lord Lansdowne, especially when he found 
 that foreign affairs were to be in sound Whig hands. 
 Palmerston chose the Home Office because it would 
 bring him in contact with his fellow-countrymen, and 
 would give him influence with regard to the militia and the 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 147 
 
 national defences ; and as Home Secretary he was a most 
 unqualified success. " I never knew any Home Secre- 
 tary," wrote Lord Shaftesbury, "equal to Palmerston 
 for readiness to undertake every good work of kindness, 
 humanity, and social good, especially to the child and 
 the working class. No fear of wealth, capital, or elec- 
 tion terrors ; prepared at all times to run a tilt if he 
 could do good by it. Has already done more good than 
 ten of his predecessors." The Shaftesbury hall-mark 
 was indeed to be seen in most of his measures, with the 
 exception of the timely extinction of the Board of 
 Health, which vexed the righteous soul of his relative. 
 The Youthful Offenders' Bill gave Government aid to 
 reformatory schools, and greatly increased their num- 
 ber and efficiency ; the Factory Acts were amended for 
 the benefit of children ; the institution of tickets-of-leave 
 effected an admirable reform in the criminal system ; 
 while attention was paid to the health of the people of 
 London by measures for the abatement of the smoke 
 nuisance, and for shutting up the graveyards within the 
 metropolitan area. 
 
 If Lord Palmerston's legislation was influenced by 
 others, his manner of receiving deputations and answer- 
 ing memorials was entirely his own. Mr. Evelyn Ash- 
 ley records that when the people of Rugely wanted a 
 new name for their town, which had acquired notoriety 
 through having been the residence of the poisoner, 
 Palmer, the Home Secretary asked them how his own 
 name, " Palmerstown," would suit them. His answer 
 to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, who requested that a 
 national fast might be appointed on account of the visi- 
 tation of the cholera, was even more Palmerstonian, and 
 resulted, wrote Lord Shaftesbury, in his being regarded 
 by the religious world as little better than an infidel. 
 
 10 * 
 
148 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 The Maker of the Universe [he replied] has established certain laws- 
 of nature for the planet in which we lire, and the weal or woe of man- 
 kind depends upon the observance or the neglect of these laws. One 
 of these laws connects health with the absence of those gaseous exha- 
 lations which proceed from overcrowded human dwellings, or from 
 decomposing substances, whether animal or vegetable ; and those 
 same laws render sickness the almost inevitable consequence of expo- 
 sure to these noxious influences. But it has, at the same time, pleased 
 Providence to place it within the power of man to make such arrange- 
 ments, as will prevent or disperse such exhalations so as to render 
 them harmless, and it is the duty of man to attend to those laws of 
 nature and to exert the faculties which Providence has thus given to 
 man for his own welfare. . . . When man has done the utmost for 
 his own safety , then is the time to invoke the blessing of Heaven to 
 give effect to his exertions. 
 
 During the existence of the unlucky Aberdeen Govern- 
 ment, Lord Palmerston not unfrequently acted as chief 
 of the ministerial party in the House of Commons, 
 while Lord John Eussell remained at Eichmond, dis- 
 gusted with the abnormal position of leader without 
 office, which the rearrangement of the Cabinet had com- 
 pelled him to accept. The Home Secretary's direction 
 of the business of the House was thoroughly good- 
 humoured and judicious; even Greville is constrained 
 to chronicle his great popularity with all sections of the 
 political world. But within the Cabinet there was but 
 little unanimity on any subject. The views of Lord 
 John Eussell and several of the Peelites, especially 
 Lord Aberdeen and Sir John Graham, were far more 
 advanced on the question of Eeform than were those of 
 Lord Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne, who disliked 
 the thing itself, and more particularly Lord John's per- 
 sistency in introducing a Eeform Bill at a moment when 
 the aspect of foreign affairs was menacing in the ex- 
 treme. The Home Secretary swallowed his objections 
 so far as to consent to serve on the committee of the 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 149 
 
 Cabinet for the preparation of the proposed Bill. But 
 when Lord John stated his scheme, Palmerston, in a 
 letter to Lord Lansdowne, raised a number of objec- 
 tions, which, in the opinion of Lord Aberdeen, as ex- 
 pressed in a letter dated the 14th of December, were 
 " so serious as to strike at the most essential principles 
 of the measure/' and which were accordingly rejected 
 by the Committee. Palmerston thereupon sent in his 
 resignation, and was out of the Cabinet for ten days. 
 The world naturally jumped to the conclusion that 
 Reform was only a pretext, and that Palmerston had 
 really resigned because of the want of vigour in the 
 Eastern policy of the Cabinet. Mr. Ashley appears to 
 countenance that idea, and Mr. Kinglake, going a step 
 further, actually asserts that Lord Palmerston was 
 " driven from office." But a passage in one of Palmer- 
 ston's letters to his brother-in-law, Mr. Sulivan, 
 directly contradicts that view ; and no one who reads 
 the correspondence between Lord Aberdeen and his dis- 
 sentient colleague, published in the Quarterly Review 
 of April 1877, can possibly doubt that the Reform 
 Bill was the sole reason for Palmerston' s resignation, 
 though the reviewer's suggestion that he hoped that 
 Lansdowne would also withdraw, and so break up the 
 Cabinet, appears to be rather uncharitable. 
 
 From the Malmesbury and Greville memoirs it may be 
 gathered that both parties in the Cabinet, that of the 
 Premier and the Home Secretary, were conscious of 
 having made a mistake in failing to come to terms, and 
 that a reconciliation was accordingly not difficult to 
 arrange. Lord Palmerston's withdrawal of his resignation 
 was accepted by the embarrassed Premier ; and the Home 
 Secretary, though he was compelled for the moment to 
 .accept the obnoxious Bill, was eventually compensated 
 
150 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFBSTON. 
 
 by its abandonment in the face of the complete indif- 
 ference of public opinion. 
 
 All this while Lord Palmerston, though most con- 
 scientious in his discharge of the duties of his multi- 
 farious office, and most assiduous in his attendance at the 
 House of Commons, was seldom absent in spirit from 
 the shores of the Golden Horn and the banks of the- 
 Danube. Even Mr. Cobden himself could hardly 
 have denied that the ex-Foreign Secretary, though he- 
 might be supposed to approach the Eastern Question 
 with prejudice, brought to bear upon it at any rate 
 a considerable amount of knowledge. Ever since 
 1830 he had made an intricate study of Eussian diplo- 
 macy, and had watched the twists and turns of Eussian 
 statesmanship in crises as serious as that of 1840. He 
 was yet at the Foreign Office when, in 1850, the dis- 
 pute concerning the guardianship of the Holy Places 
 was revived by Louis Napoleon, as a distinct bid against 
 Eussia for paramount influence in the East ; and he had 
 been duly warned by our Minister at Constantinople, 
 Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, that the question at issue, 
 though apparently trivial, might easily develop into one 
 of most serious moment. At the outset he attempted to 
 avert war by directing Lord Normanby to persuade the 
 French Government to moderate its unreasonable de- 
 mands in favour of the Latin Church. The Catholics 
 in Turkey, he pointed out, were few in number, there 
 were millions of Greeks ; Eussia, the protectress of the 
 latter, was a colossal power close on the Sultan's back;, 
 France, the advocate of the Catholics, was a long way 
 off. 
 
 As soon, however, as Prince MenschikofFs mission to 
 Constantinople disclosed an entirely new programme of 
 Eussian aggression, namely, a claim to a protectorate: 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 151 
 
 over all the Greeks within the Turkish Empire, which 
 was presented in the form of an ultimatum and sup- 
 ported by military demonstrations on the Turkish fron- 
 tier, Lord Palmerston's tone changed, and he advocated 
 the answering of threat by threat. He was aware, as 
 were the rest of the Ministry, that the Czar had long 
 ago told Sir Hamilton Seymour that the " sick man " 
 was at the point of death, and that in the division of 
 the inheritance, although he would not establish him- 
 self at Constantinople as proprietor, " as trustee — that 
 he would not say." And though he was not privileged like 
 Count Vitzthum to listen to the wild outbursts of the 
 Czar against ces chiens de Turcs, Palmerston must have 
 been aware that the existence of the fata] agreement 
 to recognise the Russian protectorship of the Greek reli- 
 gion in Syria, between the autocrat on the one hand, 
 and Peel, the Duke, and Aberdeen on the other,* would 
 drive Nicholas to new acts of menace directly Lord 
 Aberdeen returned to power. 
 
 Palmerston's description of the methods of Russian 
 encroachment is as true to day as it was when it was 
 written : — 
 
 The Russian Government [he wrote to Lord Clarendon] has always 
 had two strings to its bow — moderate language and disinterested pro- 
 fessions at St. Petersburg and at London ; active aggression by its 
 agents on the scene of operations. If the aggression succeed locally, 
 the St. Petersburg Government adopts them as a fait accompli which 
 it did not intend but cannot in honour recede from. If the local 
 agents fail, they are disavowed and recalled, and the language pre- 
 viously held is appealed to as a proof that the agents have overstepped 
 their instructions. 
 
 When this system of mingled threats and caresses was 
 followed by the occupation of the Principalities by a 
 Russian army, Palmerston urged that the French and 
 
 * Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 402. 
 
152 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 English fleets should at once he sent up to the Bos- 
 phorus to encourage the Porte and give check to the 
 Czar ; hut the Aherdeen party in the Cabinet was too 
 strong for him. Not that he was under the illusion that 
 such a course of action would prevent war; on the 
 contrary, he was of opinion that the Czar " was bent on 
 a stand-up fight," and felt that to meet the enemy half- 
 way was more consonant with the traditions of English 
 statesmanship, and would be more popular with the 
 country, than bated breath and whispered humbleness. 
 " If he [the Emperor] is determined to break a lance 
 with us," he wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert, " why then, 
 have at him, say I, and perhaps he may have enough 
 of it before we have done with him." At the same time, 
 he had taken the right measure of the man when he 
 asserted that Nicholas was far more likely to yield to 
 action than to argument. If the Czar had known the 
 crossing of the Pruth would be made a casus belli, it 
 was probably that he would have thought twice about 
 crossing it ; when once he had crossed the river, it was 
 difficult to retreat without loss of honour at the bidding 
 of any Power or any collection of Powers. 
 
 Lord Palmerston had certainly interpreted the feeling 
 of the country aright. Young England was actually 
 eager for a war with Russia ; and nearly everyone was of 
 opinion that the extreme moderation of the English 
 Government was not likely to gain its end, and that a 
 bolder policy would more probably be crowned with 
 success. Lord Palmerston was known to favour a vigo- 
 rous conduct. Conscious, as he must have been of the 
 immense power that he wielded as the people's man in an 
 inharmonious administration, it is greatly to his credit 
 that he did not attempt to force the hand of our Foreign 
 Secretary, Lord Clarendon, during the anxious period 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 153 
 
 while it seemed as if peace might yet be achieved by 
 diplomacy. He even went so far as to conceal his 
 approbation on an occasion when Lord Clarendon sent 
 particularly bold directions to Sir Hamilton Seymour, 
 from fear lest words of praise from him whom men 
 called " Lord Firebrand," might make the Aberdeens 
 and Grahams of the Cabinet think that they were com- 
 mitted to some desperate adventure. In fact his relations 
 with Clarendon were most harmonious, and there is no 
 warrant for Greville's insinuation that he attempted to 
 undermine his colleagues by keeping up a correspon- 
 dence with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. To the views 
 of Prince Albert he paid far less deference, and wrote, 
 doubtless with considerable gusto, a slashing commen- 
 tary on the Prince's very sensible memorandum on 
 Eastern Affairs, which was far more critical than candid, 
 and which the Prime Minister subjected to a very un- 
 favourable examination. 
 
 Possibly the Home Secretary felt that when every 
 concession on the part of England and France was 
 followed by a fresh menace on the part of Russia, war, 
 sooner or later, was inevitable ; and that it was unneces- 
 sary to do more than record the fulfilment of his various 
 prophecies. Even Lord Aberdeen's belief in the pacific 
 intentions of the Emperor was shaken when, in return 
 for our advice to the Porte not to make the occupation 
 of the Principalities a casus belli, but to give diplomacy 
 another chance, a circular was issued by Count Nessel- 
 rode, in which that very occupation was declared to be 
 in answer to the presence of the British and French 
 squadrons outside the Dardanelles, where they had every 
 right to be stationed. " It is," wrote Palmerston, " the 
 robber who declares that he will not leave the house 
 until the policeman shall have first retired from the 
 
154 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 
 
 back yard "; still he acquiesced in Lord Aberdeen's deci- 
 sion that an expostulation would for the moment be 
 enough. His opinion of the Vienna Note is not on 
 record. But, if we may judge by his advice on subse- 
 quent diplomatic attempts to create a modus vivendi 
 between Kussia and the Porte, he disapproved of the 
 vague language of the document which was so signally 
 turned to good account by Count Nesselrode, and 
 agreed with Lord Stratford in countenancing the right 
 of the Sultan to amend the note in his favour. It 
 was unjust, he contended, later on, to attempt to impose 
 a form of words on Turkey which we were not equally 
 prepared to impose on Eussia. 
 
 The chief blot on the system of action advocated by 
 Lord Palmerston, was that it was adapted rather to a 
 question in which England was acting single-handed, 
 than to one in which it was necessary to pay con- 
 siderable deference to the wishes of the other Powers. 
 He seems to have put his trust entirely in that Anglo- 
 French Alliance, of which by his approbation of the 
 coup d'etat he had been the creator, and to have paid small 
 regard to the moral support of Austria and Prussia. It 
 is true that in his public utterances, Lord Palmerston, 
 wishing, no doubt, to put a stop to the stories of 
 ministerial differences that were flying about, laid con- 
 siderable stress upon the value of the European concert. 
 " I believe," he said on Feb. 20th, 1854, "I shall not 
 overstate the truth when I say that the conduct of Eng- 
 land and France in that respect has been thoroughly 
 appreciated by Austria and by Prussia ; whereas if 
 matters had been hurried on in the course of last 
 summer, when we might have had no reason or right ta 
 expect their co-operation, I cannot persuade myself that 
 the conduct of Austria and Prussia would have been the 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 155 
 
 same as it is at the present time." But though the 
 voice was the voice of Palmerston, tho arguments were 
 the arguments of Aberdeen ; and the Home Secretary- 
 was more in his element when he proceeded to describe 
 the objects at issue. 
 
 All the Powers [he said] have acknowledged in the most solemn and 
 distinct manner that the independence and integrity of the Turkish 
 Empire is an essential condition for the maintenance of the peace of 
 Europe, that it is an essential element in the balance of power, and 
 that it would be a calamity to Europe if any attempt was made to 
 destroy that integrity and independence. Why, even Russia, while 
 she is pursuing the course which is acknowledged by all, except her- 
 self, to be fatal to that independence — even Russia does not venture to 
 deny that principle that the integrity and independence of the Turkish 
 Empire is an essential element and condition of the welfare of Europe. 
 Now, Sir, it is manifest that if Russia were to appropriate these terri- 
 tories now under the sway and sovereignty of the Sultan, she would 
 become a power too gigantic for the safety of the other states of 
 Europe. Bestriding the continent from north to south, possessing the 
 command of two seas, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, enveloping 
 the whole of Germany, embracing regions full of every natural re- 
 source, and with a population of enormous extent, she would become 
 dangerous to the liberties of Europe, and her power would be fatal to 
 the independence of other states. I say, therefore, it is the duty of the 
 other countries of Europe to prevent such enormous aggrandizement 
 of one Power as that which would result from such a change. 
 
 The declaration of war by Turkey, after the failure of 
 the Vienna Note had shown that the hour for the con- 
 flict of pens had gone by, was considered by Palmerston 
 to be not unnatural and not unwise. He was equally- 
 pleased with the successive decisions of the Cabinet to 
 give material support to Turkey : that of September by 
 which Lord Stratford was authorized to summon the 
 fleet to the Bosphorus, that of October by which he was 
 permitted to direct defensive operations in the Black 
 Sea. We had now crossed the Kubicon, Lord Palmer- 
 ston considered, and had taken Turkey by the hand; he 
 pooh-poohed, as has been mentioned above, the Priuce 
 
156 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON. 
 
 Consort's memorandum, in which a fear was expressed 
 lest the Turks were seeking " to obtain for themselves 
 the power of imposing a most oppressive rule of two 
 millions of fanatic Mussulmans over twelve millions of 
 Christians," and argued that — 
 
 No peace can be concluded between the contending parties unless 
 the Emperor consents to evacuate the Principalities, to abandon his 
 demands, and to renounce some of the embarrassing stipulations of 
 former treaties upon which he has founded the pretensions which have 
 been the cause of existing difficulties. 
 
 This was a well-defined position with a vengeance ; 
 hut it had the merit of making the war something better 
 than a mere querelle d'Allemand, and answers the objec- 
 tions of historians like Mr. Spencer Walpole, who urge 
 that the Crimean campaign was unnecessary after the re- 
 tirement of the Russian troops from the Principalities. 
 On the following day came the news of the destruc- 
 tion of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, that untoward 
 event which more than any other precipitated the war ; 
 and it is to be noted that the British Cabinet, by way of 
 reprisal, agreed to the proposal of the French Emperor 
 that the combined squadrons should not merely enter the 
 Black Sea but " invite " every Eussian vessel they met 
 to return to Sebastopol, during the period of Palmer- 
 ston's absence from office. So that the blame, if blame 
 there be, for the actual commencement of hostilities 
 rests, not on the man who believed them from the first 
 to be inevitable, but upon his colleagues, including those 
 who had been most inclined to throw cold water on his 
 bold counsels in the past. 
 
 The war was unavoidable ; it was, to use a happy ex- 
 pression of the Prince Consort's, a " vindication of the 
 public law of Europe " ; but it was a serious matter, and 
 should not have been regarded by any responsible states- 
 man with a light heart. Probably Lord Palmerston did 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 15? 
 
 appreciate its gravity ; but the outside world was not 
 allowed to suspect the fact, and his public utterances on 
 the eve of its declaration were couched in a tone of 
 flippancy and jocularity which, though possibly intended,, 
 as Mr. Ashley suggests, to keep up the heart and spirit 
 of the nation, can hardly be read now without a feeling 
 of irritation and regret. On March 7th, Lord Palmerston 
 presided over a banquet given at the Reform Club to Sir 
 Charles Napier, previous to his departure to take com- 
 mand of the Baltic fleet. Of his essentially after-dinner 
 remarks, and the rather small jokes with which they 
 were interspersed, it is unnecessary to reproduce any 
 specimens here ; but it is fair to mention that they were 
 discretion itself when compared with the utterances of 
 Sir James Graham, who was also present in the capacity 
 of First Lord of the Admiralty. When taken to task a. 
 few days later by Mr. Bright, in the House of Commons,, 
 Lord Palmerston made a still sorrier exhibition of him- 
 self, and for once in his life gave vent to some ill- 
 natured remarks. Mr. Bright, according to Lord 
 Shaftesbury, was one of the few men whom he really 
 regarded as an enemy ; and a desire to pay off old scores- 
 was probably his motive for beginning his answer with 
 u The honourable and reverend gentleman," and con- 
 tinuing, <f Iam further convinced that the opinion of the 
 country with regard to me and my conduct will in no 
 way whatever be influenced by anything which the hon.. 
 gentleman may say. I therefore treat the censure of 
 the hon. gentleman with the most perfect indifference 
 and contempt." Mr. Disraeli did well to complain 
 during this period of the " patrician bullying of the 
 Treasury bench/' 
 
 Fortunately for himself and the Ministry, Lord Pal- 
 merston's outbursts against the Peace Party were limited 
 
158 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 in number, and that Party had become so thoroughly out 
 of favour with the nation on account of the vehemence 
 with which it published its views, that people were in- 
 clined to condone expressions of asperity against its 
 members. His popularity does not seem to have been 
 shaken by the Napier banquet and its consequences. And 
 public opinion marked him out so distinctly as the man 
 in whose hands should be placed the conduct of military 
 operations, that his old opponent Lord John Kussell, 
 when he proposed to Lord Aberdeen in November that 
 the unwieldy arrangement then in existence should be 
 abolished, and the offices of Secretary at War and 
 Secretary for War united in the same person, designated 
 Lord Palmerston as the most fitting man in the Cabinet 
 to fill the onerous position. However, the Premier 
 refused to entertain the idea out of consideration for the 
 feelings of the Duke of Newcastle, who was at the head 
 of the War Department, and finally Palmerston himself 
 vetoed the plan. Whether a change of men would have 
 permanently checked the prevalent mismanagement, may 
 be doubted ; for, as Lord Palmerston pointed out at the 
 beginning of the next session, it was the system more 
 than the Duke of Newcastle that was at fault; still it 
 would certainly have been one for the better, and would 
 have been decidedly popular. 
 
 Even though he did not direct operations in person, 
 Palmerston's word had weighty influence on the progress 
 of the war. He urged all along that it was not enough 
 to drive the Kussians back from the Danube, as the 
 Turks were doing without allied assistance; but that 
 there must be " security for the future " — it was Pitt's 
 phrase — against the repetition of the Kussian attack, and 
 that the only way of obtaining that security was to strike 
 the Empire of the Czar in a vital part. The scheme for 
 
THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. L59 
 
 the invasion of the Crimea did not originate with Pal- 
 merston, for it seems to have been hatched by the much- 
 contriving mind of the Emperor of the French ; but he 
 was its most powerful advocate, and reduced it from a vague 
 sketch to a proposition of practical value. "The capture of 
 Sebastopol and the Russian Black Sea fleet," he wrote, 
 M would be a lasting and important advantage to us. 
 Such a success would act with great weight upon the 
 fortunes of the war and would tell essentially upon the 
 negotiations for peace." 
 
 These were considerations which would weigh chiefly 
 with statesmen ; military men naturally considered the 
 question from a military point of view, and it is one of 
 the commonplaces of history that both Lord Raglan and 
 Marshal St. Arnaud were opposed to the campaign. 
 At the same time the piosaic but inexorable logic of 
 facts points to the conclusion that Lord Palmerston 
 was right and Lord Raglan wrong. Granting the 
 necessity of striking at a vital part of the Russian 
 Empire, it was impossible to strike elsewhere, the opera- 
 tions in the Baltic having failed, than in the Crimea. 
 Had Lord Raglan not been overruled, and had an attack 
 in force been made on Sebastopol immediately after the 
 Alma, there can be no doubt that the campaign would 
 have been one of weeks instead of months. Lastly, 
 it was the fall of Sebastopol alone that broke the spirit 
 of Russia and made a durable peace possible. 
 
 The adventure miscarried at first, however, and the 
 Aberdeen Ministry fell long before the Malakoff. When 
 Lord John Russell's factious resignation, in the teeth 
 of Mr. Roebuck's motion of inquiry, rendered a speedy 
 termination of the existence of the Coalition Administra- 
 tion inevitable, Palmerston, its most popular member, 
 made its funeral speech. His most significant re- 
 
160 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 mark was that he trusted that at least the dissensions 
 which prevailed might he confined to the overthrowing 
 of the Government; and that whatever Government 
 might succeed, we should not exhibit to Europe the 
 melancholy spectacle of a country interrupting by party 
 and political struggles the conduct of great national 
 interests. To the discredit of our party system this 
 dignified appeal was speedily forgotten. Few Opposi- 
 tions have been more given over to faction, and less 
 awake to the true interests of the nation, than that 
 against which Lord Palmerston had to contend when he 
 undertook to restore the fallen fortunes of his country, 
 and to raise her once more to her true place among the 
 States of Europe. 
 
161 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OF THE RUSSIAN WAR. 
 1855-1856. 
 
 Attempts to form a Ministry — Lord Palmerston accepts the task— 
 His difficulties — Darkness of the prospect — Harmony of the Cabi- 
 net — Lord Palmerston's tactics — The second Vienna Conference — 
 The Austrian compromise — Conclusion of the war — The Congress 
 of Paris — The Treaty — Lord Palmerston receives the Garter. 
 
 When the Coalition Cabinet fell, amidst a chorus of 
 derisive laughter at the completeness of its defeat, the 
 popular voice loudly called for Lord Palmerston to take 
 command of the ship of State and bring her through 
 the storm. The mandate which summoned Pitt to 
 supplant Addington in 1804 was hardly more imperious 
 than that which in 1855 designated Palmerston as the 
 successor of Aberdeen. Several weeks earlier that 
 well-informed observer, Mr. Greville, had seen in the 
 Home Secretary's improved position at Court the re- 
 moval of the most serious obstacle between him and 
 the Premiership. Lord Palmerston was, in fact, as he 
 himself wrote to his brother, V inevitable ; and he added 
 the happy quotation, 
 
 Quod nemo promittere Divum 
 Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro. 
 
 11 
 
162 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 Derby and his followers, however, formed the principal 
 part of the majority which had turned out the Govern- 
 ment ; and the Queen, true to constitutional principles, 
 summoned him to Windsor. The Tory chief sought the 
 support of Lord Palmerston, to whom he offered the 
 leadership of the House of Commons, which Mr. Dis- 
 raeli was ready to surrender. His first answer appears 
 to have been not unfavourable. But when the decided 
 refusals of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert to 
 take office, and finally of Lord Clarendon to join a 
 Conservative ministry as Foreign Secretary, showed 
 that he would have to go over to the Conservatives 
 alone, he determined to decline the proposal, and Lqrd 
 Derby, greatly to the disgust of his followers, gave 
 up the attempt. Lord Lansdowne's and Lord John 
 Eussell's efforts were even shorter lived. The former 
 statesman could only be induced to undertake the 
 Premiership for a few months ; and Lord John, though 
 Palmerston, at the especial request of the Queen, mag- 
 nanimously promised him support, soon discovered that 
 his recent displays of faction had so completely dis- 
 gusted even his old Whig colleagues that he was in the 
 position of a general without an army, and after less 
 than forty-eight hours he too was compelled to retire. 
 Uinevitable then came to the rescue, his way having 
 been made smooth for him by the representations of 
 Lord Clarendon to the Queen ; and the question, " How 
 is the Queen's Government to be carried on ? " always 
 momentous, and during a European war a matter of 
 life or death, was at length answered to the general 
 satisfaction as far as the Premiership was concerned.* 
 
 * The first Palmerston Cabinet was composed as follows : — 
 Viscount Palmerston, First Lord of the Treasury 
 Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor. 
 
GONCL USION OF THE B USSIAN WAB. 163 
 
 It was not without considerable difficulty that Lord 
 Palmerston succeeded in forming an administration. 
 The Whigs were ready enough to join him, but the good 
 offices of Lord Aberdeen had to be brought into play 
 before the Peelites would consent to become members 
 of a Government which they feared would be animated 
 with too unreasonable a spirit towards negotiations for 
 peace. The Ministry in its first form practically con- 
 sisted of the " old lot," minus Lord Aberdeen, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, and Lord John Russell, and pro- 
 bably, as a whole, commanded but little confidence. 
 In fact, the speedy resignation of the Peelites, through 
 Mr. Roebuck's persistance in his motion of inquiry, was 
 really, in the long run, a gain — for what was lost in 
 talent was gained in unity of action, and the possibly 
 discordant effect of the accession of Lord John Rus- 
 sell, was neutralised by his having already accepted the 
 appointment of Plenipotentiary at the Conference at 
 Vienna. Still the delay in forming a Cabinet can 
 hardly have been without its disquieting effect, a feel- 
 Earl Granville, President of the Council. 
 
 Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal. 
 
 Earl of Clarendon, Foreign Secretary. 
 
 Sir G. Grey, Home Secretary. 
 
 Mr. Sidney Herbert, and on his resignation, Lord John Russell, 
 Colonial Secretary. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, and on his resignation, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 Lord Panmure, Secretary at War. 
 
 Sir C. Wood, Board of Control. 
 
 Sir James Graham, and, on his resignation, Sir C. Wood, who 
 was replaced at the Board of Control by Mr. Vernon Smith, 
 First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
 Lord Harrowby, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 
 
 Viscount Canning, Postmaster-General. 
 
 Sir W. Molesworth, First Commissioner of Works. 
 
 Marquis of Lansdowne, without office. 
 
 11 * 
 
164 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 ing which was increased by the confusion which 
 accompanied the minor appointments. The Premier's 
 cheerful acceptance of the situation was highly charac- 
 teristic : " Ha, ha ! " he laughed, " a comedy of errors." 
 It was a dark hour in the history of the nation 
 when Lord Palmerston essayed the task which had been 
 abandoned by the tried wisdom of Derby, Lansdowne, 
 and John Kussell. Far away in the Crimea the war 
 was dragging on without much hope of a creditable 
 solution, though the winter of discontent and mis- 
 management was happily over. The existence of the 
 European concert was merely nominal. The Allies had 
 discovered, many months previously, that though 
 Austria was staunch, Prussia was a faithless friend ; 
 and there were even alarms that Frederick William 
 might be dragged by his family connections, and by 
 what Mr. Kinglake happily calls his " collection of 
 fears," into a Russian alliance. Between the belli- 
 gerent powers the cloud of suspicion and distrust grew 
 thicker ; for Abd-el-Medjid was known to be freely 
 squandering his war loans on seraglios and palaces 
 while Kars was starving ; and though there was no 
 reason for distrusting the present good faith of the 
 Emperor of the French, his policy was straightforward 
 only as long as he kept himself free from the influence 
 of the gang of stock-jobbers and adventurers who com- 
 posed his Ministry. Nor was the horizon much 
 brighter on the side of England. A series of weak 
 cabinets, and the absence of questions of organic 
 reform, had completely relaxed the bonds of Party. 
 If there was no regular Opposition, still less was 
 there a regular majority; and the temper of the House 
 of Commons was seen in its ungracious and almost 
 jeering refusal of the Premier's request that the in- 
 
GONGL USION OF THE B US8IAN WAR. 165 
 
 «quiry into the conduct of the war, moved for by Mr. 
 Roebuck, should be postponed. And the hand that was 
 to restore order out of chaos was not so steady as 
 of yore. Whether from temporary ill-health or from the 
 worry consequent on forming the administration, there 
 can be no doubt that Lord Palmerston was not himself 
 during the first weeks of his leadership. 
 
 But the prospect speedily brightened. Though Pal- 
 merston was considerably over seventy, he still retained 
 ^ wonderful vigour of constitution. He was soon 
 restored to health, and was always to be found at his 
 post. At least, he had not to contend with divided 
 counsels, for the first Palmerston Cabinet, though per- 
 haps not remarkable in point of ability, seems to have 
 worked very smoothly. The Prime Minister was of 
 course an ideal colleague, and retained to the last those 
 qualities of courage, resource, good-temper, indifference 
 to abuse, and steadiness to his friends, which Lord 
 Brougham has described him as exercising in the Grey 
 Cabinet.* Of the new men, by far the greatest acqui- 
 sition was Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who, though 
 absolutely inexperienced, had talents and business ap- 
 titudes which enabled him to fill with credit the office 
 of Chancellor of the Exchequer, even though he had 
 been preceded by a magician of finance like Mr. Glad- 
 stone. Of the old hands, Lord Lansdowne brought 
 with him the authority of a Nestor, and, according to 
 Mr. Hayward, aided the Premier in giving tone to the 
 Cabinet discussions. But of all that sat round the 
 council-table, the most valuable ally was unquestionably 
 Lord Clarendon. The Foreign Secretary told Greville 
 that nothing could be more harmonious than his relations 
 
 * Lord Brougham's Life and Times, vol. iii., p. 467. "I never 
 ..knew," he -writes, " a man whom it was more agreeable to act with." 
 
166 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 with the Premier; and if Lord Palmerston is to be 
 blamed for his insubordination to Melbourne and Kus- 
 sell, it is only fair to remember that he allowed his 
 own Foreign Secretaries the utmost latitude of action* 
 Lord Clarendon's chief service was that of keeping the 
 Premier on good terms with the Queen, " always telling 
 her everything likely to ingratiate Palmerston with her, 
 and showing her any letters or notes of his calculated to 
 please her," as Greville says ; and his management of 
 foreign affairs was characterised by a conciliatory firm- 
 ness which was of incalculable value at a period when 
 fretfulness and discontent were rife in courts and em- 
 bassies. 
 
 Though the supporters of the Government were luke- 
 warm, the divided state of the Opposition gave peculiar 
 opportunities to a statesman who possessed, in a degree 
 excelled perhaps only by Pitt and Disraeli, the arts of 
 Parliamentary management. If a tenth of the stories- 
 that are told of Lord Palmerston's consummate general- 
 ship, of the supreme skill with which he seized on the 
 exact moment for summing-up the debate and taking 
 the division, are true ; he must have been in his element 
 in the guerilla warfare which was the chief feature of 
 the Sessions of 1855 and 1856. A young tactician 
 would have been confused by having to resist an attack 
 from the Conservatives, on one day, on the ground that 
 the Government was entertaining overtures for peace- 
 which were dishonourable; from the Peace party, on the 
 next, because they did not bring the war to an immediate 
 termination ; but not so Lord Palmerston. He turned 
 his heaviest guns on the Conservatives, and paid little 
 or no attention to the Peace party, knowing well enough 
 that they were wholly out of sympathy with the country- 
 "I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. for any- 
 
CONGL USION OF THE RUSSIAN WAR. 167 
 
 thing," he wrote to Sir Hamilton Seymour, and Mr. 
 John Morley acknowledges the justice of the estimate. 
 When, however, the Peelites, and notably Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who had been partners in the declaration of war, 
 threw themselves with great inconsistency into the arms 
 of the Peace party, Lord Palmerston saw that the time 
 for resolute action had come. His reply to a speech of 
 Mr. Gladstone's, made on the 30th of July, in depre- 
 cation of the continuance of war, was crushing in the 
 extreme. 
 
 No man [he said] could have been a party to entering into the 
 great contest in which we are engaged — no man at least ought to have 
 been a party to such a course of policy — without having deeply 
 weighed the gravity of the struggle into which he was about to plunge 
 the country, and without having satisfied his mind that the cause 
 was just, that the motives were sufficient, and that the sacrifices 
 which he was calling upon the country to make were such as a states- 
 man might consider it ought to endure. Sir, there must indeed be 
 grave reasons which could induce a man who had been a party with 
 Her Majesty's Government to that line of policy, who had assisted 
 in conducting the war, who had after full and perhaps unexampled 
 deliberation agreed to enter upon the war, who, having concurred after 
 that full and mature deliberation in the commencement of the war, 
 had also joined in calling \ipon the country for great sacrifices in 
 order to continue it, and who had, up to a very recent period, as- 
 sented to all the measures proposed for its continuance ; I say, there 
 must, indeed, be grave reasons which could induce a man, who had 
 been so far a party to the measures of the Government, utterly to 
 change his opinions, to declare the war unnecessary, unjust, and im- 
 politic, to set before the country all the imaginary dangers with which 
 his fancy could supply him, and to magnify and to exaggerate the force 
 of the enemy and the difficulties of our position. 
 
 His generalship secured ample majorities for the 
 Government in every division during the session. 
 
 Of the energy which Lord Palmerston inspired into 
 the operations against Sebastopol, there can hardly be 
 two opinions. He may not have been a Chatham ; but 
 a letter of his to Lord Panmure, quoted by Mr. Ashley, 
 
168 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 proves at any rate that he paid attention to every de- 
 tail, and adopted no pennywise measures for raising 
 troops. The addition of the Sardinian contingent to 
 the fighting strength of the Allies had been a very solid 
 gain ; Palmerston wished to enlist in addition Germans, 
 Swiss, and Italians. Even more creditable were his 
 precautions for the health of the troops; and his re- 
 presentations to Lord Kaglan, to prevent the Sanitary 
 Commission despatched to the Crimea from being 
 thwarted in their recommendations and directions, were 
 most peremptory. No ; ic is not for being laggard in 
 war that Lord Palmerston can be reproached, but, if at 
 all, for obstinacy in continuing the war. Little excep- 
 tion can be taken to his description of the designs of 
 Eussia : — 
 
 I say the intention of Eussia to portion Turkey is manifest as the 
 sun at noon-day, and it is to prevent that that we are contending. 
 That is the object of the war, and not only to defend Turkey, the weak 
 against the strong, but to avert injury and danger from ourselves. Let 
 no man imagine, that if Turkey were destroyed by Russia, and that 
 gigantic power stride like a Colossus from the Baltic on the one hand 
 to the Mediterranean on the other, let no man suppose the great inte- 
 rests of this country would not be in peril ; let not the peace-at-any- 
 price party imagine that their interest will not be deeply injured. 
 
 But the point at issue is whether the terms proposed 
 by Austria at the second Vienna Conference were suf- 
 ficiently binding to secure a permanent peace by safe- 
 guarding the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Now 
 there was considerable doubt at the outset as to the 
 motives of the Austrian Government ; the Emperor 
 was well disposed, but the Allies wanted something 
 more substantial than moral support. It was shrewdly 
 suspected that the chief reason for the assembling of 
 the Conference at Vienna was that the remonstrances 
 
CONCL USION OF THE RUSSIAN WAR. 169 
 
 of the Western Powers had become inconveniently 
 frequent there.* And when the Russian conditions of 
 peace came to be considered, they were found to be 
 highly unsatisfactory by the French and English Go- 
 vernments. Of the " four points," propounded by the 
 Western Powers, the first, second, and fourth, namely, 
 the continued subjection of the Principalities to the 
 Sultan, who, however, was to grant them autonomy; 
 the free navigation of the Danube ; and the independence 
 of the Porte, were never seriously objected to by the 
 Russian Plenipotentiary, Prince Gortschakoff. The dis- 
 cussions were almost entirely on the third point, the 
 abrogation of the Russian supremacy in the Black 
 Sea. The Western Powers demanded the neutral- 
 isation of the Black Sea, or a limitation of the 
 number of Russian and Turkish ships of war. 
 Prince Gortschakoff rejected any limitation of the 
 Russian navy as an insult, and proposed plans 
 based on the system of counterpoise which the Allies 
 at once declared to be inadmissible. It was evident 
 that, unless the Conference was to be wholly sterile, a 
 -compromise must be struck out by Austria, the Power 
 which occupied a quasi-mediatorial position. Her first 
 Plenipotentiary, Count Buol, therefore proposed that 
 Russia should agree to maintain the naval status quo 
 of 1853 ; and that each of the Western Powers should 
 be entitled to station two frigates in the Black Sea, in 
 order to see that Russia did not increase her fleet. At 
 the same time Austria promised to consider it a casus 
 belli if Russia set on float a single ship on the Euxine 
 more than in 1853, and Count Buol agreed that the 
 
 * These suspicions were probably unfounded. See the well-consi- 
 •dered defence of Austrian statesmanship in Mr. Kinglake's last 
 volume. 
 
170 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 proposal should be made to Eussia in the form of an 
 ultimatum. 
 
 As is well known, this compromise was accepted by 
 the first English and French plenipotentiaries, Lord 
 John Eussell and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, but they were 
 disavowed by their respective Governments; the French- 
 man resigned immediately, Lord John remained Colonial 
 Secretary until threatened by a vote of censure. The- 
 Austrian compromise was indeed in itself the sorriest 
 make-shift, though Austrian intervention in the war, in 
 the event of its being rejected by Eussia, would have been 
 extremely valuable to the Allies. It simply legalised the* 
 preponderance which had existed before 1854, for the 
 police espionage to be exercised by France and England 
 would have been both costly and vexatious, and tha 
 idea that Austria would ever come to the assistance of 
 the Allies was, in reality, as Lord Palmerston wrote to 
 the Queen, a mockery. " What reason," he remarked,, 
 "is there for supposing that Austria, who has recently- 
 declared that, though prepared for war, she will not 
 make war for ten sail-of-the-line more or less in the 
 Eussian Black Sea fleet, will some few years hence, 
 when unprepared for war, draw the sword on account of 
 the addition of one ship-of-war to that fleet ?"* 
 
 The second Vienna Conference, if it failed to produce 
 a cessation of hostilities, had at least the merit that it 
 laid plainly before the world the irreducible minimum 
 of the British demands. And when negotiations were 
 resumed once more, this time to be brought to a suc- 
 cessful conclusion, the five points guided the delibera- 
 
 * These objections to the Austrian compromise appear to have been 
 overlooked by Mr. Kinglake, who has recently declared himself in 
 its favour. But his explanation of Lord John Russell's motives for 
 retaining office is thoroughly convincing. 
 
CONCL USION OF THE B USSIAN WAR. 1 71 
 
 tions of the Congress of Paris, and formed the bases of 
 the settlement. In the interval the tendency of events 
 had been steadily in the direction of peace. There was 
 no abatement in the spirit of the nation, or in its readi- 
 ness to make sacrifices in the cause of honour. Even 
 after the fall of Sebastopol there were many, and Lord 
 Derby was the most eloquent exponent of their views, 
 who, not content with having brought Russia upon her 
 knees, would have laid her on her back. It is more 
 than probable that, in his inmost soul, Lord Palmerston 
 held those views, and trusting in the unimpaired re- 
 sources of the country, would have liked to risk another 
 campaign in the hope that one of its incidents would be 
 the taking of Cronstadt. It is possible to read between 
 the lines of his letter to the Queen congratulating her 
 upon the tidings that the Czar had accepted the new 
 Austrian proposals, though they were propounded in the 
 especially humiliating form of an ultimatum, the rejec- 
 tion of which would be followed by the appearance of 
 Austria in the arena. 
 
 Viscount Palmerston [he wrote] fully concurs in the sentiment of 
 regret expressed by Your Majesty to Lord Clarendon, that the last 
 action of the war in which Your Majesty's troops have been engaged 
 should, if peace be now concluded, have been the repulse at the 
 Redan; but, however, it may suit national jealousy, which will always 
 be found to exist on the other side of the Channel, to dwell on that 
 check, yet Your Majesty may rely upon it that Alma and Inkermann 
 have left recollections which will dwell in the memory of the living,, 
 and not to be forgotten in the page of history ; and although it 
 would no doubt be gratifying to Your Majesty and the nation that 
 another summer should have witnessed the " fulfilment of the measures 
 contemplated for the next campaign," yet if peace can now be secured 
 on conditions honourable and secure, it would, as Your Majesty justly 
 observes, not be right to continue the war for the mere purposes of 
 prospective victories. 
 
 Count Vitzthum, writing many years afterwards, even 
 asserts that Lord Clarendon actually confided to him 
 
172 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 that he went to Paris with express instructions from 
 Lord Palmerston not to allow peace to be made. But 
 the anecdote is almost certainly an unconscious exag- 
 geration. For we have Mr. Greville's express evidence to 
 the contrary, when he says, on the authority of Sir 
 George Cornewall Lewis, that Lord Clarendon, who was 
 decidedly a man of peace, was not harassed by any 
 instructions, but left entirely to his own discretion ; and 
 Lord Clarendon himself denied in the House of Lords 
 that the negotiations were insincere. Besides, Lord 
 Palmerston was far too sane to insist, on war to extinc- 
 tion, when, with the exception of little Sardinia, we had 
 not an ally who could be counted upon. For the fall of 
 Kars had shown that the valour of Turkish soldiers 
 was counterbalanced by the corruption of the Turkish 
 Government; and though the good understanding be- 
 tween the French and English courts was complete, the 
 Emperor had been completely converted to the side of 
 peace through the exhaustion of his country, the em- 
 barrassment of his finances, and the unpopularity of the 
 war with all sections of the French community. 
 
 " So much for the capitulation of Paris," said Lord 
 Derby ; and a witty French diplomatist, M. de Bour- 
 •queney, declared that from an inspection of the treaty 
 at was impossible to discover which were the conquerors 
 and which the conquered. But both remarks are far 
 more clever than true, and in spite of the somewhat 
 captious objections of the Tory chief, the Peace of 
 Paris may fairly be pronounced an arrangement which 
 was honourable to England, and which had in it every ele- 
 ment of stability. To Lord Clarendon and Lord Cowley, 
 who conducted the negotiations with the utmost tact 
 and vigour, though they had to contend with the open 
 coalition of the French and Kussian envoys at the 
 
CONCL TJSION OF THE B USSIAN WAR. 1 73 
 
 council-table, and the lukewarmness of Austria, belongs 
 almost entirely the credit for the terms that were ob- 
 tained. But to Lord Palmerston must at least be attri- 
 buted a steady support of their representations, and 
 unselfish acquiescence in their decisions., though he was 
 himself in favour of the exaction of harder conditions. 
 "Russia is humiliated," said Baron Briinnow, " and she 
 is about to sigu a treaty such as she has never signed 
 before." He probably spoke in all sincerity, for never 
 in the whole course of her history as a nation had 
 Russia been compelled to consent to the surrender of 
 territory ; aDd the indignity was the greater because 
 the cession of Bessarabia was made at the demand of 
 non-belligerent Austria. The main object for which 
 England had been fighting, " security for the future/* 
 was more than obtained by the restoration of Kars to 
 the Sultan, the destruction of the fortifications of 
 Sebastopol, the " efficacious assurance " of the free 
 navigation of the Danube, the continuance of the Prin- 
 cipalities under the suzerainty of the Porte, the under- 
 standing that no Power had a right to interfere in the 
 internal administration of the Turkish Empire, and the 
 neutralisation of the Black Sea to ships of war and 
 military arsenals. It is true that the last condition was 
 abrogated by Prince Gortschakoff's action in 1870 ; but 
 what Russia may have gained in material strength by con- 
 verting the Euxine into a private lake, she lost through 
 the feeling of universal distrust which her conduct in- 
 spired throughout Europe. Besides, the Peace of Paris 
 secured for the Ottoman Empire a freedom from external 
 complications for twenty years, during which time it was 
 not altogether ultra-Utopian to hope that it would take 
 some measures for its own regeneration. And when at 
 last the struggle began afresh, and the Russian eagles 
 
174 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 drew near the city of Constantine, it was, as Lord Pal- 
 merston prophesied, the undying memory of the Alma 
 and Inkermann which forced her to pause at the gates. 
 The conditions were, in fact, amply satisfactory to Eng- 
 land and France without heing oppressive to Russia; 
 and the Queen was only expressing the feelings of the 
 nation when she offered Lord Palmerston the Garter in 
 recognition of the manner in which, under his guidance, 
 the war had been brought to a conclusion, and the 
 honour and interests of the country had been maintained 
 by the Treaty of Paris. 
 
175 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 
 1856-1859. 
 
 Monotony of Home Affairs — Dispute with the United States — Russian 
 chicanery — The Danubian Principalities — Egypt and the Suez 
 Canal — Palmerston and Persigny — The Persian War — The 
 "Arrow" Affair — The Dissolution and General Election — The 
 Indian Mutiny — The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Defeat of the 
 Government. 
 
 J)uring the whole of Lord Palmerston's first admini- 
 stration, foreign politics continued to absorb the atten- 
 tion of Parliament and the press to the exclusion of 
 home interests. With the exception of the storm in 
 the teapot about the Wensleydale peerage, there was 
 little to exercise the public mind until a grievance was 
 manufactured from the " desecration of the Sabbath " 
 by bands in the parks. Even Mr. Disraeli's periodical 
 -exhibitions of fireworks barely evoked a cheer from the 
 ranks of the Opposition. On continental questions 
 alone was any interest taken, and of these an abundant 
 . crop was provided by the unsettled complications created 
 by the Crimean war. 
 
 A little squabble with the United States was speedily 
 settled. Under the provisions of the Foreign Enlist 
 
176 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMERSTON. 
 
 ment Act, the Government had raised recruits whom 
 they helieved to he British subjects and Germans, 
 living in the United States for the regiments in Nova 
 Scotia. Unfortunately, several American citizens were 
 enlisted, and the neutrality of the United States was 
 thereby violated. A qualified apology was offered by 
 Lord Clarendon ; but the correspondence that ensued 
 was conducted by Mr. Marcy, the United States Secre- 
 tary, with considerable acrimony ; and finally Sir John 
 Crampton, our Minister at Washington, was recalled 
 at the request of the Government of the United 
 States, who asserted that he was implicated in the 
 illegal enlistments. The British Government, feeling 
 that they had been placed in a false position, deter- 
 mined to ignore the rebuke, and in the following 
 year Lord Napier presented his credentials at Washing- 
 ton, and was duly received. As Lord Palmerston 
 pointed out, when attacked in the House of Commons, 
 it was useless to maintain the importance of friendly 
 relations between England and America on the one 
 hand, and to attempt to prove on the other that Eng* 
 land had been insulted ; and as the United States- 
 Government had finally acknowledged that they were 
 satisfied with regard to the conduct of the British 
 Government, though not with that of its agents, among: 
 whom they reckoned Sir John Crampton, it was unne- 
 cessary to adopt measures of retaliation. 
 
 Ear more serious were the complications directly 
 connected with the Treaty of Paris ; and in spite of the 
 secret Treaty of April 15 th between Austria, France* 
 and England, guaranteeing the existence of the Otto- 
 man Empire — the osuvre posthume of the Congress, as 
 Baron Briinnow called it — there seemed to be some 
 considerable danger of a revival of hostilities. The con- 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 177 
 
 tingency was the more to be feared, because the Anglo- 
 French alliance was for the moment non-existent. For 
 the Czar, bitterly incensed at the part played by Aus- 
 tria in proposing the cession of Bessarabia, was making 
 open overtures to Napoleon ; and the Emperor of the 
 French, flattered by the attentions of the autocrat, and 
 surrounded by advisers like Morny and Walewski who 
 were notoriously Kussian in their proclivities, lent a 
 ready ear to the voice of the charmer, more especially 
 as he had received a rebuff from Austria in her refusal 
 to take possession of the Principalities at his invitation. 
 England, on her side, drew closer to Austria. The 
 disruption of the European concert naturally gave 
 Russia an opportunity for indulging in those pettifog- 
 ging and vexatious evasions in the execution of treaties 
 with which the name of Prince Gortschakoff will always 
 be associated. " Russia," according to his well-known 
 phrase, " was not sulking, she was only collecting 
 herself together." Still she displayed the spirit of a 
 beaten and angry school-boy in demolishing the fortifi- 
 cations of Kars, Ismail, and Reni, before surrendering 
 them ; in seizing Serpent's Island at the mouth of the 
 Danube, though it was palpably within the new Bess- 
 arabian frontier ; and in attempting to alter that line 
 by insisting that it should be carried to the south, not 
 of the old Bolgrad shown upon the map used at the 
 Congress, but of a new Bolgrad, the existence of which 
 was then for the first time made known to Europe. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was not the man to put up with 
 chicanery of this sort. The evacuation of Kars w,as 
 procured by the hint that if further delay took place no 
 English representative should attend the Emperor's 
 coronation. The despatch of a British fleet into the 
 Black Sea, with an intimation in answer to Prince 
 
 12 
 
178 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Gortschakoffs complaints, that we considered that we 
 were acting within our right, and would continue to act 
 in the same manner should necessity arise, procured the 
 surrender of Serpent's Island, and induced the Czar 
 to offer a reasonable frontier line, which was accepted 
 on the recommendation of Lord Clarendon. The only 
 question that remained unsettled was that of the 
 Danubian Principalities, and in handling it Lord Pal- 
 merston and Lord Clarendon displayed less than their 
 usual sagacity. 
 
 When the Congress of Paris agreed that the con- 
 stitution of the Principalities should be left for future 
 settlement, after the report of a Special Commission 
 had been considered, they acknowledged that the nut 
 was hard to crack. At the same time, by agreeing that 
 a Divan should be convoked by the Porte in each of the 
 two provinces to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants, 
 they recognised the right of those inhabitants to a 
 certain voice in their own future. That decision arrived 
 at, there could not be much doubt that France, .Russia, 
 and Sardinia were only logical in supporting the desire 
 of the Wallachians and Moldavians for unity, a desire 
 which only failed to find open expression because the 
 Porte resorted to the desperate expedient of falsifying 
 the returns of the Moldavian electoral lists. The views 
 of the dissentient Governments, those of England, 
 Austria, and Turkey, might be plausible, but they were 
 certainly short-sighted. If the new State would never 
 be strong enough, as Lord Palmerston appears to have 
 thought — though wrongly — ^to become a barrier against 
 Kussia, even under a ruler chosen from one of the princely 
 houses of Europe ; none the less was the weakness of the 
 divided Principalities certain to give Russia continued 
 pretexts for intervention. And though he persuaded 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 179 
 
 the Emperor of the French, during his visit to Osborne 
 in 1857, to yield on the question of union on condition 
 that the Porte should be forced to annul the elections ; 
 his designs were signally frustrated by the action of the 
 Principalities themselves. By simultaneously electing 
 Prince Couza for their ruler, they showed themselves 
 signally indifferent to the paternal advice of England ; 
 and though united Roumania fought on the side of 
 Russia in the Turkish war of 1886, she has since found, 
 contrary to Lord Palmerston's anticipations, that her 
 true interests lie in an attitude of firm resistance to the 
 imperious sic volo sic jubeo of the Divine Figure of the 
 North. 
 
 The reconstruction of Europe alone did not give 
 sufficient occupation to the Emperor's fantastic mind ; 
 he was also busy with a project for dividing the Sick 
 Man's heritage on the southern shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean, through the occupation of Tunis by Sardinia, 
 Morocco by France, and Egypt by England. But the last 
 part of the plan, if carried into execution, would have been 
 so extremely unpopular with the French nation, that it 
 was almost certainly put forward as a mere blind ; in 
 fact, the whole does not seem to have advanced beyond 
 a very early stage of incubation. At any rate, Lord Pal- 
 merston had the good sense to reject it at once. How 
 could England and France, he contended, who had just 
 guaranteed the integrity of the Turkish Empire, pro- 
 ceed, like the partitioners of Poland, to strip the Sultan 
 of his outlying dominions ? Besides, we did not want 
 Egypt ; all that we wished was that the country should 
 not belong to any other European Power, and that we 
 should have a free passage across it. And it was the 
 dread of the intervention of a European Power, par- 
 ticularly of France, which lay at the root of Lord 
 
 12 * 
 
380 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Palmerston's steady opposition to the Suez Canal 
 scheme. 
 
 That opposition was of the most uncompromising 
 character. Lord Cowley worked on the Emperor of 
 the French, Lord Stratford de Kedcliffe and Sir Henry 
 Bulwer after him upon the Porte, with such good 
 effect, that the firman authorising its constitution was 
 not granted until after Lord Palmerston's death. His 
 policy has been subjected to much ridicule, both at the 
 time and since ; and the projector of the 'enterprise con- 
 sidered Lord Palmerston's objections so absurd, that, 
 at an interview with the Prime Minister in April 1856, 
 he could not help asking himself now and again whether 
 he was in the presence of a maniac or a statesman."* 
 But M. de Lesseps might have reasonably come to the 
 conclusion that Lord Palmerston was perfectly sane, 
 though he was not an engineer, and did not fully grasp 
 the financial side of the question. His objections, as 
 far as they were made public, were based on three 
 grounds; that the canal was impracticable; that, even 
 if it were made, it would never be a financial success ; 
 thirdly, that by rendering Egypt virtually independent 
 of the Porte it would impair the integrity of the Tur- 
 kish Empire. f But in his first conversation with M. 
 de Lesseps the Prime Minister more than hinted at the 
 real causes of bis deeply-rooted hostility to the scheme, 
 and they are explained at greater length in a letter to 
 Lord John Kussell, which is reproduced in the appendix 
 to the first edition of Mr. Ashley's biography. They 
 were — first, that a canal open to all nations wo 
 deprive England of the commercial monopoly wifcn the 
 
 * Recollections of Forty Years, by Ferdinand de Lesseps, rol. i. 
 p. 291. 
 
 f Speech in the House of Commons, July 7th, 1857. 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OE WARS. 181 
 
 East which she at present possessed. This prophecy- 
 has to a certain extent been falsified in the event, but 
 it remains to be proved whether much of the commerce 
 that by the old Cape route naturally found its way 
 directly to London, will not be gradually drawn into 
 Marseilles and other Mediterranean ports. But more 
 important by far are the gravamina against the canal 
 which are summed up in this passage : — 
 
 It requires only a glance at the map of the world to see how great 
 would be the naval and military advantage to France in a war with 
 England to have such a short cut to the Indian Seas, while we should 
 be obliged to send ships round the Cape. Thouvenel proposes, indeed, 
 that the passage of ships of war should be forbidden as at the Darda- 
 nelles ; but I presume he does not expect us to receive such a pro- 
 posal except with a decently suppressed smile. Of course the first 
 week of a war between France and England would see 15,000 or 
 20,000 Frenchmen in possession of the canal, to keep it open for them 
 and shut for us. But then, moreover, so strong a military barrier 
 between Syria and Egypt would greatly add to the means of the 
 Pasha for the time being to declare himself independent of Turkey, 
 which would mean his being a dependent of France. 
 
 The course of events has modified the applicability of 
 Lord Palmerston's conclusions a little, but only a little. 
 For " France " most people would be inclined to read 
 " Kussia," as far as India is concerned, or possibly the 
 two combined ; but it should be remembered that when 
 Lord Palmerston wrote, the Black Sea clauses of the 
 Treaty of Paris were in force, and the Empire of the 
 Ozar had not yet emerged from the stage described by 
 Prince Gortschakoff as that of " gathering herself 
 together." And that the danger of Egypt becoming a 
 dependency of France was not wholly chimerical, is 
 shown by the recent efforts of English diplomacy to 
 keep Napoleon's successors out of the country by 
 Anglo-Turkish conventions, or to tie their hands by 
 Dual Controls, not to speak of armies of occupation. 
 
182 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Upon one point Lord Palmerston's predictions are, if 
 military authorities can be trusted at all, as true to-day 
 as when they were written; and that is the complete 
 inutility of the canal if we were at war with a first-class 
 European Power, and the possibility of its being even 
 used against us. 
 
 The Anglo-French alliance was preserved unbroken 
 during the years immediately following the Crimean 
 war, chiefly no doubt by the peculiarly intimate relations 
 of the two courts. But the cordial friendship that 
 existed between Lord Palmerston and Count Persigny, 
 whom, as being one of the few honest men about him, 
 the Emperor had the good sense to make his represen- 
 tative in London, contributed also to that result in no 
 small degree. The Count may have been a man of few 
 ideas, but he saw clearly enough that the friendship of 
 England was a matter of life and death to the Second 
 Empire, and that it was useless for the author of Les 
 Idees NapoleonienneSy the advocate of the revision of the 
 treaties of 1815, to imagine that diplomatic coquetry 
 with Prussia and the German Federation was anything 
 else than a mere waste of time. So far did he carry 
 his English proclivities, that the Emperor, on the occa- 
 sion of his visit to Osborne in 1857, complained to 
 Prince Albert that Count Persigny always took the side 
 of Lord Palmerston against his master ; and there can 
 be no doubt that the strength of will of these two 
 vigorous men kept the Emperor for a time from drift- 
 ing into dangerous courses. For though the hand of 
 Walewski was to be seen in his policy with regard to 
 the Principalities, that of Persigny was equally visible 
 in the harmonious action of France and England in the 
 quarrel between Prussia and Switzerland ri Neuchatel, 
 and still more in the measures dealt out to King Bomba 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 183 
 
 about the same time. The successive steps by which 
 the necessity of treating British subjects with civility 
 was inculcated upon the Neapolitan Sovereign, begin- 
 ning with a visit of the British fleet in 1855 and ending 
 with the recall of the French and English legations 
 in 1856, were also thoroughly Palmerstonian ; and Mr. 
 Greville is probably not far wrong in ascribing to the 
 " contagious n influence of the Prime Minister, several 
 of Lord Clarendon's apparently high-handed proceed- 
 ings about this period. Prince GortschakofF, as readers 
 of Sir Theodore Martin are doubtless aware, issued a 
 sarcastic protest against the interference of the Western 
 Governments in the internal affairs of Naples. But it 
 did not come with much consistency from the represen- 
 tative of the Power which had despatched the Menschi- 
 koff mission ; and the British Ministers could plead with 
 justice that King Bomba, during their long acquaintance 
 with him, had been invariably deaf to good advice, but 
 singularly amenable to coercion. 
 
 In one of the two little wars, those with Persia and 
 China, in which England became involved after the 
 Crimean war, the influence of Bussia is no doubt to a 
 considerable extent discernible, though probably not so 
 much as Lord Palmerston imagined. He was, of 
 course, well aware that overtures for the assistance of 
 Persia had been made at Teheran by the Russian envoy, 
 Prince Dolgorouki, before the outbreak of hostilities 
 with Russia, and that to the wise counsels of the Per- 
 sian Vizier was almost entirely to be ascribed the 
 rejection of the Russian alliance and the attitude of 
 friendly neutrality towards the Western Powers ulti- 
 mately adopted by the Shah. But he was probably 
 mistaken in imagining that Russian intrigue was at the 
 bottom of the sudden change of policy adopted by the 
 
184 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Vizier when the war was nearly over ; and that func- 
 tionary was in all probability actuated by no loftier 
 motive than that of saving his own neck from the wrath 
 of the Shah, when he picked a quarrel with the English 
 Minister, Mr. Murray, and, after diplomatic relations 
 had been suspended, sent an expedition against Herat 
 in direct violation of the agreement made with England 
 in 1853. But whether the attack on the key of India 
 was, as Lord Palmerston suspected, " the first opening 
 of the trenches against India by Kussia," or whether it 
 was simply the act of a man situated between the Devil 
 and the deep sea, it had in either case to be avenged. 
 The peace concluded after a war conducted on the 
 principle of dealing gently with the Shah, lest his empire 
 should crumble to pieces, is remarkable for the genuine 
 attempt to create the " strong, united, and friendly 
 Afghanistan " of Lord Beaconsfield's dreams, by com- 
 pelling His Majesty to surrender all his claims over 
 that country, and for an arrangement for the suppression 
 of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf, which proved 
 that age had not weakened Lord Palmerston's generous 
 instincts. 
 
 The Persian war is perhaps of all our little wars that 
 to which it is least possible to raise serious objections. 
 The Chinese war must appear to most people difficult to 
 justify on the grounds either of morality or expediency. 
 In the dispute which arose over the little lorcha 
 " Arrow," Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong-Kong, 
 seems to have displayed a lamentable lack of judgment; 
 to have forced on a quarrel in a case where the civis 
 Romanus sum doctrine could not by any possibility be 
 applied ; to have refused ample amends ; and to have 
 chosen a moment when the irritation between the two 
 nations was at its height to put forward demands under 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 185 
 
 a treaty which he must have known that the Chinese 
 hated exceedingly, and the non-execution of which he 
 had been expressly ordered not to make a casus belli. 
 If ever the maxim that British agents must be sup- 
 ported was to be broken through, the " Arrow " affair 
 seemed a case in which a recall would have been 
 advisable. Lord Palmerston, however, resolved to 
 stand by Bowring, and he pointed out, with considerable 
 show of reason, in answer to a motion of Mr. Cobden's 
 which the Government determined to treat as one of 
 oensure, that to yield to the Chinese Commissioner 
 Yeh, would be " a virtual casting off of the British 
 communities in China." But the speech, taken as 
 a whole, was not one of his happiest efforts. It con- 
 tained some personalities at the expense of Mr. 
 •Cobden, containing, perhaps, a substratum of truth, 
 but at the same time extremely exaggerated. Upon 
 the merits and demerits of the actual case of the 
 " Arrow " the Prime Minister was extremely hazy, 
 and his main point was that it was only one of many 
 acts of deliberate violation of our treaty rights, and 
 that " the animus of an insult, the animus of violation 
 of the treaty was in the Chinese, and you had a right 
 to demand not only an apology for the wrong that 
 was done, but an assurance that it should not be 
 repeated." In short, that it was about time that the 
 Chinese had another "exemplary licking." 
 
 The Government expected defeat, and had made up 
 their minds to appeal to the country. The latter 
 part of Lord Palmerston's speech accordingly con- 
 tained a stirring election appeal — " very bow-wow," as 
 Oreville says, but very skilful — in which he declaimed 
 against the coalition of Radicals, Peelites, and Conserva- 
 tives. Just before the dissolution which followed the de- 
 
186 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 feat of the Government by a majority of 16, Mr. Cobden 
 attempted to give Lord Palmerston a lesson in elec- 
 tioneering. The last rag of the old reform bauner, he 
 said, had recently been trampled under foot, Lord 
 Palmerston having voted against Mr. Locke King's 
 motion for that " miserable modicum of reform,"' 
 a d£10 county franchise; and now he was going 
 to the country with the cry, " Palmerston for ever !' 
 No reform ! and a Chinese war ! " He was simply 
 playing into the hands of the Conservatives. But the 
 Prime Minister, whose character was in itself so perfect 
 a representation of the faults as well as the virtues of 
 the nation, was far more capable of reading the heart, 
 of the people than Mr. Cobden, whom the bulk of the 
 constituencies probably regarded as a doctrinaire who 
 was generally hard to understand and sometimes posi- 
 tively wearisome. As a matter of fact, the constituencies, 
 did not care two straws about reform ; they approved of 
 the Chinese war, as Mr. Disraeli foresaw they would* 
 They fairly adored " old Pam," and agreed with him in 
 regarding the combination of Conservatives, Peelites, and 
 Kadicals as actuated by motives of faction. But their 
 abomination was the Manchester school, which was 
 wiped off the face of the earth. Mr. Bright, Mr. 
 Cobden, and Mr. Milner Gibson all suffered defeat,, 
 and it was calculated that Government had gained 
 twenty-four counties and twenty towns. As Mr. Morley 
 points out, nothing like the overthrow had been seen 
 since the disappearance of the Peace Whigs in 1812. 
 
 The confidence which the English people reposed in 
 Lord Palmerston as a man in whose hands its honour 
 was safe, was, on the whole, thoroughly justified by the 
 mein with which he confronted the Indian Mutiny. It 
 is impossible, indeed, to read the correspondence be- 
 
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS. 187 
 
 tween Premier and Sovereign, published by Sir Theodore 
 Martin, without coming to the conclusion that at the 
 outset he undervalued the danger very considerably, and 
 that it was fortunate for the nation that Prince Albert 
 was at hand to point out the perils of a jaunty optimism. 
 However, when he was fully awake to the greatness of 
 the occasion, his proceedings were characterised by hia 
 usual dash and promptitude, while his cheeriness upheld 
 the spirit of the nation. He pitched on the right man, 
 when Sir Colin Campbell was sent out to India and to 
 take the vacant place of Commander-in-Chief; when, as 
 the Premier subsequently informed a delighted House 
 of Commons, upon being asked when he would be able 
 to start, the gallant officer, with his ordinary prompti- 
 tude, replied " To-morrow." And the sentiments which 
 dictated Lord Palmerston to refuse the proffered assis- 
 tance from Belgium, under full confidence that England 
 could " win off her own bat," were thoroughly English 
 and great ; as also was his intimation at the Mansion 
 House to " any foreign nation " that " it would not be 
 a safe game to play to take advantage of that which is 
 erroneously imagined to be the moment of our weak- 
 ness." 
 
 Even the overthrow of Lord Palmerston in the fol~ 
 lowing year on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 
 introduced on the occasion of the Orsini attempt on 
 Napoleon III., was not followed by a withdrawal of 
 popular favour, and was probably due simply to mis- 
 management. The opinion naturally prevailed in the 
 House of Commons that the author of the civis Roma- 
 nus sum speech was not seen at his best when modifying 
 the criminal law of England at the bidding of a foreign 
 potentate; and the measure was never particularly 
 popular. But the first reading was carried by 299 ta 
 
188 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 99, and it is certain that had it not heen for the vio* 
 lence of the language across the water, and the un- 
 fortunate neglect of Lord Clarendon to send a formal 
 reply to Count Walewski's hectoring despatch, the 
 subsequent course of the measure would have been 
 equally prosperous. Even under the circumstances, 
 defeat might have been avoided if the Government 
 whips had been alive to the critical nature of the divi- 
 sion ; and if Lord Palmerston had consented to adjourn 
 the debate in order to allow passions to cool and the 
 necessary explanations to be made — explanations which, 
 when they were eventually forthcoming, were acknow- 
 ledged by Lord Derby to be perfectly satisfactory. So 
 unlike Palmerston's usual tactics was the lack of resource 
 he displayed on the occasion, that many observers thought 
 that the whole affair was a fausse sortie ; and that he 
 preferred to resign on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill 
 rather than on the impending question of the extremely 
 unpopular appointment of Lord Clanricarde to the 
 Privy Seal, an appointment which Lord Brougham had 
 forewarned Lady Palmerston would " damn the Minis- 
 try." Mr. Greville, however, rejects that explanation; 
 and as Sir George Cornewall Lewis never hinted at it in 
 his conversations with the Clerk of the Council, it is 
 pretty certain that he was right in his conclusions, and 
 that Lord Palmerston fell through one of those errors 
 of judgment to which all mortals are prone. In any 
 case, he was quite right to abstain from retaining power 
 after the discredit of a defeat. For the Conservative 
 party took little by entering into office; and the period 
 of opposition to which the Liberal party was condemned, 
 was of infinite value in the healing of internal dissensions. 
 
189 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 
 
 1848-1861. 
 
 The Willis's Rooms meeting — Defeat of Lord Derby's ministry — Lord 
 Palmerston and Azeglio — The Sardinian Contingent — The Con- 
 gress of Paris — The mission of Kossuth — The treaty of Villa- 
 franca — Policy of the English Cabinet — The cession of Nice and 
 Savoy — Lord Palmerston's efforts on behalf of Italy — His speech 
 on the death of Cavour. 
 
 While the second Derby administration kept in power 
 through the divisions of their opponents and the 
 supreme skill with which they were led by Mr. Disraeli, 
 the most important debates as far as the Liberal party 
 was concerned were, not those heard in the House 
 of Commons, but those in the aristocratic halls of 
 Woburn Abbey and Broadlands. The main objects of 
 the negotiators were to effect a reconciliation between 
 the two kings of Brentwood, Lord John Russell and 
 Lord Palmerston, and at the same time to frame a pro- 
 gramme sufficiently large to secure the support of the 
 Radical and Peelite groups. The reader must consult 
 the pages of Greville if he wishes to obtain a detailed 
 knowledge of the moves and counter-moves of the Whig 
 party managers, male and female ; and it is enough to 
 say here, that although the dissolution of 1859 gave a 
 considerable accession of strength to the Conservatives, 
 
190 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 it was not enough to counterbalance the effect of the 
 reunion of the Liberal party accomplished at the 
 Willis's Rooms meeting of June 6th. There Lord 
 Palmerston and Lord John Russell announced that each 
 was willing to serve under the other in the event of 
 either being sent for, and the course of conduct agreed 
 upon received the support of men of such varied shades 
 of opinion as Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr. 
 Milner Gibson, and Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
 
 The amendment to the Address moved by Lord Har- 
 rington, upon which Ministers were defeated by a 
 majority of thirteen, was a general vote of want of con- 
 fidence. But the debate turned almost entirely on the 
 war of Italian Liberation ; and Lord Malmesbury had no 
 doubt whatever tbat the overthrow of the Conservative 
 Ministry might have been postponed, if Mr. Disraeli 
 had not omitted to lay on the table of the House the 
 Blue Book containing the Italian and French corre- 
 spondence with the Foreign Office. Not only was the 
 future of Italy the question of the hour, but it was the 
 question which divided the Liberals the least. The 
 three most powerful men of the reunited party, Lord 
 John Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, 
 were all definitely anti-Austrian in their views ; and the 
 decidedly pronounced Italian sympathies of the first 
 and second of the trio caused Lady William Russell to 
 bestow upon them the happy sobriquet of the "old 
 Italian masters." 
 
 Lord Palmerston had, in truth, been consistently 
 faithful to the Italians ever since the temporary 
 overthrow of their aspirations in 1848. He early 
 recognised the genius of Cavour; and both he and 
 Lady Palmerston were on terms of the warmest inti- 
 macy with the Marquis Emanuel d'Azeglio, the astute 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 191 
 
 diplomatist who represented Sardinian interests in 
 London with such striking ability during the important 
 decade from 1851 to 1861. That friendship was of consi- 
 derable importance to the Italian cause, and the value of 
 his services can be traced in the series of highly interest- 
 ing letters from Cavour to Azeglio, recently published by 
 M. Nicomede Bianchi under the title of La Politique du 
 Comte Camille de Cavour, The machinations of the 
 Machiavellian Piedmontese seem, indeed, to have em- 
 braced the whole of the family circle of Broadlands. 
 Not only were " private " despatches doctored for the 
 purpose of being laid on the table of Milady, but Lord 
 Shaftesbury was favoured with stories of Jesuitical 
 atrocities, which were reproduced with great effect in 
 Exeter Hall,* as Victor Emmanuel discovered when in 
 1856 the English people received him with the honours 
 of a Protestant hero. It is probable, however, that 
 both Lord Palmerston and his agent, Sir James Hud- 
 son, the British Minister at Turin, were too well 
 acquainted with the rules of diplomacy not to be able 
 to distinguish grain from chaff. Both men were 
 Italianissimi ; and both were simply acting in agree- 
 ment with their inclinations in advocating the despatch 
 of the Sardinian contingent to the Crimea on the under- 
 standing that the representatives of the monarchy 
 should be allowed to discuss " Sardinian interests " at 
 the peace negotiations, and both were fully aware that 
 I)y so doing they were giving a great access of import- 
 ance to Sardinia. Lord Palmerston even went so far as 
 to adopt a plan hatched by Napoleon during the Con- 
 gress of Paris for the acquisition of the Duchy of 
 Parma by Sardinia through a process of shuffling the 
 
 * "Menagez toujours ce bon Shaft," wrote Cavour to Azeglio 
 and his letters are full of similar admonitions. 
 
192 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 petty potentates of Europe, and to reproduce it by a 
 process of unconscious cerebration as his own. The 
 Duke of Modena was to become King of Greece in 
 place of Otho; the Duchess of Parma was to move on 
 to Modena ; Parma was to be annexed to Sardinia. He 
 seems, indeed, to have taken the project far more 
 seriously than Cavour, who was content to have laid 
 the Italian question on the diplomatic carpet. Lord 
 Clareu don's speech on the wickedness of the Papal and 
 Neapolitan governments at the last meeting of the Con- 
 gress " broke the windows," as Cavour wrote, but he was 
 well aware that " cannon alone could settle the business." 
 Some letters purporting to be by Cavour, and 
 published after his death, attempted to fix upon Lord 
 Clarendon the responsibility of having promised the 
 Sardinian Government the material assistance of Eng- 
 land in the event of war between Austria and Italy. 
 But as Lord Clarendon promptly gave the statement an 
 explicit denial in the House of Lords, and as there is 
 not a single line of confirmatory evidence to be found 
 in the peculiarly confidential correspondence between 
 Cavour and Azeglio, it was certainly false. Whether 
 the letters were concocted after Cavour's death, or for 
 some special purpose at the time when they pre- 
 tended to be written, there can hardly be a doubt that 
 the English Foreign Secretary, whose proclivities were 
 in the main Austrian, did not commit the Liberal party 
 to anything more than extremely warm expressions of 
 sympathy with the Italian cause. Indeed, Cavour 
 always disliked " our friend with the chiD," as he termed 
 Lord Clarendon, but he seems to have had too much 
 knowledge of mankind to attempt to sow dissension 
 between him and the Prime Minister. Palmerston, on 
 his side, more than once told Azeglio that the English 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 193 
 
 Parliament would not sanction armed intervention for 
 the Italian cause ; and though Cavour was of consider- 
 able service to the English Ministry in the settlement 
 of the Bolgrad difficulty, he had, in 1858, long after 
 he had secured Napoleon at Plombieres, given up all 
 hopes of assistance from England. 
 
 We cannot hope [he writes to d'Azeglio on the 1st of December] to 
 
 modify the policy of England in our favour. She has become Aus- 
 
 rian, and we must go our own way. Salvagnoli has repeated to me 
 
 his conversations with Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. 
 
 They are, in words at least, a hundred times worse than the Tories. 
 
 So much for the falsehood, circulated at the time and 
 since repeated, that Lord Palmerston, if he had been in 
 office, would have plunged England into a Quixotic 
 expedition for the liberation of Italy. The Emperor 
 of the French, by inviting Clarendon and Palmerston 
 to Compi&gne during the closing days of 1858, may 
 have wished to entangle them in his widely-ramified 
 schemes; but if so, he was singularly unsuccessful, as 
 Lord Clarendon's language was most outspoken. And 
 Napoleon's object in sending the credulous Kossuth, 
 after the downfall of the Derby Cabinet, on the extra- 
 ordinary mission to London, which the latter has 
 described in his Memories of My Exile, was nothing 
 more than to secure the neutrality of England if the 
 Hungarians took part in the movement as well as the 
 Italians. The mission, in fact, amounted to little more than 
 preaching to the converted, since Palmerston never had 
 the slightest intention of fighting on the side of Aus- 
 tria. As he was obliged to purchase Kadical support 
 in any case, he probably did not think twice about 
 giving his consent to the three points submitted to him 
 by Kossuth's friend, Mr. Gilpin, in the name of the 
 Badical party, (1) the overthrow of the Tory Ministry 
 
 13 
 
194 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 on their foreign policy ; (2) the absolute neutrality of 
 England during the war, whatever its developments 
 might be ; (3) the admission of two members of the 
 Eadical party into the Ministry " in order to ensure 
 their neutrality/' Everybody was satisfied, and Kos- 
 suth had been given something to occupy his time and 
 tongue. 
 
 The Italian campaign was nearly over, when, on 
 the failure of Lord Granville to form a ministry, 
 and thereby to relieve the Queen of the " invidious, 
 unwelcome task " of making a choice between Lord Pal- 
 merston and Lord John Russell, the former became for 
 the second time First Lord of the Treasury, with the 
 latter for his Foreign Secretary. By the 20th of June the 
 ministerial arrangements were complete ; on the 24th 
 the last pitched battle of the war was fought at Sol- 
 ferino, and the Austrians retreated into the Quadri- 
 lateral. Suddenly the Emperor determined to bring the 
 contest to a close. His victories had been Pyrrhic ; 
 the Quadrilateral defied him as it had defied Carlo 
 Alberto. Prussia, which had refrained from taking the 
 side of Austria solely from the discourteous manner in 
 which her aid was demanded, was reported to be arm- 
 ing rapidly ; Italy showed no disposition to content 
 herself with that measure of liberty which he had pro- 
 posed — " freedom from the Alps to the Adriatic " — 
 but was evidently determined to be at liberty from north 
 to south, as well as west by east. Napoleon's attempt to 
 drag England into the struggle by invoking her media- 
 tion on terms which, as Lord Palmerston pointed out to 
 Lord John, Austria would peremptorily refuse,* having 
 
 * They included the surrender of Lombardy and the Duchies to 
 •Sardinia, and the erection of Venetia into an independent state under 
 an archduke. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 195 
 
 failed, the world was suddenly startled by the news that 
 the two Emperors had signed a provisional treaty of 
 peace at Villafranca, under which Sardinia was to con- 
 tent herself with Lombardy ; the Grand Dukes of Tus- 
 cany and Parma were to be reinstated, though there 
 was a verbal assurance that force would not be employed 
 for the purpose ; and Venetia, retained by Austria, was 
 to become a member of an Italian Confederation, pre- 
 sided over by the Pope. " L'ltalie rendue a elle-meme," 
 was Lord Palmerston's subsequent comment, " had 
 become Pltalie vendue a l'Autriche "; and without loss 
 of time he wrote to Count Persigny that when once 
 Austria became a member, through her hold on Vene- 
 tia, of an Italian Confederation, all Italy was given up 
 to Austria with feet and hands bound. 
 
 As to the conduct of Lord Palmerston and Lord 
 John Eussell at this exceedingly difficult juncture, 
 there are naturally diversities of opinion. Sir Theodore 
 Martin says that there was considerable cause for 
 anxiety lest the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secre- 
 tary would " be carried into some imprudence by their 
 enthusiasm for the Italian cause," and the neutrality of 
 England violated. Mr. Ashley combats that view, and 
 his case, so far as the protest to Persigny goes, is ex- 
 ceedingly strong. The Prime Minister did not, as the 
 biographer of the Prince Consort attempts to argue, tell 
 the French Government that they ought to break the 
 peace ; all he said was that the arrangement was bad, 
 and that England would have nothing to do with it. Nor 
 can he be blamed, when Central Italy had plainly ex- 
 pressed her determination to take her destinies into her 
 own hands, when the duchies had flatly declined to 
 receive back their petty Sovereigns and Romagna its 
 Pope, for making it clearly known that England would 
 
 13 * 
 
196 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON. 
 
 consider unjustifiable the " employment of French or 
 Austrian forces to put down the clearly expressed will of 
 the people of Central Italy." But when the Emperor, 
 perplexed by the impossibility of executing the terms of 
 the provisional Treaty of Villafranca as notified at Zurich, 
 pressed for the summoning of a European Congress to 
 extricate him from his difficulties, Lord Palmerston's 
 conduct becomes decidedly more open to question. It 
 was evidently the duty of England, as a neutral Power, 
 to keep in the background, to make no attempt to 
 meddle with the problem which she had not created, and 
 any intervention might, as the Queen pointed out to 
 Lord John Russell, have the effect of " forcing Aus- 
 tria and France to make common cause against her/' 
 So great, however, was the Prime Minister's indignation 
 at the Treaty of Villafranca, and so firm his trust in 
 the good faith of the Emperor, that he had already 
 written to Count Persigny a " private " letter — the old 
 Adam peeped out there — urging that the clause of the 
 preliminaries of peace at Villafranca relating to the 
 duchies ought not to find a place in the Treaty of 
 Zurich, and that it was in the interests of France that 
 they should annex themselves to Sardinia. The retort 
 of the French Government was obvious ; there would be 
 no peace unless the condition about the duchies were 
 retained, and if Austria took up arms again, France was 
 not prepared to make further sacrifices unless England 
 would join the Franco- Sardinian alliance. Undeterred 
 by this rebuff, both Palmerston and Lord John Russell 
 during the autumn months recurred more than once to 
 the idea of a Congress, and in January 1860 the Prime 
 Minister actually laid before the Cabinet a memorandum 
 in which he proposed a triple alliance between Eng- 
 land, France, and Sardinia, with "a joint determination 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 197 
 
 to prevent any forcible interference by any other Power 
 in the affairs of Italy. 
 
 Of course, it was more than probable that Austria 
 would not dare to face such a coalition ; on the other 
 hand, the promise of strict neutrality made at the 
 Willis's Rooms meeting had been thrown to the winds, 
 and it was fortunate that these councils did not prevail 
 •on the Cabinet. For when Lord Palmerston penned the 
 memorandum, the Congress had been foredoomed by 
 the agreement of the French Emperor to the proposal of 
 the English Government that the duchies should be 
 allowed to vote their own destinies, and Napoleon soon 
 afterwards gave the project its death-blow by his famous 
 pamphlet Le Pape et le Gongres. Indeed, the rumours 
 that the Emperor was now determined to insist on 
 the cession of Nice and Savoy to France, according 
 to the original terms of the compact of Plombieres, 
 should have convinced the English Cabinet that 
 a common line of action with France on the Italian 
 question was no longer possible ; and on the 5th of 
 February, Lord Cowley's letter to Lord John Russell 
 placed the intention of the French monarch to set him- 
 self right in the eyes of his subjects by extending 
 France " to her natural frontiers " beyond any farther 
 doubt. 
 
 That Lord Palmerston should have been indignant 
 at the tricky conduct of Napoleon, who had completely 
 blinded the English Cabinet by his assertions that the 
 Italian war was " for an idea," and that France sought 
 in it no selfish aggrandisement, was but natural. At 
 the same time, he was too experienced to attempt a pro- 
 test against the annexation, when the Northern Powers 
 showed no disposition to stir in the matter, and when 
 Cavour, who, despite his theatrical Apres avoir donne* 
 
198 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 la jHle> on pouvait bien donner le berceau, was well 
 content to have gained Central Italy at the price of the 
 cession of the French-speaking districts of Nice and 
 Savoy, showed no disposition to draw back from the 
 bargain. Still, though it was impossible any longer to^ 
 co-operate with France, in the cause of Italian unity, 
 Lord Palmerston did not cease to help the peninsula as 
 best he could single-handed. When Garibaldi, havings 
 freed Sicily, was about to cross over to Naples, the 
 Emperor of the French wished to prevent him ; but his 
 request for the co-operation of the English fleet was 
 met with a curt refusal. And when Garibaldi's romantic 
 campaign was over, and he had handed over the two 
 Sicilies to Victor Emmanuel, the English Government,, 
 alone in Europe, hastened to recognise the new king- 
 dom of Italy. 
 
 The Italian revolution [wrote Lord John Russell to Sir James Hud- 
 son on October 27th, 1860] has been conducted with singular temper 
 and forbearance. The subversion of existing power has not been fol- 
 lowed, as is too often the case, by an outburst of popular vengeance. 
 The venerated forms of constitutional monarchy have been associated 
 with the name of a prince who represents an ancient and glorious 
 dynasty. . . . Her Majesty's Government can see no sufficient ground 
 for the severe censure with which Austria, France, Prussia, and 
 Russia have visited the acts of the King of Sardinia [by withdrawing 
 their ministers from Turin]. Her Majesty's Government will turn 
 their eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people building up- 
 the edifices of their liberties amid the sympathies and good wishes of 
 Europe. 
 
 The Emperor of the French also was warned that the 
 Savoy coup must not be repeated ; and that the British 
 fleet would at once be sent to the scene of action,, 
 if the Emperor attempted to compensate France for the 
 creation of a powerful kingdom on her borders by the 
 annexation of Genoa or Sardinia. The expediency of 
 withdrawing the army of occupation from Rome was. 
 
LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 199 
 
 urged by him upon the Emperor again and again ; but 
 without effect, since Napoleon did not dare to affront 
 French clericalism. Lord Palmerston even entertained 
 the idea, and urged it more than once on the Italian 
 Cabinet, that Venetia should be acquired by purchase 
 from Austria. But the proposal was rejected as imprac- 
 ticable, and another war with Austria had to be under- 
 gone before Italy could recover Venetia. 
 
 The death of Count Cavour gave Lord Palmerston 
 an opportunity of paying a fine tribute to his memory, 
 and of placing thereby on record his own generous 
 sympathies with the cause of Italian unity. In a speech 
 in the House of Commons on June 6th, 1861, he said 
 that of Count Cavour " it might truly be said that he 
 had left a name * to point a moral and adorn a tale/ " 
 
 The moral is this — that a man of transcendant talents, of indomi- 
 table energy, and of inextinguishable patriotism, may, by the impulses 
 which his own mind may give his countrymen, aiding a righteous 
 cause and seizing favourable opportunities, notwithstanding difficulties 
 that appear at first sight insurmountable, confer on his country great 
 and most inestimable benefits. . . . The tale with which Count 
 Cavour's memory will be associated is one of the most extraordinary 
 — I may say one of the most romantic in the history of the world. 
 Under his influence, we have seen a people who were supposed to 
 have become torpid in the enjoyment of luxury, to have been enervated 
 by the pursuit of pleasure, and to have had no knowledge or feeling in 
 politics except what may have been derived from the traditions of their 
 history and the jealousies of rival states — we have seen that people, 
 under his guidance and at his call, rising from the slumber of ages, 
 breaking that spell with which they had so long been bound, and dis- 
 playing on just occasions the courage of heroes, the sagacity of states- 
 men, the wisdom of philosophers, and obtaining for themselves that 
 unity of political existence which for centuries has been denied them. 
 I say, these are great events in history, and that the man whose name 
 will go down in connection with them to posterity, whatever may 
 have been the period of his death, however premature it may have 
 been for the hopes of his countrymen, cannot be said to have died too 
 soon for his glory and fame. 
 
200 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOME AFFAIRS. 
 1859-1865. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet — His relations with the Radicals 
 and the Opposition — The Reform Bill — Lord Palmerston and Mr. 
 Gladstone — The Paper Duties Bill — His views on the National 
 Defences — The Fortifications Bill — Legislation and Appointments 
 — The Charges commonly brought against Lord Palmerston's 
 Government — His Irish Policy. 
 
 The administration formed by Lord Palmerston in 
 June 1859 was, in point of ability, perhaps the 
 strongest that had been entrusted with the affairs of the 
 nation since the famous ministry " of All the Talents " 
 collected under the leadership of (rrenville and Fox in 
 1806.* Lord John Kussell's fixed determination to 
 
 * Lord Palmerston's second Cabinet was composed as follows : — 
 First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Palmerston. 
 Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell. 
 President of the Council, Earl Granville. 
 Lord Privy Seal, The Duke of Argyll. 
 Home Secretary, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. 
 Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell. 
 Colonial Secretary, The Duke of Newcastle. 
 Secretary for War, Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
 Secretary for India, Sir Charles Wood. 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 201 
 
 have the Foreign Office and nothing else, was the cause 
 of the exclusion of Lord Clarendon, a loss, perhaps, 
 less to be regretted than it would otherwise have been, 
 because of the Italian complication. Sir James Gra- 
 ham, during the brief remainder of his life, played the 
 congenial part of the candid friend of Liberalism. Mr. 
 •Cobden refused to listen to the voice of the siren, and 
 declined the presidency of the Board of Trade. Other- 
 wise, the Ministry was composed of the flower of 
 the Peelites, Whigs, and Eadicals, as a glance at the 
 list below will show. But though an extremely able 
 administration, it was composed of the most discor- 
 dant elements, and was in fact, far more of a coali- 
 tion than Lord Aberdeen's government. Its three most 
 important members, the Prime Minister, Lord John 
 Bussell, and Mr. Gladstone, were, as we have said in 
 the previous chapter, in thorough accord on the Italian 
 question, and it is pleasant to see the cordiality with 
 which the two veterans, after years of " tit-for-tat *' and 
 " paying one another out," worked together in the 
 shaping of our relations with the continental powers in 
 the autumn of their days. But Lord John and Lord 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, The Duke of Somerset. 
 
 President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Milner Gibson. 
 
 Postmaster- General, Lord Elgin. 
 
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Sir George Grey. 
 
 Chief Commissioner of the Poor Law Board, The Hon. Charles 
 
 Villiers. 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Cardwell. 
 
 Lord Carlisle was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Mr. James Wilson 
 Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Paymaster of the Forces ; Mr. 
 Lowe, Vice-President of the Council ; Sir Richard Bethell (Lord 
 Westbury), Attorney-General, and, on the death of Lord Campbell in 
 1861, Lord Chancellor. 
 
202 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 
 
 Palmerston were, of course, of entirely different minds? 
 on the question of Reform ; the Prime Minister and Mr. 
 Gladstone fell out about the national defences. There 
 was a large section of the Cabinet who regarded the 
 Premier as little better than a Tory in disguise, and 
 another which utterly distrusted his foreign policy. 
 That Lord Palmerston should have held such a body of 
 men together until his death, with considerably less 
 than the average number of resignations, is perhaps the 
 greatest of his feats as a parliamentary manager. And 
 critics who accuse him of degrading political life by 
 shelving important questions and so forth, should 
 remember that daring tactics are impossible when a 
 general is surrounded by a divided staff. 
 
 The difficulties with which Lord Palmerston had to 
 contend were increased by the confusion that prevailed 
 among the rank and file of both parties. As has occurred 
 very frequently in our political history, the real divisions- 
 did not coincide with the sections into which parties 
 nominally fell ; the gulf between Lord Palmerston and 
 the Conservatives was far narrower than that between 
 Lord Palmerston and the Cobdenites, and as the minis- 
 terial majority was not very large, the defection of the 
 latter was a most dangerous eventuality. Lord Palmer- 
 ston's real strength lay accordingly in the strange fact 
 that while the Radicals were, as several of Mr. Cobden's 
 letters prove, speculating eagerly on his approaching 
 downfall, the Conservatives on the other hand, having 
 had more than enough of office in a minority, were 
 anxious that he should remain in power until they had 
 a chance of coming in on a full tide. If, under the 
 circumstances, Lord Palmerston had actually made 
 overtures for the support of the Opposition against 
 his nominal friends, the step should be blameworthy 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 20S 
 
 only in the eyes of the mere political hack, who affects 
 to think that his party has the monopoly of the 
 cardinal virtues. But Mr. Ashley distinctly denies that 
 there was any secret understanding — of a permanent 
 nature as we understand him — and that the most that 
 happened was that when Lord Malmeshury gratuitously 
 offered to Lady Palmerston, in the name of Lord 
 Derby, the support of the Conservative party, in the 
 event of the resignations of Lord John Russell on 
 Reform and of Mr. Gladstone on the Paper Duties Bill, 
 for the remainder of the session of 1860, the offer was 
 gratefully accepted. A transaction which, if carried 
 into effect, would have thwarted the wrecking of a Go- 
 vernment to further the desires of individuals, appears^ 
 to be distinctly creditable to both parties concerned. 
 
 Lord John Russell's advocacy of Reform was less 
 determined than Mr. Gladstone's opposition to the ex- 
 penditure on the defences, and was disposed of by Lord 
 Palmerston by the simple device of letting him have his- 
 way. On the 1st of March 1860, the anniversary of 
 the great measure which he had introduced twenty-nine 
 years before, the Foreign Secretary brought in a Bill of 
 which the effect was to lower the franchise from £10 to 
 £6, and to redistribute twenty-five seats. But he soon 
 found that the country cared little about the Bill, the 
 House still less, and it perished in Committee. Lord 
 Palmerston's speech was, as Mr. Disraeli said, very hap- 
 pily, " not so much in support of, as about " the Reform 
 Bill ; and in his reports to the Queen he made little or 
 no attempt to conceal his satisfaction at its approaching^ 
 demise. In fact, his whole course of action was one of 
 most judicious expediency. Even Lord John Russell 
 was compelled to acknowledge that " the apathy of the 
 country was undeniable, nor was it a transient humour." 
 
204 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 This the Radicals too discovered when they stumped 
 the North of England on the question. If it had been 
 set aside for the moment, the Prime Minister said, in 
 1862, in answer to Mr. Cobden, it was owing in a 
 great degree to the feeling of the House of Commons ; 
 it was owing in a still greater degree to the general 
 feeling of the constituencies in the country ; and it was 
 most eminently owing to the course pursued in regard 
 to the question by Mr. Cobden himself and Mr. Bright, 
 for there was no denying that the tone which was taken 
 •on the subject by many of those who advocated the ques- 
 tion had the effect of weaning from it those who were 
 formerly most anxious for it. " Why do we not bring 
 in a Reform Bill ?" said Lord Palmerston to Rowcliffe at 
 Tiverton ; " because we are not geese." The truth of the 
 inference is undeniable, and it does not necessarily imply 
 that Lord Palmerston imagined that he had thrust aside 
 Parliamentary Reform for an indefinite period. All 
 that he meant was that the question was not ripe for 
 solution at the moment. 
 
 The questions at issue between Lord Palmerston and 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer were less easy of 
 solution. There seems to have been a certain want of 
 personal cordiality between the two men. Lord Shaftes- 
 bury has placed on record the old Premier's saying 
 concerning his ambitious lieutenant, " He has never 
 behaved to me as a colleague." But affairs of State 
 were almost certainly the causa causans of their diffe- 
 rences. Lord Palmerston distrusted the approximation 
 of his colleague to Radicalism. " Gladstone will soon 
 have it all his own way/' he told Lord Shaftesbury, 
 tl and, whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange 
 doings." The Chancellor, on the other hand, natu- 
 rally felt bitterly annoyed at the temporary annihilation 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 205 
 
 of most of the good effects of the commercial treaty 
 negotiated by Mr. Cobden and the Emperor, a treaty in 
 which he took the utmost interest, by the deep distrust 
 entertained by the Prime Minister towards the " Sphinx 
 of the Seine " in 1860 and onwards. He had to submit 
 to the temporary abandonment of one of his most 
 popular measures for lightening the burdens upon the 
 people at the bidding of the House of Lords, and for 
 purposes of constructing coast-defences and ironclads. 
 He seems also to have agreed with the Kadicals in 
 stigmatising what Palmerston called a policy of defence 
 as one of defiance. So completely were his views at 
 variance with those of the Prime Minister that Mr. 
 Cobden was of opinion that he ought to have left the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 The rejection of the Paper Duties Bill by the House 
 of Lords was undoubtedly prompted by patriotic motives, 
 and not, as was systematically stated at the time, bv a 
 bigoted desire to hinder the spread of knowledge among 
 the people. The chief reason for the temporary un- 
 popularity of the Cobden commercial treaty was that it 
 cheapened the necessities of war, coal and iron, for our 
 possible antagonists; and for similar reasons, the 
 opinion prevailed that when war was in sight, the volun- 
 tary abandonment of a source of revenue which brought 
 in over a million and a quarter a year was most inexpe- 
 dient. In fact, their action was dictated entirely by 
 prudential considerations ; and if an important consti- 
 tutional question, whether the Upper House had the 
 right to reject a money-tax, was raised, it was raised only 
 incidentally. Public opinion approved of the conduct 
 of the Upper House, because it held that they had con- 
 sulted wisely for the interests of the moment ; and Lord 
 Palmerston was in thorough concord with the nation, as 
 
206 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 Oreville suspected and Lord Malmesbury knew, though 
 he was compelled [by the necessities of his position to 
 veil his satisfaction under an air of assumed displeasure. 
 His management of the dispute in its later stages was 
 masterly in the extreme. By appointing a committee 
 of the House of Commons to consider the validity of 
 Lord Lyndhurst's contention that the House of Lords 
 had a right to reject, though not to originate or alter 
 money Bills, he gave the angry passions of the Radical 
 party time to cool ; while the purely historical character 
 of the report of the committee served as a useful basis 
 for the judicious resolutions which, while asserting that 
 the House of Lords had acted within their right, upheld 
 the privileges of the Commons in a manner which even 
 Mr. Gladstone acknowledged was " mild and temperate 
 
 but firm." 
 
 The more general question of the necessity of spend- 
 ing millions on the fortifications of the coast caused 
 still greater friction in the Cabinet. In 1860, Lord 
 Palmerston wrote to the Queen that " however great the 
 loss to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Glad- 
 stone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone 
 than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or 
 Plymouth " ; and when the Fortifications Bill was intro- 
 duced, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reserved for 
 bimself the right to take what course he pleased in the 
 following year, a course which the Prime Minister de- 
 scribed to Her Majesty as likely to be one of "ineffec- 
 tual opposition and ultimate acquiescence." And in 
 1861, Mr. Gladstone, in his Budget speech, commented 
 on the nation's " increased susceptibility to excitement, 
 in our proneness to constant and apparently boundless 
 augmentations of expenditure." He was thus tho- 
 roughly in agreement with Cobden, who, on July 10th, 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 207 
 
 1860, wrote an able letter to Lord Palmerston urging 
 the postponement of the fortification scheme, and in 
 1862 forwarded to the Premier a memorandum in which 
 he suggested that the Governments of England and 
 France should come to an understanding about the 
 •number of ships of war which each of the two countries 
 should maintain. 
 
 The Prime Minister's counter arguments are to be 
 found in Mr. Ashley's biography, and may be 
 summarised here as far as they deal with the general 
 principles of coast defence. In a letter dated Decem- 
 ber 1859, he pointed out to Mr. Gladstone how liable 
 to invasion England was. One night, he wrote, 
 is enough for the passage to our coast, and twenty 
 thousand men might be landed simultaneously at Ports- 
 mouth, Plymouth, and in Ireland, with the result that 
 our dockyards would be destroyed before twenty thou- 
 sand men could be got together to defend either of 
 them. Or the manoeuvre of the first Napoleon might 
 T^e repeated and a large French fleet with troops on board 
 despatched to the West Indies. Were we then to leave 
 our colonies to their fate, or were we to go in pursuit, 
 leaving our coast bare in case the French doubled back ? 
 In April 1862, in a letter to the same, he denied that 
 England was acting under the influence of panic. 
 
 Panic there has been none on the part of anybody. There was for 
 a long time an apathetic blindness on the part of the governed and 
 the governors as to the defensive means of the country compared 
 with the offensive means acquired and acquiring by other Powers. 
 The country at last woke up from its lethargy, not, indeed, to rush 
 into extravagance and uncalled-for exertions, but to make up gradu- 
 ally for former omissions, and so far, no doubt, to throw upon a 
 • shorter period of time expenses which earlier foresight might have 
 spread over a greater length of time. The Government, the Parlia- 
 ment, and the nation acted in harmonious concert ; and if any proof 
 were wanting that the nation has been inspired by a deliberate 
 
208 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 and sagacious appreciation of its position "with respect to other 
 Powers, that proof has been afforded by the long-continued and well- 
 sustained sacrifices of time and money which have been made by the 
 160,000 volunteers, and by those who have contributed to supply them; 
 with requisite funds. 
 
 To Mr. Oobden's proposal for a mutual limitation of 
 
 armaments the Prime Minister only sent the most 
 
 general reply. 
 
 It would be very delightful [he wrote] if your Utopia could be- 
 realised, and if the nations of the earth would think of nothing but 
 peace and commerce, and would give up quarrelling and fighting alto- 
 gether. But, unfortunately, man is a fighting and quarrelling animal j 
 and that this is human nature is proved by the fact that republics, 
 where the masses govern, are far more quarrelsome and more ad- 
 dicted to fighting than monarchies, which are governed by compara- 
 tively few persons. But so long as other nations are animated by 
 these human passions, a country like England, wealthy, and exposed 
 to attack, must by necessity be provided with the means of defence, 
 and however dear these means may be, they are infinitely cheaper 
 than the war which they tend to keep off. 
 
 The speech,"* in which Palmerston proposed the 
 raising of nine millions to he spent in fortifying the 
 dockyards, contained a remarkable account of the dangers- 
 to which the country was exposed, which is not without 
 interest at the present moment. Invasion, he said, 
 might be made for three purposes, first, with the hope 
 of conquest, which he thought no foreign country would 
 imagine to be possible ; secondly, to get possession of 
 London, and there levy contributions or dictate an 
 ignominious peace. This kind of attack could only be 
 resisted by an army in the field. London was too vast 
 a space to be surrounded by fortifications, and there 
 were strong natural positions between it and the coast 
 which could be successfully held by a large force. The 
 size of some of the great harbours, Liverpool and New- 
 
 * July 23rd, 1860. 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 209 
 
 castle for instance, made it also extremely difficult to 
 fortify them, but they could be defended by batteries 
 from the only kind of attack to which they were liable 
 ^the attack of small squadrons for purposes of mis- 
 chief and for levying contributions. But the operation 
 which he apprehended was most likely to be attempted, 
 was that of landing a considerable force for the purpose 
 of destroying our dockyards. 
 
 If your dockyards are destroyed, your navy is cut up by the roots. 
 If any naval action were then to take place, your enemy, whatever the 
 success of it might be, would have his dockyards, arsenals, and stores 
 to refit and replenish and reconstruct his navy; while, with your 
 dockyards burned and your stores destroyed, you would have no 
 means of refitting your navy and sending it out to battle. If ever we 
 lose the command of the sea, what becomes of this country ? Only 
 let hon. gentlemen compare how dependent we are for everything that 
 constitutes national wealth — aye, and a large portion of national food, 
 on free communication by sea. We import about ten million quarters 
 of corn annually, besides enormous quantities of coffee, sugar, and 
 tea and cotton, which is next to corn for the support of the people by 
 enabling them to earn their food. Our wealth depends on the expor- 
 tation of the products of our industry, which we exchange for those 
 things which are necessary for our social position. Our exports 
 amount to considerably more than one hundred millions in value 
 annually. Picture to yourselves for a moment such places as Liver- 
 pool, Bristol, Glasgow, and London, that is to say the Thames, 
 blockaded by a hostile force. 
 
 The resistance offered by the Prime Minister to thd 
 cry of economy in military and naval expenditure, even 
 when raised by the most important member of hid 
 Cabinet, is assuredly much to his credit. And it should 
 be remembered also that, if he played no active part in the 
 great financial triumphs of his second administration, 
 the Cobden treaty and Mr. Gladstone's budgets, he at 
 any rate sympathised thoroughly with their objects as 
 far as they were purely commercial and did not interfere 
 
 14 
 
210 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 with the naval and military strength of England. The 
 budgets alone are enough to absolve the second Paliner- 
 ston Cabinet from the charge of useless inactivity ; but 
 a perusal of the Queen's Speeches at the close of each 
 Session conveys also the impression that the two 
 Houses, without attempting heroic legislation, succeeded 
 in getting through a vast amount of unpretentious but 
 exceedingly useful work — Prisons Bills, Partnership 
 Liability Bills, Crime Chargeability Bills, and so forth. 
 Lord Westbury, one of the greatest of modern Lord 
 Chancellors, made vigorous efforts at law reform, and 
 though the result fell far short of his plans, he at any 
 rate induced the public to take an interest in the techni- 
 calities of land transfer and the registration of title. 
 To the Prime Minister, and also, though in a less 
 degree, to the leader of the Opposition, must be assigned 
 much of the credit for the business-like character of the 
 debates. Though the average of oratorical ability was 
 possibly not very high, the speeches were generally to 
 the point, the discussions were never unduly protracted, 
 and the Sessions, instead of dragging on into Septem- 
 ber, were generally over by the middle of August; and 
 once, in 1865, Parliament rose on the 6th of July. 
 Halcyon were the nights for the most part, and their 
 peacefulness was due to the unfailing tact with which 
 the aged Premier, though not a frequent speaker, 
 restored by his timely interventions a querulous House 
 to a sense of dignity, and an angry House to good 
 humour. If there was comparatively little wool in 
 those days there was also little cry. 
 
 Another feature that the apologist of Lord Palmers- 
 ton's second Ministry will dwell upon with pleasure is 
 its freedom from jobbery. This we say, notwithstand- 
 ing the scandal that was created by certain peccadilloes 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 211 
 
 of Lord Westbury during the last months of its active 
 existence. The various cases of abuse of patronage 
 were certainly proved to the hilt, though no attempt 
 was made to establish a charge of personal corruption 
 against the Lord Chancellor; but the incident did not 
 damage the Government as a whole, and the nation 
 proved by its verdict at the polls, that it fully accepted 
 Lord Palmerston's explanation, that Lord Westbury had 
 been advised to remain at his post in order that the 
 question might be sifted by parliamentary inquiry. As 
 to the propriety of Lord Palmerston's own distribution 
 of patronage, both lay and ecclesiastical, the evidence 
 contained in the numerous official letters reproduced by 
 Mr. Ashley is most conclusive ; he was no nepotist. His 
 recommendations to ecclesiastical appointments were, 
 no doubt, a rock of offence to the High Church party 
 in general and to Bishop Wilberforce in particular ; but 
 the outcry amounted to no more than this — that the 
 " Shaftesbury bishops " were chosen almost entirely 
 from the Evangelical party. Even an undue partiality 
 for one section of the Establishment would have been 
 preferable to choices dictated by political or family 
 interests; but Lord Shaftesbury, in his diary, disposes 
 of the accusation. Altogether the charge was true, he 
 said, of the first bishops; they were decidedly of an 
 Evangelical character, but after Lord Palmerston's 
 junction with the Peelites, that is after 1859, the best 
 men were chosen, no matter to which wing of the 
 Church they professed to belong."* 
 
 And now for the most serious accusation that has 
 been brought against Lord Palmerston by political 
 
 * Hodder's Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. iii. pp. 
 196-200. 
 
 14 * 
 
212 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 thinkers — that he degraded public opinion. Now this, 
 and similar charges, practically resolve themselves into 
 two : — That Lord Palmerston approached matters of 
 grave importance with levity, and that he deliberately left 
 undone much that he ought to have done. To the 
 former of them candour compels a reluctant assent ; but 
 even that assent need not necessarily be unqualified. 
 For, in the first place, instances of misplaced flippancy, 
 like the remarks at the Napier banquet, are unfortu- 
 nately remembered far more easily, and lend themselves 
 far more readily to quotation by the severe critic than 
 passages of dignified earnestness. It is only just to 
 recollect that outbreaks like the " honourable and re- 
 verend gentleman. " speech were far rarer with Lord 
 Palmerston during his last years, and never so accen- 
 tuated. And if Lord Palmerston failed sometimes 
 to strike a deeply reverberating note, the reason is, 
 perhaps, to be found in the fact that he was always, 
 in his latter days, compelled by the weakness of his 
 eyesight to speak without preparation. But there were 
 occasions on which he rose to a height worthy of his 
 subject. The death of Cavour was one ; and there is 
 a good deal of distinction in some of his speeches at 
 the time of the American war. 
 
 When we come to the charge that Lord Palmerston 
 was associated with no great distinct policy, it might be 
 sufficient to reply that during his first Ministry he had to 
 deal with the Crimean war and the Mutiny ; during the 
 second he directed vast fiscal reforms, and it was cer- 
 tainly not entirely from motives of self-preservation 
 that, when the Government was attacked by Mr. Disraeli 
 for the mismanagement of the Schleswig-Holstein ques- 
 tion, the old Premier pointed with pride to the finan- 
 cial triumphs of the time as a reason why Parliament 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 213 
 
 and the nation might reasonably continue to support 
 him. Besides he was over four-score years of age when 
 he died ; the ideals of his manhood had for the most 
 part been translated into fact, and when a statesman is 
 over seventy he does not readily adopt new programmes. 
 Mr. Cobden reproached Lord Palmerston for not advoca- 
 ting the ballot ; he replied that he did not believe in the 
 ballot, and that he, not Mr. Cobden, had been placed by 
 the nation at the head of affairs. 
 
 It would [he said] no doubt be not at all right for followers to follow 
 a leader from whom they differed, but it is too much to insist that the 
 leader should follow them wherever they pleased. The hon. member 
 says I have opposed the ballot. I have done so ; and I did it because 
 I unfortunately differ from him in opinion upon that measure. He 
 believes the ballot to be a moral good. I believe it would have an 
 immoral effect. If he can convince me I am wrong, I would be most 
 ready to adopt his views, but until that time comes, sitting here, sent 
 by those whom I represent, to act according to the best of my judg- 
 ment, I must take leave to act upon my own judgment and to oppose 
 a measure which I think would be injurious to the public interests. 
 
 It is, of course, undeniable that since Lord Palmerston 
 passed away many extensive changes of unquestionable 
 benefit have been effected, and many useful measures 
 added to the statute book. But, without going into 
 questions of the expediency of State interference and 
 considerations of how far it is possible to make a 
 people virtuous by acts of Parliament, it is surely only 
 fair to urge that sufficient unto the day is the legis- 
 lation thereof, and that the English, whose Constitution 
 has been the growth of centuries, are the last nation 
 in the world whom it would profit to be perpetually 
 engaged in paroxysms of law-making. The constituen- 
 cies of 1859 felt that enough had been done for the 
 present in the cause of liberty, that they could linger 
 awhile on the ebb tide of economic improvements. u It is 
 
214 LIFE OF VISCO TJNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 plain/* the Premier said in 1864, " that there does not 
 exist the same desire for organic charge which was ob- 
 servable some time ago. The fact is that organic 
 changes were introduced more as a means than as an 
 end, the end being great improvement in the whole of 
 our economical legislation. All such changes as have 
 been desirable have long since been effected, as the re- 
 sult of our organic reforms, and therefore there is no 
 such desire now for further innovations." He was per- 
 fectly right ; for the Reform Bills passed since his day- 
 have been " dishing " measures passed by politicians for 
 the discomfiture of their adversaries rather than to 
 satisfy any real popular demand. At the General Elec- 
 tion of 1865 came the first symptoms of the desire 
 for a new advance, and then Lord Palmerston died, 
 happy, perhaps, in the opportunity of his death. The 
 old constituencies were, besides, keenly interested in 
 foreign politics, and sufficiently enlightened to see 
 that what was going on in the East or in the 
 United States was of supreme moment to themselves. 
 In that respect their successors have changed for the 
 worse. And they were right in regarding Palmerston 
 as a safe guardian of the national honour. For, unless 
 the preceding pages have been written wholly in vain, 
 it is almost superflous to say here that he never ceased 
 for a single moment to keep before the nation the great 
 lesson that Empires are kept as they are gained, by 
 courage, self-reliance, and the rejection of morbid self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 His policy with regard to Ireland was one of simple 
 common sense ; he had no belief that legislation could 
 fight against nature, but he did believe that a firm 
 administration of the law would produce security and 
 so attract capital to the country. In the last great 
 
HOME AFFAIRS. 215 
 
 speech he ever made, his views were expounded with 
 remarkable clearness. It contained an eloquent tribute 
 to the talents and industry of the Irish peasantry, and 
 it assigned the paramount reason for the continued emi- 
 gration of the Irish to the peculiarities of their climate. 
 
 You cannot expect [he continued] that any artificial remedies 
 which legislators can invent can reconstruct the laws of nature, and 
 keep in one country a population which finds it to its advantage to 
 emigrate to another. Things will find their level, and until by some 
 means or other there shall be provided in Ireland the same remunera- 
 tion for labour, and the same inducement to remain which are afforded 
 by other countries, you cannot by any laws which you can devise pre- 
 vent the people from seeking elsewhere a better condition of things 
 than exists in their own country. We are told that tenant-right and 
 a great many other things will do it. None of these things will have 
 the slightest effect. As to tenant-right, I may be allowed to say that 
 I think it is equivalent to landlord's wrong. Tenant-right, as I un- 
 derstand it to be proposed, would be little short of confiscation ; and 
 though it might cause the landlords to emigrate, it certainly would not 
 keep the tenants at home. The real question is how can you create 
 in Ireland that demand and reward for labour which would render the 
 people of Ireland willing to remain at home, instead of emigrating to 
 England or Scotland on the one hand, or to the North American States 
 on the other. Nothing can do that except the influence of capital. 
 
 He was as firmly opposed to the creation of fixity of 
 tenure by statute as was Mr. Gladstone when he intro- 
 duced the Land Act of 1870. With regard to compen- 
 sation for improvements, however, Lord Palmerston's 
 Government in 1860 passed an important Act, by which, 
 in cases where landlord and tenant agreed, compensation 
 could be fixed by a Government valuer, and secured in 
 the form of an annuity on the estate. Thus he believed 
 that legislation could accomplish something for Ireland, 
 though he shrank from banishing political economy to 
 Jupiter and Saturn. 
 
 His views on the terribly vexed topic of Irish Univer- 
 sity education were equally moderate. Undenomina- 
 
216 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 tional education was the only solution, and he thought 
 that the conferment of degrees might safely be entrusted 
 to the aggregate university body of the Queen's Col- 
 leges. The experience of Maynooth, " a place where young 
 men were brought up to be bigoted in religion, to feel 
 for Protestants theological hatred, and to feel political 
 hatred against England," made him adverse to granting 
 degrees to the Catholic College, even if, as Mr. Glad- 
 stone attempted to contrive in his Irish Education Bill, 
 it formed one of a number of affiliated institutions- 
 But he died before the questions advanced into the 
 political foreground. 
 
217 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 1860-1863. 
 
 Lord Palnierston's distrust of Napoleon — Permanent and Special 
 Reasons — Speech on the Fortifications Bill and Conversation with 
 Count Flahault — The Anglo-French Expedition to China — The 
 American Civil War — England's declaration of neutrality — The 
 Trent and Alabama affairs — The Mexican expedition. 
 
 Distrust of France and of the Emperor of the French 
 was the distinguishing feature of Lord Palmerston's 
 foreign policy during the last five years of his life. And, 
 though it may seem inconsistent that the Statesman who 
 had heen the pivot of the Anglo-French alliance during 
 the Crimean war, should abruptly part company with his 
 former friend and become his undisguised opponent, the 
 Prime Minister was in reality no more inconsistent than 
 when, at an earlier period of his career, he had thrown 
 over the entente cordiale with Louis Philippe. For 
 with Palmerston the interests of his country were all in 
 all, and he would never have consented to surrender 
 an infinitesimal part of them to further the designs of 
 Louis Napoleon or anyone else. He had trusted the 
 Emperor to the last ; perhaps, during the Italian cam- 
 
218 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 paign beyond the limits of prudence. But his eyes were- 
 opened by the annexation of Nice and Savoy, still more 
 by the " natural frontiers " theory, which was then put 
 forward as the reason for that act of Vandalism, and the 
 additional violation of the arrangements of 1815 com- 
 mitted by Napoleon when he refused to hand over to< 
 Switzerland, Ohablais and Faucigny, the northern dis- 
 tricts of Savoy, which had been declared by the Con- 
 gress of Vienna to share in the neutrality of the Hel- 
 vetic Federation. The " natural frontiers " theory was 
 evidently capable of being put into practice in several 
 directions, practically towards the Rhine, where the re- 
 sistance, thanks to the want of cohesion among the 
 German states, would possibly be feeble in the extreme. 
 The Cabinet was constrained to declare through the 
 mouth of Lord John Russell that upon such an unsettle- 
 ment of the peace of Europe, England would not pur- 
 sue a policy of isolation. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was no milk-and-water enemy, and 
 his distrust of the Emperor was undoubtedly to some 
 degree exaggerated. Napoleon might have had " a mind 
 like a rabbit-warren," but it did not necessarily follow, 
 from his recent proceedings, that he had intended all along 
 to " avenge Waterloo," and that his design was to beat 
 ■ •' with our aid or with our concurrence or with our neu- 
 trality, first Russia and then Austria, and by dealing 
 with them generously to make them his friends in any 
 subsequent quarrel with us." That was a somewhat 
 unsubstantial specimen of a deductive argument, and 
 Lord Palmerston was in all probability equally under a 
 delusion when he ascribed to the French Emperor the 
 design of instigating Spain to seize Tangiers, and so, by 
 occupying fortified points on each side of the gut of 
 Gibraltar, of \irtually shutting England out of the Medi- 
 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 21$ 
 
 terranean. His suspicions were also based upon a slight 
 substratum of fact when he accused Napoleon, who, as 
 mandatory of the Powers, had sent an expedition to 
 put down a bloody and barbarous war of religion be- 
 tween the Druses and Maronites in Syria, of being 
 actuated by the desire of permanently occupying that 
 country. Lord Palmerston seems, in fact, to have 
 hardly appreciated the position of the man of Decem- 
 ber. Napoleon was not ungrateful ; he was fully con- 
 scious, as his letters to the Queen and the Prince Con- 
 sort clearly prove, that he owed nearly everything to 
 England. She had been the first power to give him a 
 status; and without her make- weight, he would never 
 have been able to pose, even for a moment, as the 
 holder of the European balance. If the French alliance 
 was useful to Lord Palmerston, the English alliance was 
 to the Emperor as the breath of his nostrils. 
 
 At the same time there were both permanent and 
 special reasons for regarding the Emperor of the French 
 as an untrustworthy ally. The permanent reasons were 
 compressed in the contradictions of his position. The 
 elected of a plebiscite, the crowned ex-Carbonaro, was 
 logically bound to assist subjects against the sovereigns, 
 on the other hand, a ruler who claimed to govern by 
 Divine right, was equally bound to uphold the royal y 
 and particularly the Papal, power. He had thus no- 
 firm basis of action ; and, as the author of the coup d'etat r 
 the patentee of a veiled autocracy, he was irresistibly 
 driven to risky adventures abroad, so as to distract 
 the French nation from the spectacle of ministerial cor- 
 ruption and financial mismanagement, in which the 
 Second Empire was rapidly being engulfed. The man 
 of December was, in short, developing into the man of 
 Mexico and Sedan. 
 
220 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 The special reasons were to be found iu the vast naval 
 preparations which were being hurried on in the French 
 ports, and which evidently menaced a maritime power. 
 It was in vain that the Emperor protested that his navy 
 was not sufficient for his wants, and that Mr. Cobden, 
 of course in perfect good faith, attempted to persuade 
 the Cabinet that the alarm was entirely baseless. 
 
 We know [said Lord Palmerston, on the Fortifications Bill] that 
 the utmost exertions are made and still are making, to create a navy 
 very nearly equal to our own — a navy which cannot be required for 
 purposes of defence for France, and which, therefore, we are justified 
 in looking upon as a possible antagonist we may have to encounter — a 
 navy which, under present arrangements, would provide to our neigh- 
 bours the means of transporting within a very few hours a large and 
 formidable number of troops to our coast. 
 
 And he made no disguise of the fact that the increased 
 
 expenditure on our defences was necessitated by the 
 
 attitude of France. 
 
 It is impossible for any man to cast his eyes over the face of 
 Europe, and to see and hear what is passing, without being convinced 
 that the future is not free from danger. It is difficult to say where 
 the storm may burst ; but the horizon is charged with clouds which 
 Ijetoken the possibility of a tempest. The Committee, of course, knows 
 that in the main I am speaking of our immediate neighbours across 
 the channel, and there is no use in disguising it. No one has any 
 right to take offence at considerations and reflections which are 
 purely founded upon the principles of self-defence. 
 
 A few months previously, Lord Palmerston had stated 
 his meaning with even more definiteness in the well- 
 known conversation with old Count Flahault, then French 
 Ambassador in London, as they drove together to the 
 House of Commons. He bluntly told him that it was 
 impossible to trust the Emperor any longer; and that if 
 war was forced upon England, England would fearlessly 
 accept it. 
 
 " This was very spirited and becoming/' was the ver- 
 dict of Greville in one of the last entries in his journal 
 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 221 
 
 upon an imperfect report of the conversation being 
 transmitted to him by Lord Clarendon. And though it 
 is proverbially difficult to prove a negative, the terms of 
 the Emperor's letter of self-exculpation to Count Per- 
 signy of the 23rd of July 1860 fairly warrant the con- 
 clusion that in this case post hoc and propter hoc were 
 identical, and that war was averted by Lord Palmerston's 
 firm language, backed up by preparations for war. At 
 all events, the relations between the two countries grew 
 considerably less fraught with danger, and the inter- 
 national friendship was almost reconnected before the 
 close of the year by the success of the joint Anglo-French 
 expedition to China, under Sir Hope Grant aud General 
 Montauban, better known as Count Palikao. Pekin was 
 taken, and the ratification of the important Treaty of 
 Tien-tsin, which had been signed by Lord Elgin two 
 years previously, was at length wrung from the Celestial 
 Government. 
 
 The breach was, however, never completely healed, 
 and it was well that the British Government continued 
 to be on its guard against the dreamer of the Tuileries ; 
 otherwise, we should have been almost inevitably em- 
 broiled in the American Civil war. More than once in 
 the course of that struggle, the Emperor of the French 
 urged our Ministers to recognise the Southern States, 
 but he was always met with a firm but courteous refusal. 
 That refusal was greatly to their credit. There could 
 be no doubt that there was in England a strong cur- 
 rent of feeling in favour of the South, especially among 
 the upper classes. Material interests may be consi- 
 dered to have influenced the commercial stratum of 
 society more than the fact that the Virginians could 
 trace descent from the Cavaliers. The closure of the 
 Southern harbours would cut off the cotton trade, and 
 
222 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 inflict vast losses upon manufacturers, if not, as actually 
 occurred, famine upon their workmen. Mr. Gladstone 
 gave expression to a very prevalent feeling, when, in his 
 famous speech at Manchester, he declared that Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis had made an army, had made a navy, 
 and, more than that, had made a nation. 
 
 How far Lord Palmerston shared the views of 
 his Chancellor of the Exchequer it is difficult to say 
 with any appoach to certainty. Mr. Ashley tells 
 us that though he admired the American people, the 
 politicians of the United States appeared to him to 
 fail on the score of character ; and he certainly would 
 not have committed himself to remarks ahout the " un- 
 fortunate rapid movements" of the Federal troops at 
 the hattle of Bull's Eun, unless he had anticipated a 
 speedy triumph for the Confederate cause. All the more 
 credit is due to him for having observed a complete 
 neutrality" at the outset of the struggle. A letter to Mr. 
 Ellice establishes beyond all doubt the prudence of his 
 motives. He was all for non-intervention until the 
 " wire edge of the craving appetite for conflict had 
 worn off "; and he pointed out that it was impossible to 
 intervene upon any sound basis, except that of separa- 
 tion, the discussion of which would evidently be prema- 
 ture, or without committing ourselves to an acknow- 
 ledgment of the principle of slavery, and the right to 
 pursue fugitive slaves from State to State. But, it may 
 be said, did not Her Majesty's Government, by the 
 act of proclaiming neutrality, acknowledge the South 
 as a belligerent power, and so virtually play into its 
 hands ? The answer is conclusive and complete. Un- 
 less the South was acknowledged as a belligerent power, 
 there was obviously no war going on. If there was no 
 war, the English Government could not be expected 
 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 223 
 
 to recognise the blockade of the Southern ports. 
 The recognition of the South as a belligerent power 
 was indeed to the advantage of the North, as its advo- 
 cates discovered when, in the crisis .of the English 
 ootton-famine, numerous appeals were made to Mini- 
 sters in the House of Commons to break the blockade, 
 which was paralyzing the energies and stopping the 
 supplies of the Confederate Government. Fortunately, 
 Lord Palmerston and his colleagues stood firm; and 
 sought relief for the deficiency, not in embroiling 
 themselves in their neighbours' quarrel, but in drawing 
 supplies of cotton from other parts of the world. 
 
 The labyrinths of international law had also to be 
 threaded in the two chief causes of dispute between the 
 English and United States Governments, the Trent 
 and the Alabama affairs. In the first, Earl KusselJ, 
 and, by implication, Lord Palmerston, behaved with the 
 utmost promptitude and spirit. There could be no doubt 
 whatever that Captain Wilkes was entirely in the wrong 
 when he compelled the Trent to lay to, and carried off 
 Mr. Slidell and Mr. Mason, the Confederate envoys, as 
 prisoners on board the San Jacinto. It was a gross vio- 
 lation of the law of nations, an arbitrary assertion of 
 that right of search which had been abandoned by the 
 United States, and against which, when exercised by 
 Lord Palmerston, for the benefit of kidnapped negroes, 
 they had never ceased to protest. There was, besides, 
 an impression abroad, which the Prime Minister at first 
 shared, that the deed was not the spontaneous act of a 
 hot-headed captain, but that it had been deliberately 
 planned and executed by the United States Government. 
 Under the circumstances Earl Kusseli was amply justi- 
 fied in sending out a demand for an apology and the 
 liberation of the envoys, and in limiting the answer to 
 
224 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 a period of seven days. Nor can any objection be- 
 taken to the tone of his despatch to Lord Lyons, after it 
 had been toned down by the advice of the dying Princa 
 Consort ; even the American Secretary, Mr. Seward, 
 acknowledged it to be " courteous and friendly — not 
 dictatorial or menacing," and his apology was ample* 
 But why send 8,000 or 10,000 troops to Canada, asked 
 Mr. Cobden, after the United States Minister, Mr. 
 Adams, had told the British Government that the act 
 of Captain Wilkes was not sanctioned by the Washing- 
 ton Cabinet. Lord Palmerston's answer was, as usual, 
 the sound one, that peace is best preserved by showing 
 that you are not afraid of war. 
 
 The American Minister did not tell us that the act of Captain 
 Wilkes was disapproved ; he did not tell us that it would be dis- 
 avowed ; he did not tell us that the insult to the British flag would be 
 atoned for by the surrender of the persons who were taken from the 
 British ship Trent. Therefore, the communication which Mr. Adams 
 made and made with the very best intentions, was not a communica- 
 tion upon which we would have been justified in acting, so far as to 
 forego any measure of precaution which in our opinion was necessary. 
 But everybody recollects the ferment which prevailed in the United 
 States, the language held at public meetings, the honours paid to. 
 Captain Wilkes at the Theatre, the language held in Congress, and 
 also the letter of the Secretary to the Naval Department, approving 
 the conduct of that officer. Then, I say, we were justified in assuming 
 that that difficulty might not terminate in a satisfactory and amicable 
 manner. That being the case, I hold that we should have been ex- 
 tremely blamable if we had not taken the precautions which we 
 adopted. . . . We should only have been misleading the American 
 Government into the supposition that after all we might not really be 
 in earnest. And I do believe that the measures we took were most 
 materially conducive to opening their eyes to the consequences of a 
 refusal, thereby enabling their calm judgment to determine upon the 
 course which it was most for their interest that they should adopt. 
 
 Lord Lyons, who was not an alarmist, and who had 
 in addition the advantage of being on the spot, was of 
 precisely the same opinion. 
 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 225 
 
 Of course the Trent affair left bitter memories behind 
 it, and their workings are to be seen conspicuously in the 
 controversy about the Alabama and the other privateers 
 which were built for the South in English dockyards, 
 and sometimes manned by British crews. If England 
 had the law on her side in the matter of the Trent, 
 America had no less the principle of equity with her in 
 the case of the Alabama. But this Lord Palmerston 
 and Earl Russell hardly appreciated enough ; and when 
 the frigate started on her destroying career from Bir- 
 kenhead, without the smallest attempt at concealment 
 as to her real character, and in spite of the vigorous 
 protests of Mr. Adams, the Prime Minister based his 
 defence on a textual exposition of the Foreign Enlist- 
 ment Act. You could not, he said, seize a vessel under 
 the act unless you have evidence on oath confirming a 
 just suspicion. 
 
 That evidence was wanting in this case. The American Minister 
 came to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, and said, " I tell you 
 this, and I tell you that, I 'm sure of this, and I 'm sure of that " ; but 
 when he was asked to produce evidence on oath, which was the only 
 thing on which we could ground any proceedings, he said that the in- 
 formation was furnished him confidentially, that he could not give 
 testimony on oath, but that we ought nevertheless to act on his asser- 
 tions and suspicions, which he was confident were well founded. 
 What would happen if we were to act in that way ? When a vessel 
 is seized unjustly and without just grounds, there is a process of 
 law to come afterwards, and the Government may be condemned in 
 heavy costs and damages. Why are we to undertake an illegal mea- 
 sure which may have had those consequences, simply to please the 
 agent of a foreign Government ? 
 
 The position was full of difficulties ; but it was obvious 
 that breaches of neutrality were being committed, and 
 that it was the duty of the English Government to put a 
 stop to them. The Americans retorted that self-preser- 
 vation was the first law of nature ; and, though Mr. 
 
 15 
 
226 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 Adams could not effect the detention of the Alabama, 
 he enforced that of two ironclad rams under threat of 
 war. Even if the dispute ended there, the British 
 Government would have come out of it second best ; 
 but, as everyone knows, it dragged on until it was 
 finally settled against England on most points by the 
 Geneva tribunal. Lord Palmerston did not live to see 
 that day ; and as the discussion of " might-have-beens " 
 is invariably sterile, it is not very profitable to speculate 
 at length on which of the alternatives, war or arbitra- 
 tion, he would have elected to adopt. One thing is 
 quite certain, that he would not have submitted for a 
 moment to the monstrous Indirect Claims. The manage- 
 ment of the Alabama affair by the Palmerston Govern- 
 ment was a blunder, but the recognition of the South, 
 to which several of its members were apparently by 
 no means adverse, would have been a worse one, and, on 
 the whole, they may be considered to have come out of 
 an exceedingly trying crisis with a fair amount of credit. 
 It was but natural, as the Prime Minister said, that 
 when we endeavoured to maintain a perfect neutrality 
 between two parties who had quarrelled, we should 
 satisfy neither. At least we had shown by a prompt 
 despatch of troops to Canada, and by the vote for the 
 fortification of Quebec, which was one of the last acts 
 of Lord Palmerston's administration, that we were not 
 to be cowed by any manifestations of spread-eagleism 
 on the part of the American press and people. 
 
 Though the Ministry were not to be lured into a recog- 
 nition of the Southern States of America to oblige the 
 Emperor of the French, they committed themselves to 
 a participation in the Mexican expedition, the argu- 
 ments for which really, though not ostensibly, rested 
 on the supposition that the South would triumph, and 
 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 227 
 
 in the hour of victory would he glad to strengthen 
 herself by an alliance with the gimcrack Empire which 
 he proposed to erect on the ruins of the Mexican Re- 
 public. In so doing, they undoubtedly embittered their 
 relations with the North, and became entangled in an en- 
 terprise from which they were speedily obliged to beat a 
 retreat. Not that the grievances of England, France, 
 and Spain, the signatories of the Convention of 1861, 
 against the Mexican Republic, were not perfectly genuine. 
 During the anarchy which for years had desolated that 
 unhappy State, English subjects had been exposed to all 
 kinds of outrage, and redress had never been obtained. 
 Agreements which had been made by various presidents 
 to set aside a certain portion of the customs receipts for 
 the satisfaction of foreign bondholders, had never been 
 fully carried out; the house of the British Legation had 
 been robbed of part of the money that was actually 
 paid, and another portion had been carried off while on 
 its way to the coast. At the same time, Lord Palmer- 
 ston's Government were hardly well-advised in pushing 
 matters to an extremity at that particular moment. 
 The prospect of French and Spanish co-operation was 
 perhaps tempting ; but, on the other hand, a war with 
 the North appeared to be imminent over the Trent 
 affair, and the circumstances of Mexico herself ap- 
 peared to counsel delay. For, bad as the government 
 of the Red Indian Juarez was, it was the government of 
 a strong man, and should have been allowed time to 
 make head against its clerical antagonists, instead of 
 being coerced to satisfy wrongs which had been com- 
 mitted for the most part by its predecessors. Besides, 
 there lurked in the minds of two of the signatory 
 Powers a shrewd suspicion that the third was not 
 strictly to be relied upon, and it was found advisable to 
 
 15 * 
 
228 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 inBert an article in the Convention by which the three 
 Powers bound themselves not to interfere with the form 
 of government established in Mexico. When it appeared 
 that these suspicions were only too well based, that 
 Napoleon had not only determined to overthrow the 
 Mexican Republic, but actually had his nominee, the 
 unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, in waiting, there 
 was nothing left for the English Government but to 
 withdraw themselves from the Convention, and their small 
 force of 700 marines from the expedition. At least 
 there was no hesitation on the part of the Cabinet, and 
 they extricated themselves from a dangerous enterprise 
 without loss of dignity. 
 
229 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 
 
 1863-1865. 
 
 The Polish Rebellion — Policy of the Cabinet — The proposed European 
 Congress — The Schleswig-Holstein Question — Motives of the 
 Powers — English advice to Denmark — The Cabinet determines on 
 eutrality — The Conference of London — Lord Palmerston on the 
 state of Europe — The Danish debate — Palmerston's last victory — 
 The General Election of 1865 — Lord Palmerston's last illness and 
 death — Conclusion. 
 
 From the hour of the withdrawal of the English con- 
 tingent from the Mexican expedition to the last day of 
 his life, Lord Palmerston never laid aside his distrust of 
 the Emperor Napoleon. It became a fixed idea with 
 him, and when opportunities presented themselves for 
 reconstituting the alliance of the Western Powers he 
 deliberately rejected them. Such an opportunity was 
 the Polish rebellion of 1863. The cause of the insur- 
 gents, gallantly maintained against overwhelming num- 
 bers, was extremely popular in England ; it was favoured 
 by statesmen of all shades of opinion, and was the 
 theme of enthusiastic resolutions passed at swollen 
 mass meetings. Food for eloquent periods was espe- 
 cially to be found in the proceedings of the new 
 
230 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 Prussian Minister, Herr von Bismarck, who had turned 
 the occasion to his own ends, and at the same time pre- 
 vented the spread of the rebellion, by proposing to the 
 Russian Chancellor — and the proposal was gladly 
 accepted — that the two Governments should sign a con- 
 vention authorising the troops of each nation to cross 
 their respective frontiers in pursuit of fugitive rebels. 
 This grim method of exterminating the revolt aroused a 
 perfect storm of indignation throughout the country ; 
 and a war for the liberation of Poland would un- 
 doubtedly have been very popular. Nor should we have 
 gone to the battle without allies. France would have 
 plunged enthusiastically into the struggle, for affection 
 for the Poles had been for centuries a national pro- 
 clivity, and her ruler was drawn in the same direction 
 by the double consideration that the reconstruction of 
 Poland was a Napoleonic tradition, and that success on 
 the Vistula would detract attention from the failure 
 imminent in Mexico. As there was no fear of the move- 
 ment extending into Galicia, the Austrian Government 
 would certainly not have departed from a friendly 
 neutrality. 
 
 Lord Palmerston made no secret of his sympathies 
 with the insurgents. He wrote a letter to Baron 
 Briinnow in which he bluntly told him that he regarded 
 the Polish rebellion as the just punishment inflicted by 
 Heaven on Russia for her numerous attempts to stir up 
 revolution in the Christian Provinces of the Porte. 
 In the House of Commons he was equally outspoken 
 against Prussia. He hoped that the February con- 
 vention would not be carried into execution, " because 
 such an interference of Prussia with what was then 
 passing in Poland would excite, as it had already 
 excited, great condemnation everywhere, and if that 
 
POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 231 
 
 conventional interference were followed by acts it would 
 cast discredit on the Government of Prussia." But 
 the Prime Minister and his colleagues were determined 
 not to commit themselves to any threat of intervention. 
 They thoroughly distrusted the Emperor of the French, 
 and declined his invitation to address, in concert with 
 Austria, a violent note of remonstrance to the Prussian 
 Government. The Premier, in a letter to the King of 
 the Belgians, described the invitation as a trap. They 
 felt, also, that it was useless to engage in a war of which 
 the object would have been the establishment of Poland 
 as an independent State, when the dissensions among 
 the insurgents proved that the basis for such a State 
 was altogether wanting. Under the circumstances, 
 the diplomatic action of the three Powers was barren of 
 result. Lord Palmerston helped to frame some able 
 despatches the aim of which was to convince Prince 
 Gortschakoff that the promises of a constitution made 
 to the Poles at the Congress of Vienna had never been 
 carried out; Austria took the lead in declaring that 
 Poland was a source of never-ending disquietude to 
 Europe ; and the three Powers agreed upon six sugges- 
 tions of reform which they urged in concert upon the 
 Russian Government. But, unaccompanied by a 
 menace of war, their remonstrances at Berlin and St. 
 Petersburg were not treated with much respect, and 
 signally failed to ameliorate the lot of Poland. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was quite as adverse to the next 
 adventure of the Emperor of the French, his proposal 
 that the treaties of 1815 should be submitted to a 
 European Congress. It was known that Napoleon had 
 been brooding over the idea for many years, and when 
 it was at last put into shape it certainly contained a 
 certain amount of plausibility. There was justice in 
 
232 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 his contention that most of the arrangements of the 
 treaties of Vienna were destroyed, modified, mis- 
 understood, or menaced. But directly Lord Palmer- 
 ston's keen intellect played round the proposal he saw 
 its absurdity. He pointed out in the House of Com- 
 mons that unanimity was extremely unlikely, and that 
 a single dissentient voice would upset every suggestion 
 before the Congress. In a letter to the King of the 
 Belgians he described the assembling of a Congress as a 
 measure inapplicable to the present state of Europe. 
 With regard to past modifications of the treaties, some,, 
 such as the independence of Belgium, and the creation 
 of the kingdom of Italy, required no sanction ; others, 
 such as the annexation of Cracow by Austria, we should 
 not care to sanction. With regard to the future, an 
 infinite number of squabbles and animosities would 
 arise, especially if possible changes of territory were 
 taken into consideration — for instance, if France were 
 to ask for the Rhine provinces, Austria for Bosnia or 
 Moldo-Wallachia, Spain for Gibraltar. The Congress 
 was, therefore, curtly declined by Earl Russell in the 
 name of our Government, and the Emperor had to 
 digest his mortification as best he could. 
 
 Thus, while the Northern Powers were united, those 
 of Western Europe were hostile and divided. Bismarck 
 had everything in his favour when he proceeded to tear 
 up the Treaty of London and to force on the solution 
 of the Schleswig-Holstein question. Viewed by the 
 light of later experience, it is impossible to pronounce 
 that treaty to have been other than a mistake. It was 
 drawn up without sufficient knowledge and precautions ; 
 it attempted to perpetuate a wholly obsolete state of 
 affairs. In the end, the separation of the Duchies from 
 Denmark was a benefit to Europe. But it would be 
 
 
POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 23a 
 
 unjust to blame Lord Palmerston for not having fore- 
 seen the great things that Bismarck was to accomplish 
 for Germany. There was nothing in the past of the 
 new director of Prussian statesmanship which desig- 
 nated him as a man likely to emancipate his country 
 from the unworthy policy which she had pursued since 
 the Crimean war. Lord Palmerston may be forgiven 
 for not having seen in Bismarck's treatment of the 
 Schleswig-Holstein question any more elevated feeling 
 than a desire to get Kiel as a German harbour, and for 
 being, therefore, determined to maintain the integrity of 
 Denmark at the cost of Prussia. Nor does the fact that 
 he was wrong put the rest of Europe in the right. The 
 treaty had been mainly the work of a Russian diplo- 
 matist, Baron Briinnow; though it had not been signed 
 by the German Federation as a body, several of the 
 States had afterwards acceded to it, and Prussia and 
 Austria had signed as great Powers. He could hardly 
 have foreseen that when the treaty was put to the test, 
 Russia would shrink from her engagements, bought off 
 by the co-operation of Bismarck in the suppression of 
 the Polish rebellion ; that Austria and the German Diet 
 would blindly play into the hands of Prussia, and thereby 
 bring upon themselves ultimate disaster and extinc- 
 tion. If English statesmanship was at a discount during 
 this period, that of Austria and Saxony was so in a 
 double measure ; and it is difficult on any grounds to 
 justify the support given by the German Diet to the 
 Augustenburg candidate for the Duchies, the son of the 
 one agnate who had expressly resigned his rights of 
 succession. Bismarck alone knew what he was about. 
 
 If the Treaty of London was a mistake^ the English 
 Cabinet at all events tried to carry it out with the 
 utmost good faith. It fully acknowledged the position 
 
234 LIFE OF VISGOVNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 of Schleswig and Holstein as members of the German 
 Federation; the King of Denmark undertook not to 
 incorporate Schleswig with the rest of his monarchy, 
 and guaranteed to the Duchies the continuance of their 
 autonomy. And the efforts of Earl Russell to prevent 
 the Danes from violating the treaty were unceasing. 
 He protested again and again against the schemes of 
 Frederick VII. for the u Danification " of the Duchies ; 
 he sent a special mission to dissuade him from the 
 famous patent of 1863 by which he incorporated Schles- 
 wig in the kingdom of Denmark. When the German 
 Diet decreed in consequence " federal execution " in 
 Holstein, the British Cabinet made no attempt to pre- 
 vent it, and their offer of mediation was made in a 
 purely friendly spirit. Earl Russell also warned Chris- 
 tian IX. against the consequences of following the evil 
 example of his predecessor ; but his counsellors refused 
 to listen to good advice, and reaped the consequences 
 of their obstinacy. If they had shown moderation, 
 they would have put the German Powers entirely in the 
 wrong, and Denmark would have kept the Duchies, at 
 all events, for the time being. 
 
 The conduct of the Danes was undoubtedly actuated 
 by a belief that England would draw the sword on their 
 behalf. And at the close of the previous Session they 
 had received a certain amount of countenance from 
 Lord Palmerston, though not enough to justify their 
 foolhardiness. 
 
 It is impossible [he said, in the House of Commons] for any man 
 who looks at the map of Europe, and who knows the great interest 
 which the Powers of Europe feel in the independence of the Danish 
 monarchy, to shut his eyes to the fact that war begun about a petty 
 quarrel concerning the institutions of Holstein would, in all proba- 
 bility, not end where it began, but might draw after it consequences 
 which all parties who began it would be exceedingly sorry to have 
 
POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTMN. 235 
 
 caused. . . . We are convinced — I am convinced at least — that if any 
 violent attempt were made to overthrow these rights and interfere 
 [with the independence of Denmark], those who made that attempt 
 would find in the result that it would not be Denmark alone with 
 which they would have to contend. 
 
 Lord Palmerston, as is well known, afterwards ex- 
 plained that what he had intended to convey was not a 
 threat of intervention, but a prophecy that some Power 
 or other would intervene. The explanation was, of 
 course, plausible; but whatever the meaning of the 
 utterance, it was certainly rather injudicious. Still Count 
 Beust has recently shown that Lord Palmerston was 
 less the cause of their stubborn resistance than Bis- 
 marck, who, to further his own ends, had mendaciously 
 assured the Danes that England had actually threatened 
 Germany with intervention, if hostilities should be 
 opened.* When Lord Palmerston spoke, he reckoned 
 upon Russia and France ; but when the war broke out, 
 he found that Sweden was the only ally upon whom 
 England and Denmark could depend. Russia had been 
 bought off; and Napoleon, piqued by the refusal of 
 England to attend his Congress, declined to stir in the 
 quarrel, though definite overtures were twice made to 
 him. Those overtures would have confined the war to 
 the assistance of Denmark, for Lord Palmerston, even 
 to save the Danes, would not sanction the conquest of 
 the Rhenish Prussia by France, to the peril of Holland 
 and Belgium. After the refusal of Napoleon, Lord Pal- 
 merston came reluctantly to the conclusion that the 
 Danes must be left to their fate. 
 
 The truth is ("he wrote to Earl Russell on February 13th, 1864] 
 that to enter into a military conflict with all Germany on continental 
 ground would be a serious undertaking. If Sweden and Denmark 
 
 * Count Beusfs Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 241-42. 
 
236 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 were actively co-operating with us, our twenty thousand men oughV 
 to do a good deal ; but Austria and Prussia would bring two hundred 
 thousand or three hundred thousand into the field, and would be joined 
 by the smaller German States. 
 
 The position was somewhat humiliating, but as there 
 had been no pledge that we should come to the assist- 
 ance of the Danes alone, there had been no breach of 
 faith. And what diplomatic influence England could exer- 
 cise in favour of the Danes, she exercised without stint. 
 By his persona] authority with the Austrian ambassador,. 
 Lord Palmerston prevented the Austrian fleet from 
 entering the Baltic and bombarding Copenhagen. At 
 the Conference of London, Lord Clarendon nearly saved 
 the situation by his proposal that Denmark should cede 
 Holstein and the German part of Schleswig. The terms 
 were better than the Danes ultimately obtained, and 
 they were accepted by the German plenipotentiaries. But 
 statesmanship at Copenhagen was unable to recog- 
 nise accomplished facts, and from first to last the 
 efforts of English diplomacy on behalf of the Danes 
 were doomed to futility. 
 
 It was least with no petulant quos ego that Lord 
 Palmerston accepted the defeat of his policy. Writing 
 to Earl Russell the following year he dealt with the fate 
 which was to be hoped for the Duchies, and at the same 
 time indulged in one of the most remarkable political 
 forecasts that has ever been penned. It was better, he 
 considered, that Schleswig-Holstein should be absorbed 
 into Prussia, than be formed into a petty German State* 
 
 Prussia is too weak as she now is ever to be honest or independent 
 in her action, and, with a view to the future, it is desirable that Ger- 
 many, in the aggregate, should be strong, in order to control those 
 two ambitious and aggressive Powers, France and Russia, that press 
 upon her west and east. As to France, we know how restless and 
 aggressive she is, and how ready to break loose for Belgium, for the- 
 
POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 237 
 
 Hhine, for anything which she would be likely to get without too 
 great an exertion. As to Russia, she will, in due time, become a 
 Power almost as great as the old Roman empire. She can become 
 mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to 
 take it ; and when enlightened arrangements have made her revenue 
 proportioned to her territory, and railways have abridged distances, 
 her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means 
 gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances 
 most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian 
 aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength. 
 
 This letter has not inaptly been called Lord Palmer- 
 ston's legacy to the nation. 
 
 The failure of the ministerial policy as a whole had 
 been undeniable. It abounded in miscalculations and 
 misapprehensions. Herr von Bismarck had been under- 
 valued, the possibility of foreign co-operation had been 
 too confidently anticipated, and the interests at stake 
 had been misunderstood. Lord Palmerston did not dis- 
 cover that it would, on the whole, have been to the 
 advantage of Denmark to be quit of a population which 
 had long been discontented and difficult to govern, until 
 after the failure of the Conference. The Opposition 
 naturally seized the opportunity to challenge the pro- 
 ceedings of the Government. As at the time of the 
 Don Pacifico affair, they were successful in the House 
 of Lords, but suffered defeat in the House of Commons, 
 through the skill and resource of Lord Palmerston. The 
 victory was won by sheer generalship. Mr. Disraeli's 
 attack was extremely telling, and ministers found it 
 advisable to escape his condemnatory resolution by ac- 
 cepting a colourless amendment moved by Mr. King- 
 lake. The manoeuvre was transparent, but is was 
 entirely successful. In support of the amendment the 
 old Prime Minister made a remarkable speech, wind- 
 ing up the debate in the early morning of the 9th of 
 
238 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 
 
 July. As usual, he spoke without the aid of a single 
 note, and with the evident aim to be clear and convin- 
 cing rather than brilliant and antithetical. It is not 
 altogether correct to say that he dropped the questions 
 immediately connected with the vote of censure almost 
 immediately, that would have been an affront to the 
 intelligence of the House, which so accomplished a 
 master of Parliaments would be the last man to 
 commit. As a matter of fact, more than half his 
 speech dealt with the Danish question, and he made out 
 a case which, if not altogether convincing, was dis- 
 tinctly reasonable. And then he proceeded to the main 
 point of his speech. Why had not the Opposition 
 proposed a direct vote of want of confidence ? In that 
 case he would have been able to show that during the 
 five years during which his Government had been 
 honoured with the confidence of the House and had 
 carried on the Government, the country had continued 
 in an unexampled state of prosperity. In a telling sum- 
 mary he proceeded to take the Kadicals captive by show- 
 ing that on general, and especially on financial grounds, 
 he and his colleagues had deserved well of their country. 
 The Opposition cried " Question," but, as Mr. Ashley 
 points out, the arguments had a good deal of bearing 
 on the main question — the division. It is pathetic 
 to notice that Lord Palmerston in conclusion made 
 use once more of the argument which he had in- 
 troduced with such telling effect in the Don Pacifico 
 speech : — 
 
 I quite admit that hon. gentlemen opposite are perfectly entitled to 
 make a great struggle for power. It is an honourable struggle, and I 
 make it no matter of reproach. They are a great party, comprising 
 a great number of men of ability and influence in the country, and 
 they are perfectly entitled when they think the prize is within thoir 
 
POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 239 
 
 reach, to make an attack on those who hold it. But, on the other 
 hand, I say that we have not done anything to deserve that the priz» 
 shall be taken from us. 
 
 The Government escaped defeat by a majority of 
 eighteen, and Lord Palmerston was secure for the brief 
 remainder of his life. After the following session, 
 which was for the most part uneventful, Parliament, 
 having peacefully lived out its time, was dissolved on 
 July 6th, 1865. At the General Election which followed, 
 Lord Palmerston, whose popularity with the nation had 
 become almost an article of faith, was once more re- 
 turned for Tiverton, and secured a further lease of power 
 for the Liberal party, though with a considerable 
 increase of the Radical wing. But the veteran states- 
 man was not destined to lead the party in another 
 Parliament. He had nearly completed his eighty-first 
 year, and had been a member of every administration, 
 except those of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Derby, since 
 1807. Already his iron frame had begun to show signs 
 of giving way. He had been very ill at the time of 
 the death of the Prince Consort, and his illness 
 was certainly increased by his overpowering anxiety and 
 grief. But he spent the whole of his eightieth birth- 
 day on horseback ; and earlier in the year he rode 
 from Cambridge House to Harrow, trotting the dis- 
 tance, nearly twelve miles, within the hour. During 
 the Session of 1865, however, he showed signs of 
 feebleness, keeping to his post with great difficulty, 
 and, after the General Election, he retired to Brocket, 
 in Hertfordshire, a place which Lady Palmerston had 
 inherited from Lord Melbourne. There the gout be- 
 came very serious, and he made it worse by going out 
 for a ride before he had fairly recovered from an attack. 
 Finally, a chill brought on inflammation ; and, though 
 
240 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 
 
 on October the 17th he rallied wonderfully, in the night 
 his case became hopeless, and shortly before eleven in 
 the morning of the 18th he died. An interesting 
 account of his last moments is to be found in the life 
 of Lord Shaftesbury, and the description of the great 
 philanthropist praying over the great statesman is one 
 that, once read, is not easily forgotten. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
 and four years later Lady Palmerston was laid by his 
 side. His funeral took place on October 27th, amidst 
 a manifestation of popular sympathy, which showed 
 how strong were the ties which bound the nation to its 
 aged counsellor. As the coffin sank into the grave, a 
 dark storm broke over the Abbey, until, as the service 
 drew to its close, the sun appeared once more. His tomb 
 is in the North Transept, that quarter which pious cus- 
 tom has reserved for England's statesmen, near the last 
 resting-places of the great men who before him upheld 
 the honour of England in days of doubt and despair — 
 the noble Chatham, and his nobler son, and Canning, 
 and the much-misunderstood Castlereagh. Near it 
 stands his fine statue by Jackson, confronted by that of 
 Canning ; like a pair of sentinels, ever at their post, and 
 ever on the watch. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abd-el-Medjid, 70. 164. 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, 24, 42; foreign 
 Minister, 83-95 ; and the 
 Spanish marriages, 96-98 ; 
 Premier, 145-160. 
 
 Afghan War, the, 67, 68. 
 
 Alabama affair, the, 225-226. 
 
 Albert, Prince, differences of 
 opinion with Palmerston, 130 ; 
 memorandum of, 156 ; death of, 
 239. 
 
 Althorp, Lord, 4, 32. 
 
 Arrow affair, 184. 
 
 Ashbnrton, Lord, 91. 
 
 Austria, relations with, 38, 58, 
 73 ; and Cracow, 66, 108 ; and 
 Switzerland, 113-116 ; and 
 Italy, 117-119, 121-124; and 
 Hungary, 126 ; and the Eastern 
 question, 154, 164, 169-170, 
 173 ; and Italy. 180-198 ; and 
 Poland, 230-231; and Den- 
 mark, 233 ; Palmerston on, 237. 
 
 B. 
 
 Ballot, the, 213. 
 
 Belgium, Independence of, 41-51 ; 
 
 in 1848, 119 ; offer of assistance 
 by, 187. 
 
 Bentinck, Lord G., on Portugal, 
 113. 
 
 Beust, Count, 36, 236. 
 
 Bismarck, 230, 233, 235. 
 
 Bolgrad, 177, 178. 
 
 " Bomba," see Naples. 
 
 Brazil, 41. 
 
 Bright, Mr., attacked by Pal- 
 merston, 157, 166; defeated, 
 186. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, on Lord Pal- 
 merston, 165 ; and Lady Pal- 
 merston, 188. 
 
 Briinnow, Baron, 71, 130, 172, 
 176. 
 
 Bulwer, SirH. (LordDalling), 63, 
 72, 74, 76; at Madrid, 100- 
 106 ; dismissed from Spain, 
 119 ; at the Porte, 180. 
 
 Buol, Count, 169, 170. 
 
 Burnes, Sir A., 67. 
 
 c. 
 
 Cambridge University contested 
 by Palmerston, 6, 7, 20, 33. 
 
 Canning, George, 8, 22, 23 ; Pal- 
 merston on, 32. 
 
 Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, 117, 
 121-123; defeated at Novara, 
 123. 
 
 Carlos, Don, 56-62. 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cavour, Count, and Palmerston, 
 190-193 ; and Lord Clarendon, 
 192 ; at Plombieres, 193 ; di- 
 plomacy of, 195-199 ; death of, 
 199. 
 
 China, war with, 83-87 ; second 
 war with, 184-186; Anglo- 
 French expedition to, 221. 
 
 Christina, Queen Regent of Spain, 
 56, 58, and the Spanish mar- 
 riages, 96-106. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, 33, 73 ; becomes 
 Foreign Secretary, 152-153 ; 
 again Foreign Secretary, 165- 
 166 ; at the Congress of Paris, 
 172-174 ; and the United 
 States, 176 ; and the Treaty of 
 Paris, 177-179 ; and Walewski's 
 despatch, 188 ; and Italy, 192- 
 193 ; out of office, 201 ; and 
 Denmark, 236. 
 
 Cobden. Mr. , and the Militia Bill, 
 142 ; Palmerston on, 166 ; and 
 China, 185 ; defeat of, 186; re- 
 fuses office, 201 ; on Palmer- 
 ston, 202 ; and Reform, 204 ; on 
 Mr. Gladstone, 205 ; and the 
 defences, 207 ; treaty of, 209. 
 
 Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 187- 
 188. 
 
 Cowley, Lord, 172, 180, 197. 
 
 Cracow occupied by Austria, 66 ; 
 annexation of, 108, 232. 
 
 Crimean Expedition, the, 159, 
 164. 
 
 Croker, J. W., and the New Whig 
 Guide, 13 ; on Palmerston, 26 ; 
 interview with Palmerston, 31. 
 
 D. 
 
 Danubian Principalities, 151, 156, 
 173, 178-179. 
 
 Denmark, the succession ques- 
 tion, 130-131 ; and Schleswig- 
 Holstein, 232-237. 
 
 Derby, Lord (Lord Stanley), 
 motion on Portugal, 113 ; on 
 Greece, 135 ; great ministry of, 
 143-44 ; attempts to form a 
 ministry, 162 ; on the treaty of 
 Paris, 172 ; second ministry of, 
 188, 189. 
 
 Disraeli, Mr., 175, 190. 
 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, recall of, 132- 
 34 ; at Vienna, 170. 
 
 Dudley, Lord, 24, 25. 
 
 E. 
 
 Egypt and the Powers, 64-79;: 
 
 Palmerston on, 176. 
 Ellice, Mr., 73, 222. 
 
 F. 
 
 Ferdinand, the Emperor, abdica- 
 tion of, 126. 
 
 France, relations with, 37, 40; 
 and Belgium, 43-49 ; and Por- 
 tugal, 55, 57 ; coolness towards 
 England, 59-62 ; and the Syrian 
 question, 70-79 ; and Tahiti, 
 93 ; and the Spanish marriages, 
 96-106 ; subsequent results, 
 107; Revolution of 1848, 119; 
 Second Empire, 140 ; and the 
 Eastern Question, 150, 154 ; 
 and Italy, 193-198; relations 
 with England, 217-221, 226, 
 229-236. 
 
 Flahault, Count, 220. 
 
 Fortifications Bill, 208-209. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 243 
 
 G. 
 
 Garibaldi, 198. 
 
 Gerard, Marshal, 47, 49. 
 
 Gibson, Mr. Milner, 186, 190. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., letter of Palmer- 
 ston to, 40 ; refuses to join the 
 Conservatives, 162 ; resigns 
 office. 163 ; in favour of peace, 
 167 ; and Italy, 125, 190, 201 ; 
 and the defences, 204-209. 
 
 Gortschakoff, Prince, at Vienna, 
 169, 170, 173; chicanery of, 
 177-178 ; and Naples, 183 ; and 
 Poland, 230-231; and Den- 
 mark, 233. 
 
 Graham, Sir James, on China, 84 ; 
 and Reform, 148 ; at the Napier 
 banquet, 157 ; death of, 201. 
 
 Granville, Lord, 34, 45. 59, 73, 
 78. 
 
 Granville, Lord (son of above), 
 Foreign Secretary, 143 ; at- 
 tempts to form a ministry, 194. 
 
 Greece, Palmerston on, 24, 27 ; 
 Otho becomes king of, 53; 
 coercion of, 131-137. 
 
 Greville, Mr., 34, 75. 81, 82, 92, 
 102, 106, 124, 140, 161, 172, 
 188, 189. 
 
 Grey, Earl, 30 ; Premier, 32. 
 
 Guizot, 77, 78 ; and Aberdeen, 
 92-93 ; and the Spanish mar- 
 riages, 96-106; fall of. 119- 
 120. 
 
 H. 
 
 Haynau affair, the, 139. 
 
 Herat attacked by Persia, 66, 184. 
 
 Herbert, Mr. S., 152, 162, 163, 
 
 190. 
 Herries, Mr., 22, 23. 
 Holland, Lord, 33, 73, 74 ; death 
 
 of, 75. 
 
 Horsham, Palmerston elected at, 
 
 7. 
 Hume, Joseph, 12, 113. 
 Hungary, revolution in (1848), 
 
 126 ; refugee question, 127 ; 
 
 and Italy, 193. 
 Huskisson, Mr., 23, 25, 31. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ireland, Palmerston and, 214- 
 216. 
 
 Italy, Austrian rule in, 117 ; at- 
 tempted reforms in, 118-119 
 revolution of 1848, 121-124 
 Sardinian contingent, 172, 191 
 Palmerston and, 190-199. 
 
 Isabella, Queen of Spain, 56 ; her 
 marriage, 106 : dismisses Sir 
 H. Bulwer, 119. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kars, 164, 172, 173, 177. 
 Kinglake, Mr., 149, 237. 
 Kossuth, 126 ; his visit to Eng- 
 land, 139 ; his mission, 193. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lamartine, 120-121, 123. 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 6, 30 ; pro- 
 
244 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 posed as Leader of the Libe- 
 rals, 145 ; attempts to form a 
 Ministry, 162 ; in the Cabinet, 
 165. 
 
 Leopold I. of Belgium, 46, 48, 51, 
 231. 
 
 Lewis', Sir G. C, 165, 188. 
 
 Lieven, Madame de, 14, 102. 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, Premiership of, 
 9, 19, 21. 
 
 Lombardy, see Italy. 
 
 London, Convention of (1841), 79; 
 treaty of (1852), 131, 233. 
 
 Louis Philippe, 43, 44, 47, 59-62, 
 75, 78 ; and the Spanish mar- 
 riages, 96-106 ; fall of, 119. 
 
 Militia Bill, the, 143-144. 
 Minto mission, the, 118. 
 Mutiny, the, 186. 
 
 M. 
 
 McLeod affair, the, 88-90. 
 
 Mahmoud, 64, 65, 70. 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord, 7, 9, 11. 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord (grandson of 
 above) on the coup oVe'tat, 140 ; 
 on the Czar, 141 ; and Italy, 
 190 ; interview with Lady Pal- 
 merston, 203. 
 
 Maria, Donna, 27-28, 29, 56 ; her 
 marriage, 110. 
 
 Mehemet Ali, 64, 70, 76-77, 79. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, 24, 25, 30, 33, 
 35, 59, 67 ; and Palmerston, 74- 
 75; resigns office, 79. 
 
 Menschikoff mission, the, 150. 
 
 Metternich, Prince, 37, 38-39 ; on 
 Spain, 58 ; on the Quadruple 
 Treaty, 73 ; on the Spanish 
 marriages, 105 ; and Cracow, 
 109; and Switzerland, 113- 
 116 ; and Italy, 117-119 ; fall 
 of, 119. 
 
 Mexican expedition, the, 227. 
 
 Miguel, Dom, 27-28, 54-58, 111, 
 112. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napier, Sir C, 55, 77 ; banquet 
 to, 157. 
 
 Naples, coercion of, 82 ; and the 
 Sicilian rebellion, 118, 125; 
 coercion of, 183 ; conquest of, 
 198. 
 
 Napoleon III. , coup oVetat of, 140 ; 
 and the Holy Places, 150 ; and 
 the Eastern question, 164, 171, 
 172; visit to England, 179; 
 and Egypt, 179 ; relations with 
 England, 182-183; attempt to 
 murder, 187; and Italy, 193- 
 199; and Savoy, 197, 218; 
 schemes of, 218-221 ; and Po- 
 land, 231 ; proposed Congress 
 of, 231 ; and Denmark, 235. 
 
 Nesselrode, Count, 53, 153. 
 
 New Whig Guide, 13. 
 
 Newtown, Palmerston elected at, 
 7. 
 
 Nicholas, Czar of Russia, 65, 66, 
 71 ; visit to England, 151, 152. 
 
 Normanby, Lord, 107, 109, 120. 
 
 Pacifico affair, 132-137. 
 Palmerston, second Viscount, 
 2-4 ; death of, 6. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 245 
 
 Palmerston, Lady (Mary ,Mee), 2, 
 
 4 ; death of, 6. 
 Palmerston, Henry John, third 
 Viscount, birth, 2; education, 
 4-6; enters Parliament, 7; 
 Lord of the Admiralty, 7; 
 maiden speech, 8 ; Secretary at 
 War, 9-12, 21-25; character, 
 12-19 ; visits to France, 21 ; 
 attempt on, 21 ; in opposition, 
 25-31 ; Foreign Secretary, 32- 
 79 ; his marriage, 80 ; ^"oppo- 
 sition, 82-95; visit to Paris, 
 95; again Foreign Secretary, 
 96-139; dismissed from office, 
 1 40 ; Home Secretary, 146-160 ; 
 temporary resignation, 149- 
 150; first Ministry, 162-188; 
 receives the Garter, 174 ; visit 
 to Compiegne, 193 ; second 
 Ministry, 200-239 ; last illness 
 and death, 239-240; funeral, 
 240. 
 Palmerston, Ladv(Ladv Cowper), 
 79-81, 188, 203; "death of, 
 240. 
 Paper Duties Bill, 203, 205. 
 Paris, Congress of, 172-174; 
 treaty of, 176-179 ; Cavour at, 
 191-193. 
 Pedro, Dom, 27-28, 54-58. 
 Peel. Sir R., 4, 51; Premier, 
 83-95; on Portugal, 113; 
 death of, 138. 
 Persian war, 183-184. 
 Persigny, Count, 182, 194. 
 Pio Nono, 117, 122, 124. 
 Poland, rebellion of (1830), 53- 
 54; rebellion of (1863), 229- 
 231. 
 Portugal, Palmerston on, 26-30 ; 
 English intervention in, 54-58 ; 
 further intervention, 110-113. 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, Pal- 
 
 merston's answer to, 147-148. 
 Prussia, Palmerston's views on, 
 130 ; and the Eastern question, 
 154, 164; and Poland, 229- 
 231; and Denmark. 232-236; 
 Palmerston on, 237. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quadrilateral Ti-eaty, the, 72, 
 Quadruple Treaty, the, 57. 
 
 R. 
 
 Radetzky, Marshal, 122, 123. 
 
 Raglan, Lord, 158, 167. 
 
 Roebuck, Mr., resolution on the 
 Pacifico affair, 134; motion of 
 inquiry, 159, 164. 
 
 Russell, Lord John (Earl), 74; 
 attempts to form a ministry, 
 94 ; Premier, 95 ; quarrel with 
 Palmerston, 140-142; Reform 
 Bill of, 148-150; proposed 
 Palmerston for Secretary at 
 War, 158 ; attempts to form a 
 ministry, 162 ; resigns office, 
 159 ; at Vienna, 163, 168-170 ; 
 resigns office, 170 ; reconcilia- 
 tion with Palmerston, 190; and 
 Italy, 190, 194-198 ; on Reform ; 
 203-204 ; Foreign Secretary, 
 217-238. 
 
 Russia, relations with, 40, 53; 
 and Turkey, 65 ; and England, 
 66, 70-79; and the Holy 
 Places, 150 ; diplomacy of, 
 150-156, 168-174 ; and Poland, 
 229-231; and Denmark, 133, 
 233 ; Palmerston on, 237. 
 
246 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 S. 
 
 Saldanha, Count, 110-112. 
 
 Sardinia and Savoy. See Italy. 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein. See Den- 
 mark. 
 
 Schwarzenburg, Prince, 126- 
 128. 
 
 Sebastiani, Count, 45-47. 
 
 Serpents Island, 177, 178. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord (Lord Ashley), 
 18, 19, 80, 94, 143, 147, 240 ; 
 his bishops, 211. 
 
 Sicily, revolution in, 118, 125 ; 
 freed by Garibaldi, 198. 
 
 Sinope, Turkish fleet destroyed 
 at, 156. 
 
 Slave-trade, the, 39, 41, 90-91, 
 93, 184. 
 
 Soult, Marshal, 71, 72, 77. 
 
 Spain, English intervention in, 
 56-62 ; Spanish Legion, 60- 
 62 ; Spanish marriages, 96- 
 106 ; rupture with, 119. 
 
 Stockmar. Baron, 87, 110, 142. 
 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 127, 
 150, 154. 
 
 Suez Canal, 180-182. 
 
 Switzerland, revolution in, 113- 
 116 ; and Prussia, 182. 
 
 Syrian question, the, 64-79 ; reli- 
 gious war in, 219. 
 
 T. 
 
 Talleyrand, Prince, 43, 44, 45, 
 
 47, 49, 59. 
 Temple, Sir William, 2, 57, 58. 
 Temples, the, 1, 2. 
 Thiers, 72, 76, 77. 
 
 Tiverton, Palmerston elected at 
 33 ; speeches at, 144, 204 
 election at (1865), 239. 
 
 Trent affair, the 223-224. . 
 
 Turkey, Palmerston on, 27, 63 ; 
 
 . and Syria, 64-79 ; Menschikoffs 
 mission to, 151 ; declaration of 
 war by, 155 ; conditions of 
 peace with, 170, 176-178. 
 
 u. 
 
 United States, disputes with, 87"-r 
 92, 95, 175-176 ; civil war in, 
 221-227. 
 
 Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, 65.. 
 
 Urquhart, Mr., 37, 75. 
 
 V. 
 
 Venetia. See Italy. 
 
 Victor Emanuel, visits England, 
 191. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, and Palmerston, 
 94: on the Spanish marriages, 
 102 ; her Memorandum, 138 ; 
 letters of Palmerston to, 170, 
 171 : gives Palmerston the Gar- 
 ter, 174; and Italy, 196; 
 letters of Palmerston to, 206. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 247 
 
 Vienna Conference, the first, 154 ; 
 
 the second, 168-170. 
 Villafranca, treaty of, 195-196. 
 
 w. 
 
 Walewski, Count, and the coup 
 d'etat, 140; and Kussia, 177, 
 182 : and the Orsini affair, 187. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 89-91. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, premiership 
 
 of, 23-31 ; on Portugal, 56 ; on 
 the Chinese War, 86 ; on the 
 Spanish marriages, 106. 
 
 Westbury, Lord, 210, 211. 
 
 Willis's Rooms meeting, 190. 
 
 Wylde, Colonel, mission of, 112- 
 113. 
 
 z. 
 
 Zurich, treaty of, 196. 
 
LOKDON : 
 PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
Cfttftirtn'0 ani <Btrtf)tiap Books. 
 
 LOUISA M. ALCOTT. 
 
 Little Women and Little Women Married. The 
 
 Waterloo Edition. 4to. With 200 Illustrations. 6s. 
 
 COLONEL COLOMB. 
 
 Miss CrUSOes. A curious Story for big and little children. 
 Third Edition. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. Cloth. 2s. 
 
 LIEUT. -COL. T. S. SECCOMBE. 
 
 Comic Sketches from English History. For child 
 
 ren of various ages. With descriptive Rhymes. Oblong 4to. 
 With 12 full-page Illustrations and numerous Woodcuts. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Where Glory Calls. The Soldier's Scrap Book. 4to. 
 is. With Illustrations by R. Simkin. 
 
 A. M. HEATHCOTE. 
 
 Ragged Robin, and other Plays for Children. Fcap 8vo. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 Each Play can be had separately in paper wrapper, 6d. 
 
 Rural Rambles. Twelve Sketches in Colour, on Pic- 
 torial Easel Stand for the table. The Selections by various Poets, 
 and Sketches from Drawings by Alfred Woodruff, S. P. 
 Cargill, &c. 4to. In box. 2s. 
 
 Edited by JAMES BURROWS. 
 
 Byron Birthday Book. In Padded Morocco, rounded 
 corners, gilt edges, boxed, 4s. 6d. Cloth, gilt edges, 2s. 6d. 
 
 MRS. HA WE IS. 
 
 Chaucer's Beads. A Birthday Book, Diary, and Con- 
 cordance of Chaucer's Proverbs or Sooth-saws. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
 bevelled edges, gilt, 4s. 6d. Padded morocco, boxed, 7s. 6d. 
 
 London: W. H. ALLEN & CO., Ltd., 13, Waterloo Place. 
 
FEB 27 1905, 
 
 art, JSludir, ^oetrp, Set. 
 
 HENRY BLACKBURN, Editor of "Academy Notes;' 
 Cantor Lecturer on Illustration, S^c. 
 
 The Art Of Illustration. A popular Treatise on Draw- 
 ing for the Press, Description of the Processes, &c. Crown 4to, 
 with 95 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. Gilt top, 8s. 
 
 BLANC HARD /ERROLD (Officier de V Instruction 
 Publique de France). 
 
 Life of Gustave Dore. With 138 Illustrations from 
 Original Drawings by Dore. Demy 8vo. 21s. 
 
 ARTHUR MARSHA A.R.I.B.A., &*c 
 
 Specimens of Antique Car Furniture and Wood- 
 work. With 50 Plates. Fc ^3 nett. 
 
 WYK BAYLISS. 
 
 The Enchanted Island, the Venice of Titian, and other 
 studies in Art. Crown 8vo, with Illustrations. 6s. 
 
 The Higher Life in Art. Crown 8vo, with Illustrations. 
 6s. 
 
 Witness of Art ; or, The Legend of Beauty. Demy 8vo. 
 6s. 
 
 JOHN BRADS HA W y LL.D., Inspector of Schools, Madras, 
 
 The Poetical Works of John Milton. With Notes, 
 
 Explanatory and Philological. Crown 8vo. Vol. I., 2s. 6d. ; 
 Vol. II., 3& 6d. ; or ia one Volume complete, 6s. 
 
 HEINRICH HEINE, 
 
 The Book Of Song's. Translated from the German by 
 
 Stratheir. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 London: W, H. ALLEN & CO., Ltd,, 13, VJaterioo Place. 
 

 tu 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 .a 
 
 
 
 * 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ v* 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 020 662 224 6 
 
 ifflnflm 
 
 mm 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^9^H 
 
 ithSas!] 
 
 RHH 
 
 naBH 
 
 ■■■••' 
 
 HBH