I*** '<

JOHN THADEUS DELANE

.JiaifaiL.PiLaCo. I36j

ifalb.i^iu><i3. i36l ^m^^^

Smejy 'WcUkej- S%^c.

JOHN THADEUS DELANE
EDITOR OF "THE TIMES"
HIS LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE
BY ARTHUR IRWIN DASENT
AUTHOR OF "the HISTORY OF ST. JAMEs's SQUARE," ETC.

WITH PORTRAITS
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS
IS3-IS7 FIFTH AVENUE
1908

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY LD. ,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY,
ENGLAND

PREFACE
With the exception of a short appreciation of
Delane's career which was contributed by my father
to Macmillan's Magazine in January 1880, and the
still shorter life in the Dictionary of National
Biography, no account of my uncle, worthy of the
name, has yet been written.
It was my father's hope and intention td have
expanded the article in Macmillan's Magazine into
a detailed biography, but unforeseen difSculties pre
vented the realisation of his project. And as he did
not live to make much progress with the preliminary
work of arranging the extensive correspondence in
his possession, it has been reserved for my much
less competent pen to attempt that which he would
have done so much better.
The materials for Delane's life, apart from his
own letters and diaries, are fairly abundant. In
the Greville Memoirs there are over fifty direct
references to him, and many more indirect allusions
to the policy and influence of The Times during his
editorship. The Life of Henry Reeve, by Sir J. K. Laughton ;
of Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke, by E. Patchett
Martin ; of Lord Houghton, by Wemyss Reid ; the
Memoirs of de Blowitz, Mr. George Brodrick's Memories
and Impressions, the privately printed Memoir of

VI

PREFACE

Bernal Osborne, and Kinglake's Invasion of the
Crimea, have been of great service to me in this
attempt to produce a faithful portrait of Delane "in
his habit as he lived."
In editing the accumulated correspondence of forty
years, much of it of a most delicate and confidential
nature, 1 have endeavoured to take the middle course
between undue reticence and tactless indiscretion ;
whilst the political opinions expressed are, for the
most part, those of The Times at the dates referred to.
My thanks are due to Lord Rothschild for per
mission to publish Disraeli's letters to my uncle;
to the Earl of Clarendon for leave to include those
written by his distinguished father; to the late
Mr. Evelyn Ashley for placing at my disposal all
Lord Palmerston's letters and papers ; to Mr. W.
Stebbing, Delane's able assistant-editor in his latter
years, for much kind assistance during the pro
gress of my work; to the Very Rev. Henry Wace,
Dean of Canterbury ; to Mr. F. C. Holland, and
many other friends who have favoured me with
suggestions and recollections.
To my brother, Mr. J. R. Dasent, as Delane's
surviving executor, I tender my especial gratitude,
as also to my wife, whose ready help at every
stage has greatly lightened my labours of the past
two years.
ARTHUR IRWIN DASENT.
The Dutch House,
H ampton-on-Thames,
February, 1908.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I

CHAP.

PAGES

I. ANCESTRY, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION . . 1-22
FIRST PERIOD OF DELANE'S CAREER:
AS EDITOR OF " THE TIMES "
1840 — 1852
II. SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE CORN LAWS . 23-55
III. LORD JOHN RUSSELL SUCCEEDS PEEL . . . 56-89
IV. THE RISE OF PALMERSTON .... 90-125
V. THE COALITION GOVERNMENT .... 126-153
SECOND PERIOD OF DELANE'S CAREER;
1853— 1865
VI. DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR . . . 154-208
VII. THE ASCENDANCY OF PALMERSTON . . . 209-274
VIII. LORD derby's SECOND ADMINISTRATION . . 275-328

ILLUSTRATIONS VOL. I
JOHN DELANE AT THE AGE OF 43 . . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE
" THE TIMES " OFFICE AS DELANE KNEW IT . . .24
THE STAIRCASE AT 1 6, SERJEANTS' INN, TEMPLE,
delane's LONDON HOUSE  66-

John Thadeus Delane
1817 — 1879
HIS LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE
CHAPTER 1
ANCESTRY, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION
In that historic region of the kingdom of Ireland
known as Ossory, and especially in that portion
of it which is comprised in the western half of the
Queen's County, the patronymic of Delane, and its
more ancient forms of O'Delany, Delaney, Delany, and
Dulany, are of immemorial antiquity.
The little River Nore, in its course from the slopes
of the Slieve Bloom range, waters the green plains
of Leix and Ossory on its way to join the Barrow;
and a place called Anatrim — in Irish, the marsh of
the elder tree — near its banks has been the burying-
place of the clan for centuries. In its ruined church
and sadly neglected churchyard are still to be seen
the gravestones and armorial bearings of many of
the race; and the whole tract of country round
about Castletown — once the headquarters of the
great rival tribe of FitzPatrick — is still peopled with
their descendants and popularly known as Delaney's
country. Mountrath, Abbeyleix, and Ballyfin were
also former strongholds of the clan.
The Delanys of Ballyfin, and no doubt other
VOL. I I

2 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
branches of the parent stock, became Protestants in
the penal times, but they continued to bury their dead
at Anatrim.
The pre-Reformation Catholic church there has been
long destroyed, but its site is occupied by the ruined
Protestant building above referred to, and the Delanys
of both creeds sleep out their long night side by side.
Close to the church of Anatrim stands one of
those ancient stone-roofed chambers often met with
in Ireland, which probably served in early times as
a sacristry for the priest; and near it, again, is the
sacred well of St. Cavin, or Kavan, a local saint who
flourished, if such a word is applicable to uncivilised
Ireland, in the sixth century.^ His memory has been
kept green through the adoption of his name by
countless members of the clan. It is still, or was
quite recently, to be seen on the headstones in the
churchyard of Anatrim ; and, what is of more imme
diate interest to us, it was the one and only Christian
name given to the grandfather of the subject of this
biography. The O'Delanys, in common with other ancient Irish
tribes, are mentioned in that somewhat apocryphal
work, The Annals of the Four Masters; but as in
the Middle Ages the wild tribes of Ossory were
chiefly occupied with internecine war and plunder,
and Delane's remoter ancestors were doubtless as
much addicted to racial strife and the delights of
cattle-lifting as their neighbours the O'Moores, the
FitzPatricks, and the Kavanaghs, little or nothing
that is definite concerning their lives and achievements
in that unlettered age has come down to us.
' History and Antiqmties of the Diocese of Ossory, by the Rev. W.
Carrigan, CC, 1905, vol. ii. p. 148. In vol. iv. will be found a
detailed pedigree of the Delane family.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 3
Might was right, as in the older days of Brian Boru.
His principal qualification to be king of all Ireland
was, we recollect, the possession of a greater number
of cattle than his conquered rivals could ever again
hope to acquire by force, and the consolidation of his
power was brought about by the cruel but effectual
process of putting out the eyes of the chiefs he
defeated in battle and starving their humbler followers
so that they should not give him any further trouble.
But when the history of provincial Ireland emerges
from the semi-barbarism in which it so long lay
obscured, we find the race of Delane establishing
itself beyond the confines of Ossory, in the neigh
bouring counties of Kilkenny and Roscommon, and
sending forth its branches as far as Waterford in
the south and Galway in the west.
A Delane, probably a native of Lismore or Dun-
garvan, is found holding an office of trust under
the great Earl of Cork in the reign of James 1.'
By the reign of Charles 11. one at least of the family
had come over to seek his fortunes in England. In
a list of the principal Merchants of the City of
London, published in 1677, is to be found the name
of a Mr. Delane, who lived at Hoxton, now a prosaic
and unlovely suburb of London, but at that time,
as we learn from Pepys, a pleasant rural district,
much frequented by the better class of citizens.
The final letter " y " seems to have been discarded
when the family passed from Ireland to this country,
though it has been ingeniously suggested that even
without it the name may have been pronounced as
if it consisted of three syllables.
Peter Delane appears as one of the Queen's gentle-
' The Lismore Papers, privately printed for the Duke of Devonshire
in 1886.

4 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
men-in-waiting in a list of the Royal household as
constituted in 1687, published in Chamberiayne's
Anglice Notitia for that year; and in 1697 Charles
Delane was appointed one of the commissioners for
levying the poll-tax in the city and county of Dublin.
When we reach the eighteenth century, we tread
the firmer ground of genealogical continuity. A
branch of the family, which seems to have early
adopted the spelling and pronunciation of the name
as we now know it, was then established at Kilenagh,
near Elphin, in the county of Roscommon, where it
intermarried with the family of Oliver Goldsmith.
From this stock came Dennis Delane, a singularly
handsome man, who, after being educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, took to the stage, and was held by
his admirers to be but little inferior to Garrick.
Alike a favourite with Dublin and London audiences,'
he died in 1750.
But the Church as well as the stage was to have
its family representative, and to leave his mark upon
the history of his time.
Patrick Delany, a distant cousin and contemporary
of the actor, the husband of Mrs. Pendarves and
the friend of Swift, became Dean of Down in 1744.
Endowed with great talent and vivacity, warm
hearted, impetuous, generous and hospitable beyond
his means, he was one of those rare instances of a
man not being spoilt by an accretion of fortune.
Swift's eulogy of him, whilst applicable to many
another Irish gentleman of the old school, might equally
have been written of the much greater man who,
as we shall show hereafter, was destined to confer
distinction upon his name and race a generation or
two later.
' In 1 74 1 he was at Drury Lane in Richard III.

DELANE'S GRANDFATHER, CAVIN DELANE s
Cavin Delane, a man of refined tastes and an accom
plished musician, was born in the reign of George II.,
probably in 1736, and in Dublin, where he is known
to have lived for a time. There, too, he married
in 1760 his first wife, Katherine Dowse. By her
he had no issue, but his second wife, Ehzabeth
Davenport, only daughter of James Randle Daven
port of Marchwiel, near Wrexham (a descendant of
the ancient race of Hanmer), became the mother
of two children.
The eldest of these was a daughter, successively
the wife of Captain Donaldson, R.N., and of James
Moncrieff Arnott, President of the Royal College of
Surgeons in 1850.
The son, William Frederick Augustus Delane, was
born in 1794, and when still very young married, at
St. George's, Hanover Square, Miss Mary Anne
White, a niece of Colonel Babington, of co. Cavan, a
distinguished cavalry officer who served with the 14th
Light Dragoons in the Peninsular War.
Cavin Delane, probably through the influence of
the Villiers family of Dromana, County Waterford,'
which was connected with his own by long-standing
ties of friendship, obtained the post of Sergeant-at-
Arms to King George 111. in 1775. He lived near
the Court at Old Windsor, and he had also a town
house in Duke Street, Grosvenor Square.
There he died on December 29, 1809, and was buried
by the side of his first wife in the church at Old
Windsor.^ The monument erected to his memory was,
with many others, wantonly destroyed on the occasion
of a thorough " restoration " of the church in 1864. His
widow, Elizabeth, survived until 1839, and was buried
' Ennobled in the Irish peerage as Lords Grandison.
' On January ii, i%iq.— Burial Register of Old Windsor-

6 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
at Easthampstead, a parish in Windsor Forest with
which the Delane family has been connected for close
on a hundred years.
Cavin Delane left a considerable fortune to his
children, of which the son's share, by the carelessness
of trustees, was invested in property with a bad
title, and ultimately, after expensive and protracted
litigation, entirely lost.
This untoward circumstance, and the cares of an
increasing family, rendered it necessary for Mr. Delane
to adopt some profession. He was called to the Bar
at Gray's Inn in 1826,' and turned his attention to
the electoral laws and the Highway Acts, on which
subjects he wrote more than one handbook and
became a recognised authority.
When not attending to his profession in London
he * lived at Old Bracknell Lodge, Easthampstead,
and there, or at another house at the entrance to
the picturesque village of Bracknell ^ which he bought
a few years later, most of his children were born.
Of these, four were sons — William Cavin Augustus,
John Thadeus, George, and Walter ; and five were
daughters. The second son, who, as we shall show hereafter,
rose to be one of the most remarkable and influential
men of the century, though not actually born in
Berkshire,^ was reared in that famous county, and
in that corner of it bordering upon Surrey which
abounds in wood and heather. Even now, notwith-
' " William Frederick Augustus Delane, only son of Cavin Delane,
late of Duke Street, Grosvenor Square, Esq., Middlesex, deceased."—
Gray's Inn Admission Register, edited by Joseph Foster, p. 431.
* In the adjoining parish of Warfield.
' His birthplace was in South Molton Street, Grosvenor Square,
and the date of his birth Saturday, October 11, 181 7 (Old
Michaelmas Day).

EARLY DAYS IN WINDSOR FOREST 7
standing many changes inseparable from improved
communications with London, the scene of his early
boyhood retains with the independence, the manliness,
and the beauty of its peasantry a smack of the freedom
and lawlessness of the old forest days.
If this be the case in these degenerate times of
encroachments and enclosures, what must have been
the exhilarating feehng of freedom, and the delightful
sense of elbow-room, with which John Delane grew
up, when Windsor Forest still stretched to Sand
hurst and Hartford Bridge Flats, when Bagshot
Heath, with its sinister traditions of highwaymen,
was a heath indeed, and when the great parish of
Winkfield, thirty miles in circumference, contained
within its boundaries many thousand acres of moor
land waste untouched by the plough?
Before the enclosure of the outlying portion of the
forest the deer lay out all over that wild and sparsely
populated district. Venison was not infrequently
found in cottages, and so far as roads and fences
were concerned, the tract of country between Farnham
and Windsor was much in the same state as it was
when Swift rode between those places bearing
messages of State from Sir William Temple to
William the Third.
Recalling to Stella's memory his walks from Moor
Park to London, the Dean more than once mentions
that famous inn, marked in the old maps as the
" Golden Farmer," which stands at the summit of
the lonely heath above the little town of Bagshot.
This sign, we regret to say, some wiseacre has seen
fit to change into the " Jolly Farmer," ignorant no
doubt of the fact that the original golden farmer's
house was the habitual resort of highwaymen fre
quenting the road to the West of England, and that

8 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
his gold was accumulated through his having been
a partaker with them in their nocturnal depredations.
With such romantic surroundings it is not surprising
that John Delane grew up free and fearless in his
nature, and in all the memories of those now distant
days there is none on which the mind dwells with
greater pleasure than on the picture of that united
family growing up in mutual affection under their
parents' roof, each member of the household preparing
for the career which was to be his lot in after-life.
Of John it may be said that his earliest education
was of the woods and heaths, rather than of the
schoolroom or the desk. From his very boyhood
his chief delight was to be in the saddle. He learnt
to ride to hounds when the celebrated Charles Davis,
whose connection with the Royal pack dated from
the reign of George the Third, carried the horn.
In Delane's recollection, within a short ride of his
father's house at Easthampstead the official residence
of the Master of the Buckhounds was still standing
amidst the immemorial oaks and towering limes of
Swinley — the former breeding-place of the buzzard
and the kite and the haunt of the badger and the
marten. Cradled, so to speak, in the wildest part
of the forest country, he was familiar with every
bridle-path and woodland track, from Ascot Heath
and Englemere to Wishmoor Cross and Chobham
Ridges, along the Nine Mile Ride, over the Devil's
Highway, and across Easthampstead Plain.
In the intricacies of the green rides radiating from
Csesar's Camp and Tower Hill, to name but two
famous points of view standing high above the wide ex
panse of purple moor, in the dense heart and solitude
of the woods he was never known to be at fault.
As a boy he was present with his father at Ascot

ASCOT RACES IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE IV 9
races (in which he retained a keen interest throughout
his life) before any of the existing stands were built.
The course was then easily kept clear by the hunt
servants, the yeoman prickers of an earlier generation,
in place of the large force of Metropolitan Police
which is now required to maintain order.
We remember to have heard Delane say that, in
his matured opinion, the races (from which he was
seldom absent during a period of nearly half a
century) were much more enjoyable before rapid
railway communication with London brought with it
the accompanying drawback of huge crowds from all
parts of England, caring, in the majority of instances,
but little for the sport, and merely anxious to follow
in the wake of royalty and fashion.
When he first knew Ascot the meeting was attended,
in addition to the strictly professional element in
separable from its financial success, by a mere hand
ful of interested spectators. Mostly drawn from
local sources, they consisted, in the main, of Berkshire
gentlemen and, their house-parties living within
driving distance of the course. Now an ever-
increasing avalanche of society descends upon the
heath in each recurring month of June.
After beginning his education at one or two private
schools, first, we believe, at Elsfield in Oxfordshire,
John Delane was transferred in 1833 to the then
recently founded King's College, London.' There he
remained for about two years, and there it was that
he first met his life-long friend and future brother-
in-law, George Webbe Dasent, who, after leaving
Westminster School, was sent to King's College for a
short time. In 1836 both proceeded to the University.
' The actual date of his entry was April 12, 1833. His nominator
was Richard Gosling, of Fleet Street, banker.

ID PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
Though Delane had comparatively little book-
learning, and could not at any time of his life be
called a scholar in the University sense of the word,
there never was boy or man who possessed greater
power of mastering any given subject in the shortest
space of time. In this respect, both in youth and
middle age, he reminded those who knew him best of
the character given by Thucydides of Themistocles :
" That he was by his natural intelhgence, without
the help of instruction before or after, the best
judge, on the shortest deliberation, of any matter
in hand, and also the ablest forecaster of what the
issue would be."'
No better credentials could be brought to the
discharge of those multifarious duties in which he,
the undisputed head of a great profession, was to
be engaged in after-life.
In mathematics, like many great men, he did little
or nothing in that short space at King's College;
but those who sat with him in the classical lectures
of Joseph Anstice were amazed at the readiness
with which, after the barest preparation, generally
derived from a translation, he would render the most
difficult passages into the happiest mother English.
Residence in Berkshire had brought his father
into contact with Mr. John Walter,^ the proprietor
of The Times newspaper, who had acquired a con
siderable landed estate at Bearwood, near the old
forest town of Wokingham, then from its sylvan
surroundings often known locally by the older name
of Oakingham. And thus, by the merest accident
' otKci'a yap ^vvea-ei,. Kal oStc irpojiaOav is avTTjV ovhiv, ovre iinfiaBiiv,
T&v Tf irapaxpfjiia fit' iKaxto-njs jSovX^s Kpanaros yva/iav, xai rSv /ieXXrfi/rai'
iwiwKeiaTov tov ye-vritrofiivov &pi<TTOS eiKoerT^f. — THUC. i. 138.
'' Born 1776, died 1847;

MR. WALTER AND BERKSHIRE ELECTIONS 1 1
of the two families becoming first neighbours and
then friends, the after-career of John Thadeus Delane
was, in a sense, pre-determined.
In Mr. Walter's election contests, which ended
in his becoming the junior member for the county
of his adoption in the first reformed Parliament, both
father and son took an active part ; and, in those
days of stage-coaches and post-horses, the fondness for
riding and driving about the countryside in all weathers
and at all seasons which was engrained in the Delane
nature proved of great service to the candidate.
The outcome of this friendly interest was that
while Mr. Delane, the father, was invited to under
take the financial management of The Times,^ his
second son, when only a youth in his 'teens, attracted
the favourable notice of the proprietor of the paper,
with what momentous results we shall see hereafter.
Always a very shrewd judge of character and
worth, anxious to reciprocate the services so freely
rendered, and ever on the look-out to promote the
fortunes of his property, Mr. Walter was perhaps
the first to recognise the nerve, the capacity, and the
intellectual fibre of the young man who was destined
to contribute in so high a degree to the prosperity
and influence of the great commercial undertaking
founded by an even earher John Walter in 1785.
After leaving King's College, Delane read for a
time with a private tutor at Faringdon,^ and from
his house are dated the earUest of his letters which
have been preserved. They are all addressed to his
friend, George Webbe Dasent (who seems throughout
his long and busy life to have kept every scrap of
* This position he filled until the close of the year 1846, when he
accepted the Treasurership of the County Courts of Kent.
' Dr. Jeremiah Bowles, of Faringdon Hall.

12 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
Delane's handwriting which came into his possession),
and date from the years 1835 and 1836.
In one of the earliest of these, written when he
was only eighteen, he says :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
My dear Toby,'
I have an idea that if you don't mind what you
are about you won't get into Magdalen Hall this next
October. Mr. Bowles happens, fortunately enough, to
be a great friend of the Head, whose name is Macbride,
and he had a letter from him the other day saying that
I might have rooms there, if I pleased, but making
something of a favour of it, and insinuating that if it
had not been for their intimacy, I should have stood
no chance. However, this may be all " blather and
moonshine " on his part. Perhaps he merely wishes
to acquire the credit of conferring a favour when the
matter is open to all.
Whilst still at Faringdon he was in constant com
munication with his friend, and in one of his letters,
written in May 1836, he reproaches Dasent for
having forgotten to mention where he was to be
found in Oxford, " and of course it would have been
ridiculous for me to ride seventeen miles with no
better address by which to find you than that of a
'Freshman at the University.'"
When do you come up to reside ? Were you able
to get rooms without much difficulty ? 1 must from
sheer want of other means of employing myself work
most desperately. You are fagging as usual, 1 am
sure, and about preparing for the examination. 1 do
not ask whether you expect success. The question
would have been unnecessary. You are sure of it.
May the god or goddess of industry assist me. 1 mean
to read, and all else must give place.
Writing, also in 1836, from his father's house in
' A nickname of Dasent's in boyhood.

EARLY LETTERS, DELANE TO DASENT 13
London, he says in reference to an unkept appoint
ment he had made with Dasent:
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
I do, indeed, feel a kind of unworthiness to address
you which 1 was never conscious of before. The
enormity of my transgression rises in its full force
before me, and the recollection of the manner in which
1 incontinently levanted from the Mitre, after having
asked you to spend the evening with me, almost
overwhelms me.
Still, however, such is the natural confidence of my
disposition that now, when I hope all threats of ven
geance for the supper lost have subsided, 1 once more
venture to address you.
If you had, indeed, but seen the miserable hack
which 1 procured that evening to take me to Faring
don, you would, I am sure, have pitied me and have
considered that an ample expiation for my offence.
Two and a half, yea three hours of this mortal life
did I spend upon seventeen miles. I have a long string
of questions to ask you. (i) How do you like Oxford ?
(2) Your rooms ? (3) Your tutor Jacobson ? (4) The
society ?
1 shall not ask you whether you are reading or not.
That with you is, I am sure, a matter of course.
Would that it were like the cholera, infectious or
contagious, but that is, I fear, hopeless.
But as to this said reading, just in mercy have the
goodness to let me, unhappy wretch, whenever that
subject is mentioned, know what in the name of all the
saints there is to read, and what you are doing.
Much as I like, as I almost adore London, I envy
you now; the fog seems almost as thick as hasty-
pudding, the mud in the streets is unfathomable. I
made several attempts yesterday, but could find no
bottom. Add to this, the cold is intense, and when
1 do go out it is enveloped in the impenetrable folds
of a pilot coat. 1 am happy to hear that your brother
has a very fair chance of obtaining what he desired on
The Times, but 1 know nothing yet.
Your very sincere friend,
John T. Delane.
Some delay and difficulty appear to have been

14 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chaKi
encountered by him as to the precise date of his
own matriculation at the University, for a little
later he writes :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
I have received the letter 1 told you 1 expected from
Bowles, and were it not for my principles and my
philosophy 1 should most heartily execrate all those
to whom I, like a fool, left, without the slightest inter
ference, the settlement of myself at the University.
He now writes to inform me with the most provoking
nonchalance, that as I did not matriculate last term — a
thing which, he said, was quite needless — he would
not advise me to go up for residence now, as it cannot
be done but at a manifest sacrifice of the two dispensa
tion terms which the University allows ; in fact, that
if I reside now, I must remain at Oxford two terms
longer than would otherwise be necessary.
Now, is this not enough to move the rage of Zeno
himself? 1 am sure the whole sect of Stoics would
have sworn if they had been so cruelly duped as 1
have been.
1 long, 1 thirst, to execute summary vengeance upon
Bowles and every other party concerned, but as the
matter is so irreparably botched it is no use complaining.
He tells me, further, that I had now better matriculate
on any Thursday that may be convenient, that being
the day set apart for that purpose.
My going down with you on Thursday next is, there
fore, impossible ; if, however, you have not already taken
your place, and would go instead on the Wednesday, 1
shall be happy, all things going well, to accompany you.
One great bore is, 1 can get no one to sympathise with
me. They all say it is my own fault, forgetting my
golden rule never to do myself any business that others
will do for me. Now I am done indeed. With every
wish for your success, believe me,
Ever most sincerely yours,
John T. Delane.
A letter dated London, November 22, 1836, whilst
presenting Delane in one of his jocular moods, shows
considerable powers of composition for a boy of
only just nineteen :

EARLY LETTERS, DELANE TO DASENT 15
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent.
My dear Toby,
Do you really, seriously intend to cut me, or are
you so immersed in Greek and Latin as to have no
time to write to an old friend ? You really ought now
and then to answer a letter, or 1 shall be obliged to
come down and call you to a private meeting in Christ
"Church Meadows.
I believe our most noble Palmerston, after the
example of Talleyrand, makes a practice of never
answering a letter, but you cannot at any rate be more
than an embryo minister, so at present there is no
excuse for you.
Perhaps it is that the payment of that red-collared
and most tiresome functionary the Postman produces
an effect upon you which a mere frank will not. It is
under this impression that 1 leave you the payment of
this letter. But seriously, diligently, seek out from
the dusty recess into which you have probably cast it
my last epistle, lay aside the classics for one small half-
hour, and answer all my questions.
Your brother' has just had the offer of the Court of
Chancery ; it is 1 believe the best of them all for this
simple reason, that there is nothing to do and he can
attend to his own practice without difficulty. 1 have
had a short trip, not much to my liking, on some
important private business where my personal presence
was necessary so far as Holyhead in. North W ales, and
have but just returned. How are you off for rooms ?
and what chance is there for me next term?
Repondez vite, and believe me,
Ever yours very sincerely,
John T. Delane.
Dasent had matriculated in April, thus preceding
Delane at Magdalen Hall by about six months.
Railways were then only in their infancy. Not
one of the great trunk lines binding the country from
end to end with a ribbon of steel and revolutionising
the conditions of travel in England was actually open
for traffic. ' John Bury Dasent.

i6 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
On an average the coach trotted over Magdalen
Bridge and the glories of the High Street ,burst
upon the view seven or eight hours after leaving
the Old White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly. But in
winter even the flying "Age," driven by ToUitt, the
smartest whip on the Oxford road, had been known
to take so long as two days on the journey after being
snowed up near Thame.
Travelling, even to Oxford, was a matter of calcula
tion and forethought when John Delane first went
there in 1836. Seats had to be booked, and a deposit
paid on them, days in advance.
Yet the invigorating effect of driving long distances
in the open air — for only old people and women and
children thought of booking inside places — may
have tended to produce a hardier race of travellers
in the old coaching days. Under modern conditions
passengers glide down from Paddington in an hour
and a quarter, or even less, and grumble if they
do not find foot-warmers in every carriage, if not a
corridor train heated by steam and lit by electricity. ,^
On October 20 the University Registers record the
admission of "John Thadeus Delane, second son of
W. F. A. Delane, of St. George's, Hanover Square,
London, Armiger," and to this day the rooms occupied
by the two friends are pointed out in the small quad
rangle which forms the oldest part of the ancient
foundation of Magdalen Hall, which was then pre
sided over by Dr. Macbride, an erudite Oriental
scholar, assisted by Jacobson (afterwards Bishop of
Chester) as Vice-Principal.
The latter, who had the rare gift of endearing him
self to his pupils whilst extracting from them the
maximum of intellectual effort, had practically a
free hand in the management from the time of his

MAGDALEN HALL, OXFORD 17
appointment until he became Regius Professor of
Divinity in 1848. Under his fostering care the
tone and discipline of the Hall were raised step by
step until it acquired a well-deserved reputation in
the University, and it was the good fortune of
Delane to enter it when it was governed to all
intents and purposes by the best college tutor of
his time.
Macbride had the credit and interests of his Hall
very much at heart, and prevented it from becoming,
like some of the minor Oxford foundations whose
character and repute left much to be desired, a refuge
for the academically destitute ; but the tuition, apart
from the divinity lectures, which he held to be a
duty inseparable from the principalship, was mainly
entrusted by him to Jacobson.
His good work there was continued in after-years
by Richard Michell, who became in due course the
first Principal of Hertford, when through the muni
ficence of Mr. Thomas Baring, Magdalen Hall, as
such, ceased to exist, on attaining to the dignity of
collegiate rank in the University.
At Magdalen Hall Delane's felicity of construing,
with just as little preparation as before, made the
whole lecture-room sure that whenever he went
up for his degree he must inevitably take high
honours. But this was not to be. He was fitting himself
by his readiness and intuitive grasp of mind for
higher honours than those to be attained at Oxford.
Academic distinction is not always the surest index
to success in after-life, and so it proved with
Delane. Though generally regular in his attendance at
chapel and at lecture, there still were days when a
VOL. I 2

i8 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
favourite meet of the hounds proved too tempting
for him to resist. He was in the saddle and off,
leaving behind him a note to Jacobson, which
was on occasion only to be delivered after his
departure. " Mr. Delane's leave is sometimes French leave,"
his tutor once remarked, "but then we must remember
that he, hke the Centaurs of old, is part and parcel
of his horse." These little irregularities were soon
forgiven and forgotten. Magdalen Hall was fond of
him, and proud of him, though no one among its
inmates could foresee what an enduring honour John
Delane was ultimately to be to them.
Second only to his love of horses was Delane's
fondness for a game which can only be enjoyed at
a few places in England. At the old tennis-court
in Oriel Lane he, and Dasent also, learnt to play
under the tuition of " Duck-legged Jem," the marker
at the old court. A character in his way, nothing
irritated him so much as when beginners whom he
had taught went away to the new and better court,
both bigger and airier, in Merton Lane. Meeting
Delane coming out of the rival establishment one
day, he said more in sorrow than in anger, " Oh,
Mr. Delane, to think that I should live to see you
coming out of this court ! You who' learnt to play
in my court, which has been trodden by the feet of
his sacred Majesty King Charles the First ! "
Strong, athletic, and fearless, Delane also knew
how to use his fists. Once, in company with Dasent
and two other friends, he was surrounded on coming
out of the inn at Wheatley, beyond Shotover, by an
angry group of quarrymen, who had a grievance,
real or imaginary, against undergraduates in general.
After a preliminary shower of stones there was

MAGDALEN HALL, OXFORD 19
an ugly rush, and in a moment Delane found him
self pitted against the Chicken of Wheatley, who,
besides being the leader of the assault, was a retired
prizefighter of something more than local celebrity.
But after a round or two the Chicken found that
he had met his match, for when the hot Irish blood
which was in him was roused, Delane was as a
giant in strength. Seeing the discomfiture of their
leader the remainder of the assailants, though far
out-numbering the party of undergraduates, broke
and fled, but not before one of the four friends
had been felled to the ground and brutally trampled
upon. Always fond of the river, and a good runner and
walker, we do not find any mention of his having
attained to any great proficiency at cricket.
To turn for a moment to a more serious subject,
Delane was up at Oxford when the great High
Church movement initiated at Oriel was beginning
to make its influence felt far beyond the walls of
the University.
The Radcliffe Observatory, under the direction of
Manuel Johnson, became the resort of the leaders
of religious thought, and there both Dasent and
Delane came for a time under the spell of Newman.
Another constant visitor was Maurice, whose kindly
nature never failed to appeal to the young. Always
reluctant to speak of religion, which he held to be
as private and personal as it was sacred, those who
knew Delane best were aware that his faith was a
sincere and tolerant Anglicanism, as far removed
from the influence of Rome as from the narrowness
of dissent.
Superstition, the caricature of religion, held no
sway over his healthy mind, and whilst his young

20 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
heart warmed towards the work of Pusey and New
man in their efforts to raise the tone of spiritual
hfe and thought, for agnostics and their pretensions
to serious consideration he entertained an invariable
and unmitigated contempt.
To hear Newman preach at the five o'clock service
at St. Mary's he would often forgo his dinner in
hall, and he remembered to have seen a crowd of
undergraduates waiting patiently for the doors to
open, when a scramble ensued for places, like the
rush at the entrance to a popular theatre.
Before we close this brief account of his University
career let us add that the distances covered by him
on horseback were in themselves remarkable. He
thought nothing of riding to Faringdon to see his
old tutor, or to Banbury and back between hall and
midnight. On one occasion it is recorded that he
rode from Oxford to Bracknell and back again in the
same day, that he might see one of his sisters who
was lying dangerously ill of scarlet fever.
The cost of keeping his hunters and his hacks
he is said to have supported by his pen, for his
father was not able to make him a large allowance.
Unfortunately none of his early literary efforts have
come down to us. We believe that both he and
Dasent were frequent contributors to The Oxford
University Herald, and it is possible that Delane
also wrote articles for the great paper with which
he was soon to be so closely identified.
The last letter of his undergraduate days which
we shall quote was written from his uncle's house
in Lincolnshire ' to Dasent, who was spending the
long vacation at Ilfracombe, then a remote village
in North Devon.
' The Rev. John White, Rector of Barnetby le Wold.

MAGDALEN HALL, OXFORD 21
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
Barnetby le Wold,
Lincolnshire,
September 14, 1839.
My dear Dasent,
1 meant before we left Oxford to have asked
you two or three questions about the Great Go
examination, and matters of that sort, of which 1
am, as you know, about as ignorant as if 1 had never
been within a hundred miles of the University, but
somehow among the bustle of our departure it
escaped me, and as 1 did not see you in London I
thought no more about it until now, when it has
suddenly occurred to me that I ought to do some
thing about my degree. Since the end of term I
have been oscillating between London and Bracknell,
and, with an occasional stretch down to Faringdon,
spending my time as idly and as pleasantly as usual,
until about a fortnight since I came down here with
my father and mother and sister. We propose to
leave this to-morrow, and after meandering a little
on our course to arrive at Bracknell about Tuesday
next, and there I wish you would write and tell me
what I ought to do.
1 should like to take up as two of my books
Thucydides and Juvenal, and, 1 suppose, some
Sophocles (how much ?) as a third, but for a fourth
I am puzzled completely, as 1 know about an equal
quantity of Tacitus and Livy — and very little of either.
Then 1 want to have an idea of the time at which
the schools begin and how I am to cram a sufficient
store of Divinity into my head. As the premises will
only be occupied a short time with the last-named
commodity, the trouble of storing it should be slight.
Now I think that if 1 were to coach up as much as 1
can of my books quietly at Bracknell, and then go up to
Oxford about the beginning of October and there try
to secure a patent safety vehicle, I might stand some
chance, although I own the shortness of the time
(which until to-day had never occurred to me) has
thrown me into a panic. 1 am not so much afraid of
my books ; but how 1 am to get up the Articles, proofs
of ditto, God only knows. I have written all this
under the influence of the panic which, as I tell you,
has fallen upon me, and you will, 1 daresay, think it

22 PARENTAGE, EDUCATION, ETC. [chap.i
very unreasonable that 1 should trouble you with so
many questions. You are, however, I suppose at the
fountain-head of such information, and if you can give
me all that 1 ask, I shall be beyond measure obliged.
This is a most glorious country — cajpital people,
excellent horses, prime feeding, and very fair shooting.
I have been out every day since my arrival, and with
very fair success. I can only hope that you are and
have been equally fortunate. As 1 suppose you mean
to be a fixture at Ilfracombe until nearly term time,
I am afraid I shall not see you until then, more
especially as I shall eschew London particularly for
the future. If it had not been for that horrid place,
and the time I spent at Dover, Bracknell might
perhaps have grown dull, and I should have taken
to reading.
1 should fancy a little bit of Oxford taken down
to the coast, as 1 believe Ilfracombe is pleasant
enough for a while, if the coach himself and the men
were inclined to be sociable and make the best of what
was to be had. I hope that has been your case. Pray
have mercy upon me and enlighten my ignorance as
soon as possible, and I shall then be more than ever
obliged. Believe me, very truly yours,
John T. Delane.
Wednesday. — Who is a good coach ?
To George W. Dasent, Esq.
The Rev. N. Hall,
Ilfracombe, Devon.
Next year, on July ii, 1840, he took his degree, and
now came the turning-point in his life.

FIRST PERIOD OF DELANE'S CAREER j AS
EDITOR OF "THE TIMES" (1840-1852)
CHAPTER II
SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE CORN LAWS
Last days of Lord Melbourne's Ministry— Delane succeeds Barnes
as editor of The Times, 1841— Becomes acquainted with Charles
Greville — Sir Robert Peel's second Administration (Lord Aber
deen, Foreign Secretary), September 1841— London as Delane
first knew it — State of the arts in 1840 — Re-imposition of the
income tax, 1842 — Lord Shaftesbury and the Factory Acts, 1844
— Exposure of the railway mania by The Times — The Times and
the repeal ofthe Corn Laws.
When John Delane left Oxford and first entered
The Times office in July, 1840, he was employed in
various duties connected with the business of the
great newspaper, in all of which he justified his
reputation for quickness of apprehension and readi
ness of resource. He made himself familiar with the
business of Parliament by regularly attending the
debates and summarising the remarks of the principal
speakers in both Houses. One of his earliest recollec
tions of the House of Commons was hearing Daniel
O'Connell speak on the wrongs of Ireland, and being
magnetised by the eloquence of the Liberator.'
In his leisure hours he developed a great liking
for the stage, becoming personally acquainted with
' The manners and habits of the House of Commons have changed
greatly since the days of Lord Melbourne. Sir Thomas Erskine May
(Lord Farnborough), whose personal knowledge of the House
extended to a period prior to the passing of the great Reform Bill,
told the present writer that he recollected the Speaker temporarily
vacating the chair and, accompanied by the majority of members
present, adjourning to the river front to watch the race for Doggett's
Coat and Badge as it passed Westminster. 23

24 EDITOR OF THE TIMES [chap, ii
Macready, and with Charles Mathews the younger.
All his life he remained a keen critic of the drama,
though from the multiplicity of his engagements he
could seldom spare the time to attend a theatre.
The post of editor of The Times when Delane first
entered Printing House Square was filled by Thomas
Barnes, the friend of Leigh Hunt and Hazhtt, a
man of ability and tact, though of a shy and retiring
disposition. Not much over fifty, his strength was
beginning to fail ; and his assistant editor, although
a much younger man, was in an even worse state
of health than his chief. This was Francis Bacon,
brother of the well-known Vice-Chancellor who died
so recently as 1895 at a patriarchal age.
Barnes was devoid of social ambition, and scarcely
went at all into society, preferring the seclusion of
his home and the congenial company of a few literary
friends,' yet it must not be inferred that the influence
of the paper when under his direction was not already
very considerable.
Sir Denis Le Marchant told Greville that when he
was calling one night on Barnes another visitor
arrived whom he did not see, as he was shown into
a separate room. Barnes went out to see him, and
on his return, after a protracted absence, Le Marchant
said : " Shall 1 tell you who your visitor was ? "
Barnes said certainly he might name him if he
could. " Well, then," said Le Marchant, " I know
his step and his voice: it was Lord Durham."^
Barnes had to admit that he was right, whereon
Le Marchant ventured to inquire what he had come
' He lived at one time in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and afterwards at a
house in Soho Square, where he died.
' John George Lambton, first Earl of Durham, 1792— 1840, leader
of the advanced section of the Whig party in the House of Lords.

,840] INFLUENCE OF THE TIMES 25
there for, and was told that Lord Durham had called
to see him on behalf of the King of the Belgians,'
who had been much perturbed by a recent article in
The Times, and to entreat him to insert one of a
contrary and soothing description in an early issue
of the paper. " Here," said Le Marchant, " was the
proudest man in England come to solicit the editor
of a newspaper for a crowned head."^
A few letters of advice which Barnes wrote to
Delane have been preserved, but beyond evincing a
somewhat unreasonable distrust and dislike of Lord
Melbourne, and counselling a general support of
Lord Aberdeen in opposition, they are not very
illuminating. In 1840 Francis Bacon died,^ and in May of the
following year the ill-health with which Barnes had
been struggling for so long had also a fatal termina
tion. Such was the passion for anonymity prevailing
in Printing House Square at this time that, in defer
ence to the wishes of the principal proprietor, no
memoir of his valuable services appeared in the paper.
" It will be curious to see in what hands the
regulating and directing power will be placed,"
wrote Greville on May 8. His curiosity was soon
to be satisfied, for, deprived as he had been within
a year of the services of both the conductors of The
Times, Mr. Walter, in whom as chief proprietor the
appointment solely vested, promptly determined to
' Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the son-in-law of Louis Philippe, chosen
king on the independence of Belgium in 1831.
* The Greville Memoirs, April 2, 1847.
' Two years later Delane married Bacon's widow, who was the
daughter of Horace Twiss, Under-Secretary forthe Colonies and Vice-
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; but owing to a deplorable
mental failing the happiness of the union was short-lived, and Mrs.
Delane was separated from her husband after a few years of
married life and placed under medical care.

26 DELANE'S ASSISTANTS [chap, n
fill the vacant post by appointing Delane, the
youngest member of all the staff, to the editorial
chair. Thus at twenty-three, or younger by a year
than Pitt was when he rose to be Prime Minister,
John Delane became editor of The Times. He was
then sharing a lodging in St. James's Square with his
friend John Blackwood. One morning Delane burst
into the room in tremendous spirits, exclaiming, " By
Jove, John, what do you think has happened ? 1 am
editor of The Times." "^
When in after-years a friend once asked him
whether the prospect of taking such a vast respon
sibility upon his shoulders at that early age did not
shake his courage, his characteristic reply was, " Not
a bit. What I dislike about you young men of the
present day is that you all shrink from responsibility."
Self-reliance and common-sense, allied with untiring
industry and the intuitive perception of the tendency
of public affairs, were qualities which, while' they
would have ensured his success in any profession,
were especially valuable to him in the work which
was henceforth to be the absorbing interest of
his life.
Of those who assisted at the birth and subsequent
development of the Delane dynasty in Printing House
Square, Henry Reeve (playfully alluded to in Dasent's
letters as " Don Pomposo ") had also served under
Barnes. He now became, to adopt the phraseology
' It was through Blackwood, who was establishing a branch of the
great Edinburgh publishing house in Pall Mall, that Delane came
to know Thackeray, and also Lockhart, the editor of The Quarterly
Review. For many years he was a frequent visitor to Strathtyrum,
near St. Andrews, where Blackwood delighted to entertain literary
men whom he had met in the course of his business. Delanp
remained one of his intimate friends throughout his life, and,
singularly enough, they died within a week of one another.

i845] DASENT JOINS DELANE 27
of Cabinets, Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the new
Prime Minister, and so continued until the outbreak
of the Crimean War, when circumstances (to which
we shall have to refer later) arose which necessitated
the resignation of his portfolio. But the many brilliant
writers of the Queen's English, unsurpassed before or
since for the purity of their style and the vigour and
soundness of their opinions, whose services Delane
was henceforth to command, were, almost without
exception, selected and trained by himself.
As compared with the present state of the Press,
now so largely dominated by sensation and adver
tisement, the influence of The Times under Delane
can hardly be conceived; and we may say without
exaggeration or partiality that, as conducted by him
for a period of thirty-six years, the literary reputation
of the paper reached its zenith. Instead of blindly
following public opinion, he rose to such a position
of supremacy in his profession that he was able to
create it ; and on more than one memorable occasion,
if the Government of the day in formulating its policy
minted the coin, it was The Times which uttered it
and saw that it rang true.
Dasent, who after taking his degree had gone to
Stockholm as secretary to Sir Thomas Cartwright,
the British Envoy to the Court of Sweden, contri
buted occasionally to the columns of the paper
during his absence, but did not join it in an official
capacity until 1845. He then returned to England,
permeated with that abiding love of Scandinavian
mythology and folk-lore which animated his whole
after-career. Robert Lowe, like another of Delane's trusted
writers who still lives— a journalist before he became
a politician,— the epigrammatic and cynical Abrahara

28 DELANE'S ASSISTANTS [chap, n
Hayward, Thomas Mozley (Newman's brother-in-
law), the brilliant if erratic Laurence Oliphant, George
Stovin Venables, Kinglake, Chenery, Henry Wace,
now Dean of Canterbury, William Stebbing, the
editor's right-hand man in his later years in Printing
House Square, and last, but by no means least, Sir
William Howard Russell, the first of war correspon
dents — all these and many more were brought into
the service of the paper by Delane.
One of his most prolific leader-writers, whose
private correspondence with the editor would alone
fill a good-sized volume, was Dr. H. A. Woodham, a
fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and .a don of the
old University type, who enjoyed the confidence of his
chief in a high degree. In one year he contributed
no fewer than two hundred articles to the paper,
and although he wrote a vile hand, which, like Tom
Mozley's, was the despair of printers, Delane used
to say that he felt amply compensated for the trouble
he had in deciphering his letters by the pungent wit
and admirable descriptive power which they invariably
showed. By him Delane was kept constantly in
formed of all that was passing at the University
where he spent the greater part of his life.
One anecdote of him, arising out of a ludicrous
mistake on Delane's part, deserves to be rescued
from oblivion. Woodham, who was somewhat of an
epicure and thoroughly appreciated a good dinner,
had written to Delane to ask him for an invitation to
the Lord Mayor's banquet then about to take place,
saying that he had never attended a similar function,
and that he had a great wish to see for himself
what a City dinner was like. Anxious to oblige his
old friend, Delane sent him, in the hurry of the
moment and without looking carefully at it, what

i845] DR- H. A. WOODHAM 29
he imagined to be the coveted ticket of admission,
and thought no more of the matter.
In high spirits the expectant Woodham made the
long railway journey from Cambridge, fasting, as he
afterwards declared, in order to do full justice to the
proverbially splendid hospitahty of the City of London.
But on arriving at the Mansion House, or the Guild
hall — it matters not which for the purposes of our
story — his suspicions were aroused by his being
ushered into what proved to be the musicians' gallery
overlooking the dining-hall, from which certain privi
leged but hungry spectators were allowed to view
the banquet and listen to the speeches. All too late
he realised that Delane had inadvertently sent him
the wrong card, a green ticket instead of a white
one, and that he was there not in the capacity of a
guest, but merely as an onlooker.
The blunder, of course, could not then be rectified,
and he departed in great dudgeon to a solitary dinner
at his club. But it was a long time before Delane
heard the last of his mistake, or before it ceased to
be dangerous for his friends to ask Woodham if he
had been dining with the Lord Mayor lately.
Dasent, on his return to England, became assistant
editor to Delane and married his sister in the
following year. The two brothers-in-law — " John
Walter's three-year-olds," as they were sometimes
called — were of widely different natures ; but as each
contributed something which was wanting in the
character of the other, the result was a remarkable
evenness and smoothness in the conduct of the paper.
On the late Mr. Mowbray Morris, who also married
one of Delane's sisters at a later date, becoming, in
1847, the business manager ofthe paper, the triumvirate
was complete.

30 CHARLES GREVILLE [chap, n
But to the catalogue of clever brains who, at the
bidding of a master mind, devoted the best years of
their lives to building up the prosperity and the
power of The Times must be added the name of
yet another, prominent alike in the world of politics
and letters, with whom, from the very earliest days
of his editorship, Delane was in close touch. This
was Charles Greville, that thorough man of the
world, who, under a cynical exterior, successfully
concealed a nature which contained the elements
of kindliness and generosity. What Pepys was
to the seventeenth and Horace Walpole to the
eighteenth century, the sardonic " Cruncher " was to
the nineteenth, and his Memoirs, the very salt of
political and social autobiography, must ever remain
a mine of information to those who desire to study
at first hand the inner history of governments in
England from the reign of George IV. to the
mid-Victorian era.
The manner of this remarkable man's first intro
duction to Delane was in itself singular. Shortly
after Barnes's death, the following anonymous letter,
carefully preserved among his private correspondence,
and endorsed in his handwriting " From Mr. Greville"
when he had discovered the author, was addressed
not to The Times office, but to a house in Chatham
Place, Blackfriars (long since destroyed), where Delane
was then living in order to be near his work :
Cj_ September 2, 1841.
Mr. Reeve will have prepared you for the
possibility of hearing from me, and I now send you
the outline of an article, which you may work up
as you please. The facts are worth noting, and the
monstrous cases alluded to ought to be exposed. If
at any time you wish to communicate with me, just
put in The Times that the address of " B." is wanted.

i84i] A MINISTERIAL CRISIS 31
I use the same signature which 1 used to my friend
Mr. Barnes, whose loss 1 so sincerely regret.
I am, sir.
Your obedient servant, B.
J. T. Delane, Esq.,
4, Chatham Place,
Blackfriars.

The suggestions for an article and the monstrous
cases adduced consisted for the most part of a fierce
attack on the late Administration for alleged jobbery
by Lords Melbourne and Palmerston on the eve of
the resignation of office by the former.
But to Delane's credit, be it stated- that, young as he
was, he was not to be beguiled into publishing any
animadversions on public men without corroboration,
least of all those derived from anonymous sources,
and not the faintest reflection of Greville's charges,
circumstantial though they were, is to be found in the
columns of the paper. At most they served to lay
the foundations of a personal acquaintance with their
author and a better understanding with his political
friends and allies : and when in later years the two
became to some extent intimate, the letters which
passed between them are often of the highest interest
and importance.
Less than a month after Barnes's death Delane was
face to face with one of those ministerial crises with
which in after-life he was to become so familiar. The
Administration of Lord Melbourne was in its death
throes in 1841. The wave of Liberalism which surged
over England less than ten years before had subsided.
The middle-class electorate brought into existence
by Lord Grey was daring to show quite unmis
takable signs of the growth of Conservative principles,
and the repeated failures of the Government of the

32 LORD MELBOURNE [chap.h
day to produce a surplus instead of an annual
deficit contributed to the growing discontent.
Although it was not a Cabinet of old men— with the
exception of Lord Melbourne himself, but one of its
members was over sixty — and it was therefore free
from the reproach of political senility — it was, like
all Governments which outstay their welcome by
clinging to office, only endeavouring to postpone
the dreaded day when an appeal ¦ to the country
must be made.
Personally indisposed to tamper with the Corn
Laws, Melbourne, with much reluctance, con
sented to allow the question of a low fixed duty being
brought forward as a ministerial proposal.
After the Cabinet dinner at which the resolution
was taken, he is said to have shouted down the
staircase as his guests were departing, "Stop a bit.
Is it to lower the price of bread, or isn't it ? It does
not much matter which, but we must all say the same
thing," which reminds us very much of a passage in
that amusing play. The Liars, lately performed at
a West-End theatre.
Sugar proved even more disastrous than bread to
the expiring Ministry. On May i8, in Committee of
Ways and Means, Lord Sandon carried by 36 votes
a resolution against the Government proposals for
the reduction of the duties on foreign sugar, and
on June 4' the Opposition, by dint of extraordinary
exertions in the division lobbies, whither they con
trived to bring the maimed, the halt, and the blind,
succeeded in placing the Government in a minority
of one, on a direct vote of want of confidence
proposed by Sir Robert Peel.
' Not May 27, as stated in the article upon Melbourne in the
Dictionary of National Biography.

i84i] FALL OF LORD MELBOURNE 33
From an ambiguous passage in the Greville Memoirs
it might be inferred that Lord Melbourne's Govern
ment was turned out by the casting vote of an
idiot, but a reference to the official division list
will suffice to exonerate Peel from any such un
merited reproach.
Lord  , member for a Scottish constituency,
voted in the minority, one of Delane's parliamentary
correspondents thus describing the scene :
You are, of course, aware of the disgust which
was excited in the House by the spectacle presented
by poor Lord   . A friend of mine, who
was next to him, assured me he never saw any one,
out of a lunatic asylum, in a state of more hopeless
idiotcy. The honourable member, to whose neces
sarily silent vote the Ministers, amid cries of " Shame ! "
were in their extremity driven to resort, appeared
perfectly unconscious of all that was passing. When
the division was over he was carried out to his
carriage, two men holding at his head, and two at
his heels.
At the ensuing dissolution the Whigs were routed
throughout the length and breadth of England. On
meeting Parliament they were defeated on the
Address by 91 votes, and tendered their resignation
to the Sovereign.'
Late on the night of August 30 we find Travers
Twiss writing to Delane that Sir Robert had been
summoned to Windsor by Her Majesty that after
noon and entrusted with the formation of an
Administration :
The only point which is at all decidedly known is
that the interview went off smoothly and in a manner
' Curiously enough, Lord Malmesbury, in his entertaining Memoirs,
has antedated these events by a month.
VOL. I 3

34 MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS [chap.h
satisfactory to Sir Robert. Sir Robert Fremantle'
is, and for the next few days probably will continue
to be, so much engaged, that 1 do not know how to
find or fix him, but I will bear your request in mind.
We at the Carlton Club were ignorant, up till a
quarter before one of the o'clock, of the message
inviting Sir R. Peel to Windsor ; but, as the proverb
has it, " Nobody goes so ill shod as the shoemaker's
wife." By Wednesday, September i, the formation of the
new Cabinet was so far completed that the Prime
Minister again visited the Queen, and Fremantle
was instructed to supply Delane with a full hst of
the ministerial appointments so far as they had
been settled, informing him at the same time that
a Council would be held "at Claremont on Friday
next at one o'clock, when Her Majesty will receive
the resignation of the late Ministers and their suc
cessors will kiss hands on appointment."
The composition of the really strong Government
which Peel was enabled to form was announced by
The Times in a third or stop-press edition of the<
paper, published at noon on the same day.
The allocation of the principal offices was in
accordance with popular sentiment, but an expectant
public learnt for the first time that three seceders from
Lord Grey's party had been included in the Cabinet.
The new President of the Board of Trade was Lord
Ripon, and Sir James Graham and Lord Stanley
respectively were the Home Secretary and the Colonial
Secretary. In a further communication from Whitehall Gardens
the minor appointments were made known to Delane.
Lord Aberdeen, as Secretary of State for Foreign
¦ Afterwards the first Lord Cottesloe, one of the party whips, and
Secretary of the Treasury under Sir Robert Peel.

,841] THE TIMES IN 1 84 1 35
Affairs, had nominated Lord Canning as his Under-
Secretary (an oak-tree planted in a flower pot, if ever
there was one), and in the same list the interesting
selection of "Mr. W. E. Gladstone to be Vice-
President of the Board of Trade" is notified. He
had served under Peel before, but this was the first
occasion on which full scope was given to his
peculiar talents, and in the readjustment of the tariff,
which the Prime Minister soon entered upon, his
grasp of the intricacies of finance proved of real
service. " Goody Goderich," in his old age the embodiment
of innocuous mediocrity, had once been Prime Minister
himself, until the Battle of Navarino frightened him
into resigning office without having faced Par
liament. Men age rapidly on the battle-ground
of politics, and he was now little more than a
lay figure at the Board of Trade. Leaving every
thing to his subordinate, it was little wonder that
within two short years the pupil became the master,
and Gladstone entered the Cabinet for the first
time. Delane kept no regular diary before the year 1847,
or, if he did, it has been lost or destroyed; but
he preserved all letters of importance which were
addressed to him, carefully docketing and classifying
them according to the questions of the day to which
they related. At the end of each year his practice
was to place them. all together in a box and start the
process afresh.
The general appearance of The Times when he first
became connected with it was not very dissimilar to
what it is now, except that the advertisements were
strictly relegated to an outer sheet or supplement,
and were never permitted to be disguised as news

36 CHANGES SINCE 1841 [chap.h
or mixed up with literary matter. The price of the
paper was fivepence, a sum which appears prohibitory
to modern ideas, when cheapness is considered
indispensable to journalistic success.
Some years later The Times was reduced to four-
pence halfpenny, then to fourpence, and the abolition
of the paper duty brought it down to the figure
at which it has since stood. The first unstamped
issue at threepence was that of October i, 1861.
How wide is the gap which separates us from the
early years of Queen Victoria's reign a glance at the
advertisements — the surest index at any period to
the prosperity of a newspaper — will show.
The journey from London to Paris, via, Brighton
and Dieppe, was advertised to take twenty-six hours,
and could only be made once a week ! Brussels could
be reached vid Ostend in twenty hours, and on every
Wednesday and Saturday passengers were invited
to travel " by steam " from Rye to Boulogne.
The drive to Rye is a most picturesque one, and
the passage is made in a shorter time than from Dover,
because the tide is favourable. The time the packet
starts may be known at the Bolt in Tun, Bull in
Mouth, Belle Sauvage and Golden Cross.'
The outward aspect of London and the conditions of
town life when Delane left Oxford and began his official
career at The Times office were widely different from
what they are now. The London which he first knew
was, in the main, that which Leigh Hunt described.
For, though at the West End Nash and Basevi, who
" found us all brick and left us all plaster," had set
their stamp — and a very ugly and meretricious one it
was— upon Regent Street and upon the Westminster
' Advertisement, September 7, 1839.

,840] LONDON IN 1840 37
estate in the Five Fields of Pimlico, the appearance
of the City east of Temple Bar had not materially
changed since the time of Hogarth.
Even in the heart of the City there were pleasant
open spaces, as the gardens of many of the greater
City Companies had not been sacrificed to the greed
of the builder.
The steep ascent of Holborn Hill was a terror to
horses ; and as all the principal streets, even in the
West End, were paved with stone setts, a hoarse
roar of traffic, unknown in these days of wood
pavements, filled the air unceasingly.
The Thames was unembanked, and fulfilled many
of the purposes of a cloaca maxima — the main drainage
system not being begun till many years later.
Smithfield, an open cattle market, was annually
the riotous scene of Bartholomew Fair, as it had
been since the Middle Ages. Frequent public exe
cutions took place before the adjacent prison of
Newgate, and unfortunate debtors still languished in
the Fleet and the Marshalsea.
The narrow course of Fleet Street was rendered
even more inconvenient by the projection of St.
Dunstan's Church into the roadway, wherein stood
many a venerable house which had looked down
upon the pageants of Stuart times.'
West of the Strand stood old Northumberland
House, fronting an unfinished Trafalgar Square.
The Houses of Parliament and the Royal Exchange
were only rising from their ashes, both having been
burnt down within Delane's recollection.
The business of the East India Company, the
members of which were virtually the sovereigns of
' Two such houses immediately west of the Adelphi Theatre are
still in existence.

38 LONDON IN 1840 [chap.h
Bengal, was transacted at their house in Leadenhall
Street, and no one had as yet dreamed of removing
the Courts of Law from their immemorial home at
Westminster. The neighbourhood to the west of the Abbey
remained until the formation of Victoria Street in
185 1 a kind of Alsatia, where poverty and crime
existed uncared for and unchecked.
Many of the aristocracy dwelt in what would now
be considered unfashionable quarters. The Berkeleys
had their mansion in Spring Gardens, where a whole
street of what were formerly well-inhabited houses
has recently been cleared away for the Admiralty
extension.' A branch of the Cavendish family was in possession
of old Burlington House, Lord Coventry had not
parted with what is now the St. James's Club, nor
had Lord Hertford (Thackeray's Lord Steyne) built
the fine house, now also a club, which stands next
to it in the hollow of Piccadilly. Old Cambridge
House was a royal residence, and there was not a club
in the street from end to end.
Hope House, now the Junior Athenaeum Club, at
the corner of Down Street, was the first private house
in the West End built in the French Renaissance style ;
and the handsome iron railing introducing the Hope
crest — a bursting globe — giving rise to the punning
motto, " At spes infracta," commemorates its first
owner at the present day.
The Rothschilds had made their home in Piccadilly
at 107 in the reign of George the Fourth, and about
1839 at 148, next to Apsley House. The history of
' In Delane's recollection a semaphore still stood on the roof of the
Admiralty, signalling messages in fine weather to the fleet at Spithead
from hill-top to hill-top.

i84o] LONDON IN 1840 39
Piccadilly in three centuries would constitute an
epitome of fashionable life in London, and perhaps
some day we may attempt it, although to trace the
successive ownership of every house would involve
enormous labour.
Though Lincoln's Inn Fields had been resigned to
the lawyers, Hanover Square was still mainly com
posed of private houses. A pond occupied the centre
of St. James's Square,' and where Grosvenor Crescent
now stands was the " Ring " or the " Corner," as it
was called indifferently — the earliest home of Tatter-
sail's. The Marble Arch stood in front of Buckingham
Palace, and Grosvenor Square was lit by oil lamps
when Delane first came to town.
A large part of Brompton and Chelsea consisted
of market gardens and nursery grounds ; and though
by 1840 Apsley House had lost its former designation
of "No. I, London," when once Sterling's house in
South Place, Knightsbridge,^ was passed, the road to
Kensington assumed a rural character, being lined
with detached mansions standing in large private
gardens. Of these Kingston House remains, though
the garden at the back has long been built over;
but of Gore House, on the site of the Albert Hall,
where D'Orsay kept an extravagant establishment with
Lady Blessington, until he was compelled to follow
Brummell into exile, all trace has disappeared.
The supremacy of Mayfair as the abode of fashion
was unquestioned, and its dinner-tables were en
livened by the flashing wit of Henry Luttrell (who
wrote the best metrical description of London since
' It was filled up in consequence of a cholera scare a few years
later. ' Originally the parsonage of Trinity Chapel, and, according to
Carlyle, the Mecca of the best literary society.

40 LONDON IN 1840 [chap.h
Gay's Trivia), of Sydney Smith and Samuel Rogers,
aU of whom Delane remembered in his youth.'
Belgravia — the real orphan of Pimlico — was scarcely
finished; South Kensington was not even begun.
Bloomsbury was chiefly affected as a place of resi
dence by judges and their satellites, and Tyburnia
as yet suggested only memories of the gallows. The
long avenue of Sloane Street connected Knights-
bridge with the barbarism of Chelsea, but people
who lived in Cheyne Walk and the picturesque
neighbourhood thereabouts beloved by Turner were
considered to be too far out of town to be included
in the Court Guides.
There were no monster hotels at the period we
speak of ; flats had not been invented, and there were,
of course, no trams or telegraphs, few, if any, omni
buses, and the new police were still called "peelers,"
after the Minister responsible for their introduction.
The first great railway to enter London was the
North-Western, to be followed at short intervals by
the Great Western and the Eastern Counties. The age
of steam was only beginning ; that of electricity had
not dawned. Despite the lack of means of com
munication and the length of time inevitably occupied
in course of transit to the provinces, the impression
is strongly borne in upon us that London in the
early years of Victoria must have been in many
respects a much pleasanter place to live in than it
is in these latter days of hurry, noise, and unrest.^
' Gronow, who, contrary to general belief, was never in the best
London society, was a minor celebrity chiefly remembered in connection
with Almack's and Crockford's.
' The late Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, of Up Park (a boon com
panion of the Prince Regent), who died in 1846 at a great age,
remembered the time when the joumey by road to London from his
home occupied two whole days, and lived to travel by rail from

,840] LONDON IN 1840 41
The population of the greatest city the world has
ever seen has nearly trebled since Delane was a young
man, and even since his death in 1879 changes have
taken place which have altered the face of London
almost beyond recognition.
In 1840 some five or six theatres supplied the
needs of West-End playgoers ; at the present day
the single street which so unworthily commemorates
that great philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury contains
a greater number, and by the irony of fate the best
of its remaining sites are filled by music-halls and
public-houses — a state of things which the London
County Council would do well to avoid in the case
of Kingsway. The music-hall as we know it had not
been invented in 1840, but as much and more harm
was caused to the morals of the young, then and
for thirty years later, by the absence of any fixed
hour for the closing of licensed houses.
For the purposes of outdoor recreation such places
as Richmond, Hampton Court, and Epsom were in
the early Victorian era delightfully rural, and quite
unspoilt by the speculative builder. That municipal
juggernaut the London County Council was undreamt
of, nor had the much-abused Metropoht.an Board of
Works been created to harass the ratepayer.
Turning for a moment to the state of the Arts, the
exhibition of the Royal Academy' was declared by
the reviewer to be an average collection of English
art, " though it is not likely to render the English
school — if English school there be — of painting one
single degree more eminent than it was before."
Petersfield in as many hours. A remarkable link with the past his
life presents, for his grandfather, who was bom in the reign of
Charles II., only died in 1762, when he was himself a boy of seven
years old.
' Noticed in The Times of May 6, 1840.

42 ART AND POLITICS IN 1840 [chap.h
The deficiencies of a host of indifferent pictures
were redeemed by one or two fine works from
Clarkson Stanfield's brush. Turner, though still a
contributor, was in his third and most incoherent
period, and, owing perhaps to the fact that Ruskin
had as yet written nothing about him, he was still
misunderstood and underrated. The fantastic ab
surdities of Etty hung on the line. Sir David Wilkie
and Maclise had established reputations, and Landseer
was beginning to be appreciated, but it was not
till many years later that the formation of the
pre-Raphaelite brotherhood gave a much-needed
stimulus to British art. In the kindred field of
Architecture the voice of Pugin was as one crying
in the wilderness.
Looking back on the history of the years since 1840,
we seem to be gazing, as it were, into the craters of
extinct volcanoes.
The inflammable matter which fed the fire of debate
in Parliament, and the fury with which each successive
step of political progress was discussed by the great
antagonists on either side, have been so utterly burnt
out and extinguished that we in this generation, who
dwell on the fertile soil of social and religious freedom
formed by those convulsions, can hardly realise the
bitterness of the political struggles of the Victorian
era, or accurately gauge the ability and courage of
the statesmen by whom each prize of our political
liberties was gained.
One, indeed, of these great controversies has
recently been revived, though so far the advocacy
of the protection of British industries and the pre
ferential treatment of our Colonies, as opposed to
the tenets of Cobdenite free trade which have for
half a century been predominant, has only resulted

,840] LORD LYNDHURST 43
in the shattering of one of the great parties in the
State after nearly twenty years of uninterrupted power.
It must, however, be admitted that the universal
free trade amongst the great nations of the earth, for
which Cobden strove, has never been attained or
even approached.
When Peel became Prime Minister for the second
time he was confronted by a lean and hungry people
crying out for bread, and by an empty exchequer.
Setting himself to remedy the second evil first, he
reintroduced the Income Tax as a purely temporary
measure, and paved the way for the repeal of the
Corn Laws by successive sweeping readjustments of
the tariff. Proceeding on the sound economic principle
that remission of duty must lead to an increase in
consumption, he reduced over seven hundred duties
in 1842, and by 1846 he had increased the number of
reductions to over a thousand and totally repealed
six hundred others.
Before the close of 1841 Delane had become
acquainted with Lord Lyndhurst, who had accepted
the Great Seal for the third time. Living to the patri
archal age of ninety-one, he was probably the oldest
man in public life with whom Delane was ever in
timate. Born at Boston before America was lost to the
mother country, he was of age at the outbreak of the
Napoleonic wars. Shortly after he became editor
Delane was admitted to the Confidence of a Minister
for whom he conceived an enduring admiration and
respect. This was Lord Aberdeen, who, both in
office and in opposition, addressed to him numerous
letters of political import, some of which will be
found on a later page. He also corresponded with
Lord Canning when Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs.

44 BENJAMIN DISRAELI [chap.h
From the first Delane set himself steadily to the
task of improving the quality of the writers for The
Times. He induced Roundell Palmer, whom he had
known at Oxford, to join his staff, and so early as
1 841 the future Lord Chancellor Selborne wrote
articles upon Church Rates and upon the proposed
Bishopric of Jerusalem. In October 1843 Palmer
wrote to Delane that he found it "too harassing to
a person of my constitution and habits to unite such
a pursuit with so much professional work as 1 may
now calculate upon as my regular lot, and as I fully
beheve that the old saying of Shakespeare, ' There
is a tide,' etc., is true, I am determined to push my
fortunes in the regular direction now that I seem to
have a fair opening."
In September of this year Delane took a short
holiday abroad, perhaps his first visit to the Continent,
visiting the Rhine, Ems, Schlangenbad, Aix, Brussels
and Ghent, but with the exception of one short letter
of no public importance, no record of his journey has
been preserved.
When we reach the year 1844 we find him corre
sponding with Disraeli, whose first letter was a
complaint of what he felt to be an inadequate review
of Coningsby.
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Gate,
Wednesday morning. May 15, 1844.
Dear Delane, Since the receipt of your kind note, I have been
awaiting with interest that more matured notice of
Coningsby to which it referred. And 1 must say 1
have read the article this morning with pain and
astonishment. I certainly should not take the liberty
of saying so much, had not your letter in some degree
authorised me, and at least shown that you took an

,844] DISRAELI AND CONINGSBY 45
interest in the work. 1 cannot bring myself to think
that the article is one " worthy of your journal " ; and
if it be " worthy of my book," I should nave looked to
your friendship to have prevented its insertion.
It calls public attention only to what it holds to be
faults ; it damns, and scarcely with faint praise. It
indeed does not recommend the book for a single good
quality. The notice in a hostile quarter. The Morning
Chronicle, is conceived in a much higher spirit of
appreciation : and certainly, considering the influence
of The Times, and the generally understood sympathy
of its columns with many of the topics treated in
Coningsby, the review is one calculated to do the
work very great injury.
This, whatever may have been the motives of the
writer, could not, 1 am sure, have been your object.
Believe me, very faithfully yours, B. Disraeli.
In this same year Lord Shaftesbury (then Lord
Ashley), who was attempting to restrict the hours of
labour in factories, and especially the working time
of children engaged in industrial occupations, first
appears amongst his regular correspondents.
Dasent, as we have said, was an occasional con
tributor to the paper before he became officially
connected with it, and the following letter from
Delane, dated " Printing House Square, June 26,
1844," whilst it evinces an irritability^rarely met with
in his writings, is interesting as being the earliest
which has been preserved of the long series of letters
which passed between the two after Delane became
editor :
I send you a proof of your letter, which, as you
have so long delayed writing it, can scarcely be the
worse for one more day's delay.
As 1 wish you to live long, and your eyesight, about
which you used to be anxious, to be spared you, I
would suggest that the next time you write for the
Press you should use one side only of the paper.

46 THE RHINE [chap.h
Unilaterality (there's a long word for you) is an
essential ingredient in a printer's happiness, and the
want of it is apt to call forth a volley of kind wishes
which, if all were attended to, would employ twice the
present number of dogs in leading about the blind
men they would produce. For the sake of both " eyes
and limbs " don't forget this, or that I always am very
faithfully your friend.
He again visited the Rhine in September 1845, and
wrote the two following letters to Dasent during his
absence from home :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
Bonn-on-the-Rhine,
Saturday.
As I have now been away exactly a week, 1
write, although with no especial news, to tell you how
we have done, and to ask how we have fared during
the first week of your empire. Our course has been
a very smooth one. I can only hope your week has not
seemed so long as ours has, for while ours has been
extended, in appearance, to at least a month by all
kinds of pleasant incidents, yours has only been made
long by an extension in the opposite direction.
To begin at the beginning, we got out of Ostend
almost as soon as we entered it, tore off to Bruges,
spent this night week there, heard the Carillon, saw
the Van Eycks — wondrous specimens of ill-directed and
laborious ingenuity — laughed at the Belgian soldiers,
pestered Walter about ravelins and counterscarps and
then started on Sunday afternoon for Antwerp. And
now 1 have to blow you up. You have been there,
you knew what the place is, and yet you (the pun is
too bad, or 1 would write Et tu " brute ") conspired
with Murray and the rest of the lie-writers to rob
Antwerp of its fair due and never told me, what is
undoubtedly the fact, that it is by very far the hand
somest and most interesting town in Belgium. In the
only strong point Brussels has, its streets and Places,
Antwerp beats it hollow, and in everything else is as
far superior to it as you are to John Marriott' We
' A messenger in The Times office.

,845] DELANE VISITS THE RHINE 47
left it on Tuesday, with much regret, and came to
another unjustly maligned town, Li6ge, thence ascended
the Meuse to Namur on Wednesday, descended ditto
on Thursday and came here, only stopping to dine at
Cologne, yesterday. The Meuse is lovely, and either
Huy or Namur well worth all the trouble. To-day we
have been to Godesberg and dined on the Drachenfels
(very good dinner, though highly anti-romantic), and
to-morrow we go either to Nonnenwerth or Coblentz
as we may then determine. . . . J. T. D.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Coblentz,
Tuesday.
1 received your note yesterday, and, as " the
smallest contributions are thankfully received," 1 was
very glad to get it. You forget, however, that 1
know literally nothing of what has been doing in
England. You tell me, for instance, that the South
wark Election has been a resource to you, when 1
don't know whether the Mole' or the Pilcher^ has
been the lucky man.
Pray send me a really good summary (not like
Tyars') to Heidelberg. The governor's letters, if he
has written any, have completely miscarried, and are
probably performing a tour in the Hamburg neigh
bourhood. Until yesterday the weather has been
splendid ; even now I have hopes that we shall not
have a break-up. Pray tell my mother that 1 mean to
write her a long letter from St. Goar, whither we go
in an hour's time.
You said truly that there was little need of German
in this country, but the polyglot they speak is infinitely
more puzzling than any one language. The following
was the answer I had last night to a question in
reasonably correct German :
"La premier Dampschiff part k 6 o'clock, the second
at neuf heures, the troisieme a elf heures precise."
We were at Stolzenfels yesterday, a pretty place
enough, but I should think quite maddening for a
Gothic architect. . . .
¦ Sir William Molesworth.
* Mr. Pilcher was Molesworth's unsuccessful opponent.

48 H. A. WOODHAM [chap.h
In 1844 the staff of The Times was reinforced by the
Rev. Thomas Mozley, Newman's brother-in-law, an
acute thinker, a man of vast and varied information,
and a very versatile and delightful writer. Being
an older man than most of his colleagues he was
affectionately called " The Father " in the office.
Thus far most of Delane's leader-writers had been
drawn from Oxford, but probably from the fact of
his having been up at Trinity with Mowbray Morris
before he migrated to Jesus, Henry Annesley Wood
ham (1814 — 1875), who began to write for the paper a
few years later, represented the sister University.
Little known outside the walls of Cambridge, he
exerted a powerful influence on the burning questions
of the day by his facile writing and trenchant criticism.
Fifth in the first class of the Classical Tripos in
1839, Woodham became a Fellow of Jesus in 1841.
He gained the Member's University Prize for the
best dissertation on Latin prose three times, twice as
an undergraduate and once when a B.A. Vacating
his Fellowship on his marriage, he was re-elected an
honorary Fellow of his college in 1862, by which time
he had become a widower. Tall, stately, and straight
as an arrow, his manners were charming and
courteous. He was perhaps the best conversation
alist in the University, holding his own with the
pick of Cambridge resident Fellows such as Munro,
Clark, the Shakespearean scholar, Thomson, and
Bateson.' In choosing Woodham as a leader-writer
Delane showed his true insight into character and
power, for his self-control was so perfect that what
ever might be his own feelings on a subject when
writing an article for his chief, he invariably showed
' From information kindly supplied by the present Master of
Jesus College, Cambridge.

,845-6] THE RAILWAY MANIA 49
himself absolutely fair and just in the views he
expressed. Blakesley, Vicar of Ware and Dean of
Lincoln, and George Stovin Venables, who joined
The Times a little later, were also Cambridge men.
Dr. W. H. Russell, who was at the time of his
death the last link with the early days of the Delane
regime in Printing House Square, when the elder
John Walter, who died in 1847, was the chief pro
prietor of the paper, joined the permanent staff fresh
from Trinity College, Dublin, about the year 1843,
while Reeve, who was for fifteen years Delane's
principal adviser on Continental politics, had served
for a brief period under Barnes.
Abraham Hayward, an older man than any of the
above, occasionally contributed to The Times, and is
aptly described by Bernal Osborne as the connecting-
link between the political and the literary magnates
of his time. Like Charles Greville, he never entered
Parliament, yet few men knew more of the secret
springs of government.
The exposure of the railway mania in 1845-6 by
The Times was only effected at a vast pecuniary loss
to the proprietors of the paper through the stoppage
of advertisements, but the gain to prospective investors
must have been incalculable. On November 17, 1845,
an elaborate analysis of the competing schemes placed
before a too credulous public was published in the
paper, from which it appears that in addition to
completed lines requiring additional capital there
were over twelve hundred projected railways, many
of them in direct competition with one another,
seeking to raise in the aggregate over five hundred
millions of money.
As far back as 1839 The Times had denounced the
duties on imported grain, while nearly all the other
vol. I 4

50 THE WET SUMMER OF 184S [chap, h
newspapers had supported them, and it offered a
vigorous opposition to the sliding scale, thus agree
ing for once with Cobden. The untiring exertions
of the Anti-Corn Law League, headed by him and
C. P. Villiers, had awakened the public conscience
to such an extent as to overshadow all other questions
of the day, but there was yet one other powerful
factor in the political considerations of the moment
which deserves to be held in remembrance.
The wet summer of 1845 caused a bad harvest in
England and the potato disease to appear in Ireland.
Thus in a sense the weeping skies " rained away the
Corn Laws," and the causes which contributed to
Peel's conversion to the policy of repeal may be said
to have been climatic as well as economic'
The Whigs had only proposed to give up the Corn
Laws when it was evident that the peril of the experi
ment would be the inheritance of their successors.
Peel's sliding scale had been tried in every form, and
every form had required a change, therefore the hour
had struck when a final solution of the question must
be attempted. On December 4 The Times created
a profound impression throughout the length and
breadth of England by announcing that —
Parliament is to be summoned for the first week in
January, and the Royal Speech will recommend an
immediate consideration of the Corn Laws, preparatory
to their total repeal. By the end of January at the
latest the produce of all countries will enter the British
market on an absolute equality with our own.
At the Cabinet Council held on December 2, Peel
had declared in favour of ultimate repeal, having
> Delane dispatched W. H. Russell and Thomas Campbell Foster
to report on the agricultural situation in Ireland, and the admirable
letters of the latter on the condition of the peasantry were republished
in book form in 1846. See Greville's Memoirs, Fetiruary 8, 1846.

,845-6] REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS 51
previously received an assurance from the Queen
that, in her opinion, the time had come when the
removal of the restrictions on the importation of food
could no longer be successfully resisted ; but, being
unable to carry Stanley and Buccleuch with him, he
tendered his resignation to the Sovereign. Lord John
Russell was unsuccessful in trying to form an alter
native Administration, and, after a Parliamentary
eclipse of little more than a fortnight. Peel was
restored to official life.
The events of the crisis of December 1845 are
skilfully summarised by Greville, and, as he frequently
revised his Journal in after-years with a view to
its posthumous publication, his account of Delane's
action at this momentous period of his life is un
doubtedly in all material points correct.
The communications which passed between Lord
Aberdeen and the editor of The Times were verbal, and
hardly a day passed without their meeting. Delane
was no doubt misled to a certain extent by Aberdeen,
in so far as he neglected to inform him in the first
instance of the dissensions in the Cabinet which led to
Peel's resignation, and the statement of The Times on
December 5 that " the heads of the Government had
agreed" on repeal was a more correct description of
the political situation than the startling announcement
of the day before, which led the public to believe that
the Cabinet had come to an unanimous decision.
The other London newspapers, which had, like the
Cabinet as a whole, been left without any definite
information, were struck with consternation, not
unmixed with envy. Old-fashioned Tories like Lord
Wharncliffe clung to the opinion expressed by The
Standard, that the whole story was a fabrication.

52 CABINET SECRETS [chap.h
The chief proprietor of The Times^ writing to
Delane on Sunday, December 7, 1845, said:
You must have given Baldwin ^ an enormous sum
to crown your triumph as he has done. If the plot
had been ever so deeply laid, it could not have been
more successful.
The market at Reading yesterday was but slightly
affected, not more than a shilling a quarter. The
denials of The Standard and Herald encouraged a
certain number of sceptics ; but the great majority of
the attendants were believers in The Times. Palmer
was there, but I did not see him. 1 heard that he had
expressed his disbelief as to Sir Robert becoming the
mover of the repeal.
I think it will be the best policy for the Govern
ment to allow matters to go on as they have done for
a little while longer, or as long as they can. Let the
different newspapers assert and contradict as much as
they please. . . . On the main topic, of course, your
ground is taken. The papers from the manufacturing
districts will be worth looking over to-night.
The wildest stories were circulated in town as to
how The Times had obtained its exclusive information.
A false and malicious report to the effect that the
news had been extracted from Sidney Herbert
through the blandishments of Mrs. Norton, and com
municated by her to Delane, obtained wide currency.
Such is the inveteracy of error that many years
afterwards this groundless insinuation was repro
duced (much to the annoyance of Sheridan's descend
ants) by George Meredith in his novel, Diana of the
Crossways, and from time to time paragraphs appear
in the newspapers and magazines perpetuating the
fiction. In the Autobiography of Sir William Gregory,
published in 1894, the additional blunder is committed
of stating that Mrs. Norton sold the information to
' John Walter, the second of that name, who died in 1847.
' The proprietor of The Standard

,846] SUPREMACY OF THE TIMES 53
Barnes for ;^Soo, whereas the latter had been dead for
four years.
Thus at a bound The Times achieved a supremacy
amongst its fellows which no one amongst them
could wrest from it ; and though, when Parlia
ment reassembled in January, the Queen's Speech
contained no direct reference to the Corn Laws, in the
course of the debate on the Address Peel declared that
his opinions on the subject of Protection had " under
gone a change," and that he could no longer undertake
to direct the course of the ship of State by observa
tions taken in 1842. Peel told Aberdeen that when he
made his last Protectionist speech in 1 842 he felt that it
was the last time he should speak against Free Trade.
Immediately before the meeting of Parliament
Greville addressed the two following letters to Delane,
which are interesting on account of the evident
sincerity of the writer, who was, like C. P. Villiers, a
convinced free-trader long before Cobden associated
himself with the movement :
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Place,
Monday Night, fanuary 12, 1846.
Dear Mr. Delane,
I have made some of my friends very angry by
my defence of Peel, but I don't care, because 1 am sure
I am right in giving him credit for publick-spirited
motives and having the good of our country at heart.
Whether I would have done as he did is another
question, and I cannot deny that the Protectionists have
a plausible case of grievance — in that there is plenty to
say on both sides. You have no idea what trouble I
have had to write this little paper on Lord GranviUe,'
for when I set to work I found there really was nothing
to say. What 1 have said, however, is strictly true.
Yours very truly,
C. G.
' An obituary notice of the first Earl Granville, who died January 6,
1846. He had been for many years British Ambassador in Paris.

54 REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS [chap, n
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane
Council Office,
Saturday, fanuary ly, 1846.
I return your article' with a great many
thanks, and without having struck anything out. 1
do not think there is anything to object to, but 1 am
not sure that I should not like it better if you could
alter the paragraph 1 have marked, though it is hardly
worth giving you that trouble, and 1 shall not care if
you leave it as it is. I have a sort of feeling about it,
that it casts a ridicule, and somewhat of a contemptuous
ridicule, which falls on Sir Robert, the Protectionists,
and the pamphleteer in different proportions. As you
invite me to be candid, I am, but I must repeat that 1
am well content as it is. I am aware you could not
very well go along with me in my defence of Peel;
indeed 1 have often felt it very difficult to answer
some of your assaults on him for the ambiguity of his
conduct, but I think, whatever may be thought of the
means he has employed, that he has a single object
throughout, and that is to remove a bad law in what
he thinks a safe manner. 1 think it only just to set
his motives, and the end he aims at, in the true light,
but my Whig friends will be very angry with me. 1
have just seen Lord Bessborough, who tells me there
will be the greatest difficulty in keeping the Liberal
Party together, and getting them to support any
measure short of total, immediate, and unconditional
repeal — that many will oppose anything else. He
does not defend or affirm this course, but says he is
sure it is so. There is, however, a great gathering at
Woburn to-day, where John Russell will talk over the
news with his staff A split among the Liberals, after
all, would be a pretty business, but 1 cannot believe in
this till 1 see it. Lord Home moves the Address in
the Lords. 1 don't believe they have got a seconder.
Yours very truly,
C. G.
Reeve stays at Paris for another ten days. 1 dare
say I shall hear something on Monday or Tuesday
from the Whig camp.
' On Greville's own publication on Sir Robert and the Corn Laws.

1846] DEFEAT OF PEEL 55
Disraeli attacked Peel with such vigour in the
debate on the Address that he thenceforward became
the recognised leader of a party— albeit a very small
one — until the landed interest discovered one more to
their taste in the person of Lord George Bentinck.
When Peel unfolded his scheme he laid stress on
the argument that if England adopted the principle
of Free Trade the other great nations of the earth
would be compelled to follow her example ; but,
while Cobden fixed five years as the outside period
which would be necessary to convert Europe to the
principle of free tariffs, Sir Robert, with greater
shrewdness, carefully abstained from assigning any
specific time for the fulfilment of his prophecy.
A Coercion Bill introduced into the House of
Commons in the same session proved the rock on
which the Administration split.
On the same evening' that the Corn Importation
Bill was passed by the House of Lords, Peel was
defeated in the Commons by seventy-three votes on
an amendment to the second reading of the Protection
of Life (Ireland) Bill. This manoeuvre, carefully timed
as it was, reflects no credit on its authors, as they had
supported the Government at an earlier stage of the
Bill. So fell, to rise no more, at the very climax of his
power, the greatest figure in the Parliamentary arena
since the days of Pitt.^
By carrying the abolition of the Corn Laws, Peel
translated a sentence of the Lord's Prayer into an Act
of Parliament, and Delane, in announcing it to the
world, acquired the reputation, which he never after
wards lost, of being the best-informed man in England.
' June 25, 1846.
' Lord John Russell was called to office in his stead, and held it till
two years after Peel's untimely death.

CHAPTER 111
LORD JOHN RUSSELL SUCCEEDS PEEL
Delane visits the South of France — Lord Aberdeen on the Spanish
marriages — Retirement of Mr. W. F. A. Delane from The Times
on the advice of the Rothschilds — Death of Mr. Walter, sen.—
His son elected at Nottingham — The Irish famine — Delane
called to the Bar at the Middle Temple — Year of European
Revolution, 1848 — The Chartists — Delane in Ireland — Smith
O'Brien's trial — Letter from Delane to Dasent describing it.
At the close of the memorable session of 1846 Delane
took a short holiday in the South of France, during
the course of which he wrote the following letter from
Bordeaux, which it was then only possible to reach by
the diligence :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Bordeaux,
September 21, Monday.
1 do think myself very hardly used. 1 wrote
to you every day in Paris. I was most anxious to
hear from you on a variety of matters, and yet when
I got here, whither all letters were to be addressed,
not one had arrived. 1 dare say you mean it, and my
father means it, all for the best ; but there is nothing
in the world more annoying when at the point where
one must decide upon one's further movements, than
to find none of the news upon which one ought to
act. At the hotel where I write this, the best in
the place, there is no other newspaper than
those brilliant luminaries the Memorial Eordelais and
LIndicateur de Bordeaux, and for aught I know there
may be a republic established in England, with Mr.
Walter as Dictator, or you may be standing for the West
56

,846] LORD ABERDEEN 57
Riding with John Marriott as a colleague. It is really
too bad that while I am pining for a letter, every
" John Smith " who writes to ask Vestris's precise age,
or how tall the Queen is, or when the Prince of Wales
cut his first tooth, gets an answer. It is quite the
adage of the shoemaker's wife. However, though
grievously disappointed, 1 can't be in a rage now, and
will reserve the rest of my blowing-up till I get back,
and act for the present as if all were going well —
we go to Pau on Wednesday morning.
My dinner to The Herald man in Paris was
apparently very successful : he was as reasonable as
could be wished, and promised everything. You
will probably have heard of him before this. The
next day we went to Tours, and spent there a
couple of days in visiting. I have spoken of divers
chateaux which enabled me to understand what I
have been all my life striving at, how French
men live in the country. At one of them, the
Comtesse de Bichemont's, I met a Madame de Peyronnet,
of whom you used to talk years ago. She remem
bered you quite well, and is still rather a handsome
woman. Her husband is a confirmed West Indian.
From Tours we came here by all manners of dillies
and steamboats, and find it a very fine but rayther dull
place. To-morrow we go to see the great vineyards
of Margaux and Medoc, and, as 1 have already told
you, the day after we go to Pau. The weather has
been charming. The vintage is in full operation —
grapes by waggons-full in all directions, and, except
that the dillies go slower every mile southwards, all
goes well. We are to be on Wednesday twenty-two
hours about one hundred and twenty miles ! Think
of the Great Western. From Pau we shall " bate our
retrate by Toulouse " and Limoges back to Paris.
There I hope to hear from my father and from you
at last, and wait orders. As ever, yours, John T. Delane.
On his return to London he resumed his corre
spondence with the apostle of non-intervention, Lord
Aberdeen, who was then living in retirement at
Haddo. The long rivalry between hira and Palmerston,

58 LORD ABERDEEN [chap, m
whose handling of foreign affairs was diametrically
opposed to that -of the other, is often revealed in
Aberdeen's letters. While the latter was trusted on
the Continent, he was not feared; Palmerston was
not only distrusted, but hated.
1 did everything in my power to smooth the
advent of Lord Palmerston to office (Aberdeen
wrote in November), but I found that the appre
hensions which existed at Paris were equally strong
in every Court in Europe ; and I believe that I may say
in America also. This state of feeling might easily
lead to mischief, and 1 never expected that the cordial
understanding with France, which depended so much
on personal confidence, could possibly have any long
duration. Had' Lord Aberdeen remained in office, the Mont-
pensier marriage would not in all probability have
taken place, but the irritation which it undoubtedly
gave rise to in this country caused the relations of
England and France to become decidedly strained, an
absurd and irrational degree of importance being
attached to the Spanish marriages so far as English
interests were supposed to be affected by them.
They lost the Orleans dynasty the support of
England — the only friend it had in Europe.
You have at this moment a great deal in your
power (writes Aberdeen to Delane a little later in
the same month). 1 may almost say that the
question of peace or war is in your hands. A little
more excitement may place it beyond control in both
countries, and 1 need not tell you how much 1 incline
to a pacific course.
One of Delane's correspondents at this period was
that ill-treated patriot Lord Dundonald, and his letters
are full of gratitude to the editor for his advocacy of

,846-7] THE TIMES AND LOUIS PHILIPPE 59
the admiral's claim to be reinstated as a Knight of the
Bath. His banner, it will be remembered, had been
unceremoniously kicked out of Westminster Abbey,
to which it was only restored after his death. Lord
Dundonald's letters, too long to be reproduced here,
contain frequent allusions to that mysterious " secret
war plan" for destroying the enemies of England
which remains a secret still, and also to the intro
duction of steam into the Navy. This he was the
first to advocate, and the machinery of the frigate
Janus, which he persuaded the Admiralty to try in
1847, was constructed mainly from his own designs.
1846 closed, and the New Year opened somewhat
inauspiciously for Delane. The financial state of the
paper, consequent upon the exertions made in the
two previous years to increase its efficiency by
the development of a system of " express " messages
from abroad, had afforded the proprietors an oppor
tunity of criticising adversely the business management
of their property.
In 1845 The Times, having made itself obnoxious
to Louis Philippe by its strictures on the morality
of French policy, the King and Guizot determined to
prevent the paper from obtaining its information
from India at the same time as the other continental
mails. The Times courier having been detained in
Paris through an alleged informality in his pass
port, the paper organised a special service of its
own from Suez to Alexandria, thence to Trieste
and vid Ostend to Dover. Intelligence from the East
thus reached London in time to be printed in the
paper and read in Paris before the rest of the Indian
mail had passed through that city.
After a further struggle the French Government

6o INFLUENCE OF THE TIMES [chap, m
recognised that it was hopeless to overcome the
resourceful energy of the second John Walter, and
that it had not the power to dictate the terms
upon which news should be conveyed to the Press
of a foreign country.' But these great exertions
meant also a vast outlay, and in consequence of a
difference of opinion between the proprietary and
the financial management, Mr. W. F. A. Delane
severed his connection with The Times. This step
was taken on the advice of the Rothschilds, to
whom the matters in dispute had been referred for
arbitration. By retiring from Printing House Square and
accepting a legal appointment he hoped to secure
his son's position at the office, and also that of his
son-in-law, as Dasent had now become.^
But the youth of both the editor-in-chief and
of his assistant was in itself an element of danger,
for the exercise of such great power as Delane had
attained to created too much envy to be enjoyed
with entire security. Uncertainty of tenure is pro
verbial in official life, and we gather from numerous
entries in Delane's diary that he felt his position at
this time to be a precarious one.
The chief proprietor, who was in failing health,
retained feelings of gratitude to the young editor
for having effected in 1844 a reconciliation, with
Lord Aberdeen's help, between himself. Sir Robert
Peel, and Sir James Graham, after a quarrel with
them on the Poor Law question.
' Notes upon the History of^'' The Times," by S. V. Makower, 1904.
* In 1848 Mr. W. F. A. Delane was invited to assume the manage
ment of The Moming Chronicle when it became the property of the
Duke of Newcastle, Lord Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, and others of the
Peelites. Mr. Delane died at Hellesdon, near Norwich, the residence of
his eldest son, on July 29, 1857, and was buried at Easthampstead, Berks.

,847] DEATH OF MR. WALTER 61
The course of events in Printing House Square
was, however, determined by circumstances beyond
human control. Mr. Walter's health grew rapidly
worse, and on July 28, 1847, he died.'
On the same day his son, John Walter (the third
of that name), a contemporary of Delane's at Oxford,
was elected at Nottingham, though absent from the
borough in consequence of his bereavement. On
this Delane remarked that he had done better than
Csesar, for he came, saw, and conquered, whereas
Walter neither came nor saw, but conquered !
The Nottingham " lambs " were notoriously difficult
to manage at election time, and it was customary to
overawe the more turbulent of them by prize-fighters
hired for the purpose, as Bernal Osborne was to find
to his cost some years later.
In a witty speech he made at the commencement
of the contest at Nottingham in 1866, Osborne said,
"1 come to ask your votes, not as lambs that are
to be dressed with mint sauce, but as independent,
reasoning Englishmen." Speaking of the same con
stituency on another occasion, he said, " The Notting
ham lambs come very late into the market, and are
very tough to digest."
The new proprietor of The Times was a man of
hberal opinions, conspicuous common sense, and
great business capacity, but the electors of Notting
ham in 1847 appear to have had a fondness for
contrasts, since they chose for their junior member
Feargus O'Connor, the half-crazy creature who was
responsible for the Chartist fiasco of 1848.
' " He was a strange man, and in many respects a hard one, but still
by no means destitute of good. Towards myself his kindness was
undeviating and extreme until these late unhappy troubles ; but even
then he appeared to experience a true pleasure in making up with
me."— Delane's Diary, July 28, 1847.

6^ THE IRISH FAMINE [chai>. m
Parliament had been called together early in 1847
on account of the horror excited in the public mind
by the Irish famine as described from day to day in
The Times. The report of the Devon Commission
had shown that the people were worse housed,
worse fed, and worse clothed than in any European
country, but no action had hitherto been taken by
the Government.
All too late the soil of Ireland was watered with
English gold, but owing to a deplorable lack of
organisation, thousands of the peasantry died before
relief could reach them in their wretched cabins.
The lingering seeds of disease produced in the course
of the ensuing year a foul crop of disaffection and
outrage, which required the utmost vigilance of the
new Lord-Lieutenant (Lord Clarendon) to repress.
To his credit be it said that for a long time he vindi
cated the law without applying for extraordinary
powers of coercion, and in suppressing outbreaks
amongst the Celtic peasantry he wisely declined the
proffered services of the Orange lodges.
The few extracts from Delane's diary for 1847
which follow are given here because he did not
resume the practice of keeping a full record of his
movements until 1854.
In April he visited Woodham at Cambridge
" spending the whole day, though a very wet one,
in walking about and seeing the colleges."
On the ISth of the same month he wrote: "This
evening the King of Prussia's speech arrived from
Berlin, and as it was not translated Dasent had
a long job at it. Unluckily we had agreed to
share the express with the other papers, and so
they claimed our translation. I gave it to them,
but wrote a note to John Walter protesting against

,847] IRISH POOR LAW 6i
our being thus obliged to confer upon them advantages
which they did nothing for."
April 17, 1847.— Went with Mozley and Dasent
to the new House of Lords and were much pleased
with its magnificence and general effect. Went after
wards to Reeve, thence to Greville, where 1 saw
the Solicitor-General, and thence to call on Lord
Aberdeen, who was from home.
April 21.— Called on Le Marchant and had a long
talk on all subjects, but principally upon the inten
tions of the Government as to. the admission of Jews
to Parliament, in which, on Rothschild's behalf, I am
interested. On May i Delane saw Greville and Lord Granville,
and had a long talk with D. Salamons upon currency
and banking. " Saw also Lord Clarendon, and talked
about Portugal." The correspondence of Lord
Clarendon with Delane, which lasted till the death
of the former in 1870, would alone fill a volume.
May 3, 1847. — Called on Lord Aberdeen, whom I
found, 1 think, a little tired of inaction, though con
stantly professing his relief at being out of office.
His faith in Guizot is still unabated, and his desire
to keep the peace with France as great as ever. In
talking of Peel, he said that William IV. had pressed
him to accept a peerage in terms altogether unprece
dented between a sovereign and a subject, and that
in the same manner he had been employed by the
Queen to request his acceptance of the Garter, but
that Peel had uniformly refused to receive any favour
whatever. He praised the Queen greatly for her truly
constitutional spirit.'
The Government was beaten twice in the House of
Lords on the Irish Poor Law, and on May 7 Delane went
to see Le Marchant at the Board of Trade to learn
the intentions of the Ministry upon their late defeats.
' Delane's Diary.

64 BROUGHAM AND DELANE [chap, m
" Le Marchant had not much to tell, no decided
course having being determined on."
The next day he writes :
Le Marchant called and told me a good deal,
among other things that at the break-up ofthe Whig
Government, upon Lord Althorp going to the Upper
House, his impression was that Lord Morpeth was
the only man to undertake the office of Premier, and
told the Queen so. How he has tailed off since !
May 12, 1847. — Dined at the Mansion House to
meet the Ministers. A large muster, and Sir' Harry
Smith as the lion.
In the course of the year he had made friends
with Lord Brougham, and their intimacy continued
unbroken till the latter's death in 1868.
May 23. — Dined in Park Place.' Met Lord de Lisle
and Miss Sidney, Mr. Rogers, Macready, Meyer Roth
schild, Miss Courtenay, and two or three foreigners.
Sat next Miss Sidney, who has written a novel.
May 29. — After hurrying home, 1 had barely time
to dress and go to the Temple, where, having been
duly arrayed, 1 was in due form "called." J. Dasent,
Foster, and Clark made my call party. G. Loch was
called at the same time, and as Reeve was one of his
party we together made one, and passed a pretty
comfortable evening.
Precisely what object Delane had in view in being
called to the Bar does not appear, but it is certain
that he never practised. He may have been advised
to join the profession by Lord Brougham, who had
been in his younger days a leader-writer for The
Times at a salary, it is said, of ;£'ioo a month.
Brougham may also have told Delane of his versa
tility in connection with the press. Lawyer-like in
earning a double fee he is said to have written an
admirable article for The Moming Chronicle completely
' ? The Twisses.

,847] SERJEANTS' INN 65
demolishing one which he had written for The Times
the day before.
About this time Delane went to live at No. i6,
Serjeants' Inn, Temple, in an old house which
had a certain quiet dignity of its own from its
good panelled woodwork and well-designed staircase.
The drawing on th eaccompanying page represents the
entrance to the morning-room on the first floor, in
which for thirty years Delane was in the habit of
receiving his visitors. The house has been much
altered in recent years, and some of the rooms,
amongst them the dining-room, which has seen so
many gatherings of wit and intellect, have been sub
divided, but the seventeenth-century woodwork is for
the most part still intact'
Sunday, May 30. — Went for an hour to a party
at Macready's, where I saw Carlyle, Buller, etc.
June 18. — Called by appointment on the Roth
schilds, who are very anxious about the City election
and are pressing for support.
June 26. — Sat up late and went to Rothschild's
house in Piccadilly to assist him in preparing his
address. Saw there Sir Anthony and the Baroness.
Having finished the address advised him to take
Lord John Russell's opinion upon it.
June 28. — Saw the Rothschilds again to approve
some omissions Lord John Russell had suggested
in his address.
' The larger houses on the south side of this quiet court have also
many interesting associations. Built shortly after the Great Fire of
London, in most of them the interior fittings and decorations are of a
high order, all the principal rooms having massive old mahogany doors
with brass hinges. Lord Erskine lived at No. 1 1 when at the height
of his fame, and after procuring the acquittal of Home Tooke on
October 20, 1794, his carriage was dragged here by an admiring
crowd. At No. lo is preserved a staircase of remarkable merit.
Lord Chancellor Truro had a house on this side of the inn, and at the
back were formerly pleasant gardens abutting on the Temple, of which
Serjeants' Inn has always been reckoned as a limb.
VOL. I 5

66 ENGLAND AND FRANCE [chap, m
The following letter from Lord Aberdeen referring
to the possibility of Sir Robert Peel's return to
office will be read with interest:

Lord Aberdeen to J. T. Delane Haddo House,
July 12, ,847.
My dear Sir,
You are right in supposing that I should read
with great pleasure the article in The Times which
you had the goodness to send me. You have un
doubtedly welcomed the Due de Broglie, and bid
adieu to M. de Ste. Aulaire, in the most friendly and
cordial manner. But you have said no more than
was well deserved by both of them.
Having expressed the real gratification I have
received from the article in question, you must per
mit me to say that since I left London I have read
a good deal in the same quarter which has produced
a very different impression. Indeed, I cannot regard
without serious apprehension the persevering and
senseless rancour with which the French Govern
ment is attacked, and especially the personal hostility
i to M. Guizot, unquestionably the most friendly to
England, and to English interests, of any French
Minister since the Restoration. I believe his policy
and sentiments to be still unchanged; but nations
and governments, as well as individuals, will at
\ length resent repeated insult.
We have some weighty matters now impending
over us, which we are not likely to bring to any
friendly issue, unless we get rid of much of that
passion and prejudice by which we have recently been
governed. From the great influence which you exercise over
publick opinion, I have frequently told you that
I thought the peace of the two countries would
be materially affected by the course which you
should think proper to pursue. I shall watch your
language with interest, believing that it will do much
to regulate the general feeling of the country; and
I suppose that I shall not be wrong in regarding

Sk,

THE STAIRCASE AT l6, SERJEANTS' INN, TEMPLE, DELANe's
LONDO.V HOUSE. [To face p. 66, Vol. I

,847] DELANE IN PARIS 67
it as some indication of the sentiments of the
Government. With respect to our domestick and Party prospects,
I have no means of forming any very correct opinion ;
and you know that 1 ftel little interest in these
matters. The speculation you mention, according to
which the result of the ensuing election is ultimately
to restore Sir R. Peel to office, may possibly be well
founded ; but I confess that I see no probability that
such should be the case. Neither have 1 the least
reason to suppose that his own wishes and determina
tion on this subject are in any degree changed.
Believe me, my dear sir, very truly yours,
Aberdeen.

July 29. — To my great relief Rothschild, after
several variations of the numbers, was this day re
turned for the City. 1 saw the Baroness afterwards
in a state of almost frenzied delight and gratitude.
July 30. — Saw Rothschild with his brothers
Anthony and Nathaniel in the City and , was over
whelmed with thanks.
July 31. — Dasent and I went down to Oxford and
voted for Gladstone there.' We dined with Johnson
and saw Jacobson, T. Mozley, and many other old
acquaintances.^ In September Delane was in Paris again, where
he witnessed the funeral of Marshal Oudinot.
It was very splendid indeed (he wrote to Dasent),
better worth seeing than anything of the kind I
had ever met with. I have written a short story
about the doings at the Invalides which perhaps may
be worth publishing, but pray read it yourself, for I
have written in much haste and probably very incor
rectly. Perhaps, too, though the thing itself pleased
me, the description will interest nobody.
' Gladstone was retumed for the University after a sharp contest,
' Diary.

68 DR. JACOBSON [chap, m
In this connection it has been stated in print that
Delane wrote nothing in the paper which he edited for
so many years. But this is not strictly accurate.
He did not write much, but he knew how to write,
and that better than most men. Much that appeared
in The Times under the head of leading articles was
so amended by his pen that it was in reality Delane's
handiwork, and his ablest writers, instead of feeling
impatient at his alterations and corrections, were
free to confess that he had much improved their
composition. In this he acted in his full right, for
he alone was responsible for what was published.
In the autumn Delane was able to do his old tutor
Jacobson a good turn. To Sir Charles Wood, who
had written to ask him what were the latter's qualifi
cations for the vacant Regius Professorship of Divinity,
he wrote :
J. T. Delane to Sir Charles Wood
,6, Serjeants' Inn,
November 21, 1847.
Dear Sir Charles,
The best way of answering your question is
to tell you all I know about Mr. Jacobson.
He is about forty years of age, and became Vice-
Principal of Magdalen Hall fifteen years ago [1832].
He had before been fellow of Exeter. When he was
appointed to the Hall, it was in the lowest possible
repute. It had never borne a good character, and
under Dr. Macbride had sunk into a kind of by
way to a degree for the convenience of country
schoolmasters. Entirely unassisted and with very
inadequate remuneration, he has made so good a
College of it that in point of numbers it is the third
or fourth in the University, and has been by no means
undistinguished in the Class List.
Jacobson, however, has not, as most tutors do, by
any means confined himself to tuition. His work on
the Apostolic Fathers, of the third edition of which
1 enclose a title-page, is admitted to be of the highest

,847] AND ANiESTHETlCS 69
reputation, and has had a sale almost unprecedented
among books of that character. He has also edited
Noels Catechism, an early liturgical work of high
authority, and has published some sermons which
have reached a second edition. He is decidedly
Liberal in politics, and has always expressed opinions
in favour of your scheme of education. 1 enclose a
sermon which he preached on the Queen's last birth
day, with a few marked passages, which may be worth
your reading.
Besides any claims which his literary character may
give him, he has the rare merit of having kept himself
uncompromised to either of the Church parties in
Oxford, and I believe that his appointment as Regius
Professor would be acceptable on all sides.
Believe me, Sir Charles, your faithful servant,
John T. Delane.

Many years later Delane was instrumental in
procuring, on Lord Palmerston's recommendation, a
mitre for the same friend ; Jacobson being elevated
to the see of Chester in 1865.
The year ends with a letter from Charles Greville,
mentioning the discovery of anaesthetics and an early
instance of the successful use of chloroform.
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Place,
Friday morning {f Dece^mber 24, 1847).
I send you a letter from my brother-in-law [Lord
EUesmere], on the Defence of the Country question,
which I think will be read with some interest,
as 1 have persuaded him to put his name to it.
It was originally much longer, but 1 took it in hand,
and by many corrections and excisions have worked
it into a very tolerable article, as I hope you will
think. The conclusion of Johnny's correspondence
with the Bishop of Exeter is amusing. By the bye,
1 went yesterday to the hospital to see a chloroform
operation. It was a good trial of it, and perfectly

70 COBDEN AND WELLINGTON [chap, m
successful. When do you mean to corae and see
the statue at Apsley House ? There is nobody there
now, however. Yours, C. G.
Although Delane accepted the principle of Free
Trade, he was no admirer of the Manchester school,
and if there was one thing he abhorred, it was what
is now called a Little Englander. In a speech made
at Manchester in January 1848 Cobden attacked the
Duke of Wellington in unmeasured terms for having
called attention, in a letter published in The Morning
Chronicle, to the parlous state of the national defences.
Cobden's one and only idea of foreign policy was
.the promotion of trade, and that of the calico printers
in particular.
No mention of this gross attack upon the Duke will
be found, where we might expect to find it, in Mr.
Morley's Life of Cobden, but from the newspapers of
the day we see the mischievous nonsense which the
apostle of Free Trade considered good enough for
the cotton operatives of Manchester.
When suffering acutely from that political disease
known as swelled head, he said :
I do not profess to have the veneration which some
men entertain for successful warriors. . . . His Grace
is tottering on the verge of the grave. Is it not a most
lamentable spectacle that the hand which is no longer
capable of wielding a sword should devote its still
remaining feeble strength to the penning of a letter
more calculated, in the present day, to excite evil
passions and animosities in the breasts of two great
and neighbouring nations ? I do not claim for civilians
a perfect knowledge of the horrid trade of war — I only
stipulate for this, that while in a state of profound
peace, it is for the taxpayers of England to decide
whether you will run the risk of war and keep your

,848] THE REVOLUTION IN PARIS 71
money in your pockets, or whether you will allow
an additional number of men in red coats and blue
jackets to live in idleness under pretence of protecting
you. And though this amazing utterance was greeted with
cheers, for the credit of Manchester it should be added
that the leading paper in the town' condemned the
speech as unworthy of its author and an undeserved
reproach upon the Duke. " We know of no right," it
said, " that Mr. Cobden has to set himself up as a
judge of other men's duty, or as the director of their
conduct of public affairs."
A vigorous rejoinder was published by Delane in
The Times of February 2, in the form of a letter from
Charles Greville.^
Lord John Russell, following Peel's precedent of
184s, introduced the Budget in person, proposing
an immediate increase of the income tax, but his
references to France were considered injudicious, and
a reaction towards retrenchment soon followed.
On February 23 Greville writes : " Delane had a
long interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(Sir Charles Wood) yesterday, who told him that
he had been driven to his present expedient^ by the
deplorable eff'ect of Lord John's speech."
But while the House and the country were still
considering the increase of the income tax and
the question of arraaraents, the Government of Louis
Philippe collapsed like a pack of cards, and anarchy
reigned in Paris.
' The Manchester Guardian, January 29, 1848.
' Reprinted in the Greville Memoirs ; see also his Journal for
February 8, 1848.
' A proposal to refer the Army and Navy Estimates to a secret
Committee. This was, however, speedily abandoned as impracticable,
as indeed was the augmented income tax.

72 THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE [chap, hi
On Monday ' a reform banquet had been prohibited
by the authorities. On Tuesday and Wednesday
open rioting prevailed in the streets, and the Bank of
France closed its doors. By Thursday the King had
abdicated, and on Friday the garrison of Vincennes
and the detached forts around Paris surrendered to
the people and declared for a Republic.
The Times received news in advance of the Govern
ment, notwithstanding the interruption of the postal
service, and announced it to the world. In an extra
ordinary issue of the paper on Sunday morning ^ it
brought its record of events down to the evening of
the previous Friday, in a separate sheet, issued gratis
to subscribers.
A copy of this issue lies before us as we write, and
must now be very rare, since no copy of it exists in
the file of the paper at the British Museum :
THE revolution IN FRANCE
Our Paris letters of Friday evening continue briefly
the narrative of events passing in the metropolis of
France. " I announced to you this morning," says our corre
spondent, " the surrender of the Fortress of Vincennes
to the people. 1 ought to have said that the garrison
has declared for the Republic. Since then the Military
School and, I believe, all the other depots of artillery,
army, and aramunition have equally been occupied
by the people. The detached forts will all have been
taken possession of in the course of the day.
" You will readily believe that all is agitation and
excitement here. There is not the slightest tendency
to ill-humour visible. The streets are filled literally
with the inhabitants of Paris and its vicinity, who
proceed to visit the various points at which occurred
one or other of the memorable events of the last three
days. " The Chateau of the Tuileries is naturally the prin-
' February 2,. * February 27.

,848] SUNDAY ISSUE OF THE TIMES 73
cipal object of attraction. Much of the furniture has
been removed or destroyed, but little or no plunder
was perpetrated. In this respect the people of 1848
have worthily imitated the conduct of the men of July,
1830. All who presented themselves yesterday were
allowed to view and visit the Palace ; and, on leaving,
all were searched and deprived of every thing that
they might have been tempted to purloin for souvenirs.
One man caught in the fact of plundering was shot
instantly; two others were found dead drunk in the
cellars. " Than this nothing more honourable for the national
character could be adduced. Throughout the whole
of the troubles of France, and the series of sufferings
inflicted on them by distress, pillage of private resi
dences has never been committed. ' War to the
Chateau' was proclaimed and acted upon, but sheer
positive robbery never took place. 1 am induced to
dwell on these facts because of the feeling of alarm
abroad lest the city be pillaged by the malefactors
known to be present in the capital. There is a
romantic, and what is better a genuine, sense of
honour in the hearts of the people, that will this
time, as hitherto, distinguish them.
"The Provisional Government has ordered the for
mation of 24 battalions of National Guards, to be
composed of the citizens whose circurastances would
not enable them to clothe themselves and give their
service gratis. They are to receive the moderate pay
of 30 sous per day. This will be a beneficial measure
at a time when so many are out of employment.
Fortunately the Treasury is rich, and well able to
bear that expense, and others contemplated for the
amelioration of the condition of the people in this
season of distress.
" The formation of two corps d'armee — one on the
Rhine, the other in the departments of the Alpes —
is seriously entertained. In short, the Provisional
Government is energetic, and determined to exert
themselves for the benefit of the country.
" I refer you to the papers for details. It is said
that the printing presses of the Moniteur have been
destroyed. " All business is at an end.
" The Bourse is closed.

74 THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE [chap, m
" The Syndicate was to meet to-day to agree that all
the time bargains of the month be settled at the medium
price. Most of (1 believe all) the banks are closed,
and money, of course, not to be had. This is very
deplorable, but let us hope it will not long endure."
A telegraphic dispatch from Dover inforras us that
the Duke of Neraours and part of the ex-King's family
have arrived.
They may, we believe, be motoentarily expected in
London. In the course of Friday several proclamations were
published by the Provisional Government. One of
them offered to dress and arm the citizens who wished
to enlist in the National Guards, and to pay them at
the rate of 30 sous per day. Another decreed the
formation of 24 battalions of movable National Guards
to march to the frontier. A third, addressed to the
army, invited the soldiers not to desert their banner,
France standing in need of all her children. A fourth
proclaraation announced the surrender of the Castle of
Vincennes and the detached forts round Paris, the
garrisons of which had recognised the authority of
the new Governraent, and the receipt of numerous
adhesions from the departments.
The annexation of Belgium to France, and the
extension of the frontiers of the Republic to the
Rhine, appear to be the main objects of the new
Government. There had been only a very trifling disturbance at
Boulogne, and a few windows were broken.
There was no embargo at the port of Boulogne upon
ingress or egress to or from France.'
Delane communicated the news he had received to
the Duke of Wellington, and his reply, marked " im
mediate and private," thanking him for a copy of the
"intelligence received this day from Paris," is dated
frora Apsley House, " Sunday, February 27, 1848,
at night." The same evening Greville wrote him
a few additional particulars received from Lord
Normanby :
' The correspondent in Paris who communicated this intelligence
to Delane was John Palgrave Simpson.

,848] FLIGHT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 75
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane Travellers',
Sunday Night.
You shall have every scrap of intelligence I can
give you. Normanby writes word that it is reported
at Paris that Guizot is taken. He does not know it
for certain, but appears to believe it. The people who
came to-day are Mons. and Madame Delessert (Prdfet
de Police), the Due de Nemours and his sister the
Princess Clementine (1 forget her raarried name, she
is a Duchess of Coburg of some sort) ; yesterday, the
Due de Montebello and Duchesse de Coigny. Due
de Nemours and Delessert were both disguised, and so
well that they did not know each other. Nobody
knows for certain where the King and Queen are, but
it is believed they went to Dreux — not to stay there
probably — neither is it known where the Duchesse
de Nemours or the Duchesse d'Orleans is ; the latter
was taken from the chamber of D. to the Invalides ;
it is said (but nobody knows how true) that when
Vincennes was summoned, the Due de Montpensier,
who was governor of it, wanted to resist, but as
the troops would not, and insisted on submitting
to the Provisional Government, he offered his own
adhesion likewise. You must take this for what it is
worth, but to-morrow will no doubt confirm or contra
dict it. The more one hears of the details the more
extraordinary and unaccountable the conduct of the
principal actors appears, and the more marvellous the
revolution — nobody seeras to have shown the least
wisdom, resolution, firmness, courage. Yours truly, C. G.
Of course the report of Guizot's being here must
be fabulous.' I had never heard a whisper of such a
thing. Much uncertainty prevailed as to Guizot's fate, but
he contrived to escape arrest, and reached England on
the sarae day as Louis Phihppe.
' He arrived in England on March 3.

76 UNREST IN EUROPE [chap, m
Lord Aberdeen to J. T. Delane Argyll House,
March 3, 1848.
My dear Sir,
Your note last night was most welcome, and 1
rejoiced at being wakened to receive it. The contents,
however, are unfortunately not confirraed this morning;
and 1 cannot but think it highly probable that M. Guizot
is still in Paris. If he should be able, by a temporary
concealment, to prevent himself from being torn in
pieces by the mob, it would accord with his character
and resolution to remain and meet his trial. I hope he
may be better advised ; but even if he should attempt
to escape, it must be admitted that he would incur
great danger.
Should you hear anything certain, pray have the
goodness to inform me. Very truly yours,
Aberdeen.
The Vicomte de Jarnac has just told me that the
King and Queen are arrived at Newhaven.
It will be unnecessary to trace in detail the disorders
which broke out in other foreign countries — in
Hungary, in Italy, and in Germany — in this year of
European Revolution. At horae the Government had
to deal with the Chartists and Feargus O'Connor,
and in Ireland with Smith O'Brien and Mitchel,
agitators of a less formidable type than Mazzini and
Kossuth. Threats were freely made that London would be
sacked and burnt some time in the month of April,
and Delane received notice that The Times office was
marked out for destruction.
The harmless explosion on Kennington Common'
ended, however, not in smoke, but in ruin, so far as
Chartism was concerned.
' April 10.

,848] SMITH O'BRIEN'S INSURRECTION tj
In Ireland Lord Clarendon had greater difficulties
to contend with. In March the situation had become
threatening, and, waxing bolder by the immunity
enjoyed from prosecution, the treasonable Press of
Dublin, headed by The United Irishman, exhorted the
people to sweep the country clear of British butchers
and plant the green flag of liberty on the Castle.
After the death of O'Connell the Young Ireland
party, which did not endorse the Liberator's aversion
to physical force, got the upper hand.
Mitchel, the editor of The United Irishman during
its brief journalistic life of three months, having
openly incited his countrymen to rebellion, was
arrested in May, and Smith O'Brien's insurrection
was suppressed in July, after the Habeas Corpus Act
had been suspended. The House of Commons passed
the Bill through all its stages at a single sitting.
The following letter from the Lord Lieutenant to
Delane, besides giving a vivid account of the dis
turbed state of the country, sufficiently explains the
promptitude with which he acted so soon as Parliament
entrusted him with the necessary powers :
Lord Clarendon to J. T. Delane
Vice-Regal Lodge [Dublin],
fuly ¦z'jth, 1848.
My dear Mr. Delane,
You have done us right good service here, and
1 am much obliged to you. The clubs here are in a
state of rout, and the manner in which the Bill passed
both Houses, the proclaiming Dublin, the search for
arms, and a proclamation not of a very mild character
I issued last night, together with an arrest or two
to-day, have disconcerted the rebels, and inspired
confidence among the classes who have anything to
lose. Even the Ulster Repealers had begun to under
stand the real object of the movement, and to see that

78 LORD CLARENDON ON IRELAND [chap, m
the " three infamous days " of Paris were in store, not
for Dublin only, but every city in Ireland, ending in a
red Republic.
In the country, however, things are not going on so
well. I have just heard (half-past 1 1 a.m.) that Smith
O'Brien has at length taken the field, and in a fine
uniform, armed with pike and pistols, and at the head
of 2,000 armed men, had summoned the Police Station
at MuUinahone (borders of Tipperary) to surrender.
The force had been withdrawn fortunately, as there
were only a few men, and we have called in all the
small and outlying military and constabulary detach
ments. I don't vouch for the truth of the statement,
but I think it must be true, for the Government
reporter is just returned from Kilkenny, and heard it
there from the County Inspector (of Constabulary).
Meagher and Dillon, who had been going about
with O'Brien (eluding the warrants out against them
all), had separated from him, each to bring up their
respective forces.
If ever there was an utterly inexcusable traitor it is
Smith O'Brien.
Every day brings to light fresh proofs of the extent
to which the conspiracy has been carried, and the
enormous preparations that were making to ensure
the success of the Rebellion. If it had been allowed
to go on tin after the harvest, we should have had to
reconquer the country — the araount of assistance
received from America appears to be considerable,
and sympathisers with whole cargoes of arms and
ammunition are said to be on their way — a pretty
outcry there would have been in the United States if
an Englishman had taken any part against their
abominations in Mexico, which did not belong to
them! I fear we have little chance of getting a bold jury
to try Dillon and Co. on the 8th of next month. The
Mitchel jury have been exposed to every species of
insult and annoyance, and some of them have been
seriously injured in their business. The raost atrocious
threats are now circulated against those likely to be on
the next juries, and the shopmen who are members of
clubs (and they ah are) tell their masters the horrible
fate in store for those who permit the pnsoners to be
convicted.

i848] REVIEW OF THE SESSION 79
I think you might with excellent effect give a little
advice to these men, and tell them that they are in the
Eosition of the National Guard of Paris, who, if they
ad flinched from their duty, would all have been
egorges. Some appeal to the courage they are destitute
of, to the honesty they are deficient in, and to the
sense of duty they laugh at, might make them act as
if they were endowed with those qualities. If their
vanity is flattered, too, by the eyes of all honest men in
Europe being turned upon them, as the cause of order
is the same everywhere, and all nations are now
fraternising upon that desiderandum, they might be
perjured into doing their duty.
The next fortnight or three weeks will be critical
here. If I was a glutton for responsibility and anxiety
I should have my fill.
Mr. Macdonald, I hear, is gone into the country. He
was introduced to Mr. Redington, the Under-Secre
tary, and 1 shall at all times have great pleasure in
being useful to him.
Believe rae, ray dear Mr. Delane,
Very truly yours.
Clarendon.

Throughout the session The Times had been none
too friendly to the Government, pointing out with
equal force and truth that the prestige of Whiggery
had been destroyed by the inevitable recourse to
coercive raeasures in Ireland. Whig principles were
at an end when a Whig Ministry was compelled to
repeat the tactics of Addington and Pitt.
On the prorogation of Parliament The Times, in
reviewing the blunders of the Government, asserted
that it had only " hmped through " the longest session
of Parliament known to any living Member, that it
had produced a four-fold Budget, each antagonistic
to its predecessor, and a thrice-altered West Indian
scheme which meant ruin to some of our oldest
Colonies. Quoting Disraeli, the paper said that Par
liament had treated the Ministry as the villagers

8o SIR C. WOOD'S VIEWS [chap, m
treated Don Quixote ; it was aware of their weak
nesses, but at the same time it respected them.
On this, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
Charles Wood, wrote the two following letters to
Delane in defence of his colleagues :
Sir Charles Wood to J. T. Delane
Downing Street,
Wednesday evening\September 6th, 1848].
Having packed up all ray papers preparatory to
being off to-morrow morning, I have half an hour
to spare, and I am encouraged by your friendly dis
position to spend half an hour in writing to you on
the tone of the article in this morning's Times, which
is, I think, undeservedly bitter and hostile to the
Government in more than one point ; and not only to
the Government, but to the party now in Government.
It is true that the Arms Bill 01 1846 was thrown out :
but that is in no degree inconsistent with the Bill of
1847. The first was, in the opinion of the Chief of the
Police in Ireland, utterly inefficient, and the Curfew
clause most unnecessarily arbitrary, useless for the
purpose of preventing open and midday murder, and
vexatious to the innocent. The Bill of 1846 would not
have prevented any one of the murders of 1847. The
Act of 1847 is confessedly perfectly efficient, and has
answered its end.
The Incumbered Estates Bill is altered for the better,
by introducing in the House of Commons enactments
stronger than the House of Lords and the lawyers
would stand. In no sense has it been mutilated.
Then your article repeats over and over Lord George's
nonsense of four budgets. The single alteration was
the abandonment of the additional 2 per cent. Lord
John stated the original intention of imposing that
addition, the House and country, after a lapse of three
or four days, repudiated, and this intention was aban
doned, with an intimation, as Mr. Henley very fairly
admitted the other day, which told everybody that 1
must borrow temporarily or permanently to cover
past expenditure. In answer to a question from
Gladstone I subsequently stated generally, what 1
afterwards repeated raore at length, the reductions

18481 SIR C. WOOD ON THE SESSION gt

which had been made, and the improved state of the
revenue, but there was no alteration of purpose or
intention from beginning to end except the abandon
ment of the 2 per cent. Income Tax. It was impossible
in the state of Europe in March to say whether peace
would be preserved, and 1 stated that I must reserve
to the Government the option of proposing other
additional taxation if necessary. When the pros
pects of peace were confirmed, 1 stated that 1 should
not need the addition permanently, but the sole and
single difference between the proposals of the begin
ing and end of the session is in the giving up the
2 per cent. Income Tax, and the reductions or post
ponements of expenditure which that entailed. 1 do
not see in this " four antagonistic budgets." Nothing
could be fairer than your article on the statement
which I made on Friday se'nnight, but in to-day's
there is, I think, an undeserved bitterness of censure.
We should have avoided interminable difficulty if
we had done less for the West Indies. 1 do not
defend the arithmetical blunders ; there were several,
though not as many as Lord George [Bentinck] main
tained, because he was wrong in his assumed basis
of calculation, but I have nothing to say for the
inaccuracies which the persons employed to do simple
rule-of-three sums fell into.
It is true that the Navigation Laws were given up.
It was practically impossible to pass them, and it
really would have been too ludicrous to waste time on
an Irish Franchise Bill, in the middle of Irish in
surrection. 1 agree that nothing is worse than a weak
Government, but it is easier to blame a weak than to
make a strong one. Sir Robert Peel made a strong one
in 1841, and carried measures disapproved of by his
own supporters, thanks to our aid. He destroyed his
own child, and has succeeded very much in breaking
up the paity. But a strong Government never exists
without party. All Governments make blunders —
strong party attachment carries their supporters with
them even when wrong ; but when no strong party
feeling exists, Governments are constantly exposed
to risks, and the very feeling that the Government
cannot easily be replaced encourages people to vote
against it.
We made blunders enough and have a great deal to
vol. I 6

82 SIR C. WOOD'S VIEWS [cHAP.m
reproach ourselves with ; but it is unjust to put upon
the Government as a fault much which arises from the
state of circumstances, and which in similar circum
stances always has occurred, and always will occur.
It is quite true that the state of Europe has rendered
opponents forthcoming. It is equally so that the state
of Europe induced us to act as we might not have
done but for the risk of changes at such a time.
1 do not see the policy of discrediting the Govern
ment at the present time ; and I give you full credit
for the raost public-spirited views. 1 understand the
Chronicle's writing us down if it can, because the spirit
of its movers is to weaken the Governraent, and force
theraselves in. As far as I go, they are most welcome
to our places whenever they can take them ; but as
you truly say that a weak Government is a bad thing,
surely to discredit it (except with a view to replace
it by a better) is to make what you call a bad matter
worse. In this point your practice is contrary to your
precept. Turn us out if you will, and replace us by a
better Government, but if that is not in immediate
prospect don't injure the country by weakening the
hands and damaging the character of the Government
of the day, which, for the present at any rate, must
remain where it is. This seems to rae bad policy for
the sake of the country.
1 will not bore you further, but 1 think you will
forgive rae for writing frankly and openly to you on
this matter. Yours,
C. W.
Sir Charles Wood to J. T. Delane Hickleton,
September 13th, 1848.
I am very rauch obliged to you, not only for
your letter, but for its contents ; and for taking so
kindly ray comments on the article in The Times. The
Whips have been called squeezable ever since Lord
Melbourne's Government — why ? They have never
commanded a strong party majority. Peel came in on
a party struggle, and for a time his party adhered to
him, alraost in spite of their own opinions. He united
frora the most liberal conservative to the most bigoted

,848] THE STATE OF EUROPE 83
tory against a government branded as radical and free
trade. He tried his party too high, and outbid his
predecessors in free trade. He thus broke up his own
party, and has left the free trade party broken into
sections : (i) Peel's own friends; (2) the Government;
and (3) Hume and Cobden— the first and last never
unwiUing to vote against the Government. Nothing
but unerring wisdom could prevent scrapes with such
materials of support, and then, instead of flourishing
trade, general peace and speculation running wild,
which for a time gives fictitious prosperity, come
times more troubled than any since the war. This, I
think, fully accounts for the present state of things.
I am not insensible to the blunders we have made, but
I think it required more wisdom than ordinarily falls
to mortal men to steer clear through such a sea.
I do not think that anything wrong has been done
in Italian or Gerraan politics. 1 think that it is very
doubtful whether the guarantee of 1720 applies to the
present state of things in Schleswig. It was directed
mainly against claims by a rival branch, which have
long since been extinguished, or relinquished. I am
not much surprised at the Frankfort proceedings. I
never had a good opinion of the new scheme of
German policy, which is like many other crude
German notions ; but, on the other hand, they had
much better come to their senses, or fall to pieces by
themselves. External pressure is very apt to con
solidate rickety concerns. We have now the Prussians
embroiled with the empire. It is difficult enough, as
you truly say, to foresee anything when the manage
ment is in the hands of such people, but I cannot think
that any Frankfort Government can really carry on
hostilities in the north. They can hardly be fools
enough to provoke Russia, Sweden, England, and
France — ^with half Gerraany not agreeing with them.
It seems to me, therefore, that after much bullying
and bragging things must end peaceably. If Russia
is sick ofthe war, nobody else can carry it on. You
are quite right to speak of the Germans as you do —
they deserve all the ridicule which can be thrown
upon them, besides the severest censure for most
unjustifiable conduct.
The greatest possible security for peace is the
inability to raaintain any serious war on the part of

84 THE WEST INDIES, IRELAND, ETC. [chap, m
most of the continental nations. A propagandist war
is the only thing possible and to be dreaded; but
Cavaignac seems determined, if possible, to avoid that.
If Austria acts wisely that will be avoided, and if
France quarrels with the Empire, it cannot be a war
of principle.
Your West Indian article is very friendly. 1 feel very
much for the West Indians, and can bear a great deal
from people who are suffering so severely as they are.
They are, however, unwise, I think, at present. They
might in May have thought that they could get better
terms from others. They can hardly think so, now,
after Graham's declaration, and the speeches of Peel's
friends. Cobden and Co. say to us, " You closed our
mouths by giving way ; if you had adhered to the Act
of 1846, we would have fought your battle, and carried
you through." Suppose we had resisted any change.
We should, as you truly say, have had a much easier
game. We might have gone out on a principle, and 1
much doubt whether even if a government had been
formed to give greater protection, that it could have
gone on. 1 should like to know if you hear anything
from the West Indies that can be depended upon.
As for Irish railways, I am inclined to think that
it would be a good thing to open the Western Railway
to Galway, but I much doubt the wisdom of advancing
public money. If the security is so good they ought
to be able to borrow in the market. But there is the
same objection that was felt so strongly in the City in
1847, that Government ought not to aid particular lines.
1 do not think that it is an effectual mode of relieving
distress, for it does not reach the worst districts. Of
course, any great work does good which furnishes
employment, but 1 think John Bull has made up his
mind to do nothing beyond what is indispensable for
keeping body and soul together in the most helpless
districts. That we must do to some extent, but
beyond that they must find their own means. It is
melancholy to see how all our efforts to aid them are
perverted, and I am coming fast to the opinion that
they must be left to struggle through op their own
means chiefly. The more we help them, the more
helpless they become. I can hardly conceive a line to
Galway paying, as far as I can judge. That to Cork
and Limerick probably will ; but I should doubt the

,848] LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 85
extent of traffic from Galway and Mayo. It would
bring fresh fish, and might civilise those western
Celts, if it is in them.
It is a real pleasure to drive or ride through this
country, and see fields oi green potatoes. Yours truly,
C. W.
Shortly after the prorogation the titular leader of
the party, whose watchword had long been " A bloody
war and a wet harvest," died suddenly in Clumber Park.
In estimating the character of Lord George Ben
tinck, Delane remarked that it is extremely difficult
to gauge the ability of a public man who never
held any official position whatever. Though for a
brief space of time he blazed like a comet in the
political firmaraent, he left no achievements behind
him, and, at the present day, his name is perhaps
chiefly remembered by his exploits on the turf
In this connection we may add that when Disraeli
was writing his Life, he consulted Delane as to the
advisability of describing the racing side of his career,
but was dissuaded from attempting it.' Delane well
knew that Disraeli was wholly unacquainted with the
simplest technicalities of the turf, and he was anxious
to save his friend from falling into the many pitfalls
which beset authors who will write of what they
do not understand. At the same time a few judicious
extracts from his stable accounts and betting books
would have thrown some light on the interesting fact
that, in an arena where simple-minded gentlemen
almost invariably lose, Lord George was a considerable
gainer !
When Delane at last got a holiday, he went to Ireland
to attend the trial of Smith O'Brien at Clonmel.
' This deficiency has since been in part supplied by his trainer,
John Kent, in The Racing Life of Lord George Bentinck, 1892.

86 DELANE IN IRELAND [chap, m
In the first of two letters which he wrote to Dasent
during his visit, it will be noticed that he refers to
an earlier visit to Dublin. But of this no record has
been preserved.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
"Evening Mail" Office, Dublin,
Saturday [.? September 30, ,848].
My dear George,
I duly arrived here yesterday morning, having
done the land journey at an average speed of thirty-six
and the water at sixteen miles an hour. One is used
to the express train, but an express steamer was an
agreeable novelty to me. Fancy sixty-four miles of
sea in rather less than four hours.
There is nothing to say about Dublin. It is just
what I remembered it to be, except that it is now
almost as full of troops as Paris. These and the
desolate look of the place, the poverty of the shops
and the heaps of idle people, are the only characteristics.
I had a long talk with Lord Clarendon to-day, much
in the style of his letters. He anticipates all manner
of calamities for the winter ; the potatoes having in
dubitably failed as much as ever, and the grain crops
being less than half an average, while the people are,
he says, so thoroughly disaffected that many, even in
the highest ranks, hesitated for a good while before
the rebellion broke out to see which side would be the
stronger, and would certainly support a republic or
join an invading army if they saw a chance of its
success. He expects a verdict in the O'Brien case,
though the whole jury panel was regularly canvassed
by the O'Brien family, just as if they were asking their
votes for an election. The Catholics who were sum
moned all made excuses. Of course, however, he is
glad to have an exclusively Protestant jury, and
O'Brien, as a strong Protestant, has no right to com
plain. He has a scheme of Irish measures for next
Session, which I have not time now to describe, as
the post closes at half-past three. It does not strike
me as particularly feasible.
There are two things in the O'Brien trial as reported
in 77!^ Freeman which I think would be worth a little
notice — one of Knox's half-columns. First, O'Brien's

1848] DELANE IN IRELAND 87
attack upon Hodges, the Government reporter, for
having acted as a spy, though it afterwards appears
that he told O'Brien and the rest that he was sent to
their meetings on the part of the Governraent ; and
secondly, Hodges' own insufferable stupidity in coming
into Court without any of the documents which were
necessary to render his evidence valuable.
There is great talk here of the universal mismanage
ment of Government business, and it might be as well
to notice these Hibernicites.' It is said, too, that the
man. Captain Somebody, to whom Macdonald gave the
papers found on O'Brien, is wanting, having been de
spatched with his regiment to Plymouth, under the
impression that his evidence would not be required,
whereas it is evidently indispensable. This, however,
may be a lie.
I dine with Sheehan, the proprietor of this paper
{The Evening Mail), to-day, and with Lord Clarendon
to-morrow. On Monday I think of going to Clonmel,
and thence to Carrick, etc. The country is said to be
quite safe except for the aboriginal squires.
I will write again in a day or two, and I hope in less
extreme haste. Ever yours, J. T. D.
1 see Brougham is going to publish a letter to Lord
Lansdowne on the French Revolution. It would be a
good subject for Tom [Mozley].
Please send a paper under cover to Tyrrell. The
Irish papers would drive me mad if I had to read them
regularly. J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Bessborough,
Sunday {October 8, 1848].
My dear George,
Instead of adding one to the Protestant con
gregation at Piltown this evening, I reply to your last
(and only) letter, which reached rae at Clonmel yester
day. I came over here directly after the verdict was
delivered. I think you managed the article about Irish taxation
¦ Word indistinct.

88 TRIAL OF SMITH O'BRIEN [chap, m
and the returns of stock transfers I sent you capitally.
I like also the article on the O'Brien trial very much.
In fact, The Mail of Friday, which I have just been
reading here, is one of the very best papers I ever saw.
Both the Irish articles are very good, and Tom's about
France, or rather Parisian prosperity, capital. What
a terrible bore that you cannot make sorae arrange
ment with your successor in No. 22. I wish we could
hang him like Smith O'Brien.
One incident in this fellow's trial yesterday was
almost theatrical in its effect. The Chief Justice was
going on steadily in his summing-up when first one
and then another of the prisoner's counsel left the
court, until at last only one was left, and this one soon
got up and begged the Chief Justice to suspend his
charge. All the Court had observed what was going
on, and the curiosity was most intense, the Irish
imagination supplying at least one lie a minute in
explanation of what was going on. At last the counsel
returned, and then came a formal application that the
Attorney-General should retire with them for a con
ference. They were absent half an hour, during which
everybody was in suspense almost as painful as that
of the prisoner, until at last all returned, and it was
announced that a new witness was to be called by
consent of the Crown. You will read what followed.
Never, even in Ireland, was there such unflinching
perjury. The "student of Trinity College " who was
produced looked about as much of a gentleman as
W. Marryatt (Caliban), and was about as clean and as
well dressed. He had never really seen the informer
whose evidence he was brought to invalidate, and so
they smuggled him into court that they might point
out the man he was to swear to. I saw it myself The
High Sheriff told me afterwards that the whole story
was true, except that it was with another man that the
conversations sworn to took place !
This is a very magnificent place : a fine old stone
house strong enough for a fortress, beautiful terraced
gardens, an immense park, and the finest mountain
views imaginable. It was one of the places most
menaced, and five hundred men are still under canvas
in the park and a troop of artillery with two guns in
the stables. Curraghmore, about six miles off, is yet
more strongly protected.

,849] PALMERSTON AND THE TIMES 89
1 shall go there to-raorrow on my way back to
Clonmel, and proceed thence to Limerick and then by
way of Galway and the Connemara country back to
Dublin. 1 think, however, I shall be out at least a
week longer if the weather continues fine.
Ever, dear George, yours very faithfully, J. T. D.
With this exception Delane seems to have taken
no regular holiday this year. He managed to get
an occasional day's hunting, sometimes with the Old
Surrey and sometimes with the Queen's staghounds
in the forest country he loved so well.
Both he and Mowbray Morris were well-known
followers of both packs, sending down their horses
overnight in charge of their grooms, and travelling
by rail themselves on the morning of the meet.
" There goes the leading article ! " was a frequent
remark when either Delane or Morris was out.
One of the staunchest supporters of the Old Surrey
foxhounds was Tom Hood, the Army contractor;
and from him Delane learnt casually in the hunting-
field that arms had been sent to the Sicilian insur
gents with the connivance of Lord Palmerston, but
unbeknown to the rest of the Cabinet.
In the autumn of 1848 the Foreign Secretary, who
was fast becoming the idol of the middle classes,
thought himself undisputed master of Sicily, Wool
wich, and Downing Street ; but when his colleagues
became aware of the facts early in the Session of
1849, through the disclosures of The Times, Palmerston
was compelled to apologise to King Ferdinand 11.
for what araounted to a breach of international law.
This was one of those not infrequent occasions on
which Downing Street trerabled when Printing House
Square thundered.

CHAPTER IV
THE RISE OF PALMERSTON
The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 — Delane in Italy, 1849— No
Popery (1850)— The Great Exhibition, ,851.
The year 1849 was, on the whole, an uneventful
one at home. Save for the extension of the principle
of Free Trade to the merchant shipping industry,
consequent upon the repeal of the Navigation Laws,
and a full-dress Protectionist debate of two nights
on a resolution moved by Disraeli but defeated by
a majority of nearly two to one,' the Parliamentary
session was not excitipg; but Delane's private cor
respondence at this period affords increasing evidence
of the growing ascendancy of Palmerston and his
antagonism to the more pacific methods which had
been employed by Lord Aberdeen in dealing with
foreign affairs. Delane endeavoured, though without
much success, to bring about a better understanding
between the two, and deprecated the attacks upon
Lord Aberdeen which appeared in the organs of the
press controlled by his successor at the Foreign Office.
Writing on June 30, Lord Aberdeen says:
The Foreign Office have been rather tardy in
making their attack, in answer to my speech on
Monday, and altogether it is a strange jumble. My
"violent temper" and "subserviency to all foreign
Governments ' do not accord very well together.
' July 2, 1849.
90

,849] THE QUEEN IN IRELAND 91
"Administrative incapacity" is a matter of course;
but a comparison with the vigour, "discretion," and
" success "of Lord P  was scarcely to be expected.
Again he says :
The success is surprising, and 1 know not where it
is to be found. In Portugal, Costa Cabral, officially
Rroscribed by us, is made Prime Minister ! In Spain,
farvaez, to overthrow whom every mode of attack
was employed, is stronger than ever! The King of
Naples IS m possession of Sicily; and the refugees
whom we have betrayed come here to curse us !
Austria still holds Lombardy; and Charles Albert is
dying at Oporto !
On another occasion Lord Aberdeen writes that
"the business of the House of Lords is reduced to
cross-questions and crooked answers."'
From a friend in Dublin Castle Delane learnt all
the details of the Queen's first and highly successful
visit to Ireland. It was an anxious time for Lord
Clarendon and those behind the scenes. The visit
had been strongly opposed by some of the Cabinet,
and looked coldly on by others. All threw the
whole responsibility upon the shoulders of the Lord
Lieutenant, and to him must be accorded the praise
for this bold step.
It was a most exciting and laborious week, but its
success of which was more than a reward for ten
times as much toil. The visit has brought out all
the best feelings of the people, and all the best quali
ties of the Royal pair. It is not unlikely that the
events of 1848 all over Europe and in Ireland may
' Two very entertaining letters from Charles Greville to Delane,
written in June 1849, referring to the Moi^molin scandal, which was
then agitating high society in Paris, are suppressed for the present,
from a desire not to cause pain to the descendants of the English
family concemed in it. In numerous instances throughout these
volumes passages in letters are omitted for similar reasons, often
without the use of asterisks.

92 DELANE GOES TO ITALY [chap, iv
have had a strong influence upon thera, and have
induced them to correct certain points of manner and
general demeanour which had made them somewhat
unpopular in former Scotch and German progresses ;
but whatever the cause, it is impossible to conceive
anything more conciliatory and more judicious than
their bearing throughout their Irish invasion. The
Queen naturally was really delighted and overcome,
for the feeling towards her increased hourly in warmth;
and on the day of the review in Phoenix Park the
outpouring of the national voice was quite unmis
takable. Prince Albert, in his visits to public insti
tutions, saw the right things in the right manner, and
put his questions en savant; in fine, never was the
role of Royalty better played.
In the autumn Delane paid his first visit to Italy,
and, as usual, during his absence from England
recorded his impressions in a series of letters to
Dasent :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
28, Rue de Rivoli, Paris,
Wednesday [September 1849].
My dear George,
We arrived here on Sunday night after a voyage
which was absolutely agreeable and a very pleasant
journey. The Woodhams came with us from Dover.
The weather is most delightful and this place as charm
ing as ever. We were at Versailles yesterday, the
only piece of mere lionising I mean to attempt We
think of going southwards to-raorrow, and, if so, shall
probably be at Marseilles on Sunday. The rail and
the rivers now carry us all the way, except about
seventy miles of diligence. If there is no quarantine,
we shall go to Rome ; if there is, probably to Genoa,
Florence, and returning by Switzerland and the Rhine.
This place is, however, so delightful that it costs me a
sad pang to leave it at all, and if I find that going to
Italy involves any sacrifice of comfort, I shall return
here without scruple.
O'Meagher' and his wife are great improvements
' The Times correspondent in Paris.

1849] ITALY 93
upon Mr. and Mrs. King. They dined with us at the
Trois Freres on Monday, and she went with us to
Versailles yesterday. His Spanish stories are among
the best 1 ever heard.
How about the Grafton Street plate and my horse ?
If the latter is sold he ought to pay for the plate. A
letter will find me either at O'Meagher's or at Mitchell's
of Marseilles. Ever yours,
John T. Delane.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Marseilles,
September 26, 1849.
My dear George,
1 received here yesterday your two letters of
Wednesday and Thursday last, and am truly glad to
hear that all is going on so well with you. As to your
bits of news, I lament John Walter's purchase of more
land, am quite indifferent as to N.'s resignation, and
think myself well rid of the horse at so good a price.
Pray tell Tom Hood I am quite satisfied and much
obliged to him. I have not seen a paper since I left,
and am therefore profoundly ignorant of all except
the little that the French papers vouchsafe us.
Our own movements since I last wrote are soon told.
We came a hundred miles south last Thursday by
an excellent railway to Tonnerre in four hours, went
then seventy miles to Dijon in an execrable diligence
in fourteen hours, thence by railway on Friday to
Chalons, and by steamboat on Saturday down the
SaOne to Lyons. On Sunday we left Lyons at 5 a.m.
by steamer down the RhOne to Avignon, left there
yesterday by railway, and arrived here last afternoon.
We are both delighted with this southern climate,
and pleased with the easy and comfortable mode
of travelling. For the last three days we have
had Hardwicke, the Marlborough Street magistrate,
with us, an old acquaintance and a very pleasant
man. We had hoped to find a steamer here which would
have taken us without delay to Civita Vecchia, but it
so happens that the cholera is raging here, and so both
Sardinia and Tuscany have laid on quarantines which

94 DELANE IN ITALY [chap, iv
derange all the communication. We have therefore to
wait until Saturday morning for the French post-office
boat, which goes straight to Rome, where the French
have prohibited the Pope from imposing a quarantine.
In the meantime, to avoid both cholera and mosquitoes,
which are in high season here, we go to-morrow to the
lies Hyferes by Toulon, and only return in time to
embark on Saturday. This may seera as if I meant to
outstay my tirae, and in truth the delaiy is very provok
ing, but I will so shorten my stay in Rome as to make
all pretty nearly right.
Of course, it is hot enough here, but the town is a
very striking place, and the Mediterranean, which I
now see for the first time, delightful. It is pleasant to
see a harbour which is always full, and actual olives
and cypresses and canes growing.
I am, my dear George, ever yours,
John T. Delane.

J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Marseilles,
September 28, 1849.
My dear George,
We are here again, having been compelled by
that cursed quarantine ' to wait for the Lycurgue, a
Governraent packet which sails to-morrow morning.
In the meantime we have been at Toulon, Hyferes,
etc., all well worth seeing, the first for its arsenal and
the French fleet which was lying there, and which we
inspected ; the second for its strangely southern
climate. We were there yesterday and actually saw
palm-trees flourishing and healthy in the open air, as
well as all the large ferns, canes, etc., whicli one sees
at Kew. The orange-trees were literally in orchards
like apple-trees in England, and as full of fruit.
But — those d  d mosquitoes ! 1 have seventeen
large bites on my face alone and Fanny is even worse
off. However, they don't go to sea.
The cholera has been very fatal both here and at
Toulon, and the panic it has caused beyond imagina
tion. More than 60,000 people are said to have bolted
from here, and at Toulon they were shutting up their
shops and leaving the town in swarms.

1849] ROME 95
1 hope you are going on all well. 1 wrote you a
long letter on Tuesday, so 1 have the less remorse in
making a short one now. Always yours, J. T. D.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Rome,
October 4, 1849.
My dear George,
We embarked from Marseilles on the 29th and
arrived at Civita the day before yesterday, after a very
pleasant voyage. We stopped six hours at Genoa and
at Leghorn, but the abominable quarantine farce was
in full operation, and we had to lie in harbour all
the while, tantalised with the lovely prospects which
Genoa especially affords.
As to Rome, you will not suspect me of any very
classical enthusiasm when 1 tell you that I don't
think people generally have said enough about it.
They nave surfeited one with descriptions of the
antiquities, but have not, so far as 1 have heard, done
justice to the magnificence of the modern buildings
and the beautiful combination of the two which every
moderately extensive view affords.
Outside, St. Peter's is a humbug, not nearly so good
as St. Paul's ; the colonnade would dwarf the Tower
of Babel and the great facade hides the dome, and is
itself spoilt by being broken into three stories ; but
the interior beats all 1 had ever conceived of splendour
and beauty. Its details are as perfect as if in a Dutch
picture, while the proportions are too colossal to be
realised in one visit. The arches of Titus, Constan
tine, and Antonine are all smaller than one expected,
the first and last not apparently higher or larger
than our Marble Arch, and not so well built. In
that of Severus the pillars are of brick bound with
iron, and faced with stucco on the most approved
Grissell and Peto pattern. Yours, J. T. D.
His correspondence for the year is closed with
a long letter from Lord Clarendon defending his
administration of the affairs of Ireland :

96 ATTACK ON LORD CLARENDON [chap. if
Vice-Regal Lodge, Dublin,
December 2, 1849.
My dear Mr. Delane,
1 send you the newspaper which contains the
Monster Indictment against me, for as so much has
been said lately of the " revelations " by which I was
to be overwhelmed you may perhaps think it worth
while to notice the matter in The Times.
It is now nearly a fortnight ago since the Northern
Railways were benefited by the journeying up to
Dublin of Orangemen of every degree to attend the
Grand Lodge at Dublin, and publish the catalogue of
crimes that was to consign me for ever to ignominious
retirement. Two or three days afterwards the town began to
laugh at these gentlemen, who had the naivete to make
known their disappointment at finding a mare's nest
instead of a Newgate Calendar, but as they were
obliged to do something, and it took them some time
to settle what it should be, they announced every day
in their newspapers that they were examining wit
nesses, carefully preparing documents, and collecting
all the circumstances of a case that would make the
Queen ashamed of having such a representative.
After this protracted labour the mouse, though a
long one, is exceedingly small, and consists altogether
of accusations against me for having put any trust or
confidence in such people as themselves. To a certain
extent they prove that part of the case, as they show
that their loyalty was only conditional and only
proffered in exchange for arms, or money, or political
status, or permission to abuse the late and present
Government and the Roman Catholics, and it further
appears that they ejected from their body a gentleman.
Colonel Phayre, upon the mere suspicion that he had
given information to the Government that might be
useful for putting down rebellion.
The time at which I am accused of showing confi
dence in these persons was during the two months
which succeeded the French Revolution, when The
Nation, The United Irishman, and The Tribune news
papers were exciting the people to imitate the glorious
example of the Continent, when instructions for
throwing vitriol and hot oil upon the troops and
strewing the streets with broken glass, and preparing

1849] LORD CLARENDON ON IRELAND 97
soda-water bottle grenades, were daily issuing from
the press, when upwards of fifty clubs and several
war committees met every night, and fresh shooting
galleries were opened every day, when preparations
were known to exist for setting fire to the town, and
hordes of peasants from Wicklow and Meath were to
come in to share in the plunder of Dublin, and when
Smith O'Brien and his associates went as ambassadors
to Paris to solicit French aid for the liberation of the
Irish people. Now when all this was occurring and
each post brought the news of some fresh and un
expected catastrophe on the Continent, when all Eng
land was in a state of excitement and London itself not
safe until after April 10, but constant correspondence
was kept up between the disaffected of the two
countries, it was natural that I should not wish to
increase the number of my enemies, and that fair
words should have been given either by myself or
those about me to any men who came forward in
support of law and order.
There were, however, two things that 1 determined
steadily to adhere to : (i) to give arms to nobody until
the necessity for it was proved by actual and un
deniable danger ; and (2) to allow of no exclusive
claim to loyalty, nor tolerate any insult from one class
or party to another. Both of these the Orangemen of
Dublin required at my hands, and both were per
emptorily though courteously refused. They now
affirm that both were more or less granted, and cite as
their witnesses Major Turner, who is dead, and Captain
Kennedy, who is in India, but they at the same time
commit the blunder of quoting Lord Enniskillen (who
was here with them last week), who apphed to me
himself and could get no satisfaction. This is quite
true, and / may also add that he was so angry and
impertinent at ray refusal that if I had not known him
to be a foolish, wrong-headed man, and he had not
been dining with me, 1 should have desired him to
leave the house.
It was then that Captain Kennedy advanced money,
for the purchase of arms, which I never heard of till
some time after, and not having made any inquiry on
the subject before he left England with Sir C. Napier,
1 give you my word that I have no more idea than you
have where that money carae frora, though 1 have some
VOL. I 7

98 THE STATE OF IRELAND [chap, iv
reason to think that it was partly his own and partly
Sir C. Napier's, who was in the habit of placing sums
of money at his disposal for any useful purpose in
Ireland. However, I have no/roq/"of this, but in 1847
he gave ;£'20o towards the Agricultural Instructors,
which he told rae was a balance of money from Sir C.
Napier to dispose of as he liked.
Captain Kennedy is an able engineer and very
enthusiastic in whatever he undertakes. He was at
that time eniployed (voluntarily) in preparing for the
defence of Dublin, and all his arrangements were
regularly subraitted to the Commander-in-Chief When
he found that no arms could be obtained from the
Government he informed Colonel Phayre that he would
be responsible to the extent of £soo or ;^6oo (1 forget
which), but not for Orangemen only, according to a
pubhshed letter of Colonel Phayre's, but for the well
affected generally, and Colonel Phayre adds that Captain
Kennedy distinctly told him the money did not come
from the Government.
These Orangemen, however, would now have it
supposed that they alone were loyal and that they
alone were favoured by or in communication with the
Government, but it was my constant endeavour to
rouse every class of persons to a sense of duty, for all
were at first panic-stricken and as if prepared for
their throats being cut without striking a blow in their
own defence, and 1 was constantly in communication
with Liberals and red-hot Tories and staunch Repealers
just as rauch with Orangeraen — the colour or creed or
politics of a man was nothing to me provided he had
anything to lose and was prepared to defend it. 1
suggested a division of the city into different parts,
that places of rendezvous should be appointed, that
the gentry and shopkeepers should know beforehand
upon whom they could depend, and that arms should
be deposited in various parts of Dublin under charge
of the military authorities, who would deliver them
only in the event of an outbreak to persons responsible
for their proper use and safe return. To all, however,
1 said that if these arrangements were conducted for
party or sectarian objects, or that anything beyond
mutual defence and protection was looked to, it would
not only be discountenanced by me, but the Association
would receive no protection from the Government.

,849] LORD CLARENDON ON IRELAND 99
The consequence of the Government assuming a
firm and perfectly impartial attitude was that the evil-
minded were scared from their purpose, and that,
although Dublin was in as great danger as any town
in Europe, it was almost the only one where during
those three or four months there was neither a broken
head nor a broken window, and the proofs of con
fidence were manifested in the most extraordinary and
satisfactory manner. Addresses with thousands upon
thousands of signatures carae pouring in daily, ex
pressive of loyalty and offering service of every kind.
Every such offer was respectfully declined. It was
stated that the Government relied upon its own ample
resources to put down revolution, and felt strong in
the assurances of support from the well affected of all
classes, creeds, and denominations.
On all sides, however, by public bodies and private
friends, by addresses and letters, by threats and en
treaties, I was assailed for arms. It was the universal
demand, while, on the other hand, I was urged by
some of the highest authorities upon such matters to
call out the Yeomanry. To all I said that / was re
sponsible for the peace of the country, and that 1 would
maintain it in the way 1 thought best ; that if rebellion
broke out or foreign invasion was apprehended, 1
should not hesitate to adopt extraordinary measures,
but that no danger then justified them ; that I looked
beyond the present moment, and that after tranquillity
was restored I hoped not to leave behind the seeds of
rancour and sectarian animosity, which must be the
case if one class was armed against another. At
the same time, I took care to have arms throughout
the country under the charge of military authorities,
with proper instructions as to how and when and by
whom they were to be used. But not a musket or a
cartridge was given to anybody at any time.
Tranquillity was restored, and the events of last year
were forgotten, because no party had been called on
to act against another, and no vengeance remained to
be satisfied. The Orangeraen now claim the whole
credit of the victory, as they call it, simply because
they did not join in rebellion. The people of Cornwall
might, upon the same grounds, boast of having
preserved order in London on April 10. In point
of fact, they were not particularly forward in the

loo THE STATE OF IRELAND [chap, iv
north, although, no doubt, if called upon they would
have done their duty ; but at the greatest raeeting,
that of Belfast, the requisition for which was signed
by 130 persons, including all the leading men of the
town, there were only nine who were even likely to
be Orangemen. Of the sixteen speakers at the meet
ing, only one, the Vicar of Belfast, was an Orangeman.
Four gentleraen were appointed as a deputation to the
Lord Lieutenant, and not one of thera was an Orange
man. I quote this from The Northern Whig, which
adds that what it states respecting Belfast is sub
stantially true of Ulster.
Because, however, an illegal procession takes place,
that idiots and old men are slaughtered and old women
are stabbed in their beds, and that in the performance
of my duty 1 remove the magistrates who did nothing
to prevent, but, on the contrary, promoted the dis
graceful collision, I have been assailed with a ferocious
malignity that, in order to believe, one must be in
Ireland to see and hear it for oneself I am accused
of violating religion and loyalty in the person of Lord
Roden, and this fine manifesto is issued in return for
insult, injustice, and menace of which 1 am as guiltless
as of conspiring to overthrow the Protestant religion,
however manifest that appears to be to those who
think the affair at Dolly's Brae a lawful triumph over
a Papist foe.
1 have inflicted an unmercifully long story upon
you ; but 1 wished you to be aufait of certain facts, in
case you should notice the Orange indictment.
If you have any curiosity about the working of the
Encumbered Estates Commission, C  , who goes to
London to-morrow, can give you some rather interest
ing information. Believe me,
Very truly yours. Clarendon.

Delane seems to have preserved but few of the
letters addressed to him in the first half of 1850, or
it may be that by the accidents of time they have
been lost since his death.
In ministerial circles he kept close relations with

,850] THE DON PACIFICO DEBATE loi
Sir Charles Wood and with Lord Granville ; but the
icy manners of Lord John Russell precluded any
approach to intimacy between the head of the
Government and the editor of The Times.
Sir William Napier now first appears araong his
regular correspondents, and, from a number of letters
which he wrote to Delane at this time, we gather
that he did not hold a very high opinion of the
native Indian Army :
You are quite right in supposing that the Madras
and Bombay sepoys are better than the Bengal, and
certainly my brother made them all fight well at
Meanee and elsewhere. I will now tell you, however,
that Lord Hardinge said to me very openly a few
weeks ago : " After the battle of Sobraon 1 reviewed
a native regiment and they cheered me, whereupon
the commanding officer came forward and said, "Sir
Henry, don't mind those cheers ; these men are
cowards." Before Sobraon the officers and soldiers of
the European regiments entreated of me to let them
do the business alone, and keep the black troops in
the rear, for they were more hurtful than useful in a
fight. 1 was told also that they fired over each other's
heads and without looking at the eneray, and to
prevent that I placed myself in front of their line as
they advanced, and my staff rode along the line telling
them they would kill the Governor-General if they
fired without orders.
Delane constantly attended the House of Commons
during the session, and was no doubt present at the
great Don Pacifico debate in June,' when a contest
of giants was waged for four nights, and Palmerston,
with his back to the wall, rose to the greatest height
of oratory he ever attained, speaking in his own
defence for nearly five hours by the clock. Having
been censured by the Lords, the Government was
' Initiated by "Old Tear'em," J. A. Roebuck, the independent
Member for Sheffield,

I02 LORD PALMERSTON'S SPEECH [chap, iv
half inchned to resign. Sir Charles Wood telling
Delane that he was personally in favour of such a
course, but that he allowed himself to be over-ruled
by his colleagues.
The debate, which took the form of an exhaustive
review of the whole foreign policy of England, brought
the leading men of every shade of opinion not
immediately connected with the Administration down
to the House of Commons to condemn, with all the
weight of their eloquence and experience, the foreign
policy of the Ministry for the preceding four years.
The Peelites, in a solid phalanx, condemned Pal
merston. Peel made his last speech in the House
just before he was stricken down in the plenitude of
his powers, and Gladstone one of the first of his
greatest oratorical efforts.
Sir James Graham, who specially represented the
views of Lord Aberdeen, having openly accused
Palmerston of bringing about the overthrow of
Louis Philippe, the Foreign Minister retorted :
It was my dislike to M. Guizot, forsooth, arising out
of the Spanish marriages, which overthrew his ad
ministration and with it the throne of France ! What
will the French nation say when they hear it stated
that it was in the power of a British Minister to over
throw their Government and their Monarchy ? Why,
sir, it is a calumny on the French nation to suppose
that the personal hatred of any foreigner to their
Minister could have this effect.
Striking the popular and personal note^ which
never fails to arouse the sympathies of the House
of Commons, he went on to say :
The French are a brave, a generous, and a noble-
minded people ; and if they had thought that a foreign
conspiracy had been formed against one of their
Ministers — 1 say, that if the French people had
thought that a knot of foreign conspirators were

,850] THE DON PACIFICO DEBATE 103
caballing against one of their Ministers, and caballing
for no other reason than that he had upheld, as he
conceived, the dignity and interests of his own country ;
and if they had thought that a knot of foreign con
spirators had coadjutors in their own land, why, 1 say
that the French people — that brave, noble, and spirited
nation — would have scorned the intrigues of such a
cabal, and would have clung the closer to, and have
supported the more, the man against whom such a
plot had been made.
The Times, in reviewing the debate, remarked that,
" with the exception of two or three expectant
lawyers ' and such statesmen as Monckton-Milnes
and Bernal Osborne, not a single independent member
of Liberal principles cared to do more than pay to
his party the reluctant tribute of his vote." ^
Some eight or ten Protectionists voted for Palmer
ston either from personal regard, or because, though
they distrusted him rauch, they disliked Peel and
Graham more.
The majority (of forty-six), continued The Times, " is
probably just sufficient to enable Ministers to retain
office without disgrace ; but they have received such
a lesson on the conduct of the foreign relations of
the Crown as the boldest of them will not readily
forget." From a letter of August 14 we trace the beginning
of a long and honourable connection with Printing
House Square, and the earliest germ of a friendship
which endured to the end of Delane's life :
Mr. Lowe presents his compliments to the Editor
of The Times, and regrets that his presence on the
' Presumably Page Wood, afterwards Lord Hatherley, and
Cockbum, who was rewarded next year, for his defence of Lord
Palmerston, with the post of Solicitor-General.
' Leading article in The Times of July i, 1850.

104 THE POLICY OF THE TIMES [chap, iv
Northern Circuit should have caused so much delay
in answering his letter. Mr. Lowe will be very happy
to undertake to write for The Times on any subject on
which he possesses sufficient information.
About the same time Roebuck, who had been an
occasional member of the staff, ceased to write
regularly for the paper.'
At the close of the Session the President of the
Board of Trade (Henry Labouchere, afterwards Lord
Taunton) wrote :
1 cannot leave town without saying how much 1 feel
obliged to you for the great share which you have had
in the success of the Mercantile Marine Bill during the
session which is about to close. It could not have
been accomplished without the concurrence of men of
all parties and the general approbation of the mer
chants and shipowners, and I am sure that the support
you gave to the measure went a great way in pro
ducing these results. I am very sanguine as to the
effects which it will produce upon our merchant
service, and I believe that this Bill will ultimately
outweigh many more specious measures in the degree
of benefit which it will confer. I have selected the
two best men that I could find to carry it into
operation. Delane remained in town throughout the hot season
during Dasent's temporary absence in North Wales,
and towards the end of Septeraber he took a house
at Sandgate for a few weeks. In a letter of in
struction on the policy to be pursued in his absence,
he wrote to Dasent on Septeraber 24 :
Of course, nobody has very much love or respect
for Louis Napoleon, but there he is, a political necessity
for the time. The French have chosen him, and may,
if they like, depose hira ; but it is no business of ours
to do so, nor is any English interest involved either in
his downfall or the elevation of any other chief
' Letter to Delane in the autumn of 1850.

1850] "NO POPERY" 105
During his absence from London was issued the
Papal Bull, creating a Roman Catholic hierarchy in
England. In the course of the next few months it
gave rise to a wave of intolerance almost incompre
hensible when viewed in the light of subsequent
events. So bitter, and we may add so ignorant, was
the feeling against Rome, that the Low Church Party,
in its haste to denounce the Pope and all his works,
professed to believe that the fires of Smithfield were
within measurable distance of being relighted. But
before commenting on the action of the Government
in the next session, when " No Popery " was chalked
on every dead wall in London, it will be necessary
, to revert to the attitude of The Times towards
Palmerston, and to the remarks of Lord Aberdeen
upon his conduct of foreign affairs.
On November 8 The Times in its first leading
article said :
We have no doubt whatever that Lord Palmerston
will eventually recognise the restored German Con
federation, but it will be with this difference, that he
will be compelled by the force of events to accept
with reluctance what he might have promoted with
eagerness ; for if the part he has taken in the affairs
of Germany had been as far-seeing and practical as
it has been blind and petulant, we should not now
have to regret the humiliating extension of Prussian
ascendancy over the whole of Germany, nor should
we have any reason to deplore the means by which
even this pacification has been effected.
We are persuaded that the Emperor of Russia
owes a great portion of his ascendancy in Germany
to the eccentric and unfriendly attitude of England.
Lord Palmerston courted, it is true, the revolutionary
party and its leaders with incredible eagerness and
creduhty. This fresh attack upon Palmerston was very
embarrassing to the Government and irritating to

io6 ABERDEEN ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS [chap, iv
the friends of the Foreign Minister, but Delane was,
we think, acting within his right when he pointed
out the raenace to the peace of Europe caused by
the prodigious diploraatic advance of Russia. The
visionary schemes of Prussia had received a check
from Prince Schwartzenberg, whose high-handed and
absolutist policy in Austria at this time closely re
sembled the predominance of Bismarck's influence in
Prussia in later years.
Lord Aberdeen, as raight have been expected, was
well pleased with Delane's attitude on foreign affairs.
On Noveraber lo he wrote to the editor as follows :
Lord Aberdeen to J. T. Delane Haddo House,
November lo, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I need not tell you that 1 have been a careful
reader of The Times since we parted ; and I am happy
to say that in those subjects which specially interested
me it has always been with pleasure and generally
with entire concurrence of opinion. I may occasion
ally have felt some slight misgiving, but on the whole
I think your French, German, and Danish pohtics
have been perfect.
I write to you now in consequence of an excellent
article in the paper of Friday last, upon which 1 am
desirous of raaking some observations.
The substance of the Warsaw Conferences appears
to be pretty well known to the public, and indeed
must be obvious from the result we have witrlfessed ;
but I think you may like to be accurately informed
of the precise engagements entered into, an account
of which I have just received from the very best
authority. Prussia renounces the project of unity, and Austria
agrees to the Free Conferences for the purpose of
adopting improvements and modifications in the
system of the Confederation. These conferences are
similar to those which took place, I think, in 1820,
and imply the recognition of the Federal Union as

,850] FOREIGN POLITICS 107
estabhshed in 181 5. Many important measures were
adopted at the former conferences.
Russia acknowledges the Diet of Frankfort, and the
right of the Diet to interfere in Hesse on the demand
ofthe Elector. The Emperor contests the right of
Prussia to oppose the action of the Federal troops
thus legitimately entering the country; but as the
question is purely German he contents himself with
giving his moral support to the policy of Austria, as a
party to the Treaty of Vienna, but will take no further
step in the affair, leaving it to be settled by the
German states. Should any other foreign Power
interfere he will at once take part also.
The case of Holstein is different. Russia is bound
by treaties, as well as other Powers, to maintain the
integrity of the Danish provinces, and might in con
sequence interfere for the purpose of restoring peace ;
but the Emperor is willing to abstain from this, and
to allow the Confederation, as the party primarily
interested, to accomplish it. If the Federal troops
should be opposed in executing this duty, either by
Prussia or any other Power, his forces will imme
diately advance to their assistance.
These are the main decisions which have been
adopted at Warsaw, connected with these questions,
so long the subject of alarm to Europe.
In treating of this matter I think you have scarcely
done justice to the Emperor Nicholas, and to the great
moderation and prudence with which he has acted.
1 really do not know if I had to chalk out a line of
policy for him to pursue in what respect I should wish
It altered. He has chosen the course most consistent
with justice and the faith of treaties, and has followed
it with singular forbearance and disinterestedness.
1 trust he will finally succeed in rendering those
great services, for which the civilised world will have
reason to be grateful.
Although not so rauch alarmed as many at the
increase of influence which Russia will justly acquire
in Europe, I confess that I should willingly have seen
these services performed by other hands. It cannot
be denied that the German Powers must be greatly
humiliated; for however just and reasonable the settle
ment of their affairs may be, it has been iraposed upon
them by the intervention of a Power from whom they

io8 FOREIGN AFFAIRS [chap, iv
have as much to fear as to hope. Had we filled our
proper station, and followed our ancient policy, this
was precisely the case in which our influence would
have been predominant. Had we not been detested
by some, and distrusted by all, we might have shared
the honours and influence of Russia, or even have been
the sole arbiter, and the decree would not have been
attended with the humiliation of knowing that it was
supported by the presence of two hundred thousand
men. Instead of this, we have been mainly instru
mental in producing the increase of Russian influence.
It should never be forgotten that by our encourage
ment of the unprincipled attack upon Austria by
Piedmont, we paralysed the Austrian forces in Italy,
and rendered necessary the entrance of the Russians
into Hungary.
We might have checked the Schleswig-Holstein
war at its commencement, by a plain and intelligible
language addressed to Prussia, consistently with our
own guarantee and the interests of Europe, whereas
our useless and ineffectual mediation has been the
chief means of continuing the war for nearly three
years. If ended at all, it will really be ended by
Russia; for although an Austrian Commissioner, as
the organ of the German Confederation, will ostensibly
restore peace, his success would be very improbable
without the support of Russia, in case of need.
This is really a great moment for the Emperor. As
yet he has shown no signs of a disposition to abuse
the power with which he is invested, and 1 hope we
may see a continuance of the same wisdom and
moderation. 1 heartily rejoice at the defeat of the grasping and
reckless ambition of Prussia, which has been too
apparent to allow any impartial man to be deceived.
The death of Count Brandenburgh is a gr»at mis
fortune. The King was much under the influence of
his high character and firmness ; but weak as he
is, he may now more readily listen to desperate
advisers. It seems to me that the great practical measure to
which our Government ought to be driven is the
immediate recognition of the Diet at Frankfort. This
has already taken place by Russia, and the Con
federation is exhibiting unequivocal proofs of its

i85o] "NO POPERY" 109
vitahty and force. It must be done before long, and
the earlier the better, as it may encourage Prussia to
foUow our example. 1 apprehend there can be no
hesitation on the part of France. You have already
adverted to this subject, and 1 am sure it is one on
which your exertions will prove eminently useful.
Believe me, my dear sir.
Ever truly yours, Aberdeen.

While Europe remained at peace, it had only seen
war averted by the intervention of Russia. Prussia,
temporarily surrendering her ambition to be at the
head of a new German unity, left Schleswig-Holstein
to fight its own battle, and France was enjoying a
feverish repose.
The Times was filled ' with letters of alarmed Pro
testants consequent on the issue of Cardinal Wiseman's
celebrated Pastoral.
With a view to stem the tide of intolerance Delane
inserted a letter ^ from the able pen of Charles Greville
deprecating the revival of sectarian animosity so alien
to the true spirit of Christianity.
At the same time Disraeli, the would-be appro-
priator of new-found political capital, endeavoured to
turn the wrath of the people from the Pope to the
Government of the day' by calling public attention
to Lord Clarendon's treatment of the Catholic hier
archy in Ireland, though, as a matter of fact, as
stated by Delane, Sir Robert Peel had recognised
the status and precedence of the Roman Catholic
prelates long before Lord Clarendon took office.
The following letter, written imraediately before
' At the close of 1850 and the beginning of the new year.
' December 9, 1850.
' Letter to The Times published, appropriately enough on Guy
Fawkes' Day, 1850.

no PAPAL AGGRESSION [chap, iv
the meeting of Parliament, sufficiently explains the
views of the Lord Lieutenant on Papal aggression :
Lord Clarendon to J. T. Delane Dublin Castle,
February 2, 185 1.
My dear Mr. Delane,
You of course know all the row that has been
made about my letter to Dr. Murray, in which 1
violated the law by giving him an illegal title, and
my submitting the College Statutes to the sanction of
the Pope, and how 1 thereby insulted the Crown and
dignity of England, and induced the Pope to condemn
the colleges, and was the cause of his re-establishing
the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England, etc., etc.
1 have written to Lord Lansdowne stating that 1
never addressed a line to Dr. Murray, and therefore
did not give him an illegal title ; that 1 never asked
the Pope's sanction to the Statutes at all, but after
they were completed and agreed to 1 accepted the
offer of Dr. Nicholson, Archbishop of Corfu, to take
with him an extract respecting religious instruction
and discipline in order to show the complete falsehood
of the reports upon which his (the Pope's) condemna
tion was founded. Dr. Nicholson fell ill in London,
and Dr. Murray dispatched a clergyman from hence
to Rome, who took with him a copy of my private
letter to Dr. Nicholson (given at Dr. Nicholson's re
quest to serve as a guarantee that the extract was
genuine), and prefixed it to the memorial he addressed
to the Propaganda ; but thought himself justified in
changing the address from Dr. Nicholson to that of
Dr. Murray — Nicholson being still absent. Hine ill(e
lachrymce. Lord Lansdowne will read my letter in the House
of Lords if the matter is brought forward there, and
in that case I shall be greatly obliged by your noticing
it, as a most absurd importance has been given to the
letter, and it is still the staple commodity at all the
Protestant and anti-Papal meetings here.
Lord Roden (who will never forgive or forget his
removal from the Commission) published the letter in
The Evening Mail two raonths ago, and attacked me
most malignantly at the Belfast Protestant meeting,

,850] "NO POPERY" III
pretending he had never seen the letter before,
whereas, having been circulated at Rome, it was re
published in the English and Irish newspapers, and
was made the subject of a question by Grogan, M.P.
for Dublin, on August i6, 1848, and Lord John
answered him at some length ; but the fact is that at
that time Roden and Co. thought they were about to
have their throats cut, and instead of quarrelling with
the Government they were begging for arms and to
have the old Yeomanry called out for the suppression
of rebellion.
Things are changed now, however, and there is the
double object of revenging Dolly's Brae and of making
it appear that 1 am concerned with the " aggression "
by using my letter at this particular moment and
pretending that 1 now feel towards the Pope as I
expressed myself at the beginning of 1848, when
everybody throughout Europe was singing his praises
as an enlightened reformer who in the face of great
difficulties, foreign and domestic, was acting on his
conviction of what was right.
Pray excuse my troubling you with such a long
story at this busy moment. Very truly yours, Clarendon.

But the fear of Rome was so instilled into the
public mind that when the Queen opened Parliament
she was received with angry cries of " No Popery."
Lord John Russell sank to the occasion, and intro
duced the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
But while nothing can be more complete as a
demonstration of opinion than the gigantic majority '
[438 to 9S] in the House of Commons, it must be fairly
admitted that we have not advanced a single step
towards the ultimate settlement of the question.
Akhough the Second Reading was so triumphantly
carried, the Ministerial Bill has really no supporters.^
' For the Bill.
' Leading article in The Times, March 27, 185 1, on the second
reading of the Bill.

112 LORD J. RUSSELL RESIGNS [chap, iv
It tendered a false issue, not whether the Pope had
any right to found bishoprics and create bishops
within the realm of another sovereign, but whether
British subjects ought to be allowed to bear the titles
derived from such bishoprics.
This was also the view taken by Gladstone, and
though the Bill passed into law, it was allowed to be
a dead letter from the day it was placed upon the
Statute Book.
Before the question of Papal aggression was dis
posed of, Disraeli made his annual assault on the
Free Trade settlement of 1846, and obtained at least
his annual success. He showed that he could com
mand a force only fifteen short of a majority against
a Ministry which, except by temporary alliances with
the Peelites, could scarcely secure a raajority at all.
Defeated on Mr. Locke King's motion to intro
duce a Bill for assimilating the county and borough
franchises. Lord John Russell made up his mind to
resign. Writing to Greville, he said : " The Times
has passed sentence of death on the Administration,
and it is most likely that it will be executed speedily."
He endeavoured, but without success, to form an
alliance with Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham.
At half-past four Delane came into my room, straight
from Aberdeen. Aberdeen told him that he was still
engaged in this task, but, he owned, with anything
but sanguine hopes of success. Delane said he hoped
if he did succeed he would not overlook the numbers
and importance of the Liberal party.'
As Lord Stanley was unsuccessful in forming
an alternative Administration, Her Majesty's former
Ministers resumed their places. It will be noticed
that this attempt at a fusion between the WhigS and
' Greville Memoirs, February 25, ,851.

,851] THE GREAT EXHIBITION 113
the Peelites, which might have succeeded but for the
objections of Lord Aberdeen to the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill, was the direct forerunner of the coahtion
effected a year later.
Public interest in the further legislative atterapts
of the Government was impeded by the holding of
the Great Exhibition of 1851 — the first of the World's
Fairs which were to bring about universal peace and
amity. Delane, who attended the opening, remained in
Serjeants' Inn throughout the summer. Writing to
Dasent in August, he says :
The town is less like London than you could
imagine — a wonderful mixture of English smock
frocks and the blouses of every European capital.
In September he wrote :
There is literally no news out of the office and the
other papers are most wretched. I was riding in the
Park to-day, one of six, of whom Mowbray Morris
and Jackson were two, and Karslake and Barker two
others. In fact, at six o'clock on a fine evening there
was only one stranger in the Row. 1 confess 1 rather
like it, though the streets are as full of strangers as
ever. The only piece of news is that Sydney is discovered
to be a kind of Californian Main — twice as much gold
and twice as pure. One would have thought that all
the pick-pockets we have sent there would have found
out even base gold long since. Perhaps it was the
purity that deceived them !
You will see the Spaniards have been doing some
real Spanish justice at Havanna. I respect them for
being the only European people who would have the
courage to perpetrate sucn an enormity.
Dasent took over the direction of the paper in
October, and Delane went abroad, visiting, in the
course of a six weeks' holiday, the Rhine, Munich,
vol. I 8

114 TOUR ABROAD [chap, iv
Innsbruck, Venice, Vienna (where he had an interview
with Schwartzenberg), and Dresden.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Heilbronn,
Weanesday, October 8, 185 1.
My dear George,
I am stuck up here for a few hours and so
improve the occasion to tell you of our progress thus
far. We had a rough but quick passage to Calais this
day week, went on next day to Liege, and thence on
Friday to Cologne. The weather was nothing less
than perfect — just what we had in London a month
since — and so, instead of hurrying onwards, we
dawdled a day at Konigswinter and Coblentz, whence
we came straight through to Heidelberg on Monday.
Yesterday was our first wet day, and now it seems
likely to clear up again. I never saw the Rhine or
Heidelberg in greater beauty, and perhaps enjoyed it
the more as the great stream of travellers has passed
and all the places are comparatively empty. There
are literally no English, and I fancy the hotel people
have made a very poor harvest. In fact, on the Rhine
the trade is altogether overdone. It would require
a whole nation to fill all the hotels. There were
plenty five years ago, but now there are at least twice
as many ; all I have seen raore cleanly than before but
decidedly less liberal in their tables d'hote and general
arrangements. The towns are all iraproved ; Cologne
has widened some of the narrowest streets, greatly
to the detriment of the picturesque, and the shops
both there and at Frankfort are much more splendid.
Another symptora of improvement is that there are
fewer priests and fewer soldiers. Of course there
are plenty of the latter at Coblentz and Mayence,
and a sample of every German army at Frankfort ;
but one hears less drumming, and does not see so many
about the streets as before. John Walter thought
our " Exposition had not raade rauch sensation."
My irapression is quite the contrary.* Almost every
respectable person I have met has been to London,
and, strange to say, they all declare themselves
pleased not only with the show, but with their
treatment there. One little German, who had spent

i85i] VENICE 115
two hundred thalers on his trip (which he seemed to
think about equivalent to the National Debt), declared
that it was worth twice the money to see London and
drink " pale eale." We hope to get to Ulm to-night,
and to Munich to-morrow, where 1 shall hope to find
time for another letter or two, as well as to receive
one from you.
It would be absurd of me to write about things in
England, for 1 have seen no paper so late as the one
1 brought with me.
I am always, my dear George, as ever.
Yours, John T. Delane.
The German is tolerably prosperous, and it need be,
for here they speak not one word of French and much
faster and less distinctly than on the Rhine.
You will find a short review of Sarauel Phillips' on
my dressing-table in an india-rubber band, if you are
in want of something spicy. Murray's republication
makes a pretty book, and I have read over two or
three of the articles with much pleasure.
* 1 have just seen in this out-of-the-way place a
book of London cab-fares and a Gerraan guide to the
Exhibition. Venice,
Thursday, October 2-3, 1851.
My dear George,
1 yesterday received your two most welcome
letters, and thank you heartily for them. I am rejoiced
to hear you are going on so well, and now that
we have reached the limit of our wanderings I am
beginning to feel a little impatient to return. I am
sorry for poor old Reventlow. Will not Bielke have
a chance of succeeding him? I have not even yet
seen a paper, so that your letters give me all the
news I receive except a little table dhote gossip now
and then. As to Kossuth, I am glad he has been
damaging himself, for there has certainly been for
some time a reaction in favour of the Brummagem
heroes of '48 and '49. Here, everything is perfectly
quiet, and a proclamation on all the walls gives
amnesty to political offenders of, so far as I can

ii6 VENICE [chap. IV
see, every class, and declares the liberation of all
confined or under sentence since or during the siege.
Radetsky, however, was here yesterday and has
ordered a new fort right in front of the Mole on the
island of St. George's, which will rather interfere with
the picturesque. Certainly of all people in the world
none are so timorous as these Austrians. They have
a huge garrison here, and indeed everywhere, princi
pally Hungarians and Croats, but are as busy with
ramparts and ditches as if one of the 12,000 here was
not more than enough to overpower the whole city.
It is the same at Verona, and indeed everywhere.
You would have been amused to see the exercise of
the censorship on Tuesday upon my rather miscel
laneous collection of books. The censor did not
understand English, and so suspected them all to be
dangerous. At last he selected for seizure a couple
of Railway Novels, Lord Mahon's "45," and your
German grammar! At this last everybody laughed
so much that with many misgivings he gave up the
whole. The first aspect of Venice from the railway station,
or, indeed, as seen for the first time from a gondola
along the canal, is not encouraging. Besides its
natural air of desolation and the almost supernatural
quiet which an exclusively water traffic produces, all
this side has been a good deal marked by the Austrians
in the siege, and we were decidedly disappointed until
we got to the port, when, indeed, the effect was much
more splendid than anything I had expected. Every
step I have since gone has added to my admiration,
everything I have seen has surpassed my anticipations.
But the mosquitoes 1 ! !
I can't tell you how delighted we were with the
Tyrol, especially the Italian side of it. The pubhshed
descriptions give no idea of its beauties, and I say
this though we were compelled by the lateness of the
season to come by the Brenner instead of by the
Stelvio, which was choked with snow. The difference
of climate is reraarkable. At Innsbruck the evenings
were so cold that we even thought of having the stoves
lighted, and actually went to bed to get warm, while
here the temperature is that of our July, and I dodge
about the Place of St. Mark to keep in the shade.
But for the mosquitoes the place would be another

i85i] VENICE 117
Paradise, but it is clear that Byron, Moore, and Rogers
had all thick skins. How can one admire this glorious
climate and transparent atmosphere when that very
atmosphere is full of such venomous monsters? I
almost hate the lovely green water which is ripphng
some sixty feet below my window because 1 fancy that
the mosquitoes flourish about it. Certainly they are
worst near the water, but one does not come to Venice
to live on land.
Except for these small plagues, however, we are
both very well, and so may not, perhaps, earn so large
a share of your compassion as we deserve. 1 am glad
to hear all is well in No. 10. 1 suppose there are no
pens there or that everybody forgot how to write in
Norfolk. 1 am, as ever, my dear George, Yours, J. T. D.
Vienna,
Monday, October ¦zi, ,851.
My dear George,
I came up here from Trieste, vid Laibach,
yesterday and only learnt this morning from Galignani,
and since then from Bird,' of the row which Kossuth's
arrival has created in England and of the row against
us. 1 am afraid all this has annoyed you sadly, but 1 hope
you have made Reeve, on whom the burden justly lies,
come up and bear it. If not, send for him at once and
peremptorily. I can scarcely hope to hear from you here, though I
most anxiously desire it. 1 feel inclined from what
Bird says to start off horae at once, but perhaps I may
be of more use here in cross-examining him. Like all
people who have lived long abroad, it is hard to get
particulars from him, but I will do my best.
Don't be cast down by the abuse of the other papers ;
they can't hurt us materially, and the interest is
manifest to everybody. Besides, how few see them !
Bird tells me frightful things of some pamphlet
which I have not yet seen, accusing us all of^ bribery.
I am, as ever, my dear George, Yours, J. T. D.
' The Times correspondent in Vienna.

II 8 VIENNA [chap. IV
Once more, don't let the bullying of The Daily
News annoy you. It is Reeve's battle ; let him
fight it.
Take, however, Mozley into your counsels; I am sure
you may trust him entirely, and let him write on the
Enghsh passion for foreign refugees, reminding him of
the enthusiasm in 1808 for the Asturian deputies and
the small syrapathy or thanks we found in Spain for
our interference. We have interfered everywhere
and been thanked nowhere. Bird professes con
fidence, but his charges against Kossuth are all of a
private nature.

Vienna,
November I, 1 851.
My dear George,
1 saw Count Zichy this morning and heard his
story, which is certainly precise enough, as to the
abstraction of his jewels by Kossuth. These jewels
formed part of a most magnificent set of ornaments for
a Hungarian dress, and he showed rae not only a
casket from which the biggest of some immense
diamond buttons had been taken, but the empty
sockets in a belt and other ornaments from which
large emeralds had been forced, all these things having
been, as he alleges, in Kossuth's personal possession,
and the missing stones having been since, in one way
or other, traced to his hands. This Zichy is the
brother of the one whom Gorgey hanged, on whose
death this one came into possession not only of all
this finery, but of very large estates.
As Bird has probably informed you, there was a
project for collecting a nuraber of great Hungarian
names to a repudiation of Kossuth, but this scheme
has now dwindled down into a proposal that old Paul
Esterhazy, who was a kind of Lord Grey in the first
Hungarian Cabinet, should write letters to the Duke
and Lord Melbourne stating the reasons of his
separation from Kossuth, and expressing very dis
advantageous opinions of Kossuth's private and
Eohtical honesty. 1 am to see the old man to-morrow,
ut 1 don't think much will come of the scheme,
although Bird and Zichy and the rest of them make
no doubt of their ability to get the letters written. If

,851] LEIPSIC 119
they are sent, we must make Greville get copies of
them, unless, indeed, 1 can get them here.
1 am amused at Kossuth's proposed intention to
return to the United States. The American Minister
here told me this morning that he had offered to pledge
himself that Kossuth should go straight to the States,
and that the Americans would not have sent him a
doUar or lent him a cock-boat if they had thought he
was to return to England. With such a reception as
our fools have given hira I should not wonder if he
refused to cross the Atlantic at all.
However, you have more than enough of all this at
home, so 1 will bore you no more about it. Only take
care that Reeve is not too reactionary. We get no good
by it either here or at home — not here because there is
nobody to read us, and not in England because our
own dear public likes to see discord and revolution
abroad, however little it may care for liberalism
itself We leave here on Monday for Prague and Dresden,
and hope to be on the following Sunday at Cologne.
If so, we shall be at Ostend on Monday night and in
town on Tuesday, so as just to fill up the six weeks.
1 am a little disappointed in Vienna, but in fact Venice
spoils one for everything else, and, though 1 have not
been able to do much, this Kossuth business has pre
vented me from working hard at sightseeing. The
weather, too, looks damp and dismal after Italy, so that
altogether I shall not be inconsolable when my holiday
is over.
I am, as ever, my dear George, Yours,
J. T. D.

Leipsic,
Friday, November"], 1851.
My dear George,
You will have heard from Bird how little all
that business in Vienna came to, so I will only tell
you that I had a long interview with Esterhazy, and
one yet longer with Schwartzenberg, neither of which
produced any result. So, as the weather was detest
able, and Vienna itself rather a failure, we left it last
Tuesday in a snowstorm which lasted all day, and

I20 THE CZAR'S VIEWS [chap, iv
got to Prague that night. On the following day we
reached Dresden, and after devoting all yesterday and
the little daylight till this evening to the galleries,
we came on here. To-morrow we go to Hanover, on
Sunday to Cologne, on Monday to Ostend, ahd on
Tuesday, the last day of my six weeks, 1 hope to have
the happiness of seeing you again.
It will look odd that one should be within so few
miles of Berlin and not go there, but the weather is
such that folks stare to see people travelling at all.
The country is covered with snow, and the air so
thick with it that there are scarcely raore than eight
hours of what can be called daylight. You may fancy
how cold it is except close to the stoves, and yet it is
barely a fortnight since I could not stand a waistcoat
at Venice. I rejoice hourly that I turned to the left
instead of the right there and had not the Alps to
cross. It makes me shudder to think of the Simplon
in such weather.
1 have been more delighted than 1 can tell you with
Prague and Dresden — the one for its galleries, the
other for its situation — but Vienna is certainly dis
appointing, as any city must be five-sixths of which
is permanently out of town. What remains is dirty,
noisy, and narrow ; the suburbs are separated from it
by lakes of mud, and are like overgrown watering-
E laces. Altogether, 1 like it less than any capital I
ave seen.
1 shall hope to find the Kossuth excitement on the
wane. All the articles 1 have seen in Galignani
have been excellent, but the row seems to have
been serious. 1 only hope you have been resolutely
backed. Yours, J. T. D.
N.B. — It's all stuff about Austria and passports. I
never had so little trouble or paid so little money.
The Italian correspondent of the paper, writing in
October, sent to the editor a very interesting account
of the views of the Czar Nicholas on the European
situation. Speaking to Nesselrode, he said that he
would not allow the blood of a single foreign soldier

,85,] RUSSELL AND PALMERSTON 121
to be shed within French territory, but that, supported
as he was by Prussia and Austria, he would spare
no effort to restrain the revolution within that limit.
A large Prussian army was in readiness to march on
the Rhine, and the Swiss and Piedmontese frontiers
were guarded by an even larger Austrian force.
Speaking of Louis Napoleon and his supporters, the
Czar said, "France of 1851 is not the France of 1792.
Let the rascals stew in their own gravy."
Throughout the autumn The Times maintained its
independent attitude towards the Government. It
especially blamed Palmerston, though at the loss of
some popularity, for his encouragement of Kossuth.
Often, however, as Lord John found himself out of
sympathy with his Foreign Secretary, no open rupture
had yet occurred between the two. But when, in its
second edition of December 2, The Times announced —
in a message received by the new electric telegraph,
which had just been laid between England and France
— that Paris was in a state of siege, and that the
President had re-established universal suffrage and
appealed to the people, it soon became evident that
the popular belief in Lord Palmerston's invulnerability
was about to receive a severe shock.
An anxious Christraastide was in store for Delane,
though the catastrophe which he had so long confi
dently predicted could not have taken him by surprise.
At a Cabinet Council held on December 22, it was
remarked with surprise that Palmerston was not
present. "We are enabled to announce that from
the day on which that Cabinet was held. Viscount
Palmerston ceased to hold the office of Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, or to be a member of Her
Majesty's Government." '
* Leading article in The Times, December 24, 1851.

122 DISRAELI'S LIFE OF BENTINCK [chap, iv
The paper went on to insist that from one reason
or another (principally from his recognition of the
coup d'etat and the consequent establishment of a
military despotism in Paris), his adrainistration of
foreign affairs had left him without an ally in Europe,
and as some thought without a friend.'
But at the very moment of Palmerston's fall, which
many shrewd judges deemed to be final, Delane called
attention to the indefatigable activity he had shown
in the public service, the vast capacity for work, the
courage in presence of danger, and that charm of
social manner which had made him, in spite of his
errors, a prime favourite with the House of Commons
and of one great party in the State.
Returning to Delane's ever-increasing private cor
respondence, we find that Disraeli, as on the occasion
of the publication of Coningsby, was prepared to be
dissatisfied with the treatment which his Life of Lord
George Bentinck might receive from The Times.
He wanted to select his own reviewer, and though
Delane's answer to the Hatfield letter is wanting, we
can see from Disraeli's second communication that his
suggestion had not met with the editor's approval.
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane Hatfield,
December 8, 185 1.
Dear Delane, We shall be in town on Thursday (on our way
back to Bucks) for a few days, when I hope 1 may see
you and have some conversation. 1 was going to call
on you as we passed through, but the French Revolu
tion arrived the same day, and I knew too well how
' For a valuable summary of the events of the month, see Mr.
Herbert Paul's History of Modern England, vol. i. pp. 234-6, and for
a flood of light on the subject of the coup d'Stat, De Maupas's
MSmoires sur le Second Em^pire.

,851] LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 123
you would be engrossed to trouble you with specula
tions, then, on domestic politics.
Why 1 trouble you with this note now is with
reference to a very minor affair.
Mr. Phillips has applied to Colburn for an early
copy of a book I am about to publish, called Lord
George Bentinck, on the plea that he is the critic of
The Times. I don't grudge Mr. Phillips his volume
or wish to depreciate his critical powers in rebus
litterariis, but in that confidence which has always
prevailed between us, and which, I trust, under all
circumstances, will never falter, I venture to observe
that I do not think that Mr. Phillips's pen is exactly the
one suited for the contemplated operation. The book
is the parliamentary history, and perhaps something
more, of three eventful years, written, 1 would fain
hope, with the impartiality of the future, as well as
some knowledge of the subject. It requires for its
critic a man up to snuff; a man of the world and
learned in political life — such a man, for example, as
Charles Greville.
1 have no interest in mentioning him, as he had a
feud with his cousin Lord George, and my acquaintance
with him is not intimate, but he understands the
subject, and would take the right tone.
On my return to town, I shall take my chance of
finding you at home, probably Friday ; two o'clock is,
I think, your hour. Yours sincerely, b.
Hughenden Manor,
Christmas Day, 185 1.
My dear Delane,
I am afraid my stupid suggestion from Hatfield
annoyed you, and perhaps justly, though that could
hardly be the intention of^ anything written in so
unreserved, and so thoroughly friendly, a spirit.
So comparatively trifling a topic ought not to have
been obtruded on you at a moment when, between
coups detat and cabinets in confusion, your brain and
time must have been alike taxed.
1 should be really vexed to annoy you, because you
so frequently, and so judiciously, aid me from your
own impulse, of which, believe me, 1 am yery sensible.

124 PALMERSTON'S SUCCESSOR [chap, iv
1 was unfortunate in not finding you at horae when
I went through town, or 1 would have explained all
this, and talked over other matters.
Believe me.
Yours sincerely and obliged, B. Disraeli.
Delane characterised the book as "a pamphlet
run to seed," calling public attention to the fact that
the author had failed to fill up that terrible gap of
eighteen years between the "murder" of Canning
and the crowning "treachery" of Peel.
Delane must have received early intelligence of
the selection of Palmerston's successor in office,
and probably from Lord Granville himself, as
the Duke of Newcastle wrote from Clumber on
December 24 :
The Duke of Newcastle to J. T. Delane
Clumber,
December 24, 1851.
My dear Sir,
I am greatly obliged by your thinking of writing
to me at the last moraent yesterday evening to inform
me of the iraportant change in the Government.
Several letters which I received this morning men
tioned the fact of Lord Palmerston being no longer
Minister, but none of them seem to have been aware
of the further fact which your letter communicated,
the appointment of Lord Granville as his successor.
If the reasons for Lord Palmerston's retirement be
indeed what I am told, the course which you and
others have steadily pursued in opposition to his
policy will be more than justified.
I am, my dear sir.
Yours sincerely, Newcastle.
With Lord Palmerston in a state of suspended ani
mation, Delane closed his review of the year with the
expression of an earnest hope that with the advent of

i85i] DELANE AND PALMERSTON 125
a new Foreign Secretary (Lord Granville) England
would " preserve her boasted neutrality without either
compromise or petulance ; without offering the right
hand to rampant despotism, and the left to democratic
conspirators," a sufficiently obvious allusion to Palmer
ston's ambiguous attitude towards Louis Napoleon on
the one hand, and Kossuth and Mazzini on the other.

CHAPTER V
THE COALITION GOVERNMENT
Annus mirabilis of English politics — Three Prime Ministers within
one year — Lord Hardinge on the national defences — The letters
of "An Englishman" — Death of the Duke of Wellington —
Formation of the Coalition Govemment.
The following carefully considered letter, although
undated, seems to have been written early in January
1852. It is the first of many which Delane received
from old " Bear " Ellice, who was so nicknamed, we
believe by Brougham, not from any acerbity in his
nature, for he was the most genial of men, but from
his connection in early life with Hudson's Bay and
the fur trade.
An expert in electioneering, and as one who had spent
huge sums upon parliamentary contests, his opinion
was always valued, and, in the years which were to
corae, Delane was in constant communication with
him, and a frequent visitor to Glenquoich on his
autumn holidays in the Highlands.
Edward Ellice to J. T. Delane
{Conjidential!)
Heckfield,
Thursday.
My dear Mr. Delane,
As I read my letter to you, I send in great con
fidence the answer for your perusal. Pray have the
goodness to enclose it to Arlington Street, where 1
126

,852] EDWARD ELLICE TO DELANE 127
shall be all Saturday if you like to call upon me.
Only pray say, in returning Lord Aberdeen's letter,
at what hour.
Pray don't mention to Lord Aberdeen that you have
seen his letter, as 1 have no permission to send it you,
but as we have all the same desire to assist in helping
the country out of the scrape in which we are involved,
1 am sure he would have no objection to my communi
cating his opinions to you. Everybody agrees in the
course to be adopted, and with every objection, and
there are most serious ones, to be urged against it — a
new Ministry and a dissolution before our present
divisions and distractions are aggravated by dis
cussion upon, or a recommendation in the Speech
from the Throne of a new Reform Bill.
Here are two other letters which the post has
brought me — one from Germany, and anotner from
a very sensible person, albeit a woman, on our own
affairs. We are governed somewhat unluckily at such a
conjuncture by a great little man [Lord John Russell]
instead of a httle great man [Lord Palmerston] —
whose qualities are more fitted for leading in Parlia
ment than for guiding the councils and managing the
complicated machinery of the administration of a great
nation. He thinks, if his part is played to his own
satisfaction, his whole task is accomplished, whereas
it is scarcely begun.
He has only at last quarrelled with his colleague at
the Foreign Office from higher pressure, and because
it was impossible to reconcile the higher power to the
state of isolation and danger, so evident and so much
felt by it.
He may be reduced by necessity to admit some
Brutus near the throne, to concur in the formation
of a new Cabinet, with another party on terras of
equality in the first instance, but he will avoid the
necessity as long as he can.
While the precious tirae passes, he endeavours to
enhst stray recruits, who are afraid to take his
shilHng; and when too late — on the eve of the
session and when reflecting on the responsibility
of engaging the Crown in a policy which he has
neither power to guide nor the prospect of bringing
to a safe solution — he will be brought to the con-

128 SIR W. MOLESWORTH [chap.v
viction, that his case is not one to be remedied by
half measures ! Yours very faithfully,
Edward Ellice.
We have been shooting, and I have asked the
Speaker to send you some game. He also is of
my opinion.
1 shall be in town to-raorrow, Friday, and at home
between four and five, if to-morrow suits you better
than Saturday.
I take it for granted the Cabinet to-day will decide
to go on.
Sir Williara Molesworth, another friend of long
standing, as was that famous social entertainer his
wife, wrote frora Paris, taking a somewhat similar
view. Sir William Molesworth to J. T. Delane
Hotel Windsor, Rue de Rivoli, Paris,
fanuary 13, 1852.
My dear Delane,
1 thank you much for your last letter, and return
you the enclosed. 1 did not expect that Lord John
would consent to break up the family compact, but
thought it likely that he would raeet Parliament with
his present forces. It is difficult to anticipate what
will be the consequences of his doings till the
Palmerston explanation is over, and the feelings of
raerabers, and especially of the Radicals, be ascer
tained. My impression is that the opinion will be,
even amongst those who were adverse to Palmerston's
policy, that in dismissing him he was sharply dealt
with, and that if he were wrong in his conduct towards
France, he had been more wrong in many other
instances, and that the men who backed him so
strenuously in 1850 were not entitled to trip him up
in 185 1 for conduct similar to that which he had
always pursued. If Palmerston succeed in proving
that there was a court intrigue against him, and give
plausible reasons for the belief that Lord John was
the instrument of that intrigue, I think you will find
that most of the Liberals and a large portion of the

,852] MOLESWORTH ON PALMERSTON 129
country will rally round Palmerston and throw Lord
John over. The latter has no personal friends, and
many of his followers are disgusted with his exclusive-
ness. The most likely consequence of the Palmerston
explanation will be that both he and Lord John will
be damaged, and if the Tories are ready to take power,
the Government will immediately fall into their hands,
they will go to the country, the country will decide
against any return to Protection, and the Tories will
make use of that decision to give up the cry of Pro
tection. If the Tories are not prepared to take office
immediately, 1 presume Lord John will have to con
tinue in office till they are ready ; which will be when
ever they can make terras with Palmerston. 1 think
in the present state of affairs that it is of the utmost
importance to us that there should be a strong Govern
ment; and 1 think a strong Tory Government (suppos
ing Protection abandoned) would be a less evil than
a weak pseudo-Liberal Government. I despair of a
strong Liberal Government at present, for to make
such a Government there must be a combination of
Whigs, Peelites, and Radicals, but where is the leader
to bring about such a combination ? Lord John will
never agree to it, Graham has not courage for it,
Cobden has not had that administrative experience
which would enable him at once to be the head of
a government. Palmerston alone has courage and
ability for anything, but the Peelites won't have any
thing to do with him. In short, to me the future (as
far as the question of the Ministry is concerned) is a
mystery and a puzzle, about which 1 should trouble
myself but little were I satisfied with the state of this
country, or convinced that my friend (as you call him)
the President would pursue a wise and prudent course.
1 must observe that the President is no friend of mine,
and that since his usurpation 1 have not attended his
court. I am obliged to finish this letter in a hurry to
save the post. Ever yours,
William Molesworth.
Delane's own opinion at this juncture seems to have
been that, though the continued disorder in the Whig
camp must once raore open the path to Lord Derby,
VOL. I 9

I30 LORD HARDINGE ON ECONOMY [chap.v
Conservatism, as then understood, was better fitted
for playing the part of guard than coachman.
When a few weeks later Palmerston took his
revenge on Lord John Russell,' and brought about
the downfall of the last purely Whig Administration,
he predicted but a short life for the new Government.
On the day of Palmerston's triumph Delane received
a long and interesting letter from Lord Hardinge on
the state of the national defences, suggested, as will be
seen, by recent articles in The Times.
The Naval estimates in 1852 amounted to less than
six and a half millions, and those for the Army to but
little raore, and this at a tirae when the bugbear of a
French invasion haunted the minds of military men !
Lord Hardinge, whilst grieving over the fatal policy
of disarmament pursued in the past by Pitt, and to
a lesser extent by Peel, as well as by the Whigs, was
clear-headed enough to see the dangers ahead of such
false economy.
Lord Hardinge to J. T. Delane
15, Great Stanhope Street,
Friday \f February 20, 1852].
My dear Sir,
I have been out of town. The article very truly
stated the principle on which our defences against
invasion ought to be founded, and I observe in the
Navy estimates brought to me this morning that there
is to be a Reserve of 5,000 able seamen, cost ;£^38,ooo a
year. What the conditions may be, will 1 suppose be
known before the estimates are discussed. 1 pre
surae an annual sum paid quarterly as a retaining fee
to trained gunner-seamen, liable to serve when wanted,
and when not wanted pursuing their seafaring vocation
in the Channel.
' The division on a preliminary stage of the Militia Bill on
February 20 found the Government in a minority of eleven.

,852] THE NATIONAL DEFENCES 131
There may be objection to the detail— but the
principle is in the right direction.
I perceive there is no addition to the marines on
shore — 5,300.
Deducting the staff, orderly-room establishment,
recruiting, and drilhng, etc., etc., 1 imagine this
number of soldiers trained as naval gunners, and
including the Marine Artillery, could not send 4,000
trained men afloat, and is too scanty for the occasion.
1 saw a well-informed gentleman yesterday, who
convinced me that at this moment the French have in
their ports from Brest to Calais steam vessels and
sailing vessels quite sufficient to take on board and
land 50,000 soldiers at one trip, without encumbering
their men-of-wars' decks with troops, or bringing a
single vessel from the Mediterranean ! The soldiers
being permanently placed within twenty-four hours'
march of the ports, would escape observation if ordered
to close in to the coast for embarkation.
The seamen and marines for handling their vessels
are ready to step on board, and the ships (steamers
and sailing vessels) have their lower masts in — their
guns, ammunition, and water on board. 20,000 men
could embark at Brest at a short notice ; from
Cherbourg 10,000; the smaller ports 10,000 more; and
from Lille by railroad in a few hours 10,000 men
could be at Calais, with the field guns, ammunition,
and field equipages, always ready in the French
frontier towns for any sudden operations — three hours
from Lille to Calais ! This is one of the dangers to which
we are now exposed — that the invading force can be
prepared 100 miles inland, ostensibly for continental
purposes, and in a few hours brought rapidly by
railways to the coast.
For instance, we could send (if we had them)
two divisions of infantry, 10,000 men each = 20,000
infantry, and thirty-six field guns, with their horses,
from London to Liverpool at one trip in eight hours \
distance 200 miles — and steamer by electric telegraph
being prepared — our 20,000 men could be in Dublin
with ease in forty-eight hours.
What we can do by rail, the French doubtless can
equally perform.
Assume that the attempt be made with the celerity
and ability of the coup de main. How are our 5,000

132 THE NATIONAL FORCES [chap.v
coastguardsmen to assemble in the Tharaes, Ports
mouth or Plymouth, frora a great number of dispersed
stations, or the 5,000 Naval Reserve, the great pro
portion of whom are on board ships employed in
commercial pursuits?
After the first month of war our Channel would
swarm with steamers, and no great attempt would be
made to invade us in England. In Ireland the case
would be different.
Baron Meurice and French writers of eminence
frankly admit that their chance of success depends
upon imitating our conduct at Copenhagen ; the
packet from Calais which brought the declaration
of war would be followed by the expedition the
next day.
We must, therefore, have a large military force
ready prepared to meet a landing of 50,000 men.
We could at present barely concentrate 20,000
infantry on any point of our coasts !
We ought at this moment, if the law of the land
had been enforced, have 52,000 trained Regular
Militia in Great Britain, dressed, accoutred, and
brigaded with the troops of the Line ; but the law of
1802 is suspended by an Order in Council each year.
This 50,000 Regular Militia force would cost, for
twenty-eight days' training, ;^ 160,000 a year, and on
the old constitutional system we should be able with
the Line to bring 40,000 infantry in the field.
Peel in 1845 on the Tahiti alarm had 75,000 Regular
Militia in contemplation. The Bill was printed for the
use of the Cabinet — 5,000 men were actually added to
the artillery regiments — but the discussions ended
Eeaceably, and in 1846, when the measure was to have
een brought forward, his Governraent was in the
agony of dissolution.
If there was an insurrection in Ireland, 30,000 Regular
Militia could be sent in a few days to Ireland. This
Regular Militia, trained for twenty-eight days, costs the
public no raore than an equal number of local Militia,
but it is in every respect more efficient, and the
country, in vulgar phrase, gets more for its money
than by the other mode. The Army wants a force
for defensive operation which will be valuable the
nearer it approaches it (the Army) in arms and
organisation.

,852] THE NEW GOVERNMENT 133
Volunteers of young men from seventeen to thirty
years of age would do good service as regular troops ;
but to occupy ground on the defensive, or to move
in military array on the offensive, the regular troops
of the Line want regular associates. 1 have seen the
French stand boldly against Portuguese and our own
riflemen dressed in green — and turn their backs the
instant a regiment in red came in view.
This reminds me of our friend Sir Charles. He is
quite wrong about muskets — but 1 have occupied too
much of your time.
If you would like to see Thiers, he dines with me
on Monday, March 2. Bunsen, "the Bear,"' Graham,
and others are of the party. Yours very truly,
Hardinge.

Whilst the Cabinet, which was mainly composed of
untried men, was in process of formation, Delane was
in constant touch with Disraeli, receiving no less than
four letters from him in forty-eight hours.
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Gate
[February 1852].
My dear D.,
I have just come from Anthony Rothschild's,
where we have been dining. Forbes McKenzie,
according to my directions, told me that he had sent
a list last night, but that its accuracy, however limited,
was disturbed by on dits being mixed up with it.
All I can recollect now of news is that Mr. G. F. Young
{secret) (as anticipated) having refused (though highly
gratified), on account of health, the V.P. of Board of
Trade, Lord Colchester, an excellent working man,
is to represent the office in the House of Lords. John
Neeld is to be a Lord of the Treasury ; Lord Seaham,
Vice-Chamberlain vice Lord Worcester ; Cecil Forester,
Comptroller of the Household.
These are little things, and I have no greater news,
excepting that the world seems to begin to think that
' Ellice.

134 DISRAELI'S MANIFESTO [chap.v
everything goes very well, and that we (certainly 1 and
Lord Derby) are very sensible of the admirable tact
and great effect of your articles.
The Bear and Charles Villiers, both of whom dined
at Anthony's, evidently thought that the Liberal game
was quite up, provided we had discretion and fortune,
as you and I settled.
I think we shall have both. Adieu, D.
Your Lords-in- Waiting, copied, were wrong. 1 can't
give the right names, except Galway is one, who being
in the House of Commons I naturally remember.
You will have my address y?r5/.
The Cabinet is forraed, and is not conteraptible. 1
think it will not be received with disfavour by the
country. Lord Derby will present the list of names
to-morrow and kiss hands. It cannot appear in the
evening papers, and I hope, therefore, that it may
be seen for the first time correctly in your journal
on Tuesday raorning. If it be possible I will send it
you for a second edition to-morrow.
The following undated letter relates to the issue
of Disraeli's manifesto in the month of June :
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane
House or Commons,
Thursday night [fune 1852].
Dear Delane, —
You asked me some time ago when 1 intended
to publish my " manifesto." 1 did not think the
occasion was then ripe for it. It is, I think, now ;
and I propose to send it you to-morrow evening. No
one will nave seen it except one or two of my col
leagues, and it will not be otherwise known until
Monday. 1 hope you will be able to back me, as the
movement is my own, but if you can't, we must take
the fortune of war without grumbling ; sensible as 1
am of rauch kindness on your part. Yours sincerely, D.

,852] ANNUS MIRABILIS OF POLITICS 135
The ship of state rode well at anchor. Yet through
faulty navigation it was fated to be wrecked on its
maiden voyage. Disraeli's address distinctly spoke of
establishing at no distant period a policy in conformity
with the principles which the party had maintained
in opposition, and thus, within three weeks from the
re-assembling of Parliament, a celebrated harlequin,
with a wave of his wand, had changed the whole
scene. The Times found occasion to speak of " the
pantomimic changes at St. Stephen's," as well it might,
for just before the inevitable dissolution the same
great conjuror told his constituents that "the time
had gone by when injuries which the great producing
interests endure can be alleviated or removed by a
recurrence to the laws which, previously to 1846,
protected them from such calamities." At the same
time, he continued to hold out hopes of a revision of
taxation. But this annus mirabilis of English politics was
destined to bring in its train another kaleidoscopic
change within that brief space of time which coincided
with Palmerston's absence from office.'
Lord Derby and his friends committed a grievous
error in judgment. When they had once made up
their minds to a renunciation of their former economic
tenets, they should have renounced them entirely
without ambiguity or reserve. This they could not
bring themselves to do, but they unwisely retained
just so rauch as might damage them without in the
slightest degree helping the cause of which they had
lately shown themselves to be the most vigorous
advocates. ' Three distinct changes of leadership within twelve months are
without a parallel in our political annals. The case of ,868, though
somewhat similar, is not analogous, as Disraeli then merely succeeded
Lord Derby without an entire reconstruction of his Cabinet.

136 LORD DERBY'S POLICY [chap.v
After the coup detat in Paris, Delane published in
The Times a series of letters by "An Englishman,"
which, so far as we know, were the only anonymous
letters ever inserted in the paper. Directed against
Louis Napoleon, they seldom rose above the level of
penny-a-lining, but they happened to hit the popular
taste. With every one of the published letters the
writer sent a covering letter to the editor. No pay
ment was ever asked for, and the identity of this
mysterious correspondent was never revealed. The
first of the series appeared on December 20, 1851,
and during the whole of the next year these anony
mous contributions, the best of which only found their
way into print, poured into The Times office. Then
the " Englishman " entirely ceased to favour Delane
with his diatribes against the Emperor.
Throughout the session Lord Aberdeen, the safe
man in opposition, as distinguished from the opportu
nist seeking to regain office, continued to confide to
Delane his views on the questions of the day, though
he can have had no idea of the prominent part he was
soon to be called upon to play in the conduct of public
affairs. On March 31 he wrote :
Undoubtedly the most satisfactory part of Lord
Derby's declaration was the assurance that we should
have an autumnal session of the new Parliament. To
this he adhered last night : but I am bound to say that
he also conveyed the impression of his intention to
dissolve at a much earlier period than he now proposes
to do. 1 was induced to say a few words on the night
in question, in consequence of a strange speech of
Lord Redesdale, who said that he saw no reason for
an early dissolution, and hoped that it would not take
place before the usual time. I said that this speech
rendered it necessary to come to a clear understanding
with Lord Derby on the subject, and repeated that

,852] H. L. BULWER ON AMERICA 137
after proposing the measures of primary importance
to which he had alluded, 1 took for granted that he
intended to dissolve Parliament. 1 added that we
might possibly differ in our estimate of the importance
of these measures, and should act accordingly. To this
he assented. The impression in the House of Lords
yesterday was decidedly that there had been a material
variation from the spirit, and even the words of the
declaration. Had the declaration been less satisfactory,
the vote for the Army would certainly not have passed
so easily.
Amongst correspondents who now appear for the
first time in Delane's papers were Henry Lytton
Bulwer (Lord Dalling), our Ambassador at Washing
ton, and Bernal Osborne, on the occasion of his second
return for Middlesex.
The former evidently did not hold an exalted opinion
of American diplomatic methods :
Diplomacy here is electioneering [he wrote frora
Washington on May 6]. There appears in the papers
here a letter frora me as to the St. Lawrence, by which
1 hope to secure what we have long been desiring — the
markets of this country for the agricultural produce
of Canada, without a greater sacrifice than allowing
persons to traffic and pay toll on a highway which is
of little use without such traffic and toll. One must,
however, deal here as if one was always making a bad
bargain, and the Americans, 1 mean the mass, only
value a thing if they imagine you have given it up with
great reluctance. What is the state of England and
parties there which look so strangely? You will
answer me by your sibyl leaves, which 1 don't peruse
with less interest than heretofore on this side of the
Adantic. The general election, about the date of which Lord
Aberdeen was so concerned, took place in July with
disappointing results to the Government, which again
found itself in a rainority without the aid of the

138 TOUR IN WEST OF ENGLAND [chap.v
Peelites, on whom, of course, they could not count if
they brought forward Protection.
Lord Derby was at Goodwood [Greville writes to
Delane in August] more sedate than usual, not chaffing
and laughing all day long, as is his wont, but still not
out of spirits. The Government will be strong, and 1
hope no attempt will be made to bowl them out at
first, which would not answer, but they seera to me
to have prepared difficulties for themselves by the
enormous expectations they have held out, which
never can be realised, and the failure of which will
produce a great reaction and angry disappointment.
They ought to have the most unlimited opportunity of
developing all their plans, and putting their case
before the country.
Towards the end of August Delane started on an
extended driving tour in the West of England. Send
ing his horses by rail to Southampton, he drove from
there to Weymouth through the New Forest. Starting
in a thunderstorm, he made the first stage of his
journey to the accompaniment of lightning and hail,
" much as Partridge in Tom Jones might have done.
A fire-ball which fell close to the black mare's head
fortunately did no harm. Our road lay through the
forest (Lyndhurst, Lyraington, etc.), of which 1 will
only say that qud road it is capital, but, as regards
scenery, tiraber, or any of the ordinary attributes of
a forest, it is a profound humbug."
He was much pleased with the Bath Hotel at
Bournemouth, then only a newly discovered watering
place. "Imagine the Bedford at Brighton, the Star
and Garter at Richraond, with a cross of the farm
house, all in good order and the best of servants,
and even then you will do less than justice to the
Bath." Perhaps it was because his coachman, a most
devoted servant throughout his career, highly ap-

,852] DEATH OF THE DUKE 139
proved of the loose boxes and the oats, that he halted
there for a day or two.
Well, on we came, through Poole and Wareham,
and reached here [Weymouth] about the hour of high
Esplanade. The Inn (Royal) is but a poor substitute
for the Bath, but the sea is clear, the view of the
coast striking, and Portland, where we have spent
the day, very wonderful indeed. Of course, 1 can't
do particulars, but you shall have one bit of that
antediluvian loyalty which still reigns here. Beside
a most hideous monument of the Jubilee, there stands
on the sands a much more characteristic effort of
British art. In the midst of a cluster of modern
bathing machines is carefully preserved one of primae
val form surmounted by a crown bearing the following
inscription : " The machine of the great and good
King George III., the friend of the poor, the patron
of Weymouth." Fancy preserving for sixty years
such a trophy of his prowess ! 1 have seen no paper
since 1 left London, and am therefore in utter dark
ness ; pray lighten it, and believe me Yours ever,
J. T. D.
At Exmouth he learnt the news of the death of the
Duke of Wellington.
I have just read over for the twentieth time both
the article and the biography. I think they are both
capital, and 1 shall be surprised if anybody has any
thing as good. I have no doubt you will have for a
month or two a heap of correspondence upon almost
every paragraph, and in such a case 1 would find room
for all that will in any way pass muster. He will be
the only topic, and I would let the public have its say.
The next question will be the Command-in-Chief,
and 1 think we must go for Hardinge as the only
means of averting the Prince. I see in Tuesday's
Faper another article of Lowe's upon Louis Napoleon.
think we have picked that bone pretty bare, and
shall do ourselves instead of him injury if we con
tinue to abuse him. We arrived here last night from
Charmouth by way of Lyme, Sidmouth, and then
over longer and steeper hills than I ever saw in any

140 "THE DUKE" [chap.v
Alpine road. There they avoid them ; here the object
ofthe road-makers seems to have been to take travellers
over the highest peaks and through the lowest valleys,
and if so they rarely fail of their purpose. But horses
and carriage do well in spite of cruel bad weather, and
the country is charming.
From Exeter he sent Dasent a hasty note (written
in a pastrycook's shop) to say :
I have no choice between Longman and Murray as
to the publication of the biography.' Woodham [who
wrote it for the paper] would, 1 daresay^ prefer the
former from his old Edinburgh Review acquaintance.
I suppose there will not only be a public funeral,
but a public mourning. Of course he will be buried
in Westminster Abbey. The Queen and Prince ought
to attend, and so I suppose would the two Houses if
they were in session.
He wrote from Plymouth on September 20, 1852 :
All the country papers I have seen are full of our
biography of the Duke, some taking it bodily, others
diluting it to suit the weak stomachs of their readers.
I am surprised the public don't write more; but 1
should think the French and German papers would be
worth notice both for their own comments and for the
opportunity their repetition of some of the old con
tinental stories against the Duke would afford Wood
ham of effective replies. The Prussian papers ought
to come out with some good military criticism if they
are capable of so sudden an effort. Besides " Death of
the Duke of Wellington " posted everywhere in large
letters, I see " Arrest of Lord Londonderry " placarded.
What in the world does it mean ? Has he claimed the
title and challenged Douro ?
Since I last wrote we have been through Dawlish,
Teignmouth, and Babbacorabe to Dartmouth, and
yesterday we came on here. I don't in the least regret
not having gone abroad, for this country is really very
well worth seeing, and nothing can surpass the com
fort in which we travel and the constant variety of
scene it affords. ' Of the Duke of Wellington.

,852] IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND 141
The horses do capitally, and are in better working
order than when we started, in spite of stages so
long as to astonish people here, and roads which seem
intended for any purpose than means of communication.
Every day 1 wish that some Devon Rebecca would
arise ; for while eighteenpenny tolls occur every five
miles, no one ever seems to think of expending any of
the money thus collected on the roads. Yesterday 1
paid eight-and-sixpence in tolls in twenty-eight miles,
only four of which was better than an ordinary lane.
We had a sail up the Tamar yesterday, and are now
just off to the Breakwater. We shall stay over to
morrow to see the Dockyard, Keyham, etc., and then
go on by Fowey, St. Austell, and Falmouth to
Penzance, where I hope to hear from you again. The
hotel here is at least three times as large as the Russie
at Frankfort. I had meant to write a great many
letters ; but after driving all day and walking up
many hills, I generally go to sleep after dinner, and
can only be waked to go to bed.
The lood has been generally good ; pale ale every
where to be had, and the inns on the whole well
conducted except as regards wine, which from con
siderations of health as much as economy 1 have been
obliged to give up. It is very noxious and about the
price of Tokay.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Penzance,
Sunday [September 26, 1852].
My dear George,
We were so delighted with Falmouth and the
whole district between this and Plymouth that we
only reached here this morning, and only got your
letters at nine o'clock this evening.
There is so much to answer that I scarcely know
where to begin. Oxford is certainly lamentably off
for heroes ; ' but when Jacobson mentioned at Easter
who were to be the candidates (for they were all
named even then), 1 thought EUesmere the least ob
jectionable. Such occasions show the advantage of
having Royalty as an institution. If Albert had been
' The Chancellorship of the University was vacant owing to the
death of the Duke of Wellington.

142 VIEWS ON POLITICS [chap.v
disengaged, of course he would have been the raan,
and all would have acceded ; if his son were old
enough, he would have been better still ; but when
Princes are excluded we have not only to choose from
among subjects, but from among subjects who are not
party men. The object ought to be to find sorae one
sufficiently illustrious frora other than political con
siderations, and it seems to me that neither Derby nor
Newcastle can be elected without either giving an
unintended victory to a party or playing over again
the last University contest. Of course, if there were
such a poll, I would vote for Newcastle against Derby;
but half the University would be no better pleased
with either as their Chancellor than we should be with
Bullock Marsham as our representative, with the
additional disadvantage that they would be tied to
him for his life. It is evidently rauch better, then, to
take a respectable raediocrity. Harrowby is so far
disqualified as representing a party in the Church ;
and though the choice is a very poor one, I don't see
how we can mend an EUesmere. Haven't the Whigs
thought of the Duke of Bedford or Carlisle ?
1 am delighted with all that has been done about
the Duke. The articles I have seen have been most
excellent and in the best taste. Macdonald, too, did
his work capitally. I should have come up for the
funeral ; but am all the better pleased, of course, not
to be hurried from my tour. I have not yet had time
to read your article upon precedents ; but it is plainly
absurd to set up objections about the Guards. The
Duke was their General, and it is their duty to attend
his funeral, wherever it might be — that duty overriding
all other etiquette.
Greville's first two paragraphs are indeed excellent,
but the matter afterwards shares the faUing-off in the
subject. It is easy to be zealous against the Dons, but
hard to be more than lukewarm for EUesmere.
Since 1 last wrote the weather has become lovely —
cool in the mornings and evenings, but so blazing hot
at midday that 1 am more sunburnt than in Italy. You
may fancy how everything improves under such genial
influences, and will not wonder that we like Cornwall
even better than Devon. We went frora Plymouth
first to Looe — a most primitively strange place — and
thence by way of Truro to Falmouth, whence we came

,852] DELANE IN CORNWALL 143
on Friday to Helston. From there we went yester
day to the Lizard, and have to-day been to St. Michael's
Mount. To-morrow we go to Land's End, and pro
bably on Wednesday we shall turn homewards by the
north coast of Cornwall and Devon.
1 will inflict another letter on you when 1 have read
the papers, and am always, ray dear George, as ever.
Yours, J. T. D.
Penzance,
Tuesday [September 28, 1852].
My dear George,
Since 1 last wrote I have carefully read through
all the papers up to last Friday, and certainly never
read any better. The articles are all good, and the
papers generally interesting ; but my old grievance
against the readers is as strong as ever, and I see
Simonds has returned to the odious practice of
taking out the leads from the end of every l.P.l.
or M.l. letter or article. He saves a quarter of a
column (you know the old Griff always could) at the
expense of disfiguring the whole paper.
I fear Derby will succeed at Oxford, though there
can't be two opinions as to the gross indecency of the
Dons' conduct. The article upon them was capital ;
but they are wise in their generation and practised in
electioneering, so that with a Prime Minister for a
candidate 1 fear they will be too strong for us. How
ever, I shall be ready to vote against them and him on
the 1 2th.
Now that we have done so well with the Duke, 1
begin to be anxious about Brougham, and the raore
so as 1 can't think of any one who could do him
justice. Ten years since he would have been handed
over for Tyas to slaughter without remorse ; but we
have improved upon that feeling, and his life ought to
be generously written, not without a sufficient mention
of his many failings, but with a handsome recognition
of his great merits and greater aspirations. 1 am by
no means sure that Phillips would not do him best ;
he did that Orleans family so well. Just turn the
matter over in your mind, and write me a line to
Launceston about it.
We were at Land's End yesterday, and it is as

144 VISIT TO PARIS [chap.v
effective a point as can be desired — the country for
ten miles inland wasted by wind and spray, but
singularly full of ancient monuments of all sorts ; the
sea more furious than can be well imagined, and traces
of still greater fury everywhere in a promontory re
duced by its action to a skeleton of the hardest granite,
and even that worn and riven wherever a vein of
softer material exists into the strangest and most
fantastic forms. There is not a particle of beach for
miles, and as even at low tide there is deep water at
the foot of the cliffs, you may imagine with what force
the breakers dash against them, and how the surf rises
almost to their very summits in a gale.
I send you a bit of moss from the very outermost
stone of the outermost cliff — the only memorial 1 could
get of the place, for everything less than a block of
granite would be swept away in even ordinary weather.
To-morrow we start homewards by way of Launceston,
Ilfracombe, etc.
I am, my dear George, always yours, J. T. D.
Before returning to London for the winter Delane
paid a hurried visit to Paris to see for himself what
hold Louis Napoleon had obtained on popular favour
by his contemplated assumption of empire. He
wrote Dasent two letters describing what he saw
and heard, and returned with the impression that
notwithstanding the Prince President's lavish pro
mises of public works in Paris (which resulted in
the ultimate expenditure of about twelve millions of
raoney), there was no great enthusiasra for hira, at all
events in the capital of France.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Paris,
Saturday, 4 o'clock
[October 17, 1852].
My dear George,
I have just come back from seeing the procession
and write to assure you that though a very pretty

i852] DELANE IN PARIS 145
show indeed, it was worth nothing at all as an indication
of public opinion. That may have manifested itself
in other and less unmistakable ways ; certainly there
was none to-day. The weather was most lovely, the
shops all shut at noon, the troops and music as fine as
could be — especially the cavalry — and the people came
out in swarms, just as ours go to the Derby, not
because they care for the favourite or the result of the
race, though they applaud him when he wins ; but to
see each other and to enjoy a fine sight on a fine
day. I walked about all the morning till nearly one
o'clock and then went into an entr'acte for which
Boulee got us tickets, which commanded a good view
of the Place de la Concorde. The scene was beautiful,
enlivened by every variety of uniform, and the crowd
constantly increased by the arrival of deputations with
banners and music, and headed generally by a score
or two of girls in white, with bare heads and bouquets.
(By the bye, I never saw such ugly ones — your ex-
Anne would have created quite a sensation.) People
and deputations continued to pour in until the place
was quite full, until at 2.45 the defile of the cavalry
began and went on at a trot, until, as 1 reckoned, about
4,000 had passed. There were in all forty squadrons of
200 each and I counted twenty-one when the Guides
began to appear, and the cheering, such as it was, to ^
begin. After about a squadron of Guides came a batch of
general officers, and then the President a little ahead
of his staff on a dark chestnut horse, bowing to either
side. The people crowded to see him and there was
much confused cheering but no distinct words that
either 1 or anybody near me could make out. He
then turned down the centre walk of the garden and
went on, still rather fast, to the Tuileries. There, of
course, the people crowded after him, and after a
while he began to receive the deputations, who, one
after another, scrambled into the Palace, and were
then huddled out. At 4.15 he came out on the
balcony where old Louis Philippe used to stand, and
said a few words, and since then 1 have seen no more
"deputations" admitted. There are to be illumina
tions in the evening, but I don't see much preparation
for them.
I dare say you will think 1 have given reasons
VOL. I 10

146 IN PARIS [CHAP.V
enough already to account for the assemblage of a
crowd, but I ought not to omit the ingenious idea of
the deputations. Everybody likes being an actor as
well as a spectator, and in this way many thousand
people were interested in the show who would have
been perhaps indifferent as spectators. There must
have been at least i,ooo girls in white frocks with
flowers — the representatives, of course, of as many
proud mothers — the fish-women, fruit-women, porters,
bakers, and every other trade and every market were
represented, and each one of them thought himself a
large part of the show. Then there were all the
national guards, cavalry as well as infantry, in their
new dresses with new eagles, and as vain as
peacocks. The troops alone seemed to think the
thing rather a bore, especially the cavalry, who, both
raen and horses, seemed a good deal knocked up
with a long march into town and too raany hours
in saddle.
The cuirassiers and Guides were particularly
splendid. Among the infantry the Vincennes boys
were the favourites of the crowd and ran to admira
tion. There was a great show of artillery, but they
were too far for me to see more than that all the
guns had six horses.
Altogether it was a beautiful sight, but no more.
1 have talked to lots of people in the crowd and else
where, and the one word in all their mouths is travail.
They regard Louis Napoleon as "raakinggoodfor trade"
and do not see that the money to pay for it comes
from their own pockets. They have even put up in
huge letters on the triumphal arch- by which he
entered Reparation du Louvre, Continuation de la
Rue de Rivoli, Travaux-Publics — . as if all these
works of mere embellishraent, effected at the pubhc
expense, constituted any claim to the gratitude of the
people. He gives them indeed " Bread and Shows,"
but it is they that pay for both.
However, you don't want a lecture on political
economy and so I will finish ray first impression of the
Empire. 4.50. — They are now shouting for him to show
himself again — just as they used to do for Louis
Philippe.

,852] LOUIS NAPOLEON 147
Monday [October ,8, 1852].
My dear George,
Since I last wrote I have seen the illuminations,
which, though poor in themselves, set off this beautiful
city to great advantage ; and yesterday a more won
derful procession than that of the day before, of
people who were missed in the previous procession,
but who came now to see the arches, inscriptions, etc.
1 also yesterday met the President on his way to
St. Cloud. 1 am more and more convinced that he has
no hold whatever upon the people, except that derived
from the recollection of their losses and sufferings
under the Republic. He is now realising the Irish
conceit — he is feeding the hungry dog who might
otherwise be dangerous with joints of his own tail
in the shape of costly but unproductive public
works, and he has the luck of a good harvest. When
the works are finished or the money runs short,
especially if either of these coincides with a bad
harvest, he must either make war or follow Louis
Philippe. 1 have heard this idea repeated a dozen times. He
and his army give present security, and anything
which ensures " order " will be tolerated so long as
the tradesmen still think of their empty shops, and the
workmen the days of Ateliers Nationaux. But that,
like all other impressions here, will soon fade, and as
soon as either scarcity or natural fickleness causes
the masses to tire of the idol of their creation, the
intelligence of the nation will again make itself heard
and upset this most stupid despotism.
I find I underrated the troops yesterday. I hear
the cavalry reckoned at 10,000 and the guns at 80.
Bowlby, whom I found here yesterday, asked a man in
the crowd if he had ever seen such a show ? The
answer was "Yes; a much better one." "When?"
"Lorsque Louis XVIIP est rentre."
But I won't tire you by writing this, and much more
as I hope to be with you to-morrow night.
Ever yours,
J. T. D.
On November 11 he saw the Queen open Par
liament in person, receiving on the same day the

148 OPENING OF PARLIAMENT [chap.v
following letter from Disraeli relating to an un
authorised version of the Speech from the Throne
which appeared in a contemporary :
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane
Downing Street,
November ,,, 1852.
My dear Delane,
I was very sorry that I did not see you yes
terday. I shall be glad to talk over affairs at your
convenience. I thank you very much for the support which I
have received from The Times since your return to
England. I am much disgusted at the appearance of a quasi-
authentic version of the " Speech " in The Moming
Herald. The Moming Herald is not my organ, and 1
trust never will be; in fact, I never wish to see my
name in its columns. But I ara bound to tell you,
because I know it, that the version in question pro
ceeded from no member of the Government.
It is the wish of the highest quarter that the words
which Her Majesty uses from the throne should not
be cheapened by previous acquaintance with them,
and the most strict injunctions were impressed upon
our guests both by Lord Derby and myself to respect
this feeling. Nevertheless, a guest of Lord Derby 1
suspect to be the traitor — not, however, a traitor in
office. Yours sincerely, D.

On the day of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington
in St. Paul's, Greville wrote to him as follows :
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane
Bruton Street,
Monday [November 18, 1852].
1 have just been at St. Paul's, and there I met
Gladstone and some others. The former told me this
— that a large meeting took place in Downing Street,

,852] RESIGNATION OF LORD DERBY 149
when Derby himself addressed them to this effect —
that if beat on ViUiers' motion he should not resign,
but that he reserved to himself entire discretion of
opposing it or not as he thought best; if anybody
objected to that course, or had any remarks to make
on what he proposed to do, he begged they would
then and there make them, and not find fault afterwards
(hear, hear, hear) ; he said he accepted that cheer as
signifying assent to his proposed course. Nobody
gainsaid him, and so it ended. All the Protectionists
surrendering themselves to his implicit guidance, there
will, 1 think, be neither debate nor division on ViUiers'
motion. This is all I know, and 1 heard the same story
from somebody else. Yours, C. G.
Granville wants to know if you will dine here on
Saturday. On the defeat of Disraeli's Budget ' in the fullest
House ever known, Lord Derby resigned, and once
more Palmerston's star was in the ascendant. But
the hour of his predominance was not yet. " 1 never
thought of Aberdeen," he is said to have exclaimed,
much as a politician of our own generation is reported
to have said, " I forgot Goschen " when he resigned
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in 1886.
The columns of The Times at the close of the year
' Greville has a curious note on Disraeli's conduct of the financial
business of the country at this time. Writing on January 24, 1853,
he says : " Yesterday Delane called on me and gave me an account
of a curious conversation he had had with Disraeli, Disraeli asked
him to call on him, which he did, when they talked over recent events
and the fall of the late Government very frankly, it would seem, on
Disraeli's part. He acknowledged that he had been bitterly mortified.
When Delane asked him, 'now it was all over,' what made him
produce such a Budget, he said, if he had not been thwarted and
disappointed, he should have carried it by the aid ofthe Irish Brigade
whom he had engaged for that purpose. . . . Delane asked him what
he would have done with such a Budget if he had carried it. He said
they should have remodelled their Govemment. Palmerston and
Gladstone would have joined them."

I50 THE NEW MINISTRY [chap.v
1852 are instructive as showing Delane's share in
preparing the national mind for the advent of a real
Coalition Government, which, as we have shown, had
been within an ace of being a fait accompli at the time
of the negotiations between Lord Aberdeen and the
Whigs in the February of the previous year. The
political situation was well sumraed up in the paper
on December 22 :
Whig traditions, indeed, hover about a few Whig
families ; but the very names of Pitt, Fox, and Peel
have no living significance or representation. It is a
matter of common remark that there are now many
Conservatives more Radical than professed Reformers,
many Whigs more Tory than the professed Conserva
tives, and many Reformers more so than either; In
such a state of things it becomes impossible to govern
by parties ; and nothing suits the people to be governed
and the raeasures to be passed so well as a good
Coalition. But if the pages of The Times are interesting,
Delane's private correspondence at this crisis is not
less so.
On December 19' he wrote to Dasent:
The Sunday papers are all wrong in saying that
Aberdeen went down ^ yesterday. He was only sum
moned by telegraph this morning and went down at
once by the 10 o'clock train. I shall see him this evening
on my way from Higgins's. This raay make me a
little late at the office, but everything is arranged.
Reeve will corae here about eleven o'clock, and both
Mozley and Lowe have got their subjects. All the
lists are, of course, nothing more than conjecture.
As it was a matter of common knowledge that
Delane was an intimate friend of Lord Aberdeen,
claimants for office and friends of prospective Ministers
' A Sunday. ' To Osborne.

,852] CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE 151
lost no time in the attempt to enlist Delane's good
offices. Sir William Molesworth was desperately
anxious to be the new Colonial Secretary. Nothing
less than Cabinet rank would satisfy him. " I must
say that I consider that I should make a great sacrifice
in accepting any office, except that of Secretary of
State for the Colonies."' But though he considered
no one else so well qualified for the post, he had in
the end to put up with the less onerous post of First
Commissioner of Works.'' In that capacity he deserves
the grateful remembrance of Londoners for having
thrown open Kew Gardens to the public on Sundays.
But Lord Aberdeen had a far more difficult task
to surmount in considering the respective positions
to be filled by Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell.
Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) bombarded Delane
with letters pointing out the dangers which would
ensue if Palmerston were left out.
You will be asking more than human nature is
inclined to give, if he does not, in case he is excluded,
put himself at the head of the opposition and bring
back the Conservatives in six weeks. But what is
to be done with hira ? I really don't think he would
again desire the Foreign Office in his relations with
the Court. But there is really no exaggeration of the
importance of his inclusion. The opposition, as such,
will date from the day he takes his seat on that side
of the House. The offers of submission to him are
complete, and he will find himself at the head of three
hundred men ready, like the Duke's army at Bayonne,
" to be led anywhere and do anything."
Whilst Lord Aberdeen yielded to Delane's per
suasions to include at least one philosophic Radical
' Sir Wilham Molesworth to Delane.
' In 1855 he reahsed the dream of his life by becoming Colonial
Secretary, but died almost immediately afterwards.

152 LORD ABERDEEN'S MINISTRY [chap.v
in the Cabinet,' he showed consummate tact in
retaining the services of Lord John until such time
as he could conveniently replace him by Lord
Clarendon, and in assigning the Home Office to
Palmerston ; a post in which he no doubt considered
his patriotic daring would not have quite so much
scope as the Admiralty which it had been his first
intention to offer him.
Whilst these delicate negotiations were still in
progress, Aberdeen wrote to Delane : ^
Difficult as it is, everything is going on favourably
and will, 1 trust, be speedily corapleted ; but do not
allude at present to the positions of Lord John or
Lord Palmerston.
Five days later he adds :
We go to-morrow to Windsor, and in the evening '
1 hope to have the list for you. It may surprise you
to hear that I have not yet got a regular secretary.
I have not forgotten your alarming predictions respect
ing the Income Tax ; but I cannot nelp thanking you
for an excellent article on the subject this morning.
Ever truly yours, Aberdeen.
With the formation of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry,
the first period of Delane's career as editor of The
Times comes to a close. He had now been twelve
years in Printing House Square, during which time
he had raised the circulation of the paper fourfold.
From a return made to him in 1852 of the comparative
number of London papers printed daily, we gather that
the normal issue of the journal he edited was over 40,000.
The Moming Advertiser, mainly a trade organ, came
' Sir William Molesworth,
' December 22.
' December 28,

,852] CLOSE OF FIRST PERIOD 153
next with a daily circulation of 7,000. The Daily News
was 3,500; The Moming Herald 3,200; The Moming
Post and The Moming Chronicle both under 3,000.
There is this difference between the position of the
editor of a great organ of public opinion and prime
ministers and statesmen— the consideration of con
tinuity. Whilst they endure but for a while to vanish,
echpsed it may be by greater geniuses, or by accident
or impolicy, he goes on for ever ; so long at least
as he has strength and ability to meet the demands
made upon his energies, whilst a cabinet, even of all
the talents, is liable to be tripped up by intrigue or
by insubordination within its own ranks. The per
manency of his office gave to a man of Delane's
capacity an enormous and preponderating advantage
in dealing with political pieces so often swept off the
board, and replaced merely to begin the game of
government anew.
Whilst statesmen on either side were bent on check
mating their antagonists, he may be said to have played
the part of a moderator, to whora sooner or later they
must all come for assistance and advice. He regarded
the fall of one administration and the formation of
another with quite other feelings than those of the
wire-pullers of parties — those parasites of government
who deeraed the end of the world was at hand if
Whig ousted Tory or Tory Whig in the struggle for
political ascendancy. If Delane thought at all of
prime ministers or cabinets when these changes,
inseparable from the cause of constitutional govern
ment, occurred, it was perhaps with a feeling of personal
regret that this or that friend had fallen, but always
with the reserve and conviction of what was due to
a sense of his own vocation.

SECOND PERIOD OF DELANE'S CAREER:
1853—1865
CHAPTER VI
DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR
The national defences— The Eastern Question — Delane's pre
parations — Laurence Oliphant's Shores of the Black Sea —
Ultimatum to Russia forestalled by The Times — Delane's corre
spondents in the East — Sir C. Napier in the Baltic — Delane
recommends the invasion of the Crimea — The Times and the
Army — Delane leaves for the Crimea — Russell's letters — Battle
of Inkerman — Defeat of the Government — Palmerston succeeds
Aberdeen — Fall of Sebastopol.
When the second Ministry of All the Talents, presided
over by the statesman who had been Delane's mentor
when he was new to his work, came into power,
Europe had been at peace for nearly forty years ; and
if the English people thought of war at all, it was of pos
sible conflict with their nearest continental neighbour,
and not with that great upholder of treaties and recog
nised arbiter of European disputes, the Czar Nicholas.
Delane, who had been over to Paris in January to
attend the marriage of the Eraperor, returned more
convinced than ever that in order to retain his pre
carious hold upon the French people, and especially
upon the army, Louis Napoleon, having climbed to
power by corruption and bloodshed, was resolved upon
a forward foreign policy. This, though it might and
probably would lead to war in the near future, was to
make him, and not the Czar, the real master of Europe,
Before many raonths had passed, the same crafty
154

,853] THE SHADOW OF WAR 155
adventurer, without abating one jot of his preten
sions, had so far modified his aims as to desire the
co-operation of England, if it could possibly be
obtained, knowing as he did the distrust of Russia
entertained by his former patron, Lord Palmerston.
Lord Clarendon, who seems to have foreseen the
trend of events as clearly as any member of the
Cabinet, was not responsible for the return of Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe to Constantinople. He had
been sent back there a few days before Lord John
Russell vacated the Foreign Office. As the "great
Elchi " disliked the Czar quite as much as did
Palmerston, his presence at the Porte, where he
was far more powerful than the nominal Sultan, was
not conducive to the maintenance of peace when once
the Eastern Question entered upon an acute phase.
Averse on principle to foreign wars, which he
regarded as a waste of our national resources, Delane
knew from Lord Hardinge that England was wholly
unprepared to put a properly equipped array into
the field should peace be broken. Almost alone in
speaking out boldly on the neglect of the national
defences. The Times continued to call public attention
to the subject, and to urge an immediate increase of
our armaments in view of possible conflict with one
or other of the despots who aspired to be the ruler
of Europe. Delane had the raost elaborate statistics
prepared as to the readiness of the French Navy for
war, and correspondents detailed for the express
purpose made careful reports to him of the actual
condition of Cherbourg, Toulon, and every naval
and military arsenal in the country.
But while the precious time passed little or nothing
was done beyond the formation ofthe camp at Chobham,
and the transport service, which had been allowed to

156 THE BUDGET [chap.vi
get into a most deplorable state, was utterly neglected.
A beggarly increase of 346 men was all that the
Government proposed in the Army Estimates for the
year, though a slight addition was raade to the number
of men borne in the Navy. The Army which the
Duke of Wellington had built up in the Peninsula
to be thoroughly equipped in all the requisites for
war, had been so much reduced since the final over
throw of Napoleon, and his famous waggon-train so
broken up and disintegrated, that when war came
the commissariat and land transport services were
practically non-existent.
It is usual to speak of Gladstone's Budget of 1853
as a financial triumph, and as an oratorical effort it
has probably never been surpassed ; yet in reimposing
the income-tax (of the necessity for which Delane had
warned Lord Aberdeen in the previous December),
he was only reaping where others had sown ; and
though, according to their wont, our politicians
claimed all the credit for the period of prosperity
through which the country was passing, the happy
accident of a substantial surplus was possibly quite
as much due to the creative and inventive genius of
Brunei and Stephenson and to the recent discovery
of gold in Australia, as to Free Trade.
In complaining of the unjust systera of levying the
income-tax, Delane had pointed out' that the principal
saving clause in Disraeli's late Budget had been his
proposition for remedying the inequalities of the
method of levy, and his endeavours to introduce a
practical mitigation of the acknowledged injustice of
the tax. At a crisis such as confronted England in
1853-4 the greatness of the issues involved demanded
the comprehensive grasp of such a resourceful mind
' Leading article in The Times of December 30, ,852.

,853] DELANE AND THE COALITION 157
as Delane's, which saw, as if by inspiration, a truth
hidden from his contemporaries. Whilst such a man
is nearly always doomed to find more vexation and
misunderstanding in the world than ordinarily faUs
to the lot of those who profess to safeguard the
national interests, he is repaid in the end for his
foresight by a surer immortality.
There were rival factions and strong divergences
of opinion in the Cabinet from the first, and even a
stronger Government than Lord Aberdeen's might
well have found it impossible to surmount, without a
resort to war, the foreign complications which Louis
Napoleon so sedulously strove to turn to his own
advantage. A Coalition Ministry made up of forces
and intellects which obstinately refused to coalesce
could not but cause Delane considerable embarrass
ment in his endeavours to guide public opinion from
day to day. Accustoraed, as he had been, to give a
hearty support to Lord Aberdeen and to oppose
Lord Palmerston in his dealings with foreign affairs,
he now saw that the Eastern Question required
bolder handling than the Peelite section of the
Cabinet was inclined to give it.
The period immediately preceding the reassembling
of Ministers in the autumn was a tirae of exceptional
strain and difficulty for the editor of such a powerful
engine for the expression of the national will as
The Times under Delane had become. Expert as he
now was in political meteorology, the outlook which
presented itself to his watchful eye, if calm and
hazy one day, might be clear and stormy the next.
Even the well-informed Greville was obliged to con
fess himself puzzled at the attitude of Ministers. He
endeavoured to account for the apparent inconsistency
of The Times on the Eastern Question by the rapidly

158 EVE OF THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
alternating influences of the peace and war parties
in the Cabinet'
When on the brink of war Lord Aberdeen hoped
for peace, and his public utterances on more than one
occasion may have led the Czar Nicholas to suppose
that the weU-known pacific sentiraents of the Prime
Minister would prevail over his colleagues.^
If Delane thought Lord Stratford too anti-Russian in
his diplomacy, the following important letter of reproof
addressed by him to the correspondent of the paper at
Constantinople shows that he would not allow the
interests of Turkey to be put before those of England,
and that the policy of The Times, as edited by him, was
to labour unceasingly tor the preservation of peace with
out the loss of national prestige in this great crisis.'
J. T. Delane to " The Times " Correspondent at
Constantinople " The Times " Office,
September 5, 1853.
Dear Sir,
As your private communications with this office
have hitherto been principally upon money matters,
I, as Editor, have scarcely had occasion to write to
you, and have left any necessary correspondence in
the hands of my excellent colleague, Mr. Morris.
The tone which you have recently taken, however,
compels me to address you, for it is impossible that
you should remain our correspondent if you persist in
' See Greville Memoirs, July 12, 1853.
* Lord Palmerston, writing to Lord John Russell on July 7, said :
" I tried to again persuade the Cabinetto send the squadrons [which
had been at Besika Bay for a month] up to the Bosphorus, but failed.
If they had been, the Czar might have been induced to pause ; but
Lord Aberdeen was labouring for peace, and though he was perhaps
hardly strong enough to enforce his own policy on his colleagues, he
was still able to withstand the counsels of those who would have made
ready for battle."
' This was one of those fortunate occasions when Delane considered
the questions at issue to be of such importance as to require him to
keep a copy of his instructions.

,853] THE EASTERN QUESTION 159
taking a line so diaraetrically opposed to the interests
of this country. As it would seem that you never take
the trouble of reading the opinions of the paper with
which you correspond, I must begin by informing you
that whatever concern it may have in the well-being
of Turkey, it owes a higher duty to the people of the
United Kingdom, who are willing to support Turkey
so far as they conceive it to be for their interest, but
acknowledge no obligation, either by treaty or by
implication, to shed their blood or spend their money
in Its behalf
You seem to imagine that England can desire nothing
better than to sacrifice all its greatest interests and its
most cherished objects — to support barbarism against
civilisation, the Moslem against the Christian, slavery
against liberty, to exchange peace for war — all to
oblige the Turk. Pray undeceive yourself For poli
tical purposes we connive at the existence of the
Turk : he fills a blank in Europe, he is a barrier to
a more aggressive Power. We had rather have the
Straits in the hands of King Log than King Stork;
but we have no love for the Turk. We suffer him,
and will not permit the Russian to dispossess him;
but we are not blind to the fact that he is rapidly
decaying, and if we were slow to fight for him when
he had more vitality, we are less than ever inclined
to do so when he is visibly fading away and when
no amount of protection can preserve his boasted
"independence and integrity."
Now, as you see by this explanation that we in
this country are not such Quixotes as to fancy it our
bounden duty to sacrifice ourselves at the pleasure of
the Turk, and find that our own interests and those
of our Colonies all over the world give us quite enough
to do and to protect, you will perhaps understand
that our statesmen here, looking rather to England
than to Turkey, consider themselves at least as good
judges of what their country requires of them as you
and the small English clique at Constantinople. No
doubt the Turks would willingly involve the whole
world in war — it is the natural resource and occupa
tion of barbarians. No doubt the British Ambassador
and the handful of English and refugees ' at Constan-
' Doubtfiil word in MS.

i6o RUMOURS OF WAR [chap.vi
tinople would find their importance much increased by
the exertions their countrymen might make and the
millions they might spend in behalf of Turkey. But
English statesmen have at least as much reason to
consider Lancashire and Yorkshire, Kent and Mid
dlesex, as Moldavia and Wallachia, and owe their
allegiance to the Queen and not to the Sultan.
I trust, therefore, that in future you will have the
modesty to forbear from off-hand censures upon
English policy, to devote your whole attention to
collecting and truly describing facts, and, if you must
give opinions, to take care that they are not Turkish
but English.
1 trust to see you in the course of the autumn,
and am, Faithfully yours,
John T. Delane.
The Vienna Note with the Turkish modifications
was rejected by Russia on September 13, and owing
to the fact that Dasent was laid up in the country
by an accident, Delane's letters to hira in the early
autumn supply us with much valuable information
as to the course of events at this period.
On September 26 he wrote : " There is no fresh
news to-day, but in the City the excitement has not
subsided and the Funds go up and down just like
the 'buses to which old Weller corapared them."
On October 2 : " There is no real news as to the East,
but lots of rumours : one that Aberdeen would retire —
rot ; another that the House was to meet directly — ditto.
Everything is unsatisfactory enough, but that is all."
But, writing at four o'clock in the morning' only
two days later, he says:
There is an end of negotiation, and it is war at last.
So says Clarendon at least, and very distinctly. The
' Delane seldom left The Times office for Serjeants' Inn much
before four o'clock in the morning, in order that he might see the
whole paper in print before he went to bed.

,853] NO HOPES OF PEACE i6i
orders ' were to go to-night, and were resolved on by
a Committee of the Cabinet, comprising Aberdeen,
Clarendon, Newcastle, Palmerston, Granville, and
Herbert. The others will meet immediately, and
then probably the House.
This is a very important statement of Delane's, for
in the biographies of those raembers of the Aberdeen
Cabinet which have been published hitherto there is
no mention whatever of this inner circle of Ministers
having come to regard war as inevitable at this date.
On October 7 the full Cabinet met, and Lord
Clarendon informed Delane that " a very harmonious
spirit and perfect agreement on all points with France"
prevailed at it.
At this time, though the Cabinet knew that the
Supreme Council at Constantinople had determined
in favour of war,^ Ministers were unaware that an
actual declaration of hostilities had been made by
the Porte, though Lord Clarendon observed that the
remarkable silence which had been preserved since
his last advices induced him to think that the Sultan
and his Ministers might have delivered their ultimatum
to Russia.
Through a mistake in the Foreign Office, Sir
William Molesworth, who had now becorae one of
the most warlike of Ministers, was not summoned to
the Cabinet meeting of October 7, though had he been
present he would undoubtedly have sided with Lord
Palmerston.' Some idea ofthe strain which the crisis entailed on
Delane may be gathered from a letter of his to Dasent,
written on October 6. He was short-handed at the
• ? To the Fleet.
' On November 26.
' Lord Clarendon to Delane on the same date.
VOL. I II

i62 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
office, since, in addition to his assistant editor, both
Lowe and Reeve were absent from London.
I have made Macdonald sift the letters for me. I
don't let him give out any, of course, but only sift
some of the corn from the chaff, so that I have only
twenty or thirty, instead of pretty nearly two hundred,
to read. You will easily fancy from the topics we have
had " up " that the public has been writing. I think
Woodham has done very well indeed,' though therfe
is of course waste of time in having to send to Cam
bridge. He positively can't, or won't, write even a line
here or after 3 p.m. We have no news either of Lowe
or Reeve. The former is either laid up somewhere or
very indiscreet to stay away so long. Charles Wood
is in town, and has never been out of reach. He will
not admire a new-made " sub," who deserts his work
altogether for seven weeks at a stretch. They have
never heard of him at his office since August 15, and
you may fancy the arrears. As to the war, I still
don't believe it will reach us. 1 look forward rather
to a kind of armed negotiation like that in Holland
and Belgium in 1832. Neither Turk nor Russ will be
fool enough to cross the Danube, and spring will find
them without change of position, but fewer and
weaker. Nevertheless, during the winter and early spring
he quietly made his preparations for representing the
interests of the paper in the East on a scale quite
unparalleled in the history of journalism.
On October 6 Greville wrote in his diary that Lord
Aberdeen and Delane had been in consultation prior
to the meeting of the Cabinet, and that the Prime
Minister was resolved to be no party to a war with
Russia on such grounds as then existed, but, as we
have shown, at the time that Greville was persuading
hiraself that the Cabinet was on the eve of breaking
up. Lord Aberdeen was in full accord with those of
' In Reeve's absence he was entrusted with the leading articles on
the Eastern Question.

,853] LORD ABERDEEN TO DELANE 163
his colleagues who advocated a forward policy, though
personally he continued to hope for a pacific solution.
Rumours were current in London during the month
that troops were being hurried to the East, whereupon
Lord Aberdeen wrote to assure Delane that such
military movements as had taken place had no
reference to the state of affairs in Turkey.
Lord Aberdeen to J. T. Delane Argyll House,
October 15, 1853.
My dear Sir,
Of course there is not the least truth in the
report of a land force being sent to the East. Some
regiments may be relieved in the Mediterranean by
other troops ; but if so, it is without the slightest
reference to the Eastern Question.
1 am glad to hear of the improvement in public
opinion which you describe ; but I cannot think that
you have turned the Edinburgh meeting to the best
account. Without supporting the absurdities of the
Peace Conference, or even while ridiculing them as
much as you please, I think that both the principal
speakers uttered so much truth as to deserve a different
treatment, by which the cause of peace might have
been further advanced.
I should say that The Times this morning contains
an article as practically warlike as any that has
appeared. Ever truly yours,Aberdeen.
In December Delane paid a flying visit to Brussels,
writing thence to Dasent the following :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
Hotel de Swede, Brussels,
Sunday [December 4, 1853].
My dear George,
I came here last night from Ghent, having spent
the intervening days between Boulogne, Calais, and
Bruges, with a look at Tournay and Courtrai, places
that I had seen often enough before frora the railway.

i64 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
but never landed at. The weather is most delightful,
a bright sun and a strong frost, moderated here by
coal fires, and there is a succession of Van der Neer
views on every canal and pond, that is, as I need not
tell you, whichever way one looks. I shall roam
about here to-day, go to Antwerp to-morrow, and
come back by Ostend either on Tuesday or Wednes
day, though I shall not hesitate to stay a day longer
if anything worth waiting for occurs.
With one exception I have seen every paper since I
left. They have been all very good, the articles capital
and plenty to read, but those villains of printers con
tinually spoil the look of the paper by taking out
half the leads from every article or letter in which
you leave them any discretion. For instance, Locke
King's letter the other day, which fully deserved
some prominence, they had stinted to half a dozen
leads. I like the look of m.l. as well as l.p., but then
to look well it must have all the leads in, which the
printers will never leave if it will save them a moment's
trouble to take them out.
I thought the long letter from the "Traveller in
Italy " very good indeed, although opposed to us, and I
wish we had him for a regular correspondent. It is
quite certain that there will be a rising there as soon as
anything occurs elsewhere, and the famine which seems
imminent in France, and the utter prostration of trade
which already prevails, may precipitate events which
look lowering enough from other quarters. Corn is
already within one franc as high per hectolitre as it
was in '47, and the potatoes are no better, while even
Bill remarked how forced was what little activity there
is in Paris. Great events seldom come when they are
expected, but it will be strange if such a conjuncture
of menacing causes as this winter presents produces
nothing next year.
I am always, my dear George, yours, J.T.D.
I can't fancy any Englishwoman returning sane
from the lace shops in the Montagne de la Cour.
Happily their charms are lost on me.
But when he wrote he could not have known of
the catastrophe at Sinope, which at once changed the
spirit of the nation from an earnest desire for the

,853] ATTITUDE OF AUSTRIA 165
preservation of peace to a white heat of passion for
war. Hopes of enlisting the sympathies of Austria
prevailed amongst a section of the Cabinet, and
Lord Clarendon, especially, was sanguine as to her
concurrence in the policy adopted by England and
France. But, as on previous occasions, Austria
barked but would not bite.
Lord Clarendon to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Crescent,
December 9, 1853.
Dear Delane,My interrupted story was that the Emperor of
Austria had sent an autograph letter to St. Petersburg
conjuring the Emperor of Russia to finish his quarrel
with Turkey, otherwise the state of Hungary and Italy
were such that a frightful catastrophe must happen
before the spring.
Of course this is most confidential, but it will show
you that all possible pressure is being applied by
Austria. Of course I don't put too much trust in Austria, but
Buol appears to be stout and rejoiced to find himself
concurring in the policy of England and France.
I send a line just received from Azeglio which looks
well for the elections and the right feeling which
prevails in Piedmont. Very truly yours, Clarendon.

Delane returned from Belgium to find that Palmer
ston had resigned, as rauch on account of the
lukewarraness of some of his colleagues on the vital
question of the hour as Lord John Russell's ill-timed
attempt to pledge the Cabinet to the adoption of
a new and cheaper edition of his last Reform Bill
but one.
But after a very brief eclipse, during which orders
were sent to the allied fleets to enter the Black Sea,

i66 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
the master mind of the Cabinet was induced to return.
From this date England was not only "drifting
towards war," to use Lord Clarendon's well-known
phrase, but insensibly nearing the rapids and daily
drawing nearer to the vortex.
Very opportunely an advance copy of a book sent to
The Times office for review carae into Delane's hands
before the close of the year. This was Laurence
Oliphant's Russian Shores of the Black Sea — the first
book to call attention to the military and naval
strength of Sebastopol, the very name of which was
unfamihar to the majority of Enghsh readers in 1853.
Oliphant had travelled frora St. Petersburg by Nijni
Novgorod to the Criraea with Mr. Oswald Smith in
the month of August, and he was, we believe, the
first Englishman to predict that, if war should come,
it was at Sebastopol that England would have to
strike at the heart of Russia.'
So much struck was Delane with Oliphant's book
that he not only gave it very favourable notice in
the columns of The Times,^ but he made the acquaint
ance of its author, and induced him to become one of
his regular foreign correspondents.
In 1854 Delane resumed the practice of keeping a
diary, but except on the occasion of his visit to the
Crimea in the autumn, when he kept a full account
of his voyage out and horae, it amounted to little
more than a record of his social and business
engageraents. ' Kinglake, however, mentions a remarkable prophecy, made in
1828 by Count Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican who entered the Russian
diplomatic service. He declared that it would be prudent to make
Sebastopol secure against assault, as if England ever came to a rupture
with Russia this would be the point to which she would direct her
attack. ' On two separate days in January 1854.

,854] SIR C. NAPIER'S COMMAND 167
On January 14 he noted that Sir Charles Napier,
Sir Baldwin Walker, Sir Benjarain Hawes, Higgins,
Lowe, John Walter, and Count Strzelecki dined with
him in Serjeants' Inn.
Sir Charles in great measure owed his appointment
to the command of the Baltic Fleet to Delane's
influence, but the latter, having in view the insignifi
cant results achieved before Cronstadt, soon saw
reason to regret that Sir Edmund Lyons,' a brave
man, who adorned equally the ranks of the Navy
and the diplomatic profession, had not been sent to
the Baltic in Napier's place instead of acting as second
in command in the Black Sea. As events showed,
the irresolution of his superior officer^ prevented
him from showing his true fighting value, though by
the capture of Kertch and Yenikale he was able to
weaken the resistance of Sebastopol, for from those
places were drawn the bulk of the Russian supplies.
On the meeting of Parliament at the end of January
unusual precautions were taken by the Government
to prevent the terms of the Speech frora the Throne
from being disclosed. The Speech, nevertheless,
appeared in the columns of The Times, whereupon
Lord Aberdeen wrote to Palmerston : " The editor
told my private secretary, who refused to give him
a copy, that he would endeavour to procure it else
where and that he did not doubt he should succeed."
As a matter of fact Delane received no less than
three separate offers of the text of the Speech.'
' First Lord Lyons.
' Admiral Dundas.
^ " How these papers get the Speech nobody knows, but as there
were four dinners, at which at least a hundred men must have been
present, it is easy to imagine that some one of them may have
communicated it. . . . Delane has friends in all parties." — Greville
Memoirs.^ February 2, 1854.

i68 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
A section of the Press, including the recently
founded Daily News, The Morning Advertiser, and
some of the Tory papers, had about this time been
making violent attacks upon the Prince Consort,
accusing him of interfering in public affairs and using
his influence to promote the interests of his family
at the expense of the country. Delane went at once
to Lord Aberdeen, told him that imraense raischief
was being done by these coarse libels, that he as
head of the Governraent ought to know that the
harm which they had caused was great and wide
spread, and offered at the same time to take up
the cudgels in defence of the Court. But, after con
sultation with the Prince, the Prirae Minister was
of opinion that it would be better not to take any
notice of such charges then, but to wait till Parlia
ment met and refute them there.
The Times, therefore, remained all but silent, and,
as it happened, a controversy which raged so furiously
in the recess had nearly died a natural death before it
could be dealt with in the House of Commons.'
These attacks on the Prince were the more dis
graceful since, to his lasting credit, he had had the
courage, like Delane himself, to urge upon Ministers
and the country the question of the neglect of the
national defences and the evils of disarmament.
Towards the end of January the Czar sent Count
Orloff to Vienna to ascertain, if he could, the real
intentions of Austria and Prussia and to threaten
thera with dire consequences if they did not side
with Russia in the coming struggle, at the same
time offering them any amount of plunder if they
' " I wrote a letter in The Ti^mes signed ' Juvenal ' showing up the
lies of The Morning Advertiser and how utterly unworthy of credit
such a paper is." — Greville Memoirs, January 25, 1854.

,854] ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA 169
did. Both Powers alike remained deaf to menace or
bribe; but the last chance of peace was destroyed
when the Emperor Napoleon, ever anxious to play
a great part before Europe, wrote an autograph
letter to the Czar, demanding in the name of him
self and England the immediate evacuation of the
Danubian Principalities.
On February 27 the Governraent delivered its ulti
matum to Russia, but the management of The Times
forestalled the Foreign Office messenger charged
with its delivery, and the Czar actually received
the intelligence, not through any official channel,
but from the columns of the leading newspaper.
Lord Derby, a bitter opponent of the Press when
out of office, made a violent attack upon Delane in
the House of Lords': "How is it possible that any
honourable man, editing a public paper of such
circulation as The Times, can reconcile to his con
science the act of having raade public that which he
must have known was intended to be a Cabinet
secret ? "
Lord Malmesbury, in the course of the debate, at
which Delane was present, took occasion to remind
the House and Lord Aberdeen that "a cask may
leak at the top just as well as at the bottom," a
witticism drawn from Sancho Panza's armoury, and
the incident closed, though the question of the publi
cation in The Times of inforraation which the Govern
ment of the day would prefer to have had suppressed
was soon to be revived in a more acute form. The
next day Delane replied to Lord Derby in his first
leading article, declaring that The Times derived its
information not from any clandestine understanding
with the Government, but from its own resources.
' See Han$ariPs Debates, vol. cxxi. p. 881, March 17, 1854.

I70 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
"We are satisfied that it was useful to the pubhc
and to Europe to make known, as we did, that
the ultimatum of the AUied Powers was actually
despatched," and the editor further pointed out to
Lord Derby that having failed to make the honour
able portion of the Press his ally, he would fail to
make it his slave, for he could not intimidate jt, and
that although he passed for a proud raan among his
peers he would meet with at least an equal amount
of pride and independence in the ranks of those
journals which he had idly attacked and unjustly
accused. On the 27th of the same raonth Delane raade the
following brief entry in his diary: "To the House
of Lords to hear war declared."
Long before this he had completed his preparations
for enlightening the public at horae as to the course
of the campaign which he had long foreseen to be
inevitable. In February he invited W. H. Russell, who had
already seen something of warfare, for he had been
slightly wounded at the Battle of Idstedt in 1852, to
proceed with the army to the East. He was on his
way thither when the actual declaration of hostilities
was raade, and his first private letter to Delane was
written on April 8 from Gallipoli.
Thoraas Chenery was sent to Constantinople as
correspondent of the paper ; Stowe, a fellow of Oriel,
who had before this been employed as a writer by
Delane, to Varna ; and Laurence Oliphant to describe
the doings of the Turks under Omar Pasha.
In also sending Charles Nasmyth, a young and
untried officer in the East India Company's service,
to the very spot where the Czar received his first
check, Delane displayed remarkable foresight.

,854] C. NASMYTH AND W. RUSSELL 171
He selected not only the right man to represent
him at Silistria, but the right moment; and, in all
probability, the intuitive perception of military re
quirements which was so noticeable throughout
Delane's career saved the AUies frora a prolonged
campaign on the banks of the Danube.
The first of Russell's letters printed in The Times,
which are quite distinct from his private communica
tions to the editor, showed that he intended to
be an unsparing critic of military methods as well
as a chronicler of events.
The idea of having a special correspondent with
the army moving with the troops and describing in
detail every action and incident of the campaign was
an entirely new feature in journalistic enterprise,'

' It is true that so long ago as the Peninsular campaign The Times
had appointed Harry Crabb Robinson to act as its war correspondent,
and a curious picture of The Times office in its very early days is
given in his diary. " It was my practice to go to Printing House
Square at five, and to remain there as long as there was anything to
be done. It was my office to cut out odd articles and paragraphs
from other papers, decide on the admission of correspondence, etc. ;
but there was always a higher power behind. While I was in my
room, Mr. Walter was in his, and there the great leader, the article
that was talked about, was written.'' The principal leader-writer of
The Times while Robinson was thus employed was Peter Fraser,
a young clergyman who afterwards became rector of Kegworth in
Leicestershire. " He used to sit in Walter's parlour and write his
articles after dinner." In Fraser's absence the work was done by
Edward Sterling, but Walter's general adviser in the editorship seems
to have been William Combe, the eccentric author of Tke Travels of
Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, who was a prisoner living
within the rules of the King's Bench, but who was often let out on a
holiday, which he generally spent in Printing House Square. These
particulars are gleaned from the pages of Fox Bourne's English News
papers, vol. i. p. 283, a valuable and useful book which well deserves
to be brought up to date in a new edition. Delane's earliest diaries
and letters make frequent reference to " Old Fraser," presumably the
man above referred to, and to his acquaintance with the Sterlings
we have already alluded.

172 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
and the departure was not regarded with rauch favour
by the military authorities at home.
When Russell left England, everything pointed to
a campaign on the Danube, and the troops were sent
to Varna in the expectation of defending the fortresses
by fighting the Russian army in the field. But the
attitude of Austria compelled the Czar to change his
plans, and after the raising of the siege of Silistria
the Russians withdrew from the Principalities and
recrossed the Pruth.
Thenceforth even the diplomatic support which
Austria had been disposed to give to the Allies was not
to be counted upon, and her attitude of rigid neutrality
was maintained throughout the great struggle which
the unrestrained ambition of Louis Napoleon had
done so much to provoke.
The sailing of the Baltic Fleet from Spithead took
place amid scenes of delirious enthusiasm. Napier
flew his flag in the gigantic Duke of Wellington, the
131-gun ship which was a familiar object to visitors to
Portsmouth Harbour until quite recent years. Besides
being a beautiful sailer she could steam with ease at
eight knots, and was therefore held to represent the
last word in naval architecture.
At a banquet given to the admiral shortly before his
departure he made a bombastic speech to the effect
that within a month he would be " either in Cronstadt
or in hell."' At the sarae dinner Lord Palmerston and
Sir James Graham made equally intemperate speeches,
but the mock heroics in which they indulged were
generally considered to be in the worst taste owing to
the fact that war had not been actually declared.^
' Another version has " or in heaven," but as regards the purposes
of the campaign the distinction is immaterial.
' " Charley Napier called to take leave on going to command the
Baltic Fleet."— -Delane's Diary, March 8, 1854,

,854] SIR C. NAPIER IN THE BALTIC 173
The first shot was fired in the East at Odessa,'
but the public soon began to experience a sense of
disappointment at Napier's inactivity, and to fear that
his performances in the Baltic would be difficult to
reconcile with the lavish promises he had made on
the eve of his departure.
He promised to write to Delane frora time to
time, but, to the latter's disgust, when his letters began
to arrive they all told the same story of failure and
procrastination. The sum-total of his achievements
in the Baltic was the destruction of Bomarsund " and
of his own reputation.
Writing to Delane from Bomarsund on August 15,
he said :
I am sorry I have not been able to give the public a
good butcher's bill, but had I either attacked Cronstadt
or Sweaborg with ray fleet they would have had a bill
with the loss of the fleet ; and had we succeeded in
withdrawing disabled we should have fallen an easy
prey to the Russian fleet, which would have been
secure. One would suppose it was only necessary to
look at the bird's-eye view of Cronstadt and Sweaborg
to convince the veriest dolt that to attack either with a
fleet alone was irapossible.
Writing next from Nargen on September 26, he
referred to an article in The Times on the public
disappointment caused by his hasty return south :
I can assure you were you in my position now riding
out a gale of wind blowing right into Revel, which
gale has been blowing sometimes from the south-west
and sometimes from the north-east for the last month,
you would think it high time for the fleet to move out
of the Gulf of Finland farther south. You say the
war is just beginning in the Black Sea, and just
terminating in the Baltic, but you forget there is ten
' On April 22.
' A fortified port in the Aland Islands of no special importance.

174 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
degrees difference of latitude, and that the month
of September must be compared with the month of
November in England. I must tell you that since the
taking of Bomarsund and destruction of the works
there has hardly been a day that it was possible, had
means been ever so great, to have operated upon this
dangerous coast.
Continuing to lay the blame upon the weather, he
wrote from Hamburg : '
You and the public are disappointed no doubt that
Sweaborg was not attacked. You may believe what
I am going to tell you or not, as you choose. I
pledge you my honour when the French troops
embarked from Bomarsund to return to France, had
they gone instead to Sweaborg, and had they been
landed, with the marines of the fleet and all the
material, guns, mortars, etc., to have made a simul
taneous attack with the fleet on Sweaborg, the state
of the weather has been such that not one man nor
one gun would have been re-embarked, and how many
ships would have been left behind 1 cannot tell you :
from the time the troops embarked it blew a gale of
wind without interruption for five or six weeks, and
during that time there were not more than three or
four days' fine weather. Though you are neither
soldier nor sailor you are a man of extensive informa
tion, and 1 am sure if you believe me, which you may
do with safety, you will do rae justice.
At the end of the month he was still protesting that
no one could have done raore, and in an unpublished
letter to Lord Palmerston, preserved at Broadlands,
which we have had the privilege of seeing, he even
went so far as to say that Nelson himself could not
have done better! It is sraall wonder that Delane
lost confidence in the skill and daring of a naval
coramander whose every coramunication was dated
from a port farther and farther away from the enemy
' November 4.

,854] THE TIMES AND THE CRIMEA 175
he had gone forth to meet in a spirit of such
complacent self-assurance.
Leaving the disappointing narrative of the Baltic
squadron for the Eastern campaign, we find that as the
months dragged on it became patent to every one that
the army was of no use at Varna, and it was in
accordance with popular sentiment that Delane took
the lead in advocating the iramediate invasion of the
Crimea. On June 1 5 The Times declared :
The grand political and military objects of the war
cannot be attained so long as Sebastopol and the
Russian fleet are in existence ; but if that central
position of the Russian power in the south of the
empire were annihilated, the whole fabric, which it
had cost the Czars of Russia a century to raise, falls
to the ground. . . . The taking of Sebastopol, and the
occupation of the Crimea, are objects which would
repay all the costs of the present war, and would
permanently settle in our favour the principal question
in dispute. ... A peace which should leave Russia in
possession of the sarae means of aggression would
only enable her to recommence the war at her pleasure.
What The Times thought one day the Government
of Lord Aberdeen thought on the morrow, and
Palmerston at once presented a memorandum to the
Cabinet pointing out that though the particular overt
act by which Russia broke the peace was the invasion
of the Danubian Principalities, the purpose for which
England took up arms would be very imperfectly
accomphshed if the only result of the war was to
be the evacuation of those provinces by the Russian
army. He was the first member of the Cabinet to
realise that we were not hkely to accomplish anything
of importance in the Baltic, and that the right course
to pursue was to move the troops from Varna to the

176 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
shores of the Black Sea and to reduce Sebastopol.
Sir John Burgoyne, who had been over the ground in
1853, recomraended a landing being made in Kalamita
Bay, to the northward of the fortress, and this
was ultimately adopted, but Laurence Oliphant, who
was also consulted by the War Office, gave the
preference to the harbour of Balaclava and to the
attack being delivered from the southward.
It was, we believe, from the Admiralty and Sir
Edmund Lyons, and against the opinion of Lord
Raglan, that the Government of Lord Aberdeen
received the stimulus which at last persuaded the
Cabinet as a whole to strike a decisive blow at the
heart of Russia in the East.
What ships could do at Bomarsund it was thought
they could also do at Sebastopol, but though we were
able effectually to seal up the Russian fleet in the
harbour, it proved to be beyond the power of wooden
ships to batter down the frowning walls of the fortress.'
Lord Lyndhurst, in the prime of his octogenarian
activity, was in complete accord with Delane, and, in
a raeraorable speech delivered in the House of Lords
only a few days after The Times had declared for the
reduction of Sebastopol, he said :
We have shut up the Russian fleet in the harbour of
Sebastopol. It has the mortification of feeling that
it cannot encounter the combined force without the
certainty of entire destruction. . . . We ought not to
make peace until we have destroyed the Russian fleet
in the Black Sea, and razed the fortifications by which
it is protected. As long as Russia possesses that fleet
' The siege of Sebastopol and the helplessness of the large fleet
locked up within the harbour present an instructive parallel to the
recent case of Port Arthur, which was able to hold out only so long as
the Japanese could not obtain command of the hills surrounding what
the Russians fondly beUeved to be an impregnable position.

i854] SILISTRIA 177
and retains that position it will be idle to talk of the
independence of the Sultan. Russia will continue to
hold Turkey in subjection, and compel her to yield
obedience to her will. ... If this Power should estab
Ush itself in the heart of Europe (which may Heaven
in its mercy avert), it would be the heaviest and most
fatal calamity that could fall on the civilised world.'
To the Lords to hear Lyndhurst. A very grand
speech and a good one from Clarendon.^
A few days later, on the 23rd, is the following entry :
"Dined at Moffat's. The Molesworths, Gladstone,
Lord Byron, the Mathesons, Meyer Rothschild, etc.
Very gorgeous." This is one of the first occasions on
which Delane mentions his having met Gladstone in
general society. A month later he records his having
dined with him to meet Lord John Thynne.
On June 26 Lord Hardinge wrote to tell Delane that
he was about to promote and take honourable notice
of two English officers who had greatly distinguished
themselves at Silistria — Captain Butler and Lieutenant
Nasmyth, the latter in the East India Company's
service. "Who is your military correspondent there?
I hope one of them."
The Times correspondent at Silistria was, as we
have said, Charles Nasmyth, and thus Delane had the
satisfaction of knowing how much the gallant defence
of the fortress owed to the skill of his representative on ,
the Danube. In the same letter the Coramander-in-
Chief was able to assure the editor that with the
sailing of the transport Tonning and that before the
close of the month of June the available fighting force
in the East would be brought up to 30,000 men.
Russell had sailed from Malta with the Rifle Brigade,
and his private letters to Delane began to arrive in
' Hansard's Debates, vol. cxxxiv. p. 306, June 19, 1854.
' Delane's Diary, June 19, 1854.
VOL. I 12

178 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
April. The first of them, written frora Gallipoli, found
hira spending Easter with the proprietor of The Times
at Bearwood :
The troops raarched to-day at eleven o'clock for the
camp distant eight and a half miles. There is but
scanty water and no shelter on the site of the encamp
ment, neither tree nor blade of grass. The management
is infamous, and the contrast offered by our proceedings
to the conduct of the French most painful. Would you
believe it, the sick have not a bed to lie upon. They
are landed and thrust into a rickety house without a
chair to sit upon or even a table in it. The French,
with their ambulances, exceUent comraissariat staff,
boulangeries, etc., are in every respect immeasurably
our superiors.
From the first Delane encouraged Russell to speak
out fearlessly. "The public wants details, and details
it shall have," he said, and though, as the campaign
wore on. The Times came in for a most unmerited
araount of abuse, he was not to be turned from his deter
mination to let the truth be known, and there cannot
be the shghtest doubt that Russell's outspoken utter
ances, whilst they taught Englishmen to appreciate
the valour, discipline, and patience of the troops in
the presence of enormous difficulties and privations,
prepared the country for the overthrow of a system
which had become effete.
Its footsteps dogged by cholera, the army arrived
at Varna in June, and Russell's letters from the
camp of Aladyn continued to tell the same story of
disorganisation, delay, and disease.
Such an uneasy feeling did they produce in Delane's
mind that before Parliament was prorogued he made
up his mind to proceed to the seat of war and to see
with his own eyes the actual state of the army in the
East, leaving Dasent in charge of the paper during his

,854] DELANE GOES TO THE CRIMEA 179
absence from home. In the middle of August he left
London, having with him as travelling companions
Kinglake and Layard.
The eight letters which follow were addressed by
him to his brother-in-law from Vienna, Athens, Con
stantinople, and the Crimea, and give a vivid picture
of the events immediately preceding and foUowing
upon the fateful disembarkation in Kalamita Bay.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Vienna,
Saturday, August ,9 [1854].
My dear G.,
We arrived here on Thursday night last after a
very pleasant journey, and start to-morrow for Trieste,
whence we sail on Tuesday for Corfu. We propose
to stay there two or three days and then to go on
by the Austrian boat which leaves Trieste on Friday.
If we had started two days earlier we might have left
Trieste yesterday and so saved a whole week, but I
like this place so much that I am not sorry for the
delay. I heard yesterday from Count Buol that we
are treating with Russia through Austria for her
acceptance of the very insufficient terms contained in
the four articles stated in Drouyn de L'huys' note
published on Saturday last. These make no mention
of Sebastopol or any securities that the war shall not
be renewed as soon as ever it suits the convenience of
Russia, and are so vague that she may easily accept
them and construe them in her own sense or begin to
treat upon them and so involve us in endless delay.
What this delay costs, the news 1 have telegraphed to
you to-day will show. In the meantime it is said here
that the expedition to Sebastopol is to wait until the
Russian answer is received. If all this is true we
have certainly been very ill used. I have written it to
Reeve by this post.
Layard and Kinglake make capital travelling com
panions, and I seem to have heard more good stories
than in the last twelve months. Pritchard is very
useful, for with that talent which seems peculiar to
servants he manages to get on with all sorts of people.

i8o DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [cHAP.vi
and it is a great comfort to have no trouble in packing
or unpacking luggage and to be able to get water
enough to wash with, etc. You will be amused to
hear that out of the four I am the only one who speaks
even a word of German or can reckon German money,
so that I have hitherto had enough to do. The
Gordons came with us as far as Aix and we made a
very jolly party of it.
Believe me, as ever, yours, J. T. D.
There have been tour people talking all the while
I have been writing this, and I have no time to read
it over. Athens,
Wednesday, August 30 [1854].
My dear G.,
It strikes me that you may like to have a letter
frora Athens, and so I write one, though I am by no
means sure that I can send it ; and as you will soon
see, my description of this famous city is not likely to
be either very full or very accurate. We left Vienna
on Sunday week and came straight down to Trieste,
where we arrived on Monday night. On the Tuesday
we sailed for Corfu, reached Ancona on Wednesday,
Molfetta on Thursday, and Brindisi and Corfu on
Friday. We arrived, however, only to find ourselves
in quarantine, with the pleasant prospect of being de
tained in a lazaretto until after the direct steamer for
Constantinople had sailed. In this extremity, however.
Ward came to our aid. I wrote to invoke his interven
tion, and he responded magnificently. He reduced our
quarantine to twenty-four hours instead of four days,
and sent us his own yacht, plentifully stored, to spend
it in. So we went over to Albania and enjoyed our
selves imraensely. On the Sunday we landed, and
Ward mounted us and took us for a twenty miles
ride about the island, through real forests of olive and
orange. We dined with him in the evening, spent our
night as before aboard the yacht, and came on by this
steamer, the Africa, on Monday. That night we
called at Zante, yesterday in the evening we were at
Cerigo, and to-day we are in the Piraeus.
So far all is well, and more than well, for I never

,854] JOURNEY TO THE CRIMEA i8i
enjoyed myself so much or had such a perfect sensa
tion of health before ; but now comes our difficulty,
and I fear there will be no friendly Ward to extricate
us from it. We took up at Corfu the late Pasha of
Bosnia and hereditary Pasha of Albania, who had
retained half the ship for himself and his suite,
seventy-three in aU. Such a set of cut-throats you
never saw. Each walks about with a perfect armoury
of weapons— one fellow carries seven — and, besides
pipe-bearers, Tatars, coffee-makers, cooks, sheep,
horses, dogs, and fifty odd tons of camp equipage and
all manner of rubbish, he has eleven women, two
epicenes to attend them, and several children. There
are seven white and six black women, all ugly, most
of them hideous ; but all this would not much concern
us were it not that one of the children, about seven
months old, was perverse enough to die last night. It
seems to have had convulsions ; but whatever it raay
have died of, it has died, and so we are all imprisoned
aboard ship, with boats rowing round us, as if to
prevent us from even spitting into the water ; and it is
but too probable that we shall start from here with a
foul bill of health, and have ten days quarantine at
Constantinople. Meantime, of course, nobody can land, and it is
doubtful if even this letter can be sent, lest it should
poison all Greece. So my knowledge of Athens is
not increased by the fact that I am only five miles
from it. The situation, however, is magnificent, not
so much frora the place itself, as frora the raountains
and mountainous islands, such as iEgina and Salamis,
which make the whole gulf resemble an Italian lake.
The Acropolis strikes me as rather low, and besides
this the two most prominent objects are Otho's Palace
and a new barrack. Antiquities, however, always
disappoint ; but it is impossible not to be delighted
with the country, the sea, and the climate. The
hottest day we have yet had was in Belgium. The
thermometer in my berth is seldom over 80°, and
though it is of course much hotter in the sun, the
awning makes the deck quite tolerable, and the nights
are beautiful. Then the sea is a perpetual source of
enjoyment — it is so blue and clear and so full of
dolphins and all manner of fish, which follow or play
round the steamer, while every minute one is meeting

i82 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
Greek or Italian craft of the most picturesque rig, or
Eassing some island or town whose name and history
ave vexed one's youth and boyhood. 1 am as well
pleased as ever with my comrades,' and Pritchard
saves an immense deal of trouble. He has hitherto
made himself understood in French, Italian, and
German, as well as if he spoke all instead of neither ;
and now I see hira in deep conversation with a
splendid Albanian. He packs the baggage for all
three, waits at breakfast and dinner when necessary,
makes tea and lemonade, cleans boots, brushes clothes,
sews on buttons, etc., while Sir G. Colebrooke, who
has a regular accomplished courier on board, cannot
get a single hand's turn out of him.
I was disgusted to hear from Ward at Corfu that
the army had not yet sailed for Sebastopol. There is
time enough for it to have sailed before now; but it
will be really too disgraceful if it does nothing, and
I begin to fear that there will be nothing done. I
hope you keep on urging the necessity of some such
feat of arms upon the Government, if it were only to
save our railitary reputation, which has already fallen
to zero. There is not a raiserable Greek or Italian
who is not full of sneers at the English; and one
cannot help feeling that while the Turks win battles
in Europe and lose thera in Asia, alike without our
assistance — that while they, without pay or supplies,
can march and fight everywhere, and we are dying by
the thousand in ignominious inaction, our character
must suffer, and our intentions be more than ever
suspected. The appearance of a huge English steamer,
supposed to be the Himalaya, yesterday was the
occasion of a storm of contemptuous invective from
our Greek passengers against our generals and
soldiers. She was gone, they said, to bring parasols
and veils, or the camp was out of rosewater, or she
was gone to enquire " les nouvelles du. Derby," or to
tell who had won the last match at " creket." Really,
if when the winter comes, our troops return to the
barracks at Scutari, their position will be no enviable
one, nor will that of the fleet be better in the Bosphorus.
Our people have raade themselves ridiculous, first by
their boastful conceit and disparagement of their allies,
and then by the ridiculous issue of so much bavardage.
' Kinglake and Layard.

,854] CONSTANTINOPLE 183
I shall hope to hear from you at Constantinople as
soon as I am released ; and if I find this letter cannot
be sent, I will keep it open to add further news.
Believe me, Ever yours, J. T. D.
Our ship is all this while at anchor. 1 need say no
more to excuse my writing. Constantinople,
September 5 [1854].
My dear G.,
I arrived here safe and well last night, after
having been detained two days by a gale of wind in
the iEgean. This said gale — which has blown straight
across the Black Sea and down the Bosphorus and
Dardanelles — has, I fear, materially retarded the ex
pedition. We hear that it is all embarked at Varna,
and was to rendezvous on the 2nd at Baltshik ; but the
naval people all say it could not have got out of Varna
against such a wind. I hope to sail for Sebastopol —
i.e. for the fleet — to-raorrow or next day. I shall
establish myself at first on board the Trafalgar
(Greville's ship), and act according to circumstances
as respects the army.
I have had no news from home yet at all; but a
French boat has arrived to-day, and may have brought
me letters which have not yet been delivered.
The weather is fine, but cold; the cholera has
entirely disappeared here and with the army.
The place is full of scandal about the fleet, which is
said to have permitted the Russians to reinforce
Sebastopol with forty thousand men from Odessa.
I am assured, too, that there has never been any real
blockade of any Russian port. The admiral (Boxer),
in whose office 1 am writing this, however, declares
that the arrangements of the fleet for landing the
forces are admirable.
I have seen Eber, but not Chenery. The former
wants to go to Wallachia, but 1 have given him no
instructions. In great haste. Ever yours, my dear G.,
John T. Delane.

i84 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
Kinglake and Layard are still with me, and we are
better friends than ever. I have lots to tell, but no
time. Constantinople,
September 7 [1854].
My dear George,
I received yesterday your letter of the 23rd, and
was very glad to hear all was going so well with you.
1 am off to the Crimea in the Danube steamer at four
o'clock to-morrow morning ; but from the news which
has reached here to-day of the acceptance by Russia
of the four propositions sent by Austria — and of
which I wrote to you from Vienna — I expect there
will be no fighting. It is a pitiable end of so great an
enterprise ; but such is the discouragement of the
army, and so bad the tone of its commanders, French
and English, that 1 am half inclined to rejoice that
nothing is to be entrusted to them. The Duke of
Cambridge and Sir J. Burgoyne are at the head of the
grumblers, and they go about to whoever will listen
to them, and complain that they are to be sacrificed to
please the English press and the English people ; that
it is of no use attacking; that they are sure to be
defeated; that it is too late this year; that they are sick
of the whole thing, etc. This is the stuff which has
been heard at headquarters for the last two months,
and which is daily retailed at the table d'hote here.
That old muff Burgoyne says that he will take no
responsibility for this expedition (I suppose he only
assumes that for the lines at Gallipoli), and that it will
be October before a trench can be opened, although
the expedition, from all we can learn, sailed yesterday.
Such men would ensure failure, and I really believe
would be pleased at it. It is the same with the
Embassy — they gave no assistance or information to
the expedition, but allowed it to make the most cruel
blunders, which have cost a thousand lives, and now
expend all their wit in raaking jokes at generals,
officers, and commissariat. If they were Russians
they could not be worse Englishmen. The site of the
camp at Devna was known by all to be raost un
healthy — it was even raarked " pestilentieux" in their
maps ; yet no one of them would interfere so far as to
warn the generals of what was to be expected frora
such a site. They tell this of themselves, and are not

,854] CONSTANTINOPLE 185
ashamed, though every transport which comes from
Varna brings hundreds of wretched invalids, the
survivors of the fever which, more even than cholera,
has been fatal to our men. I saw four hundred of
them come in an hour since.
I hope my letter from Vienna was in time to prevent
Reeve from definitely approving the four propositions
as bases for a treaty of peace. Their acceptance at the
very moment that Sebastopol was endangered proves
Russia's weakness ; and if it saves it from destruction,
we shall have all the work to do again — and probably
without France for an ally. Such a peace will
neither be approved by Parliament nor the country,
and it would be ruin to support it It would have
done well enough before the war ; but now, at the very
moment of victory — with the enemy defeated on the
Danube and in the Baltic, and at our mercy in the
Black Sea, we should pay dearly for the equivocal aid of
Austria if we consented to let Nicholas off so lightly.
I dined with Lord Stratford yesterday,' and was, as
I have told you, disgusted at the tone of the whole
Embassy. Chenery is very jolly, but looks whimsi
cally fat behind a red moustache. How 1 look behind
mine you will see on my return.
The weather, which was most unfavourable for the
expedition, has become lovely, and if it sailed yesterday
it had a fair wind. It is to rendezvous at Baltshik,
then to proceed to Serpent Island, and then to
Eupatoria. I expect that our boat, which carries
despatches, will take orders to suspend all operations ;
but it is possible that Stratford will not take the
responsibility of granting an armistice. I shall stop on
board the Danube, which we have stocked with wine,
{)orter, tongues, etc., as long as I can, and then either
and or go on board Greville's ship, the Trafalgar.
After leaving the Criraea I shall corae back here, and
then as fast as possible home by way of Marseilles.
Ever, my dear G., yours, J. T. D.
I am writing at a side table in the table d'hote
room, so excuse errors of all sorts.
' Whilst at Constantinople Delane told Lord Stratford that if our
army were to perish before Sebastopol, the first thought of the
nation at home would be fo raise another, and go on.

i86 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
" Britannia," off Eupatoria,
September 13 [1854].
My dear G.,
When I wrote to you from Constantinople on
Thursday last I had just been warned to be ready to
go on board the Danube, a little flat-bottomed river
steamer which had just been brought into the service,
and was being sent up to the fleet to assist in landing
troops. We had but just time to buy some wine,
porter, tongues, portable soup, and such like luxuries;
but after all this hurry, we did not start till next
morning, the 7th, and then broke down within an hour.
We had, therefore, to wait for repairs at Therapia, and
only got finally to sea in the afternoon. The weather
was changing, and the run up to the Black Sea very
fine. We had a jolly dinner, at which Pritchard acted
as cook and butler, and an equally jolly supper; but
soon afterwards the wind rose, and in our wretched
little egg-shell of a boat we had a precious tossing all
Saturday and Sunday. On the latter day we fell in
with the French fleet sailing in company with the
Turks. The two corabined raade nearly forty sail, and
you may imagine how splendid they looked at sunset in
such a sea. The next morning, Monday, we reached
the English fleet. Our captain immediately reported
us to Dundas, and though I wished to go aboard
Greville's ship, the Trafalgar, he insisted upon my
coming here — and here, accordingly, I have been ever
since, in the very centre of all that is going on.
Nothing can be more full of interest. All yesterday
and to-day the three fleets are collected, and there are
not less in all than seven hundred ships, and many of
these of the largest class and of the greatest power.
In feeling, the change from Constantinople is as great
as in the scene. The whole fleet — officers, men, and
boys — are eager for action, and in the highest spirits.
Every manoeuvre that is performed — weighing anchor,
raaking sail, etc. — is done with a degree of enthusiasm
Suite indescribable, and I believe the ship would be
eserted if all who wished were allowed to volunteer
on shore. As it is, our part is to be rather a slow one.
We are to protect the landing, which will begin at noon
to-day, and only send a few boats to the great flotilla
by which it is to be accomplished. I grieve to say
that we are not on the best terras with the French.

,854] IN THE BLACK SEA 187
There is always some little misunderstanding which
prevents corabined action ; and thus the landing, which
might have been effected yesterday, may possibly be
again deferred till to-morrow. In the meantime the
weather is perfect, a smooth sea, light favourable
winds, and cold healthy temperature. It is raost
vexatious that an hour of such weather should be lost,
and you may be sure that I urge this on the admiral
as hard as I can. He is very civil indeed, but is by no
means up to his position. The real commander is
Lyons, who is just another Nelson— full of energy and
activity. I hope and trust that he will land to-day, in
spite, if necessary, of his superiors. 1 have not seen
Lord Raglan except through a glass. He also is not
too cordial with St. Arnaud, but, I ara told, is all for
action. This ship has been desolated with cholera. They
lost 140 men in less than a week, and had at one time
600 out of 950 ill. There were actually not enough
left to work the ship. The most affecting instances
are told of the devotion of the men to their comrades,
and of their own heroism. Not a single officer died,
and the crew is now recruited by that of the Tiger and
a batch of new arrivals from England. We have been
now for two days off the shore of the Crimea. It is
here low, a good deal like the Isle of Thanet, all corn
land, and with very few houses. Inland it rises into
considerable hills. 1 hope to know more about it
before the week is out. The troops are now quite
healthy, and so is the fleet. The voyage has restored
both, and the sharp bracing air — which makes me long
for all the warm clothes I left in England — has brought
round the convalescent wonderfully. In fact, all we
want now is union and decision in the commanders.
Both are wanting, but circumstances will not wait for
them ; and with such a fleet and army within sight of
the enemy, they must act. To give you an idea of
the feeling on board, I will mention two instances.
When they were heaving up the anchor this morning
the men cried out, "We'll drop it in Sebastopol."
Last night a very small mid., about twelve, asked me if
we should not land at daybreak? 1 asked, "Why?"
" Because that's in my watch, and I shall go."
So much for public affairs. I fear you are expecting
me back every day, but I hope you would not wish

i88 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
me to miss the grandest of all sights for the sake of a
day or two. I will start homewards as hard as I can
as soon as ever anything is really done, and think 1
may be with you by the end of the first week in
October. I am extravagantly well. Nothing seems
to hurt or tire me. In the Danube I never had my
clothes off for four nights; here I am always up at
daybreak and on deck all day — but eat, drink, and
sleep like a topman. I will write an account of the
landing, in case Russell's should miscarry. He is
on board the Firebrand, which is towing the Turks.
Twopenny is in the Retribution. He seems much
liked and respected. Pray tell everybody who might
expect a letter that, having nothing to do, I have no
time to write. The fact is, that I scarcely like to quit
the deck.
My news respecting the Russian acceptance of the
propositions was most unwelcome to all but the
admiral. It seems Lord Raglan's orders are too
precise to be influenced by such an act.
^ J. T. D.
Kinglake is with me here. Layard with Lyons on
board the Agamemnon. Evening.
Nothing done except the occupation of this place,
which is altogether defenceless.
The ship is rolling very heavily, but I ara proof
against all such influences now. "Britannia," off Crimea,
September 15 [1854].
My dear George,
The diserabarkation of the infantry and of
thirty-six guns and horses took place yesterday with
coraplete success. The weather was as favourable for
the operation as could be desired, the sea perfectly
sraootn, the corabination of steamboats, flats, etc.,
perfect. The small iron vessels Minna and Brenda
took a thousand men each trip. If there had been
any opposition they could have been run, end on, to
the beach, so that the men raight have juraped at once
on shore ; but as there were only half a dozen
Cossacks to represent the enemy, all went on in the
most leisurely manner, and the men were landed

,854] ON BOARD H.M.S. BRITANNIA 189
hteraUy without wetting their feet. How urgently
necessary it was that there should be no further delay ;
how much we have lost by the two days before
wasted is shown by what has since happened. We
had no wind here, but there was a gale yesterday
near the entrance of the Bosphorus, and the sea rose
last night so suddenly and so violently that even this
steady old craft began rolling, and an extra anchor had
to be dropped. This raorning there is such a surf on
the beach that the cavalry and some guns which were
left on board last night cannot be landed, two horses
were drowned and one gun lost in an attempt to land
them, and the transports containing the rest are going
off to Eupatoria to try what can be done there. Even
Lord Raglan, who returned last evening to sleep on
board the Caradoc, cannot get ashore. Now we might
have landed on Wednesday, and we might have waited
until to-day, in which latter case, instead of having all
the essential part of the army safe on shore, we should
have been all rolling together here, while the eneray
were grasping the means of resisting our landing.
Nothing but the energy and determination of Sir E.
Lyons overcame the difficulties and " impossibilities "
raised by those who seem to have always a consistent
objection to doing anything until their " to-morrow "
shall arrive. All the credit is due to him, and to him
alone, for our admiral never left his ship, which was
anchored three miles from the shore, and contented
himself with sending the sarae contingent of men and
boats as the other ships.
I am sorry to say that it set in to rain yesterday
afternoon while the disembarkation was going on, and
rained heavily all night. The troops must have
suffered severely. They landed with only their great
coats and blankets, and must have had a cheerless
bivouac. As they landed, they formed on the kind of
natural causeway between the sea and the lake, which
I mentioned in my former letter, and as soon as each
brigade was complete, marched up to a kind of low
tableland which extends from the sea to sorae lofty
mountains about twenty miles inland. The Light
Division went first, and Sir G. Brown first of them.
He is said to have had a narrow escape of being
captured by a party of Cossacks, who had concealed
themselves behind some arobas. He saw them in

190 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
time, however, bolted at full speed, and returned with
a few Riflemen, who fired into the carts and dislodged
the Cossacks. One of the carters was wounded in the
foot, and this was all the damage done. The arobas
were seized for the use of the army, and were im
mediately filled with Engineers' tools. There were
thirteen in all, and this is up to the present time all
the transport the army possesses, except what it has
brought with it.
Before I left the shore, I saw the Light, First, and
Second Divisions complete, and part of the Third and
Fourth. The difference a few months' service has made
in them is very great. The men [are] sunburnt, dirty,
and bristling with half-grown moustaches, their clothes
and accoutrements already faded, stained, and ragged.
The folly of gaudy uniforms was evident at a glance.
The Rifles looked little the worse, the Line Regiments,
such as the 33rd, 21st, or 88th, only dirty and faded,
but the Guards and the Highlanders were deplorable.
I wish it were no worse than mere spoilt clothes ; but
in every regiment there are sad traces of cholera and
fever in the pale faces, lank forras, and tottering steps
of the raen. The Guards are by far the worst. Almost
all seera to have been in hospital, and it is painful to
see how weakly they are. In London it is merely
ridiculous to observe a big raan balancing a bear-skin
on his head ; but here it is really a sad thing to see a
reduced giant stumbling along under such an en
cumbrance, and looking hardly able to carry his own
epaulets. It is almost as bad with the Highlanders.
Their finery, their plumes, and scarves are all tawdry
and mud-stained, and the sad mortality among them,
and the wretched looks of those who landed yesterday,
prove that kilts and tartans were never meant for a
climate where we have all four seasons in every
twenty-four hours. The Artillery have changed least
of all. I saw twenty guns with six horses each
yesterday as effective in all essential points as when
they were inspected at Woolwich. Their horses were
less sleek and their harness less bright; but men,
horses, and guns were all fit for action and in high
spirits. Everybody who saw the Infantry at Varna
says that they have improved wonderfully on their
voyage, and the Guards especially. I can only speak
of thera as compared, for example, with the regiments

1854] EUPATORIA 191
just arrived from England, and the contrast is raost
striking. They each lost frora twelve to twenty men
since leaving y arna, and raany, I fear, will not survive
last night's bivouac.
We hear this morning that some Cossacks were
taken prisoners after I came off yesterday, and that
they say there are fifteen thousand Russians encamped
on the Alma river and forty thousand in Sebastopol.
If this is all, we shall soon give a good account of
them. The people seem neither frightened nor in
terested at our arrival. All yesterday men were to be
seen busy in the fields, apparently not even noticing
the wonderful Armada that was passing along their
coast, and even the landing failed to frighten them.
The aroba drivers suffered themselves to be soothed
by the soldiers' shibboleth, " Buono, buono," and
" accepted the situation " at once ; and we see through
our telescopes carts and waggons coming towards the
camp just as if there were no camp there. There are
plenty of oxen grazing to be seen, and the prospects of
the Commissariat are good. The fleet will, I believe,
coast alongside the army as it advances, and carry its
tents and stores.
1 am just off to Eupatoria in the Retribution, and
hope to find an opportunity of sending this, which I
shall finish whenever I can.
I saw the Duke of Cambridge, Generals Evans,
Colin Campbell, and Airey, and Russell and Twopenny
yesterday— all well. Ever yours,
J. T. D.
Friday eveniiig.
I have been ashore again. The project of dis
embarking at Eupatoria was given up, and in spite of
the surf all the guns and a few hundred cavalry horses
were landed to-day without accident. Captain Peel
got Lord Raglan ashore when some of the captains
declined the responsibility, and the sailors recovered
the lost gun when the soldiers despaired of it. The
army lost some men last night and to-day, but the rest
are in capital spirits, and have captured a whole string
of arobas, forty of which are laden with flour, and
half a dozen camels. The people seem very well

192 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
inclined to serve us, and promise abundant supplies.
The only want is water. None can be procured, and
the ships are actually supplying the army. This
cannot last, and so we expect an advance to-morrow.
The country is beautiful, an uninterrupted plain in
which five hundred thousand men might manoeuvre
all the way from the sea to the Tent Mountain. Re
member always, that in the great credit which the
success of this landing deserves, Dundas has no share.
He is accused throughout both fleet and army of
having thwarted the expedition in every possible way,
and, when he could not succeed in preventing it, of
leaving it all to Lyons, in the hope that he could make
him fail. I cannot answer for this, but I can bear
witness that he, the admiral of the fleet, has done
nothing at all to assist in this great enterprise. We
ought to have landed on Wednesday, when the
weather was as good as on Thursday ; but he put it
off, as if tempting the gale which came next day.
When the plan of diserabarkation had been finally
arranged and approved by him, he was the first to
break through it by anchoring three miles from the
shore, instead of in the place appointed for him in the
raidst of his fleet. We are actually the outermost
ship, though there are many others of deeper draught.
He has never been on shore or taken any heed of
what has been going on, and is actuaUy indebted to
me for all he knows of what has happened to the
army. Lyons has done all, and this in spite of dis
couragement such as a smaller man would have
resented. Nelson could not have done better, and
indeed his case at Copenhagen nearly reserables this.
I am happy to say that Captain Drummond of the
Retribution, who was sent down to Eupatoria yesterday,
gives a very favourable account of the capabilities of
the place and the goodwill of the people. I believe it
will, after all, be occupied.
We are accustomed either to pity or despise the
Turks as soldiers. I was at their camp to-day, and
can assure you it was infinitely better supplied and
better appointed than either the French or English.
Our people had no tents, for they had no means ol
carrying them, and spent the dreadful night of storm
and rain with no protection whatever. The French had
the wretched httle flat sheds which they carry with

,854] DELANE IN CAMP 193
them, but the Turks had large, handsome bell tents
enough for their whole force (eight thousand men), and
plenty of baggage cattle and mules. They are well
armed, well dressed, and very stout burly fellows — not
at all of that slight figure we attribute to Easterns. The
French are just as usual, very active in what they call
"foraging," but what we call "plundering." They
pulled down a village to-day for firewood, and are said
to have lost a few Spahis, who were foremost in this
work, to the Cossacks. The want of enterprise of the
Russians is wonderful. They are as slack by land as
by sea. A smart steamship might have carried off
two or three of our troopships, which literally covered
the horizon ; but nothing was attempted. Last night,
with three armies — all of different nations — hurriedly
disposed on an unthronged plain, a few hundred
cavalry could have caused the most disastrous panic,
and have suffered no loss. The night offered every
facility, but no enemy appeared; and to-day we are
well prepared to resist him. I hope we shall march
to-morrow, in which case I shall either land or join
some more active ship. Ever yours, J. T. D.
Camp, Crimea,
September 17 [1854].
My dear George,
The only news since my last letter is that all
goes well with the army ; it is now almost all on shore,
and will certainly advance to-morrow as far as the
first of the three small rivers between this and
Sebastopol. It is expected that the passage of this
river (Alma) will be contested ; but we are so strong
that no force they can bring against us will have a
chance. I have, with much misgiving as to my long
absence from Printing House Square, determined on
going on with the army, as it is hoped that before the
next mail after that which carries this leaves the fleet,
Sebastopol may be invested if not taken. I hope to
return with the news of this great event.
After rauch hesitation it has been deterrained to
occupy Eupatoria. A stupid old fellow named
Captain B. has been appointed governor, and five
hundred marines, collected from the several ships of
VOL. I 13

194 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
the fleet, are to be assigned him as a garrison. They
go with much disgust, for they are burning to dis
tinguish themselves beside their brother redcoats.
Fresh captures of Russians are raade every day, but
none of railitary iraportance. They are said to have
suffered horribly frora cholera at Sebastopol, so much
so that the seamen have had to be landed to raan the
walls. They estiraate the loss at fifteen thousand
raen. I have seen the French as well as the English
generals. They profess the utmost confidence that in
a month at farthest they will have the place.
Do not be alarmed for me. I shall take great care
of myself, and shall present myself within a fortnight
after this letter arrives. I am always, my dear G., yours,
Athens,
September 22 [1854].
My dear G.,
After having left the fleet and gone ashore, in
pursuance of the decision 1 described in the letter
which goes by this mail — but which will probably not
be delivered so soon as this — I again changed my
mind, for reasons I will explain when we meet, and
am now nearly half-way to Marseilles, on my road
home. 1 left the Crimea by the Banshee on the
evening of the i8th, got to Therapia on the night of
the 19th, and left Constantinople on the evening of
the 20th. We ought — barring quarantine — to be at
Marseilles on the 28th, and I mean to come up to
Paris as quick as I can. I may stay a day there, but
I think 1 shall pretty certainly be in town by the
ist or 2nd of October, and shall thus not have greatly
overstayed ray usual holiday.
I got letters frora you and Morris at Constantinople,
and ara delighted to hear all is going on so well. I
left Russell and Chenery both fat and flourishing, and
have sent Eber up to the fleet, that the truth may be
told respecting Dundas. Wallachia, indeed, is left
vacant; but while the present operations are going
on people will care nothing for the Principalities. He
knows Lyons, and will do the work well.
1 left Layard on board the Agamemnon, and King-
lake trying his fortune with the camp. I fear he wiU

,854] RETURN HOME 19S
not succeed, for without carts, a horse, and servants
it is impossible to get on ; and to be left behind means
to be abandoned to the Cossacks.
I am here, as before, in quarantine, within a quarter
of a mile from the shore, but unable to land. Surely
there never was such perverse folly ; for there was
very little cholera at Constantinople, and here it is
raging. The ship is full of invalids returning from
Varna or Gallipoli, and if any one of them should die,
we should be locked up for a week at Marseilles.
The doctor, however, assures me that though few
will recover, none will die for a week yet ; and if so,
we shall have nothing to complain of
I have seen no papers of a later date than the 27th —
nearly a month since — so you may fancy my mental
destitution. Certainly we have nothing to thank the
Post Office for. Russell declares he has never re
ceived a single paper since he has been out, and the
same is said about not only papers but letters by raost
Eeople here. A young invalided Artillery officer going
ome tells me that in six months he has only received
one letter, which assured him that his family had
written to him regularly once a week.
The weather is raost charming, and in spite of dull
company the whole run from Constantinople has
been delightful. 1, even I, could have thrown a stone
into the temple at Sunium as we rounded the point
this morning, and the Acropolis looks no farther
than Apsley House frora Buckingham Palace. The
sea is so smooth that it breaks on even this preci
pitous shore without a ripple, and is full of dolphins
and porpoises, who seera laughing at us for being
in quarantine. I ara ever, my dear George, yours, J. T. D.
My steamer is the Thabor, a very good and well-
conducted boat. We only call at Messina between
this and Marseilles, and there also there is a
quarantine. At the beginning of October Delane was back in
London, having, to his lasting regret, missed the battle
of the Alma by only a few days. Soon after his

196 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
return he went to the Duke of Newcastle and repre
sented to him that from all he had seen and heard in
the Crimea there was little likelihood of Sebastopol
falling in the near future, that a winter carapaign
was therefore imminent, and that it was the impera
tive duty of the Government to provide for such a
contingency. He also urged the provision of wooden huts for the
troops, who would have to" face the rigours of a winter
in the East, pointing out that the work might expedi
tiously be done at Constantinople, where all the houses
were built of wood, and where labour was both cheap
and plentiful.
Unfortunately his advice was not taken, the Cabinet,
as a whole, being still so optimistic as to believe that
Sebastopol would yield in the course of the autumn.
Nothing was done until Russell's letters in The Times
describing the deplorable condition of the troops began
to produce their inevitable effect upon the mind of the
nation. Then at last a serious attempt was made to
remedy the administrative deficiencies of the previous
six months.
The letters which Russell wrote describing the
heroism of the " thin red line," to use his now historic
phrase, at the Alma ' and at Inkerman, have been so
often quoted and reprinted, that it is unnecessary to
refer to them here, but by every mail, as mentioned
above, he sent a private letter to his chief, supplement
ing and confirming his public utterances. We may,
however, quote from a vivid account of the desperate
fighting which took place, on the morning of Inkerman,
in and about the Sandbag Battery. Written by an
»
' " It was a grand fight, a regular pounding match, which had ten
times the effect on the stohd Russians of a battle of manoeuvres." —
W. H. Russell to Delane, October 3, 1854.

,854] THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN 197
officer in the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards,' who
was severely wounded in the thigh and invalided home
shortly afterwards ; in directness of expression it equals
anything to be found in Kinglake, and incidentally it
confirms the charges of the inhumanity of the Russians
towards the wounded :
We were alarmed on the morning of the fifth, about
half-past si^ and awoke out of sleep by loud cries of
" Stand to arms," " Guards, turn out," a cry to which,
from having been so long in an enemy's country, we
had become pretty well accustomed, but its being in
the dark and the first waking sound was rather bewil
dering. Our firelocks were all wet frora the heavy
dew, and many of them would not go off. This saved
the Russians rauch, and gave them pluck to advance
and fire deliberately. We found that tney had surprised
our piquets, having during the darkness brought up
forty pieces of artillery to a commanding height and
shelled our camp. As we were moving up towards
our piquets a perfect storm of round shot and shell
flew about us, and we were so completely surprised
that this caused some confusion.
The Duke of Cambridge (the general of our division)
did all that could be done amongst the showers of
balls trying to support our artillery, which, though
very inferior in numbers, dismounted the Russian
guns on the opposite ridge.
Our regiment came into action very weak in numbers,
our piquets were all out, and I do not suppose that
we were more than 350 to 400 strong. At first we
supported the guns for fear of some of the dense
columns of Russians making a rush and trying to
capture thera, but as our right flank came over the head
of the hill (we were of course marching in line) we found
the Russians in possession of an earthwork and sand
bag redoubt put up by us, and out of which the piquets
' The late Colonel Alfred Tippinge, of Longparish House, Hants.
When the Queen distributed the medals to the Guards in 1855, he had
only sufficiently recovered from his wounds to pass Her Majesty on
crutches. He described the whole course of the campaign down to
the date of his being disabled at Inkerman in a series of letters to his
family.

198 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
had been driven. They had apparently a whole
battalion in and about the redoubt. Whether any
order was given, I cannot say — there was no one
with any authority to do so near — however, to see the
enemy in possession of our redoubt was I conclude
order sufficient. So we raarched straight at it, under
a shower of bullets, which they fired at us from our
own defences. Another strong column of Russians
was in reserve behind the redoubt, and further back
still a division of from five to six thous^d men.
We were totally unsupported by cavalry, infantry,
or artillery, and although of course we expected to
obtain assistance and support in case of being driven
back, yet we did not exactly know where it was to
come from. We were opposed to 47,000 Russians —
that was Lord Raglan's calculation. They had placed
their force in either two or three divisions, near enough
to each other to allow of their concentrating and
attacking any point which appeared the weakest. We
marched straight up to the redoubt within thirty yards,
but our poor fellows were falling so fast that the word
"Charge" was given, and on we went with bayonets
fixed. After our first charge the Russians turned, gave a
murderous volley into us and scuttled out at the open
ing on the other side of the redoubt. Numbers fell
here, amongst others Sir R. Newman, who was only
wounded in the leg, and lay in the fort until he could
be sent for. The Russians carae in two immense
masses of from twenty of them to one of us, and being
likewise supported well from the rear, we were
compelled to retire out of the fort for about thirty or
forty yards, being taken on two flanks at the same
time. These barbarians hacked poor Newman to
pieces as he lay wounded on the ground. He was so
completely disfigured that no one could have recog
nised him except by his clothes. We got the men
together, raade another furious charge right under the
sandbags and bank of earth, on the outside, the Russians
being inside and trying to get their rauskets over the
farapet to shoot us, and hurling stones over upon us.
t was soon after this that 1 was wounded. I was shot
also through the elbow and the cuff of my coat, one of
the balls passing through the two sides of a tight sleeve
without touching the skin. On my other side I had

,854] THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN 199
two balls through my coat about the sraall of the back.
The Russians had been made half drunk to increase
their ferocity, and they stood delivering such a fire as
almost annihilated our whole regiment in the course
of half an hour. We were totally unsupported, and
put to do what I would bet my life no troops in the
world but English would ever have attempted. Three
of us got under the parapet, and there they were, with
the muzzles of their guns close to our heads, but they
could not depress them sufficiently to shoot us, and
the moment their heads came over the top we had
either a revolver or a sword to receive them with. . . .
The French came to our assistance late in the day,
when we were getting the worst of it, and they certainly
supported us nobly and saved the position. We should
probably have been driven back and our whole camp
taken had not they come and given us a help. I was
then lying on the ground, and saw some troops moving
towards our position, which had been so warmly
assailed. I raised up ray head and felt " Thank God,
we shall hold the position now." 1 think the sight
of those Zouaves coming up gave me more intense
pleasure than I ever felt before in my life.
The Times [wrote Greville on November 26] has
been thundering away about reinforcements, and
urging the dispatch of troops that do not exists and
cannot be created in a moment. I had a great battle
with Delane the other day about it, and asked why he
did not appeal to the French Government, who have
boundless military resources, instead of to ours, who
have none at all, and accordingly yesterday there was
a very strong article, entirely about French reinforce
ments. The plain speaking of Russell, and the comments
of The Times, were exceedingly distasteful to the
authorities, both at home and at the seat of war.
Lord Raglan wrote of the " public inconvenience "
caused by these statements, and of the necessity of
greater prudence in the future ; while the Duke of
Newcastle, obscuring the real issue, endeavoured to
persuade the public that The Times, by publishing

200 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
unfavourable intelligence frora the Crimea, was fur
nishing information which raight be of use to the
eneray. But he might as well have attempted to take
Sebastopol single-handed as to silence Delane; and
painful though it was to the latter to have to censure
Lord Aberdeen's Government, he felt it to be his duty
to persevere in his condemnation of the responsible
directors of the war.'
Greville, whose sympathies were entirely with Lord
Clarendon, declared that the articles published in
The Times during the winter excited "general resent
ment and disgust"; but he would have been nearer
the raark if he had said that it was towards the
Administration rather than towards its powerful critic
that the more thoughtful portion of the English
nation entertained such feelings.
Writing to Delane from Balaclava on January 17,
1855, Russell said :
The army has melted away almost to a drop of
miserable, worn-out, spiritless wretches, who muster,
1 Kinglake, in a striking passage, pays a graceful tribute to the
commanding influence of Delane at this juncture. Speaking of The
Times in its capacity of public adviser, he wrote : " No more able,
more cogent appeals were perhaps ever made than those in which its
great writers insisted again and again that the dispatch of reinforce
ments must be achieved with an exertion of will strong enough to
overthrow every obstacle interposed by mere customs and forms.
When the story of Inkerman reached them, they uttered, if so one
may speak, the very soul of a nation enraptured with the hard-won
victory, and abounding in gratitude to its distant army, yet disclosing
the care, the grief, which sobered its joy and its pride.
" And again, when a few days later the further accounts from our
army showed the darkening of the prospect before it, the great journal
using its leadership, and moving out to the front with opportune,
resolute counsels, seemed clothed with a power to speak, nay, almost
one may say to act, in the name of a united people." — Invasion of the
Crimea, vol. vi. p. 229. This volume appeared the year after Delane's
death.

,855] SUFFERINGS OF THE ARMY 201
out of 55,000 men, just 11,000 fit to shoulder a musket,
but certainly not fit to do duty against the enemy.
Let no one at home attempt to throw dust in your
eyes. The army is to all intents and purposes, with
the exception of a very few regiments, used up and
ruined. . . . My occupation is gone. . . . There is
nothing to record more of the British Expedition
except its weakness and its misery : misery in every
form and shape except that of defeat, and from that we
are solely spared by the goodness of Heaven, which
erects barriers of mud and snow between us and our
enemies. Of the condition of the horses he wrote in the same
dismal strain :
If we put all our chargers into the best stables in
England now we could not save them — they must die.
And so of the warm clothing for the men, It comes
too late.
Meanwhile Delane had been indefatigable in organ
ising a fund for providing coraforts for the sick and
wounded in the hospitals at Scutari and Balaclava,
and, at a tirae when public philanthropy was not so
well recognised as it is now. The Times collected over
;£^25,ooo in a few weeks, sending out Mr. MacDonald,
a trusted meraber of the staff, to superintend its
distribution. Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne volunteered his
services to Delane in connection with this errand of
mercy, and by the beginning of November both he
and MacDonald had arrived in Constantinople, where
they were joined by Miss Florence Nightingale.
Although throughout the winter Delane had to
face a hurricane of abuse, doubtless with his usual
equanimity, for his plain speaking on the mis
management of the war, it is gratifying to find that the
Minister mainly responsible for the financial policy of

202 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
the Cabinet, desired to tender to him his personal
approval of the course he had felt it his duty to
adopt. Writing on November 28, 1854, Mr. Gladstone
said :
The Government have received from The Times
valuable support in giving effect to their views of
financial policy under critical circumstances. . . . For
the suppression of any fact, however inconvenient in
its promulgation, 1 do not plead. I have no cause to
anticipate a necessity for asking, in order to raeet the
expenditure of the year, an extension of the powers
which the Legislature has already conferred upon the
Executive Governraent, and I conclude with repeating
my sense of obligation on public grounds for the aid
which The Times has lent us in giving effect to the
principles which we, and Parliament with us, have
believed to be most conducive to the welfare of the
country.' Sir Wilham Molesworth, on the other hand, wrote
to Delane to implore hira to exercise a raore rigid
censorship over Russell's letters, repeating the parrot
cry, which originated in the War Office, that by
describing in detail the sufferings of the troops and
by denouncing the want of energy in the dispatch of
reinforcements, the paper was playing into the hands
of the enemy, and providing the Czar with information
which it would be desirable to suppress.
When Parliament met ^ no vote of credit was asked
for, and Lord Aberdeen was able, to some extent, to
reassure the public mind, by announcing that before the
close of the year the army in the Crimea would be so
reinforced as to bring its numbers up to 53,000 men.
But in addition to the dangers assailing it from
' Extract from the first letter addressed by Gladstone to Delane.
His approval of the comments of The Times was, of course, confined
to the financial aspects of the campaign.
' On December 12.

I854-S] ROEBUCK'S MOTION 203
without, the Cabinet was now threatened with dis
ruption from within. Lord John Russell, who had
for some time past been anxious to find a plausible
excuse for severing himself from his sorely-tried
colleagues, saw his opportunity when, in the month of
January, Roebuck, the Radical member for Sheffield,
gave notice of his intention to move for a Committee
of Inquiry into the whole conduct of the war.
In selecting such a pretext for his defection it is
permissible to say of Lord John that he did not merely
resign, but that he absconded. The Prime Minister,
with a calm dignity which did him infinite credit,
though urged in many quarters to announce a re
construction of the Cabinet, determined to refrain
from even appearing to purchase support by such
means, and to stand or fall by the vote of the House
of Commons.
As Emerson once said of Napoleon, Delane always
knew what to do next.
Before Roebuck's motion was brought to an issue,
he made up his mind that the dissolution of Lord
Aberdeen's Cabinet was inevitable, and whilst con
tinuing to speak of its head with that respect to which
no man was more entitled, he strongly advocated the
claims of Lord Palmerston as the fittest and ablest
man to succeed him. At the same time he Ukened
Lord John Russell to a general who, refusing an action
in the presence of the enemy, throws down his
truncheon and quits the field.
The seals of the War Department Delane desired
to see placed in the hands of Lord Grey, though we
are in a position to state positively that if Roebuck's
motion had been rejected, it was Lord Aberdeen's
intention to replace the Duke of Newcastle at the
War Office by Lord Palmerston. But, as all the

204 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap, vi
world knows, the motion was carried, the Govern
ment was defeated by a majority of more than two
to one, and Lord Aberdeen at once resigned.
Systematic analysis of the division lists of the House
of Commons was not so common in those days as it is
now, but when the names were published the raajority
was found to include, araongst other Liberal members,
Lord Goderich (the present Lord Ripon), Horsman,
Locke-King, Samuel Laing, A. H. Layard, and the
proprietor of The Times. The late Lord Salisbury,
who had sat in Parliament, as Lord Robert Cecil, for
little more than a year, was also in the " Aye " lobby.
Bright and Cobden stayed away, as did Lord John
Russell, Sir Jaraes Grahara,' Joseph Hurae, and
Macaulay. One or two raembers of the regular opposition,
however, supported the Ministry,' amongst them
Sir William Heathcote (Gladstone's colleague in the
representation of Oxford University) and the late
Lord Houghton, who was then described as a Moderate
Conservative. The Queen sent for Lord Derby, who,
much to Disraeli's disgust, did not see his way to
forra another Ministry, and failing him for Lord John
Russell. But the latter soon found that his desertion
of Lord Aberdeen had lost him the support of all his
Whig friends. Lord Palmerston, at the ripe age of
seventy, was then called to the position of First
Minister of the Crown. But before many days had
passed he too was threatened with a dissolving view
of a Ministry when the Peelites ^ resigned in a body
because he had consented to the appointment of
Roebuck's Committee.
' Through illness.
' Gladstone, Sir James Graham, Lord St. Germans, Cardwell,
Sidney Herbert, and Young.

,855] DELANE AND PALMERSTON 205
Delane did not regard their defection as an unmixed
evil. On the contrary, he considered that Roebuck's
motion having been carried by the largest anti-
Ministerial majority ever known in the House of
Commons, Palmerston's position was distinctly im
proved by the withdrawal of Gladstone and Sir James
Graham. He wrote in The Times of February 16 :
Although no one contests the brilliant oratorical
powers of Mr. Gladstone or the administrative abilities
of Sir James Graham, we do not hesitate to express
our conviction that the Ministry may be strengthened
rather than weakened by their withdrawal frora office.
He foUowed this up by a further attack on the
Peelites a few days later:
On the first wind of Parliamentary inquiry into
the causes of the misfortunes of the army in the East
Lord John Russell decamped. The Duke of Newcastle
retired, but Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and
Sir James Graham took or retained office under Lord
Palmerston without having made up their minds to
stand by him during the very first difficulty which
awaited him. We know not by what subtleties of
reasoning Mr. Gladstone may have satisfied himself
and convinced his friends that it was consistent with
public duty to abandon a post he had accepted only
ten days before, but we are convinced that Parliament
will be the more disposed to rally round the Govern
ment when it has shaken off its wavering adherents
and its dubious allies.
Such indeed had been the ambiguity of the language
used by the Peelites, the obscurity of their motives, and
the inconsistency of their actions, that they detracted
from the popularity of the Government more than
they contributed to it by their services. Such a
coalition was possible under the cautious direction of
Lord Aberdeen, but Delane saw that it could not long
survive his fall.

2o6 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
Governments, like men, begin to die when they
begin to live, and every breath they draw shortens
the duration of their being. Yet within two years
Palmerston overruled Lord Aberdeen, routed Lord
John Russell, defied the Court, brought the war to a
successful conclusion, and made an honourable peace.
But there was one power which he had failed to
overmaster or to defeat, and that was The Times,
as conducted by John Delane in the prime of his
intellectual vigour.
Recognising that the country was prepared to
endorse the action of the paper in demanding an
inquiry into the whole conduct or misconduct of
the war, his views, when at length he became Prime
Minister, began to undergo a gradual but perceptible
approximation to those of Delane. Personal acquain
tance soon ripened into intimacy, and mutual respect
into friendship. Palmerston was the first to admit
how much he owed, during the last and most creditable
decade of his long public career, to the advice and
the support of his former critic. Pledged above all
things to conduct the war with energy and to neglect
no measure likely to contribute to its success, the
situation which Palmerston had to face on taking
office was no enviable one. On a range of bleak
cliffs overlooking the black waters of the Euxine
were encamped the remains of what was once the
noblest and most gallant array whose deeds ever
adorned the page of history.
Sharp misery has worn them to the bone. They
have lost all the bravery of war. They are ragged,
shoeless, besmeared with mud, infested by vermin,
and tortured by scorbutic disease. From September
14 their life has been one long, troubled, miserable
dream. Battle and famine, rotting wet and icy cold,
increasing labour and diminishing strength, viewing

,855] FALL OF SEBASTOPOL 207
day by day their comrades falling beside them, and
awaiting the only too certainly approaching period
when they shall join their brave companions in the
grave. Such was the appalling picture drawn by The Times
correspondent at the beginning of February. Yet
amongst those brave remnants of an army there was
no shrinking, no holding back, and no despair. Pene
trated with an ineffaceable certainty of success, the
hope of treading on the ashes of Sebastopol only
parted from thera with parting life.
Space would not perrait of our tracing here the
progress of the war during the next few months, or
quoting the constant demands made by Delane for
the dispatch of those reinforcements which were
destined to bring hostilities to a close. The Allies
had begun the siege of Sebastopol on October 17,
1854. Not till 316 days later did it fall. On Sep
tember II The Times was able to announce that
the fortress had yielded, and that the power of
Russia in the waters of the Euxine was at an end,
at least for a generation.
One of the last private letters which Delane received
from Russell was dated from " Inside Sebastopol," and
the first of war correspondents returned to England
to find himself famous, and the paper which he had
served so well more powerful than at any previous
period of its history. In one year from the day of
the disembarkation which Delane had witnessed in
Kalamita Bay we had stormed the heights of the
Alma, sustained the glorious disaster of Balaclava,
fought the great fight of Inkerman, opened seven
distinct bombardraents upon the fortress which so
long defied the onslaught of the Allies, swept the Sea
of Azov and its seaboard, wasted Kertch and seized

208 DELANE AND THE CRIMEAN WAR [chap.vi
Yenikale, witnessed the battle of the Tchernaya, and
had held in check every general and every soldier
whora Russia could spare. And, at last, having been
purged in the fire of sickness, death, repulse, and
disaster, the British standard floated over Sebastopol,
and the great object of the war was attained.

CHAPTER VII
THE ASCENDANCY OF PALMERSTON
Reeve's withdrawal from The Times — Delane's visit to America —
Presidential election in New York — Outbreak of the Indian
Mutiny — Growing social influence of Delane — Death of his
father — First visit to the Highlands — Life at Glenquoich — Visits
to Haddo and Taymouth.
Not until Sebastopol had fallen did Delane perrait
himself to take a holiday, but at the end of September
1855 he went to Switzerland and Italy with his father
and mother.
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Interlaken,
Monday, October i, 1855.
My dear George,
I begin by confessing that I have behaved like a
" boor " ; but really doing nothing is such hard work
that, like all idle people, I never have a moment to
myself I only expected to hear from you at Baden,
moreover, and made no inquiries at Heidelberg or
Schaffhausen, though I shall write for your letters by
this post.
1 need not recount the incidents of our progress up
the Rhine ; they were unbroken by a single misad
venture or adventure — a constant succession of lovely
days, good breakfasts, long dinners, and heavy suppers.
The veterans enjoy everything vastly, and though
they won't improve their figures by walking as much
as I wish, they are in wonderful health and spirits.
Of course, everybody said we were too late, but
until this day the weather has been perfect, and I
never saw things to raore advantage. Of course
Heidelberg was duly admired — indeed, my father
vol. I 209 14

2IO SWITZERLAND [chap, vn
wished to go no further, not believing that anything
could be better, and my mother to take a house for the
rest of her life there. Wiesbaden and Baden were
more relished by the juniors (I picked up i6 fl. at
the first and 21 at the second), and the little we have
seen of Switzerland has been appreciated by all.
I could not follow John Walter's advice as to the
Black Forest exactly, fori I could find no langkutscher at
Baden to undertake his route, but I got one at Frey-
burg, and went across from there to Schaffhausen,
from there to Zurich, and from there to Arth and
Righi, which the whole party ascended with wonderful
fortitude. All four rode, and this poor child was
goose enough to walk — not that the walk is much,
but to walk against horses in such a place is laborious
indeed. The day was charming, the view at sunrise
the best 1 have seen, and the walk down most delightful.
Altogether it was a really good day, and we finished it
by a capital supper at Lucerne.
From there 1 wanted to take John Walter's route by
the St Gothard to this place, but the veterans were
too rauch the victiras of their saddles on the Righi trip
to sit out another ride, and though I proposed going
over the St. Gothard as far as Milan and back by
the Siraplon, my father preferred coming here for his
letters, and so we arrived yesterday, and found your
letter of the 25th and a most welcome heap of papers
waiting for us. The very first rain we have had was
last night, and to-day even the lower mountains are
covered with snow, but the weather still promises to
be fine, and though 1 have no plans, I should not be
surprised if we took the Simplon as far as the Italian
Lakes, instead of remaining on this side the Alps.
Between The E. Mail and Galignani I have not
missed raore than one or two papers, and have thought
thera all very good. How lucky you are in murders !
As to Russell, he has surpassed himself both in length
and excellence. Nothing can be more powerful than
his description of the storming and of the Russian
hospitals. Certainly we have not come well out of
the Redan business, and I am very glad you have set
Reeve at Simpson. As to Simpson's dispatch, it was
simply imbecile. Niel's strikes me as very good.
For one thing I am sorry — that you should have let
Reeve praise Lyons and the Black Sea Fleet. I think

i8ss] ITALY

211

they have been sadly inactive — worse even than under
Dundas— and Tom Mozley had written of thera in that
sense. I thought too the "claw me claw thee" style
of both Simpson and Lyons very disgusting.
What was your quarrel with Reeve about ? 1 need
not ask who was in the wrong ?
I have a great deal raore to write, but ara now, at
9.30 p.m., obliged by pure sleepiness to go to bed.
Such hours, early rising, and incessant walking, com
bined with good and varied food, ought to remove all
the effects of London smoke, and 1 certainly think
they have, for I never felt better.
Alwa3's, my dear G., yours,
J. T. D.
Please to write next to Geneva. It is the only place
one is certain to go to. Milan,
Monday, October 8, 1855.
My dear George,
You will see by the date of this letter that 1
have executed the plan I mentioned when 1 last wrote,
and have brought the whole party across the Alps.
It looked rather bold, but as two of them were not
up to mountain excursions, the only way of seeing
Switzerland was by the passes, and once at the top
Italy was too tempting for one to turn back. So on
Wednesday last we left Interlaken by the Lake of
Brient, crossed the Brunig the same night, and slept
the next at Amsteg on the St. Gothard, got to Faido,
on the Italian side, on Friday, and here by the Lago
Maggiore last night. Up to the top of the pass the
weather was glorious, hot enough at starting, but
with the therraoraeter down to 39 at the highest
point, the rain set in, thunder and lightning followed,
and accorapanied us all the way to Milan. To-day,
however, Italy has redeemed itself, and as I write
the sun is brilliant and the heat enough even for
me. Everybody is well, and enjoying the wonderful
change from snow and rocks and desolation to the
warmth and fertility of the plains.
I propose to stay here until Wednesday, or perhaps
Thursday, and then to return as quickly as I can with
so large a party by way of the Simplon and Geneva.
It will take about a week to reach Paris. I don't care

212 CRIMEAN AFFAIRS [chap, vn
to stay there more than two days, so that I shall be
back in town well within the six weeks.
This is all about myself, but really 1 have nothing
else to write about, for ray last date from London is
your letter of the 29th, which 1 answered from Inter
laken, and the little news I have since gleaned has
been from German and Italian papers, whose conductors
evidently think the movements of their respective
Hertzogs much raore important than the progress of
the war. All of them, however, so far as they dare
show it, are on our side, and the prints, however rude,
which one finds even in remote villages always repre
sent the French or English as triumphant. I grieve
to say the former come in for the larger share of glory,
but that of course was to be expected.
Anything more abominable than Simpson's conduct
cannot be conceived, and I hope you have continued
the same tone with respect to him, unless indeed he
has redeemed himself by some victory in the field.
Even the soldiers don't seem to have behaved as well
as usual, and I expect the French will forget their own
success long before they cease talking of our failure.
I have met scarcely any English since I set out, but a
good many Americans, all pleasant, well-informed
people, bent on seeing Europe, but convinced that
they have nothing to learn. I wish I could feel
so as regards England, but I see every day a great
deal here which I wish would bear transplantation —
not so much perhaps on this side the Alps as the
other, where the people seem to me more industrious
and ingenious than ever. It is a sad pity that you who
enjoyed Scotland so much should not see the country
we have come through, and its manifold beauties and
conveniences. Certainly in Switzerland one has the
whole luxury of travelling. Capital roads, plenty of
horses and carriages everywhere, a whole nation of
guides and showmen, palaces for public-houses, good
beds, and fair food and drink almost wherever one
cares to stop. Nor are the prices high. I have kept
all my bills, and they do not average more than ten
francs a head per day. 1 expect to find thera heavier
here, but hitherto there has been no change from the
Swiss rate.
Our old friends the Austrians are as absurd as ever
with their soldiering. Every large building that is not

,855] HENRY REEVE AND THE TIMES 213
an hotel is a barrack, and even the trumpery little
steamer that brought us over the lake yesterday had
a guard of marines, with regularly posted sentries on
its miniature forecastle and stern, while here and
there are constant patrols of infantry and cavalry.
and guns and drums and white coats in all directions.
As ever, yours, J. T. D.
All the heavy baggage, and with it my writing
materials, was left at Interlaken for conveyance to
Geneva. Hence this importation of the soil of Italy.'
Whilst he was abroad the usual serenity of the
atmosphere in Printing House Square became suddenly
charged with electrical disturbance. Henry Reeve,
who, as we have seen, had been one of Delane's prin
cipal writers on foreign politics from the very earliest
days of his editorship, took umbrage at the alterations
which Dasent, acting within his undoubted right,
made in some of his contributions to the paper.
More than this he endeavoured, backed up as he was
by Charles Greville, to dictate the policy to be pursued
by The Times in Delane's absence.
This, of course, Dasent could not allow, as it was
an inflexible rule laid down by Delane that the decision
of the editor temporarily in charge should be absolute
and final.
In consequence of Reeve's disinclination to recog
nise that the positions of contributor and editor could
not be reversed at his pleasure, a heated correspondence
passed between him and Dasent, which, after it had
been subraitted to the principal proprietor, resulted in
Reeve's throwing up his post on the staff and seeking
other and more congenial employraent.
As an inaccurate and incomplete account of the cir
cumstances attending his withdrawal has been given
' The letter was not blotted, but sanded.

214 H. REEVE AND THE TIMES [chap, vn
by Sir Jj K. Laughton in his Life of Henry Reeve,
published in 1898, we have thought it worth while to
state the actual facts, and to print, not only Dasent's
letters to his chief, but Delane's comraents on the
whole correspondence.
The leading article on the proposed match between
the Prince of Prussia's son and the Princess Royal
of England,' which Reeve took exception to, is
said by the writer of his life in the Dictionary of
National Biography to have led to the rupture; but a
general impatience of authority, a desire to over-ride
the decision of the responsible editor, and to give
effect to his private views and those of his patrons
outside the office, were the real causes of this painful
disagreement. The article on the royal match was from Robert
Lowe's pen, and it will be seen from the subjoined
correspondence that it met with Delane's entire
concurrence and approval :
• G. W. Dasent to J. T. Delane "Times" Office,
October 15, 1855.
My dear John,
The enclosed correspondence and John Walter's
letter which you will receive with this will inform
you of the cause of my difference with Reeve and
its result.
You had hardly been gone a week before he tried to
bully me, fancying, 1 suppose, that we could not do
without him. In this he was undeceived very speedily,
for Chenery, as you predicted, has proved himself fully
equal to all foreign work, and wrote Reeve's peculiar
articles far better than // Pomposo could himself
For a fortnight he sulked and wrote tolerably ; he
then went out of town and lost the chance of the best
subjects, which 1 handed over to Chenery. Reeve then
' Published in The Times of October 3, 1855.

,855] H. REEVE AND THE TIMES 215
rushed back to town rather savage. He then tried to
play into the hands of the Government by deprecating
aU attacks on Simpson for his imbecility, and actually
wished me to have no article at all on the brevet and
Simpson's promotion.
Finally he raade an exceUent article of Lowe's on the
Prussian marriage, in which we have had the public
completely with us, an excuse for withdrawing alto
gether, and when I quietly accepted his resignation
he wrote to Walter a tirade of^ abuse against rae,
backed up by a most scurrilous letter from Greville,
evidently written to order.
Walter sided completely with me, broke off the
connection at once, and says he has never felt so
happy in his life. Thus we have lost the great man,
and I cannot say we feel at all the worse for it ; indeed
the excellent articles which we have had lately since
his withdrawal must have mortified him not a little.
Of course, all this extra trouble and correspondence
has given me a world of work; but I ara extremely well,
and it is no small consolation to me to feel that Reeve
quarrelled with me, not 1 with him, that his attack,
offensive in the extreme, has recoiled on his own head,
and that J. W. has stood up so stoutly for rae.
I hope and trust that you will take the sarae view
of the case, for certainly there never was a baser
conspiracy nor a raore ungenerous mode of attack than
that pursued by Reeve and Greville on this occasion.
Now 1 hope you will not cut your holiday one day
short for all this. Everything here is as sraooth as
possible, John Walter delighted, and Mowbray Morris
and every one else equally so.
AU the raen are working well, and I have never been
in want of leaders, though I have naturally had some
anxiety as to how some of Chenery's articles would
turn out.
I am delighted that you carried the veterans so
successfully across the Alps, and hope to hear in a day
or two that you are all safe and sound in Paris.
I have told John Walter and every one else that you
certainly will not be back before next week, so pray
stay and enjoy your Sunday in Paris.
Ever yours,
G. W. Dasent.
Please write a hne in reply. 1 enclose the articles.

2i6 H. REEVE AND G. W. DASENT [chap, vn
No. I
Friday Morning [September 21, 1855].
Dear Dasent,
I will write something on the corn question.
Could you send rae (to the Council Office) the last
Mark Lane Expressl
Do pray spare us any further effusions in the strain
of the article about Naples to-day. I never remember
such trash to have been published in the paper.
I suppose it is meant for a sort of burlesque, but
it makes us all ridiculous.
I had writtfen the day before what it was necessary
to say — the subject being a delicate one for many
reasons, as nothing could suit us less than a Muratist
insurrection : upon which this blatant article follows
from sheer ignorance and absurdity.
If you wish me to reraain in town and to retain the
foreign departraent of the paper in Delane's absence,
I must really entreat you to spare rae this sort of
coadjutor. Yours faithfully,
H. Reeve.
Reply.— No. 2
Friday Morning [September 21, 1855].
Dear Reeve,
I do not know whether to laugh or to be angry at
your letter. It is not you but I who conduct the paper
in Delane's absence, and so long as 1 conduct it you
must refrain frora injurious coraments on the labours
of others.
The article of which you complain — most unreason
ably as it seems to me — was written before yours.
I might have embodied the fact of M. Mazza's dismissal
in it, and suppressed yours altogether, but 1 held it
over for a day and inserted yours, really from a desire
to spare your feelings.
With regard to your threat of leaving town, you are
welcome to do so as soon as you please ; but if you
go there might be some difficulty in resuming your
position. While I cannot tolerate any interference with my

,855] H. REEVE AND G. W. DASENT 217
duties, I write this in no unfriendly spirit. I enclose
The Mark Lane Express corn article, and am,
Yours very truly,
G. W. Dasent.

No.

Council Office,
Tuesday, October 2.

Dear Dasent, I beg particularly to request you to let the
matter of Simpson drop for a day or two, for a reason
which I am not at liberty to mention at this moment,
but which 1 give you my word is a very good one.
I send you a few pickings. If I have nothing better
I will turn my hand to Stoltzenfels to-morrow. Yours, H. R.
N.B. — The above extraordinary letter was in answer
to one suggesting an article on the brevet and Simp
son's promotion which appeared in The Gazette that
evening. The consequence was that the paper had
no article on that brevet next day. In reply, 1 wrote
insisting on an article on the brevet, embodying the
secret, which was Simpson's recall or resignation.
The article was written. On the following day the
article on the Prussian marriage, not by Reeve, ap
peared. This was Wednesday, October 3. The day
after I received the following letter:

No. 4
16, Chester Square,
October 4, 1855.
My dear Dasent,
I am sorry to say that I so entirely disapprove
the manner in which you are conducting the paper,
especially with reference to the foreign department of
it, that I feel it would be dishonourable and improper
in myself to contribute to its columns under your
management. I have, as you are aware, already
remonstrated with you, but you replied that you
should allow no one to interfere with you in the per
formance of your duties.
I took no notice of this at the moraent from a strong

2i8 H. REEVE AND G. W. DASENT [chap, vn
desire not to inconvenience the paper in Delane's
absence, and with some hope of preventing the rais
chief 1 believe you to be doing. But, as I perceive
(especially from the article on the Prussian marriage in
yesterday's paper) that I have entirely failed in this
object, I have no choice but to withdraw.
Yours truly, Henry Reeve.
G. W. Dasent, Esq. Reply.— No. 5
"The Times" Office,
October 4.
My dear Reeve,
1 am sorry that you should have arrived at the
determination expressed in your letter dated this
morning, but, under all the circumstances, it is perhaps
as well that you should withdraw for a time from con
tributing to the paper. Yours very truly,
G. W. Dasent.
H. Reeve, Esq. No. 6
Extract of a letter frora Mr. Greville to Mr. Reeve
on the subject of the article on the Prussian marriage :
" I hope you raay have a satisfactory conversation
with Walter, whora I should rather like to see rayself,
and tell him what I think on the subject. The first
thing I should do would be to advise him to remove
Dasent from his post without scruple or hesitation.
I think Delane (who must know his brother-in-law
and what he is worth) much to blame for entrusting
him with the management of the paper, and I am
amazed that he ever did so."
This letter was sent to John Walter with another
from Lord Clarendon to Reeve, and, at my desire,
John Walter sent them on to me.
The letter which imraediately follows was written
before Delane had received Dasent's full account of
the passage-at-arms between Reeve and himself:

,855] H. REEVE AND THE TIMES 219
Geneva,
Tuesday, October ,6, ,855.
My dear George,
Long as I have known your good qualities I
never did justice to you as a correspondent until
yesterday, when, on arriving here, I found no less than
five letters from you and so many newspapers that
the postmaster suggested a brouette. Certainly my
father has never had such a feast. He has been ever
since conscientiously reading them up. I have not
been so industriously regular and began with the
latest, but so far as I have gone I have never read
better papers in every respect — excellent articles, good
subjects and lots of news. The article on the Prince
of Prussia's son and the match with the Princess Royal
is the best I have ever read, and I hope nothing will
make you shrink from it at all. The articles on Simpson
and on the appearance of the fleet before Odessa are
also capital. There may be many more, I only mention
those I have read. With such articles you need not
tell me that everybody is working well, but I long to
hear the particulars of your tiff with Henry Reeve.
I suppose it was a bit of insolence on his part? I
hope you find Chenery as good as I was led to expect.
He seemed to me equal to anything.
Our adventures since I wrote you that dusty letter
from Milan have not been many. I scarcely did the
place justice at the time I wrote it, for its attractions
grew on one and I left it at last with regret. We did
not go as I had intended by the Simplon, but by
Novara and Vercelli to Turin, and thence over the Cenis
here. Turin has never had justice done it. It is really
one of the handsomest and most lively cities 1 have
seen, and the view from it of the whole Alpine chain
quite wonderful — ^worth a dozen Righis. It stretches
for about two hundred miles, and rising as it does
on the Italian side straight out of the plain looks higher
than it does from Switzerland, where one approaches
it through several other ranges. We had the clearest
possible weather and saw it therefore to the best
advantage. We also saw the King reviewing sorae
Crimean reinforcements, and a whole plain full of hay,
and mules enough to eat it. In Piedmont the war fever
seems at its height. There are ballads about Malakhoff
and the " Cosaccos " singing in every street, and every

220 FOREIGN POLITICS [chap.vh
shop has prints more or less bad of French and English,
Sardinians' and Turks. There is an amount of "go,"
too, in the whole population which contrasts very
favourably with Milan, where all the vitality seems
engrossed by the omnipresent Austrian garrison. In
Milan, too, there is only one wretched railway princi
pally for " strategical purposes," whereas in Turin
there are four and all well frequented. In Milan all
the palaces are barracks, and there does not seem to
have been a new house built for the last century, while
all round Turin there are new streets and squares and
stations rising as rapidly as round London.
The learned in such matters say that the Cenis is a
very inferior pass, but having walked over it from
Susa to Landlesburg I am bound to say that it is full
of very magnificent scenery of a different kind but not
less interesting than the Gothard. From Turin here
has taken four days. We took a Roman vetturino
frora Turin, and he brought us in yesterday afternoon.
To-morrow at 3.30 p.m. we start by dilly for Dole,
where we catch the train for Paris and expect to arrive
there on Thursday evening.
This is, 1 believe, all 1 have to tell you of our
proceedings and plans. The veterans are contented
with what they have seen and done ; the others would
have liked to spend a month at Milan and, I dare say,
another at Pans. For myself, 1 am well pleased to
have gone and shall be equally well pleased to be back
again. The weather, which had been bad for two days,
is again lovely and this beautiful place looking its best.
Always, ray dear G., as ever, yours, J. T. D.
I declare Russell ought to be made a K.C.B.
But in his two next letters to his brother-in-law he
enters very fully into the whole subject: Paris,
Friday, October 19, 1855.
My dear George,
When 1 wrote to you from Geneva I had not
read all the papers I found there or I should certainly
have told you now much I regretted the article depre
cating any moveraent against the King of Naples. I

,855] DELANE AND HENRY REEVE 22t
have been griUing about it ever since, for I felt that in
it Reeve had, as usual, sold the popular cause. I had
already written to you about his article on Lyons and
in praise of Lowe's on the Prussian match. I had also, as
you know, just before your return, published an article
of Knox's, as first leader, stronger than anything that
has since appeared about Naples. You have therefore
already, if it were possible to doubt it, evidence of how
I should myself have acted in Reeve's case. I regret
the quarrel, because I hate all quarrels and because
perhaps the same cause of difference would not have
produced one if I had been concerned — not that my
conduct would have been unlike yours, but that Reeve
would have abstained from anything offensive to me,
though he thought he might bully you with impunity
if not success. However, as Palmerston said at
Romsey, there are sorae things raore intolerable even
than quarrelling, and, much as 1 hate it, I would rather
quarrel with a whole parish of Reeves than submit to
such insolent assertions as his letters display. He
just wanted to job the paper to his own purposes, to
prove to his patrons that he was supreme and to
receive their pay in flattery and dinners while he was
taking ours in hard cash. I am delighted you found
such a cordial supporter in John Walter. His entire
" loyalty " in all such cases is beyond praise.
So much for the quarrel itself As to its results,
I don't think the paper will lose more than it will gain
by Reeve's withdrawal. Certainly he was a most
ready writer, always willing to work, with a great deal
of information and much adroitness in using it ; but he
was a thorough jobber, and never thought hiraself
repaid for his labour unless he sold it twice over. His
dynastic tendencies, or rather those of his patrons,
have led us into endless scrapes and contradictions, and
constantly made us the advocates of an unpopular and
anti-national policy. In losing him no advantage of
judgment will be lost, for no man was ever raore
inclined to take the wrong line, and Chenery will more
than supply his place as a writer.
I am very sorry you should have had all the anxiety
and annoyance this affair must have caused you. I
hope M. M.' as well as J. W.^ has been handsomely and
cordially with you. I am sure he must feel, as we do,
' Mowbray Morris. ' John Walter.

±±^ FOREIGN POLITICS [CHAP. VII
that in estimating Reeve's services to the paper there
was much to put into the adverse scale. It was very
good policy of you to have that civil article on
Palmerston's Romsey speech. It will show him and
the rest of them that it is not to Reeve alone they are
indebted for support.
This is quite enough for to-day from yours always,
my dear G., J. T. D.
Paris,
Saturday, October 20, 1855.
My dear George,
I see by yesterday's article that you are carrying the
war into Reeve's quarters very fiercely, and attacking
him through Clarendon by a description not to be mis
taken. Pray don't show resentment. Feel as much as
you like, but it will keep. At present it will all be
attributed to pique, which as you are victorious you
need not feel. I suppose it is Reeve's own article in
The Edinburgh. I think he told me he was writing
something ofthe sort, and the extracts quoted are just
his o\m. opinions. As to Clarendon, I have no per-.
sonal feeling in his favour. He chose to put himself
entirely into Reeve's hands— deceived probably by
his boastings — and deserves no consideration from
us, who have from the commencement of his Irish
career given him a deal more than he ever gave us.
Seem magnanimous, however, and don't seek occasions
of manifesting the disgust you are quite justified in
feeling. There is nothing doing here: the Exhibition is a
humbug, the town much more English than French,
everything dear and, strange to say, dull. I shall
start on Monday, and be with you, I hope, all well on
Tuesday. Ever yours, J. T. D.
Apart from the absorbing interest of the Crimean
War, 1855 was not an eventful year at home. Yet, if
we were to print a tithe of the letters received by
Delane between the latter end of 1854 and the con-

,855] CRIMEAN CORRESPONDENTS 223
elusion of peace in 1856, especially those addressed
to him by his civil and military correspondents in
the East, it would have been necessary to expand
these volumes to at least double their present size.
The private communications of W. H. Russell (care
fuUy preserved and annotated by his chief), of General
Eber (in after-years The Times correspondent at
Vienna and one of Delane's favourite travelling com
panions), of Thomas Chenery from Constantinople,
of J. Macdonald on the state of the hospitals at
Scutari, of Stowe, who, to the great regret of his
colleagues, fell a victim to fever at Balaclava, and of
Laurence Oliphant, describing his adventures with
Omar Pasha and the siege of Kars — these alone
would have filled a good-sized volume.
Amongst Delane's private papers for which it has
also been impossible to find room on the present
occasion are numerous and highly confidential letters
relating to the recall of Sir John Burgoyne and the
supersession of other officers, to the choice of a
successor to Lord Raglan, and, after him, of his suc
cessor.' He was in constant comraunication with
General Sir G. de Lacy Evans, both before and after
his return from the front. Many of these letters are
painful reading, from the nature of the disclosures
they contain and the jealousies they reveal, but nearly
all are of value for the light which they throw upon
obscure passages in the conduct and progress of
the war.
We remarked, at an earUer stage of this biography,
that Delane was the best-informed man in Europe,
and whilst this was strictly true as regards the repeal
of the Corn Laws, it becoraes even more apparent
when, having reached the Crimean period, we consult
' General Sir William Codrington.

224 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTY ([chap.vh
the innumerable sources of information at his com
mand. But we must reluctantly close the record of
his life, so far as relates to his individual share in the
great conflict between England and Russia, and turn
for a while from raatters of international iraportance
to more matter-of-fact and domestic topics which
engaged much of his attention until they were brought
to a successful issue.
A subject which had a peculiar interest for Delane
and for the proprietors of The Times was the repeal,
in 1855, of the newspaper stamp duty.'
This incident in the long struggle for the removal
of what were coramonly known as the "taxes on
knowledge " was a raatter of grave concern to the
interests of Printing House Square. The Bill, as
originally framed, by substituting postal for revenue
stamps, and by deliberately fixing upon a 4-ounce
standard, was calculated to place The Times in a
disadvantageous position as compared with its con
temporaries. Delane at once threw the whole weight of his
influence into the scale to secure the principle of
uniformity, and he appears to have contemplated, in
the event of the Government refusing his demands,
the establishment of a vast organisation by means of
which the entire London press would have taken upon
itself the carriage and delivery of all printed matter
independently of the Post Office. It is instructive
to note that he thought this could be done, even fifty
years ago, at a cost of not raore than one halfpenny
per paper.
The agitation for free trade in newspaper enterprise,
' One of the immediate results of this change was the establishment
of The Daily Telegraph, the first newspaper to achieve: success at the
price of a penny.

i8s5] SECOND DUKE OF WELLINGTON 225
which originated with the Manchester school, con
tinued in a more or less acute forra until the final
repeal of the paper duty in 1861.
One of Delane's frequent correspondents frora
1854-S onwards was the second Duke of WeUington,
the witty, if somewhat eccentric, peer who hked to be
known as the " son of Waterloo." In later years he
became one of Delane's intimate friends, as did the
Duchess,' and "Mr. Delane's room" was long, and
perhaps still is, pointed out to visitors at Strathfield
saye. A philanthropic man, preferring to do good
by stealth from a wholesome horror of advertisement,
his letters are always good reading and often ex
tremely amusing, tinged though they . are with a vein
of cynicism. Some of them, on non-political subjects,
we hope to include on a later page.
Sidney Herbert, that fine type of an English gentle
man in political life, now also first appears amongst
Delane's habitual correspondents. It is a matter for
regret that his labours for the improvement of the
soldier's lot were constantly hampered, if not para
lysed, by a parsimonious and grudging Exchequer.
The extraordinary prosperity of The Times is alluded
to by " Bear " Ellice in a carefully reasoned paper
on the state of the Press prepared for Lord John
Russell's instruction at the end of the year :
The Times [he said] has become omnipotent and
despotic from the consummate ability with which it is
conducted. It is on this account read with avidity by
all classes and by men of all parties.
The great increase of circulation which resulted from
the firm attitude taken by its editor during the war
enabled the proprietary to make a substantial addition
' Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria.
VOL. I 15

226 ROBERT LOWE [chap.vh
to Delane's salary, and in a neatly turned letter of
thanks he wrote as follows :
I can make no more head against the storm of
favours you shower upon me than our troops could
against the fire of the Redan, and am as unable to
make any adequate reply. I can only rejoice that the
great enterprise, whose success is the dearest object of
my life, is prosperous enough to afford such magnificent
rewards and that you so highly appreciate my entire
devotion to you and to it'
The promotion of Robert Lowe, one of his ablest
and most trusted writers, to the post of Vice-President
of the Board of Trade gave him unfeigned pleasure.
Writing to Dasent in Norfolk at the close of the
session he said :
Whilst Lowe was on his canvass, I had only Mozley
and Woodham to rely on, but the latter behaved like a
brick and sent me double sheets for three days together.
I was very anxious for Lowe, as at first the contest
[at Kidderminster] looked dangerous, and it would
have been so disgusting to be blocked out of a pro
mising career by a few drunken carpet-weavers. I
must say he bears his new honours meekly, and on the
Sunday before going to Osborne he wrote the summary
of the session. . . . Don't be too cocky about Sweaborg.
The town, etc., was burnt by vertical fire, but the
batteries are left untouched and the fleet therefore can't
get at Helsingfors. ... I hope your boys are running
about well and manifesting a proper love of the stables.
The question of the appointment of a successor to
Lord Dalhousie brought Delane many letters and
suggestions frora high officials in India and at home.
Although the Governor-General was not one of his
personal friends, his next brother, George Delane,^ had
been for some years well known to him. By Lord
' Extract from a letter of Delane to John Walter, July 5, 1855, of
which he preserved a copy.
' Major-General George Delane, Bengal Staff Corps ; Commandant
ofthe Bodyguard, ,862-74. Born June 18, 1825 ; died July 31, i8go.

,856] LORD CANNING GOES TO INDIA 227
Dalhousie he had been appointed to the command
of the Governor-General's Bodyguard, and in that
capacity his name stood at the very head of the Indian
Army List. An excellent correspondent, he wrote to
his brother by nearly every mail frora Calcutta, and
kept him accurately informed of the trend of events
in India. He was among the first to warn his brother
of the disaffected state of the native troops.
The selection of Lord Canning to succeed Lord
Dalhousie took official India by surprise, as it had
made up its mind to either Lord Elgin or the Duke
of Newcastle. The appointment met, we have reason
to know, with Lord Dalhousie's entire approval, and
on first hearing of it he remarked to one of his staff:
" He and his handsome wife will at any rate look their
parts well, and I am sure they will be popular."
When the New Year was still in its infancy
peace was not only in the air, but in the mouths of
most Englishmen. Faint though they were at first,
the earliest glimmerings of hope grew imperceptibly
brighter, until by the middle of January the knowledge
that France was thoroughly sick ofthe war strengthened
the growing conviction in the public mind that the
negotiations in progress on the Continent might, and
ought to, end in the discovery of a basis for future
agreement. It so happened that during the early part of the
month Delane was laid up in Serjeants' Inn by serious
illness, but with characteristic pluck, though in a high
fever, he continued to guide the course to be pursued
by the paper from day to day and to dictate instructions
from his sick room.
The fall of Kars having taken place after the terms
agreed upon by the Allies had been forwarded to
Russia, changed in some degree the balance between

228 PROSPECTS OF PEACE [chap.vh
the two parties in the war, since, for the first time,
Russia had something to give up.
The diplomatists of the Czar were not slow to avail
themselves of the advantage which the possession
of Kars gave them to say in effect : " We decline to
give you half Bessarabia, though we are willing to
restore Kars, and to leave the question of territorial
corapensation to be settled hereafter by the negotiators."
The faraous Four Points of Vienna had been virtually
increased to five, and the suppleraental one, which
really contained two distinct propositions, provoked
the greatest amount of resistance on the part of Russia.
Its object was to prevent the reconstruction of any
fortifications in the Aland Islands, and to secure
the admission of consuls to all Russian ports in the
Black Sea.
Being unable to call on Lord Palmerston to ask
for news, Delane wrote to him and received the
following letter in reply. Written in a spirit of
cheerful optimism which a statesman whose mind
was made up and knew exactly what the interests
of England required might legitimately employ, it
illustrates the resolute character of the man who,
whatever his shortcomings in other directions, was
never seen to better advantage than when dealing
with questions of really national iraportance.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane
January ,6, 1856.
It is not easy to give in a few words a correct
notion of the state of the communications now going
on, but Austria having, with the consent of the English
and French Governments, proposed to Russia certain
conditions to serve as bases for a Treaty of Peace,
Russia has accepted some, and has either declined
or wished to modify others. Austria has, however,
adhered to her terms, and has given Russia tiU the

,856] PALMERSTON ON PEACE 229
1 8th to reconsider her answer, and to send by
telegraph to Vienna a yes or a no, entire acceptance
or what would be considered as tantamount to a
refusal. The points on which the Russian answer declines,
or proposes alterations are important. Russia evades
the cession of Bessarabia, and offers to give up Kars
instead; a position which she has acquired by accident
and not by victory, and out of which she will in
faUibly be driven in the next campaign. She says
nothing about the Aland Islands, and wants to leave
open a door for a larger naval force in the Black Sea
than can be required for mere purposes of naval
police. She has, however, gone so far towards meeting the
conditions of the Allies, moderate and reasonable as
they are, that little doubt can be entertained that if
not now, at all events before the next campaign would
begin, she will see that it is better for her to accept
the very fair conditions offered to her, than to run the
risk of what might happen to her before this time
twelvemonth, if the war should go on. What is
wanted, therefore, is firmness and steadiness of pur
pose on the part of the Allies, and a resolute per
severance in their preparations for the vigorous
prosecution of the war.
In the meantime Russia is said to be greatly irritated
against Austria, and having failed in her intrigues to
separate England and France, she will, no doubt,
endeavour to create a schism between England and
France on the one hand, and Austria on the other.
In this she will also fail.
My dear sir, yours faithfully,
Palmerston.

Once again The Times out-distanced all other
competitors by announcing — in its second edition of
January 17 — that Russia had accepted the Austrian
proposals. This welcome intelligence, received by telegraph
from a confidential correspondent at Vienna, reached
Printing House Square some hours in advance of

230 THE PARIS CONFERENCE [chap.vh
the Government's own information, and brought the
paper much credit.
On its becoming known in the City, the Funds
immediately rose 3 per cent. Had it been kept back
by a single hour the reputation of The Times would
have been seriously damaged, for Delane would have
been accused of being in possession of news of vast
iraportance and deliberately withholding it from
publication for stock-jobbing purposes. It was con
firmed by Lord Palmerston himself on the afternoon
of the same day in a private letter to Delane :
We have a message from Vienna this morning
saying that yesterday Count Buol received a message
(I presume by telegraph) from Count Esterhazy
at Petersburg, saying that "the Russian Government
accepts the Austrian propositions as a basis for
negotiations for peace." So far so good, and it is to
be hoped that the same pressure which has brought
us thus far on our road will carry us equally well to
the end.
The Austrian Government has not yet, I am sorry
to say, made known to the Russians our demand
about the Aland Islands and the eastern shores of
the Black Sea, and the appointment of consuls in the
Russian ports is but ambiguously indicated in the
Austrian ultimatum.
But even while he was penning this letter in
Piccadilly the printing machines of The Times in
Blackfriars were working to the utmost extent of
their power to announce to the world outside news
of such pararaount iraportance as the near advent
of an honourable peace.
When the Peace Conference met' Ddane received,
in addition to his regular correspondents' communi
cations, several letters from Henry Reeve'' and
> At Paris.
' After his retirement from The Times he occasionally contributed
to its columns under the nom de plume of " Senex."

,856] PROSPECTS OF PEACE 231
Charles GrevUle, both of whom had gone over to Paris to
gather such crumbs of information as Lord Clarendon
and others of the Plenipotentiaries deigned to bestow.
Lord Brougham was also on the spot, and his hierogly
phic letters are somewhat frequent about this period.
It is a moot point which wrote the worst hand.
Brougham or " Bear" Ellice, but perhaps Brougham's
is the more difficult of the two, from his perverse
habit of abbreviating even short words.
Lord Palmerston used to hand over all Brougham's
letters to his private secretary to decipher if he could ;
but Delane struggled with them conscientiously until
one day, to his great relief, he found that the ex-Chan
cellor had begun to employ an amanuensis, owing to
failing eye-sight and advancing years.
On March 12 Greville wrote to Delane :
I take it that peace will be signed some day before
the 31st, so as to avoid the necessity of renewing the
armistice, and giving time to prevent any more shots
being fired. The peace will fall very tar short of what
has been desired and expected in England; but I
apprehend there will be no difficulty in showing that
it will do more than accomplish the objects of the
war, and it would be equally easy, but not politically
advisable, to show that it is the best we could get.
France will have peace at any price. She does not
care about getting a little more or less out of Russia,
and she will not run the smallest risk of a refusal on
the part of Russia which might compel her to renew the
war. I believe the Emperor Napoleon raight have
joined with us in being raore pereraptory with the
Russians with perfect safety ; but he does not think so,
and it is impossible to get our great ally to take our
view of the matter, and we must either go with him
or be prepared for a rupture of the alliance, and
ultimately for a quarrel with France. 1 have con
versed with many able and well-informed men of the
most opposite parties and opinions, and all agree that
peace is an absolute necessity for France, and that the
Emperor could not continue, or rather renew, the war

232 PROSPECTS OF PEACE [chap.vh
without imminent danger to his crown, and the cer
tainty of a breach between our two countries. Nothing
can exceed the unpopularity of the English here,
mainly because they so passionately desire peace,
and they think we are doing all we can to throw
obstacles in the way of it. One reason with the
Eraperor is the frightful state of the French army
in the Crimea. . . . There are all sorts of jokes here
about the expected Imperial Prince, for they won't
hear of a Princess. They want the birth and the
peace to be proclaimed at the same time, in which
case it is suggested that the child should be called
Don Pacifico, and Palmerston be his godfather.
The extravagance of the " layette " now publicly
exhibited causes some indignation. It cost ;^i2,ooo.
I fancy financial affairs here are in a very tickhsh
state. Cowley, who is no friend to Stratford, tells
me that the case against him is not so bad as it appears
on the face of the blue-book, and that Williams's
conduct is obnoxious to a good deal of censure; but
all this can only be understood by those who know
about Turkey and the Turks, and cannot be made
intelligible to the public.
On the i6th he sent another gossipy letter:
Charles Greville to J. T. Delane Paris,
March i6, 1856.
I am much obliged for your kind and prompt
acquiescence in my request. I gave your letter to
Cowley to read, and he says your Constantinople
correspondent is in error, and that there will be no
difficulty or resistance to the terras of peace on the
side of Turkey. 1 have no great predilection for our
present Governraent, and they manage their affairs
with so little skill and tact that it would not surprise
me if they were to fall any day ; but I doubt whether
the peace (which will certainly not give them any
strength) will contribute to their fall. " The unin
formed mob " will clamour at not having extorted from
Russia all the concessions they were led to expect;
but all who have sense and knowledge of affairs will
comprehend why this was impossible, and that when

,856] C. GREVILLE ON THE CONFERENCE 233
we entered into a coalition our independence in great
measure ceased, and that we could neither make war
nor peace exactly as we pleased. 1 refrain from saying
much that 1 could say, because my opinions upon the
whole question are so totally different (and, as you
know, have been so all along) from yours, and the
majority in England, that we have no common basis to
argue upon ; but this we may probably agree upon,
that the continuation of a good and friendly under
standing between France and England is necessary to
the prosperity of both, and the best security for the
Eeace of Europe for years to come. It would therefore
e wise not to quarrel with France because she has
taken different views from ours of the question of
peace, and has absolutely refused to go on with the
war when she believes (rightly or wrongly) that its
further prosecution would be ruinous to herself, and
that all the objects for which the Allies professed to
make war have been obtained. The English public
and the Press, which (with, I believe, the sole exception
of The Times) have been for these two years wor
shipping the Emperor Napoleon with the most extra
vagant and revolting adulation, may now turn round i
upon him and abuse him with as much virulence for
'acting according to the universal wishes of his own ;
people and what he believes to be the interest of his ;
country ; but I hope good sense and sound policy will
prevail over any such folly, and that the two countries
may close their accounts in an amicable manner and
with a reasonable prospect of avoiding future rivalries
and disagreements. Reeve has written to you, and
I have no doubt confirraed what I tell you of the state
of public opinion in France and of the condition of
their affairs. A committee of the Conference has been
formed to draw up the treaty, and as soon as they
have done this work I presume it will be signed.
Then the Conference will break up, and the different
Ministers will go home. Manteuffel either is here or
will be here directly. I perceive that we do not
approve of his coming, and it is difficult to see of what
use it can be to hiraself or anybody else. All is
concluded already, except certain details, such as an
arrangement for the Principalities, with which he has
no concern. The pretext I understood is that Prussia
was a party to the treaty of 1841, and therefore is to

234 THE PARIS CONFERENCE [chap.vh
be consulted in what relates thereto ; but it is certain
that the French chose to invite Prussia to join the
party at this stage of the business. After peace is
signed a committee will be left sitting to carry out the
details for the arrangement of which there is no time.
It will be very difficult to make any satisfactory settle
ment about the Principalities, and I can't make out
that there is any good plan as yet agreed upon :
nobody seems to know what to do. I am particularly
struck with the fact that in all the conflicting arrange
ments about territories, there never seems to have
been any question whatever of consulting the wishes,
feelings, or interests of the inhabitants of them. 1 am
led to believe that it is not intended to publish the
details of the Conferences, which will disappoint pubhc
curiosity, but be a very wise reserve. It was different
with regard to the Vienna Conference, but there no
result took place, and it was necessary to show
why. Here, as peace is the result, it will only be
necessary to publish the treaty itself as the result, and
to explain it and defend it, when it is discussed, as of
course it will be. This is my conjecture ; but I do
not know how much or how little of all that has passed
it is intended to make public. I take it the greatest
part of the real business has been done out of Con
ference, and in the cabinet of the Emperor or Claren
don's smoking-room in the Hctel du Louvre. They
make such a prodigious mystery of all that passes in
the Conference, as you may have seen by Palmerston's
reply the other night to Disraeli, that I am not sure
whether I ought to raention the sub-coraraittee about
the treaty; but you will probably hear this from
soraebody else. It is coraposed of Cowley, Bour-
queney, Buol, Cavour, the Grand Vizier, and Brunnow.
Yours ever, C. G.
Reeve wrote much to the same effect, and supplied
some personal details omitted by GrevUle :
Clarendon and Orloff are the two lions of the Con
ference, and the former as the representative of the
victorious party has the haut du pave in all respects ;
nothing can be better than his position. . . . Walewski

,856] DELANE VISITS IRELAND 235
is completely null and stupid. Buol is effaced al
together and very much out of humour. Cavour and
the Grand Vizier are more intelligent, but their support
is not worth much. ... I was dining yesterday
with a party of French officers. Admiral Rigault de
Genouilly amongst the number, who let out that the
navy and the dockyards are exhausted by their efforts.
£reintes was the expression used. Orloff admits that
the Russians have lost 400,000 men since the com
mencement of the war— I believe, indeed, in the
Crimean campaign alone.
As the Conference neared its end, it was perceived
that of all the Powers of Europe England alone had
the resources and the spirit which would enable her
to continue the war, and that the moderation she
showed in the discussions arose altogether from her
sense of the general political interests of Europe and
of Turkey, and not, as with the other States, from
weakness, despondency, or defeat.
Peace being assured, Delane took the opportunity
of running over to Ireland at Easter to stay a few
days with Bernal Osborne and recruit his health
after the severe illness he had suffered from in
January. J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
Newtown Anner, Ireland,
Saturday, March 22, 1856.
My dear G.,
I just write a line or two to tell you of my
adventures hitherto. We had a capital run down to
Holyhead, and a smooth passage across — only five
hours — during which I half ruined myself in ham
sandwiches and bottled porter: got to Dublin by
II, and put up at Morrison's, a sufficiently good
public-house. On Thursday I lionised Lowe over Dublin, which
under the influence of a very bright sun really looked
handsome. Carlisle did the hospitable in the evening,
and we dined at the Castle in prodigious state.

236 THE TREATY OF PARTS [chap.vh
On Friday we started southwards at 8.30, and arrived
here (Osborne's) at 2 o'clock. The place is most
charming, but we had a characteristic adventure on
arriving. Osborne was standing in front of his house
to receive us, and our carman seeing him, and fired
with a noble desire to distinguish himself and his
horse, started off at a gallop, and turning the corner
of the avenue upset the car and threw us both out.
Lowe had not only a heavy fall, but his portmanteau
followed him and fell on his back. I got off better,
as my malle had a better feeling towards me, but hurt
my elbow a little. Lowe thought he had broken his
collar bone, but it turned out nothing of consequence.
The house is one of the very prettiest and most com
fortable I ever saw, and the gardens very pretty and
extensive. Osborne is a capital host, and indeed he
keeps on joking at such a rate while I write that I
am afraid this will not be very intelligible.
As usual, everybody one meets wants us to go and
stay with them, and I might spend a month very
pleasantly, but I shall be faithful to my promise and
come back on Wednesday.
Pray send me a line by return of post to say how
you are going on. Believe rae, ever yours,
John T. Delane.
The feelings with which Delane regarded the Treaty
of Peace are briefly expressed in the following letter
to Lord Clarendon :
J. T. Delane to Lord Clarendon Serjeants' Inn,
May I, 1856.
I am about to send Mr. Hardman, who has been
for some time our Correspondent at Constantinople,
to Bucharest, in order that we raay at last get some
reliable information from the Principalities. Mr.
Hardman has been long in our employ as Corre
spondent at Madrid and elsewhere, and 1 should be
very much obliged if you would give hira a few lines
of introduction to Mr. Colquhoun. I can safely
promise that he will do you no disservice.

,856] DELANE ON DIPLOMACY 237
I think your Treaty gains in popular appreciation
every day. There is no enthusiasra for it, but a
reasonable satisfaction with its provisions, which will
continue to increase as our military self-complacency
returns. Those who are discontented would be dis
contented with any Peace now, because they wanted
an opportunity of gaining laurels ; they are almost
disappointed to find that they have obtained without
a victory the same conditions as another Waterloo
would have given them.
Believe me, very faithfully yours,
John T. Delane.
In August he sent W. H. Russell to Moscow to
describe the coronation of the Czar, and made his
own preparations for a visit, which he had long had in
contemplation, to the United States.
The death of Sir William Temple in August gave
rise to a correspondence between Delane and the
Prime Minister on the profession of diplomacy and
the character of those engaged in it, in which the
views of both are stated with remarkable succinctness.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane St. Leonards,
September 5, 1856.
There was an article in The Times of yesterday'
about diplomatic appointraents which was just neither
to a class nor to an individual. Our Ministers abroad
cannot justly be reproached with having forgot English
feelings and English ways of thought ; on the contrary,
what has much struck me has been how much those
habits of mind are retained. It is true that while I
was at the Foreign Office, and since, our Ambassadors
and Ministers have been encouraged periodically to
" take a roll on their Mother Earth," which I quite
agree with The Times in thinking of great political ira
portance, notwithstanding that such wise raen as Ewart,
Hume, Cobden, and Williams set up a cry of " Job "
' The article referred to was on the death of Palmerston's brother.
Sir William Temple.

238 THE DIPLOMATIC BODY [chap.vh
whenever they find a diplomatist absent from his post.
This reproach is not deserved by our diplomatic
agents, but it would apply more justly to some of the
British merchants established in foreign ports. There
are no doubt many honourable exceptions, but among
these British communities there are to be found many
men who have been established there for years, who
have formed connections by intermarriage, who have
allied themselves to local parties by personal friend
ships, whose habits of thought and feelings are wholly
governed by their local pecuniary interests, and who
look upon England chiefly as a strong bully who
ought upon every occasion to back up by threats or
force all their demands and pretensions, whether right
or wrong. These men consider a Minister or a
Consul as having no functions more important than
to do their bidding, and if these public officers cannot,
on every occasion, coraply with their deraands, they
turn upon them, bespatter them with abuse, and
denounce them as idle, apathetic, ignorant, and
incapable. With regard to the late Sir William Temple, it is a
great mistake to suppose that he was careless of our
commercial interests, or did not understand the
principles on which they were to be supported.
Negotiations on these matters occupied a great portion
of his time. He had to do with a Government which
is swayed by prejudice, ignorance, and corruption, but
he gained for us several advantages, and he left
iraproved arrangements coraplete, and only wanting
the final sanction of the King when that Ulness which
proved fatal conipelled him to quit Naples.
My dear sir, yours faithfully, Palmerston.
J. T. Delane to Lord Palmerston
September 6, 1856.
I am very sorry that I should have written
anything which you think unjust to the memory of
Sir Williara Teraple, whom I had not the advantage
of knowing, but of whom I thought it was no injustice
to say that he was ignorant of commercial affairs, in
comparison with the ideal Minister whose appointment
I was suggesting.

,856] PROPOSED TRIP TO AMERICA 239
As to the diplomatic body, I intended to be under
stood as comparing the advantages of employing men
selected for the occasion, and returning after it had
passed to their ordinary pursuits, and the maintaining
a body of professional diplomatists, who from long
residence abroad are, as you adrait, liable at least to
lose their sympathy with home and home opinions,
and either to contract the habits of thought of the
place to which they are accredited, or to become
such thorough Bohemians as to be impartially neutral
among all nations.
I think I have met more than one of the diplomatic
body of whom this might justly be said, and without
any just reproach to them, for they had been so long
abroad, and with so little in common with their country
men, that it was only a matter of surprise that they
were Englishmen at all.
I know the diplomatic body has the advantage of
your earnest support, and how presumptuous it is in
me to hold a contrary opinion, but if left to the results
of my observation 1 should desire to see an end of the
profession of diplomacy, and men taken indifferently
from either House advanced to the principal missions,
and returning to fill other employments at home.
I think of starting on Saturday next for a very short
trip to the United States, and if you are in town should
be glad to have an opportunity of waiting upon you
before my departure. Believe me, etc.,
John T. Delane.
Delane's intention had been to go to America with
Sir Henry Holland, but the arrangement feU through,
and eventually he took Laurence Oliphant out with
him as a travelling companion.
Writing to Dasent on August 27 he said:
London is more empty than you can imagine, but I
still find plenty of society. The few that are left are
compelled to be sociable. Davis writes from New
York that yellow fever is raging there. I showed his
letter to Sir H. Holland and he says it is all stuff, and
that Canada and the interior is the line now, and that
long before September is over there will be an end of

240 PORTSMOUTH [chap.vh
fever. The other papers have got their Russian
correspondents in full swing,' so I hope we shall hear
from Russell in a day or two. Macdonald tells me
the others are very low in circulation — The Daily News
only about 3,000. We are still 51,000 — not bad con
sidering the dulness.
As Dasent was in the Isle of Wight Delane planned
a hurried visit to Portsmouth, and wrote to ask his
brother-in-law to come over and meet hira there :
1 will look out for you at the pier (by Nelson's
Sallyport) in case you and the boys are inclined to
lionise, but Saturday is always the worst day for such
things, as the process of cleaning ship is going on.
To Delane the dockyard was a never-failing source
of interest, as indeed it must be to every true
Englishman, and he delighted in watching the great
line-of-battle ships coming in and out of harbour
from the windows of the old Quebec. This once
well-known inn, which has long since closed its doors,
stood near the Point, and not far from the Blue
Posts, so familiar to Peter Simple and Midshipman
Easy. Almost overhanging the water, the jib-boom
of a frigate had been known to penetrate its dining-
room windows. Fifty years ago Portsmouth was a
much more picturesque place than it is now, though
some of its old charm remains for those who know
where to look for it. The old ramparts and gates
were still standing in 1856 and but little changed since
Pepys described them. Governor's Green was a thing
of beauty before the trees were cut down, and the
view frora the historic Hard was unspoiled by an
unsightly, if convenient, railway station.
From the still existing Keppel's Head (affectionately
spoken of by generations of naval officers as "The
' For the coronation of the Czar.

,856] DELANE VISITS AMERICA 241
Nut"), a magnificent prospect of masts and sails, in
those days of the wooden walls of the Navy, met the
eye. At the time of Delane's visit there was not
an armour-plated ship in the navy, nor any vessel,
save perhaps the smallest gunboat, wholly propelled
by steam.
It was not till late in September that Delane was
able to leave England for Halifax and Boston.
Writing on the 6th of the month to Dasent he said :
I scarcely like staying away to-morrow evening,'
for there will be two articles for which I ought
to take the responsibility — the one by Mozley on
the Church in a very reforming spirit, the other by
Knox on the Duke of Newcastle's speech at Sheffield.
As to the former your judgment is better than mine,
for my zeal for reformation is at least as strong as
Mozley's. The danger is of his over-doing it. As to
the Duke, what 1 want Knox to write is a moderately
civil article to him, pointing out that he should direct
the rancour with which his speech overflowed not
against the Press or the public, but against his col
leagues, by whom he was ill-supported, and the
generals and others, by whom he was ill-served. No
doubt he was victimised, but it was by his colleagues
who abandoned him and the generals who misused
and wasted the means he gave them.
Delane's opinions of America and its people raust
be left to speak for themselves. He had timed his
arrival so as to be in New York during the Presi
dential election, and it will be noticed that, many
years before its adoption in England, he speaks with
approval of the method of recording votes by means
of the ballot. Fifty years have made great changes
in the United States, as in every other quarter of
the world, but many will think that the main charac
teristics of the American race have not materially
' A Sunday.
VOL. I 16

242 AMERICA [chap, vn
altered since Delane recorded his impressions in the
following letters :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
In Sight of Land,
October?!, ,856(11.45).
My dear George,
There is just now a shout on deck that land is
in sight; and as it is pretty certain we shall reach
Halifax in time for the Canada, I announce our safe
arrival by anticipation.
We are now enjoying, like so many half-thawed
flies, our second fine day with incredible zest and glee.
AU the first week we laboured hard to be jolly under
difficulties, and with fair success, but the delight of
being dry, of being able to walk and eat and sleep
without holding on, seems a foretaste of heaven. The
sanguine ones expect to get their knees and elbows
well before landing, and that indescribable soreness
about the shoulders and hips which is produced by
attempting to make them prehensile.
Seriously, we had a hard time of it for the whole
of the first week. It blew and rained after the true
Liverpool fashion when we started, most of us were
wet through before we reached the ship, and then,
constantly increasing until Thursday morning, we had
what our skipper describes in his log as " a whole gale
of wind with heavy squalls." It then degenerated into
" strong winds," and now since yesterday we have had
fine Mediterranean weather, the decks have got quite
dry, and this morning I was able to get out of bed
without arranging my mackintosh to stand on. During
the gale proper ray cabin had never less than two
inches of water in it, and I was indeed lucky in having
one to rayself, as I could stow my luggage in one
berth and occupy the other, whereas most people have
had their luggage wet through and their clothes spoilt.
With all this, I have enjoyed the whole thing amaz
ingly, and have never been sick at all. 1 was indeed
" nauseous " for one day, but have only once failed to
appear at each of our five daily meals. The cooking
too has been miraculous in the face of such difficulties,
and the attendance beyond praise. The ship is indeed
an admirably managed floating hotel, and we have had

i8s6] AMERICA AND THE AMERICANS 243
at our table — which was for some days the only one —
such a jolly set of fellows that I should have been a
beast not to be jolly too. Oliphant was capital, and
with Ross, Benedict, Johnstone, and Zimmerman, with
a Mr. Miller as butt, we have had a raost pleasant
society. AU these are Canadians, but 1 have also
made acquaintance with many Americans, and have
already invitations enough for three months.
We hope to arrive at Boston on Friday, and I pro
pose to stay there until Monday and then to go by
Albany, Lake George, and Lake (Champlain to Niagara,
where I stay with the above-mentioned Zimmerman.
From there I go by Lake Ontario to Kingston and
down the rapids of the St. Lawrence to Montreal and
Quebec. Then by rail back to Toronto, where I stay
with Ross, and from there to New York, where I mean
to be during the election. I shall give up the Western
trip to Chicago and Cincinnati from want of time, but
shall run as far south as Richmond, and see Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and Washington. All this I reckon I
can accomplish in tirae for the stearaer of November 12,
and I shall write at once on arrival to secure a berth
in her.
So rauch for myself
How I wish there were a telegraph to tell me how
you are all going on at horae! I shall harden my
heart, however, and hope for the best until I get
your letter by the Persia, when at the smallest hint
I will turn my nose eastwards again by the very first
opportunity. As ever, yours, J. T. D.
Albany,
October 13, 1856.
My dear G.,
I really ought not to write you anything, for I
am very tired, and unless I were to write a volume
I could give you no real idea of the impression this
country makes on me. It seems a mass of contra
dictions. Everything is so familiar in one respect, and
yet so unlike what one has ever seen before. People
are extremely brusque and yet extravagantly civil.
The servants are most obliging friends, strangers accost
you after the old [a word illegible] form, and, having

244 CHICAGO [chap.vh
broken the ice, themselves "guess" you would hke to
know their friends, who are accordingly introduced,
shake hands and talk Election. Then, leaving Boston
this morning, we have passed through fifty railes at least
of primaeval forest with very few " clearings," and even
tn these the stumps sticking up in every square yard,
while whole groves of " girdled " trees in the distance
look like as many skeletons. It is said to be a busy
community, but nobody seems to have anything; to do
but to lounge in and out of the hotels and gossip and
drink. On Saturday a banker " concluded " I was
from Europe and talked an hour about what I had
best see while a crowd of customers were waiting.
The hotels are capital; beyond all praise for their
cleanliness, order, good attendance and liberality. I
enclose a bill of fare of the Fremont, the whole charge
at which for four meals a day and lodging is 8s.
The English are very popular and I have heard it said
a dozen times that America felt humbled when we
declined to take offence at the dismissal of Crampton.
At church yesterday the preacher — Theodore Parker,
a great gun here — spoke of England as " that country
which we all love so dearly," and on Friday all Boston
went mad at a dinner given to Peabody as a reward
for his supposed exertions to keep the peace. The
said Peabody is here and wants me to go to a great
ball to-morrow, but 1 shall bolt if the weather clears
and go on to Canada by the rapids and Montreal.
I despair of particulars, but the general result is that
I am very well pleased. Filmore will write you a good
description of Boston, and thus save me that labour.
1 shall hope to hear from you by the Persia, and am,
my dear G., very sleepily but affectionately yours,
Chicago,
October 31, 1856.
My dear George,
Here I am quite in the west, having, I believe,
last written to you from Quebec, about 1,000 miles
to the east.' I arrived only yesterday afternoon, am
going to Milwaukee to-morrow, and start for New
' His letters from Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto appear to have
been lost.

,856] DELANE IN AMERICA 245
York direct on the foUowing (Sunday) evening, so as
to arrive there (900 miles) on Tuesday morning in time
for the Election. Nobody, I hope, will accuse me of
too much "dull sloth," though really I have never
hitherto hurried over any place of interest or put myself
to any discomfort except such as is inseparable from
ordinary travelling. 1 was two days and a half at
Niagara, for my sentiments respecting which see
Filmore's letter. I met him there by accident and was
able, through a steamboat friend, to show him a good
deal more than he would have ever seen for himself
It is beyond all praise or description, but so many
clever fellows have bewildered their ^readers by at
tempting to describe it, that I may spare you my
raptures. From there I came to Detroit, 260 miles,
and from there to this place, 280 miles, and am now
writing in a hotel as splendid as that of Castile,' making
up 400 beds, with 165 servants, and yet only one hotel
out of four equally large in a city which only began to
exist when you and I went to Oxford. I have been
driving about it all the morning, and ara now just
setting off for a ride into the prairie, which reaches
down to the outskirts.
1 have now been exactly three weeks in this country,
having landed on the 10th, and shall be in time for the
Boston steamer of the 5th, if I find any summons from
you awaiting rae at New York. I have, however, that
fast city still to see, and should like to make a run
south as far as Richmond, so that I hope 1 may be
spared to the 12th, upon my solemn undertaking never
to leave the British Isles again.

Niagara,
Sunday [November 2].
I was obliged to give up the trip to Milwaukee, as
all travelling is impossible nere on Sunday, with some
very rare exceptions. So as I was obliged to lie up
for a day somewhere, 1 left Chicago yesterday and
arrived here (590 miles) this morning, have been
round all the principal points of view again with
increased admiration, and start for New York early
to-morrow raorning, so as to arrive there at night. I
' ? The Castiglione Hotel in Paris.

246 IN AMERICA [chap, vh
shall get your letters at once, and will act on them at
once if necessary.
The Presidential contest is in the furious stage, but
it is clear to me that Fremont is beaten. He is the
unhappy being so well known in English boroughs,
the favourite of the non-electors.
The frost has set in en permanence, and we have
even had snow lying, so you may readily imagine with
what avidity 1 turn homewards. How these people
can live in the winter is every day a greater mystery
to me. I hope it will be less cold at sea than it is
here, though the sun is bright enough and the ground
dry. Ever yours,J. T. b.
Lowe seems to have created an imraense sensation
here. They have not done writing about hira yet.

Clarendon Hotel, New York,
November 4, 1856.
My dear G.,
I wrote to you from Niagara the day before
yesterday, and might as well have brought the letter
on here but that I feared there would not be time to
post it. I have not yet seen Davis or Filmore, and
cannot therefore tell if there are any letters from home.
If there is any wish expressed in them you may rely
upon its being obeyed. I found Oliphant waiting for
me here, and have already (10 a.m.) been round to see
the process of voting, which goes on with most
exemplary order. I don't believe it would make the
smallest difference if we had the ballot in England.
Everybody's vote is perfectly well known before he
appears to tender it, and the inspectors of either party
watch for their friends and their opponents just as
the check clerks do at home.
I am disappointed in what I have seen of the city.
It is not half so well built as Boston, and this, which
is the best hotel, is not better than that at Chicago.
But the climate is a great improvement on the West.
There (three days ago) 1 left snow and the, thermometer
at 20°, here we have a nice damp muggy atmosphere
such as you might have in London.
Fremont is even more certainly given up^by his

1856] PRESIDENT BUCHANAN 247
friends here than in the West, but I don't believe
Buchanan's foreign policy has anything whatever to
do with his success. Indeed, 1 have never once heard
the subject broached except by professional politicians.
It turns, with the mass, upon the two old r'lv A drapeaux,
" Democrat " and " Republican," just as Whig and Tory
with us, and, where there is an intelligent expression
of opinion independent of party, upon the extension or
non-extension of slavery. Of course, there is a strong
abohtion party, but for obvious reasons they don't go
the whole hog in this contest, but only protest against
the extension of slavery to free States.
Don't therefore overrate the importance of
Buchanan's victory as far as we are concerned. He
is not elected as an enemy to England, however ill he
may tum out, and will probably find himself, when his
turn comes, pretty rauch under the same necessities
and responsibilities as Fremont would have done.
I will write again by the Araerican boat or by this
if there is anything to answer in your letter.
I am ever, my dear G., yours, J. T. D.
Three days later he wrote :
I have secured a berth by the Asia, and leave here
on Wednesday next at noon. 1 think of going to
Washington in the meantime, but this place is so
very agreeable and I am so sick of railway travelling
that my courage may possibly fail. Nothing can
exceed the civility and hospitality of the people here,
but it is hard work to be sight-seeing all day and
dinnering and partying all the evening. I shall have
heavy arrears of sleep to make up at sea, but Cunard
has given me a cabin to myself, and I daresay 1 shall
be comfortable enough.
How slow the post from the United' States was
half a century ago, before the days of Atlantic grey
hounds, is shown by the fact that this letter was not
delivered in London till exactly three weeks after it
was written.
Soon after his return horae he wrote the following
to Lord Clarendon, from which it will be seen that he

248 RETURN HOME [chap.vh
was not more favourably impressed with Washington
than he was with the American Press :
J. T. Delane to Lord Clarendon Serjeants' Inn,
* December 2, 1856.
I return Mr. Luraley's letter and enclosures with
many thanks.
I fear there is little good to be done with the Press
of the United States. It is too corrupt, and it would
be dangerous as well as unavailing to bribe it in our
interests, whereas much more than even the best-
disposed Press could do might be done by a British
minister who could make effective speeches. Of
course, there would be some danger that he would
say too much, but not more than you all incur when
you either speak in Parliament or go "a-starring" in
the provinces.
My model minister should never live at Washington
except during the session, and would thus escape one
of the greatest drawbacks of the post, the necessity of
living in so odious a village.
Excuse my pertinacity on this point, and believe
me. Very faithfully yours,
John T. Delane.
With the beginning ofthe year 1857 Delane resumed
the practice of keeping a diary, though unfortunately
only in an abbreviated form as compared with his
habit of ten years previously.
Brief though the entries are, they here and there
throw light on the course of political events as they
revealed themselves to him from day to day, and as
a record of his many engagements and his growing
social influence the diary is often full of interest.
On January 3 we find him dining with Lord
Lyndhurst to meet Lord Campbell (another octo
genarian Lord Chancellor), C. P. Villiers, Walpole,
CressweU, Waddington, Panizzi, Fitzroy Kelly, and
several others. He notes that Lady Lyndhurst was

,857] UNREST IN INDIA 249
the only lady present. Disquieting accounts received
from his brother,' from Sir Charles Trevelyan, and
others, and Lord Dalhousie's solemn warnings as to
the dangers attending a reduction of the European
garrison, induced Delane to think that all was not
well in India in the spring of 1857. In connection
with the outbreak of the Mutiny we should state
that for months he had been receiving by every mail
letters from men qualified to speak with authority on
the vexed question of the greased cartridges.
Amongst his correspondents at this time were
Duncan Macpherson, the Inspector-General of the
Madras Medical Service, and Colonel Tucker, the
Adjutant-General of Bengal.
The private information which Delane received from
India he placed at Palmerston's disposal, but, with his
usual optimism, the Prime Minister seems, at all events
at first, to have underrated the danger looming in the
near future.
Returning to Delane's private correspondence we
find that dissolution was in the air in February.
Speaking of the " handsorae and powerful support "
which he had received from The Times, Palmerston
wrote to Delane at the opening of the session to tell
him of the course he intended to pursue :
We don't resign, but we intend to propose to Parlia
ment to make such temporary arrangements by a vote
of men for three months from April 5 and a Mutiny
Act for three months, as will enable us to take the
opinion of the country on the state of parties in
Parliament by an early dissolution.
But only a month later Cobden succeeded in defeat
ing the Government on the China question, and
' Major-General George Delane, to whose lot it fell to bring the
King of Oude a prisoner into Calcutta.

250 LONDON SOCIETY [chap.vh
the situation of 1850 on the occasion of the great
Don Pacifico debate was exactly reversed. Whereas
Palmerston then stood condemned by The Times and
by the House of Lords though acquitted by the
House of Commons, he was now vigorously supported
by Delane and by the Peers and censured only by
the Lower House.
He appealed to the country, chiefly on personal
grounds, for the days of machine-made electoral
" programmes " were as yet unknown, and he
returned from the polls stronger than ever. Bright,
Cobden, and other members of the Manchester school
lost not only their seats, but much of their influence in
the constituencies, owing to their unpatriotic attitude
at the time of the Crimean War.
Quoting again frora the diary, Delane wrote on
January 14 " To Mrs. Milner Gibson's, where was
the King of Oude." He had corae to England to
protest against the annexation of his dominions, and
was, naturally enough, regarded as the lion of the
London season. On the 20th he mentions his having
dined with Lady Molesworth at her well-remembered
comer house in Eaton Place. Her political parties
were scarcely less famous than those of her great
social rival. Lady Waldegrave, and her invitations
were as much appreciated by her many friends as even
Lady Palmerston's to Cambridge House. Her dinner
parties were usually given on Sundays. In addition
to Delane, who visited her nearly every week during
the season, among her constant guests were Bemal
Osborne and Lord Torrington, a lord-in-waiting to
the Queen, whose entertaining letters to Delane we
shall have occasion to quote from hereafter, though
from their intimate nature they do not admit of
reproduction in extenso, at all events during the

,857] DELANE AND THE SPEAKERSHIP 251
present generation. Delane was consulted privately
by Lord Palmerston as to the choice of a Speaker
in the new Parliament, and that he was asked in
formally to adjudicate upon the claims of the various
candidates for that high office is a tribute to the
respect entertained in high quarters for his peculiar
and extensive knowledge of men and manners.
The quahfications which he held to be indispensable
for the successful occupancy of the Chair were :
I. Imperturbable good temper, tact, and patience.
2. A previous legal training, if possible.
3. Absence of bitter partisanship in his former
career.
4. The possession of innate gentlemanly feelings,
which involuntarily coraraand respect and
deference.
5. Personal dignity in voice and raanner.
Such a combination of qualities he desired to see in
the First Commoner, feeling strongly, as he did, that
if an unsuitable appointment were raade and a collision
took place between the House and its Speaker, he would
infallibly drag the Government down with him.
It would be invidious to mention now the names of
the other candidates, and they were not few, on whose
merits he was asked to pronounce. But he made little
secret of his opinion that the fittest man to succeed
Mr. Shaw Lefevre was Mr. Evelyn Denison, who had
sat in the House of Coraraons for more than thirty
years, and whose experience of its procedure dated
from before the passing of the great Reform Bill'
Delane also told the Prime Minister that the only
rock ahead of him which he could see was Lord John
' Mr. Denison occupied the Chair for fifteen years, and was created
Viscount Ossington on his retirement.

252 EXTRACTS FROM DIARY [chap.vh
Russell. "Johnny not a minister is high treason
against the house of Woburn," and although he sup
ported the Cabinet during the Indian Mutiny, the
prediction was verified to the letter a year later when
Lord John attacked Palmerston with unusual ferocity
in the course of the debate on the Conspiracy to
Murder Bill.
We insert here a few extracts from Delane's diary
chiefly relating to his social doings, varying as far as
possible the names of the people he was in the habit
of meeting, though at a time when London society was
so much smaller than it is now the same fi-iends were
constantly seeing one another :
February ii, 1857. — Dined with Sir Fitzroy Kelly,
Lord and Lady Lyndhurst, Lord and Lady Salisbury,
the Bishop of Exeter,' Lord Stanley, General ^ Storks,
and others.
February 1$ {Sunday). — Dined at Lionel Rothschild's;
Lord and Lady Lyndhurst, Marcus Hill, Lady Moles
worth, Charles Villiers, Bernal Osborne, Landseer,
Meyer Rothschild, Les Fiance's,^ Milner Gibson, Otway,
and Fleming.
On Sunday (March i) to Mentraore with the
Rothschilds, Ellice, Cadogan, Osborne, Fleraing, and
Paxton. March 4. — To the Rothschild wedding at Gunners-
bury. A very splendid affair indeed.*
March 7. — On this date the celebrated round table
in Serjeants' Inn was brought into use when " Sir H.
Storks, Strzelecki, Laurence Oliphant, Drummond-
' Henry Phillpotts, chiefly remembered in connection with the
Gorham case. In opposing the Reform Bill in the House of Lords
he came into conflict with Lord Grey.
* Sir Henry.
' See entry for March 4.
' Baron Alphonse de Rothschild married his cousin Leonora, the
eldest daughter of Lionel Rothschild.

1857] SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS 253
Wolff, and General Eber dined with me. Afterwards
to Lady Para's."
Dined on Sunday (the Sth) with Lord and Lady
GranviUe, Lord Lansdowne, the Clanricardes, Bess-
boroughs, Osbornes, and Sir John Acton.
In the following week ' he was again at Lady
Molesworth's house to meet Lord and Lady Grey,
Lord and Lady Stanhope, Lady Breadalbane, Lord
Torrington, and Azeglio. " The Greys and Stanhopes
very bitter to each other."
March 24. — Dined at Lowe's. The Grotes, Mrs. Lane
Fox, Phinn, Hayter, Fleming, Waddington, and
Mr. Arthur Peel.*
March 28. — The City election ; was with the Roth
schilds all day.
April 7. — Dined with Lady Molesworth again.
Torrington, Osborne, C. Villiers, Mrs. Norton, and
Alfred Montgomery.^ The Reeves and whist in the
evening. April 24. — Dined at Lord Clarendon's with the
Argylls, CornewaU Lewises, Macaulay, Von Ranke,
the Reeves, Musurus, Rothschilds, etc.
April 29. — Dined with Lord Palmerston to meet the
Shaftesburys, Panizzi, R. Monckton-Milnes, the Corne
waU Lewises and Fleming.
May 4. — Dined at Lansdowne House.* Lord and
Lady Shelburne, Lord Duncan, Lady Molesworth,
' On the i8th.
' Sir Robert Peel's youngest son, Speaker of the House of Commons
1884-95, tbe present Viscount PeeL
' Alfred Montgomery, for a very long period one of the darlings of
London society, and an intimate friend of Delane. If he left a diary
behind him tliere could be no better social chronicle of the mid-
Victoria era.
* Lord Lansdowne, the Maecenas of his age, occupied a position
unique in our political history. Entering the Cabinet in 1827, for the
last eleven years of his life he was a member of that body, irre
spective of changes of government, though holding no office.

254 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS [chap.vh
Mr. Lane Fox, Bemal Osborne, Strzelecki, Charles
Villiers, " Poodle " Byng,' and Lady WiUiam Russell.*
On May 9 he dined with Charles Dickens, " after
wards late to Lady Molesworth's."
May 14. — Went to see the Great Eastern with Bill.'
May 27. — The Derby Day. Dined with Sir Charles
Eastlake. The Bishop of London,* Sir Roderick
Murchison,' Layard, Panizzi, and Waagen.®
This was Blink Bonny's year, and, contrary to his
usual custom, Delane does not appear to have been to
Epsora, nor was his dinner that evening a sporting
party by any means.
May 30. — Dined with Lord Campbell. Lords Over-
stone and Cawdor, Thackeray, "and many Campbells."
A mere catalogue of names is apt to become tedious
in the recapitulation, but referring to a dinner-party
at Mr. R. B. Sheridan's, of Frampton Court (grandson
of the orator and dramatist), on June 3, we take the
following from the diary :
Met Lord and Lady Lyndhurst, the Dufferins,
Gifford, Tomline, Fleming, and Sir James Graham.
The second daughter very beautiful.'
' Frederick Byng, one of the dictators of Brooks' Club and a well-
known firequenter of Almack's, had been page to George IV., and in
that capacity attended his marriage with Caroline of Brunswick. He
distinctly remembered to have met Nelson at dinner and to have
heard Lady Hamilton sing to him afterwards. He frequently wrote
to Delane, and Uved till 1871.
' Lady William Russell was a very witty woman. One of her bons
mots at this period was to the effect that Palmerston and Lord John
having shaken hands and embraced, hated each other more than ever
' His eldest brother, W. C. A. Delane. The great ship, after many
failures, was launched in the following January.
* A. C. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.
' The eminent geologist. He was Delane's proposer at the
Athenaeum Club.
' Author of The Art Treasures of GrecU Britain.
' Mr. Sheridan's second daughter married Lord Poltimore in the
course of the next year.

,857] SHERIDAN'S GRANDDAUGHTERS 255
The three granddaughters of Richard Brinsley
Sheridan were renowned for their good looks, and
no doubt they inherited some of the rare beauty of
Miss Linley, whose portraits by Gainsborough and
Romney are so well known. The eldest sister was
Lady Dufferin, the second was Mrs. Norton, and the
youngest, who becarae Duchess of Somerset, was
Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament.
Mrs. Norton had not only great personal beauty
but remarkable talent. More than this, she had
glamour and fascination of no common order.
Delane corresponded with all three sisters, and for
him Mrs. Norton often wrote reviews of books,
usually novels, in the columns of The Times.
June 20. — Dined with Bernal Osborne. Lord
Fortescue, the Meyer Rothschilds, Abraham Hayward,
etc. Afterwards to Lord Overstone's and CornewaU
Lewis's. June 25. — Dined with Anthony Rothschild. The
Lionel Rothschilds, Abingdons, Osbornes, Monckton-
Milnes, Lady William Russell, Musurus, Lord and
Lady Monck, etc.
Next day I dined with Lord Granville. Lady G.,
the Duchess of Argyll, Ladies Morley, Dufferin, and
Emily Peel, Lords Clarendon and Stanley. The news
of the Indian Mutiny came.
July 3. — Dined at Bath House.' Lady Sandwich,
" Bear " Ellice, Prosper Merimee, Strachey, etc.
But in the course of the month the constant round
of social gatherings was cut short by the death of
his father, to whom he had ever been a most devoted
and affectionate son. His diary at this time is full of
the hopes and the fears which he experienced during
' Lord Ashburton's in Piccadilly.

256 SCOTLAND [chap, vn
his father's last illness, and when the end came, on
July 29, he wrote these feeling Words :
Surely in him died as pure, noble, and unselfish a
spirit as ever breathed in this world.
The bereavement, which Delane felt so acutely, of
course put an end to his social engagements for the
remainder of the suramer, and though he found some
relief and distraction in his work at The Times
ofifice, he passed the greater part of the next two
raonths with his mother, removing temporarily from
Serjeants' Inn to stay at her house in South Eaton
Place. For August and September his diary is a blank, but
with October the entries begin again, and supply us
with a complete record of a short holiday which he
took in Scotland.
He left London on a visit to " Bear" Ellice at Glen
quoich on the 2nd of the month, breaking his journey
at Manchester in order to see the great exhibition of
Art Treasures which the Prince Consort had opened
in May. He was even more interested in a visit to
Sir Joseph Whitworth's works, and wrote to Dasent
in terms of high praise of the improvements introduced
by that inventor in the manufacture of big guns and
rifles. Driving by Ballachulish, Fort William, and Banavie
he reached Glenquoich on the 9th, where he found a
small party, including Lord and Lady Digby, Lord
and Lady Dacre, Lady Harriette St. Clair,' and one
or two more.
He would have remained at Glenquoich, the simple,
healthy life at which place suited hira exactly, longer
' Afterwards the Countess Munster, and a great friend of Delane
both before and after her marriage.

,857] DELANE IN THE HIGHLANDS 257
than he did, had not his old friend Lord Aberdeen,
hearing that he was in the Highlands, written from
his retirement at Haddo to beg him to come there
for a few days. Going by the Caledonian Canal to
Inverness he went over the field of CuUoden and on
to Inverary, reaching Haddo on the 19th. " Very
splendid, but rather cold and stiff after Glenquoich,"
the diary says. Thence he went on to Taymouth
(Lord Breadalbane's) — "very gorgeous indeed, but
most genial and hospitable house." There was a
large party staying at the Castle, including Lord
and Lady Stafford, his late host " Bear " EUice, and
Lord Panmure. After a short visit to Mr. Balfour
at Balbimie, he spent a few days with John Black
wood at St. Andrews, and was back in London on
November 2.
This seems to have been the first of many pleasant
autumn visits which he made to the Highlands, and so
much delighted was he with the rest and quiet which
he found there, that he once described himself in after-
years as "a Welsh' Irishman, domiciled in England
but strongly attached to Scotland."
Proofs of the intimacy and confidence now existing
between Palmerston and Delane are supplied by many
letters which he received from the Prime Minister
during the year.
Writing on February 4, the latter outlined the
intentions of the Cabinet with regard to the Session :
We don't resign, but intend to propose to Parlia
ment to make such temporary arrangements by a vote
of men for three months from April 5, and a Mutiny
Act for three months, as will enable us to take the
opinion of the country on the state of parties in
Parhament by an early dissolution.
' An allusion to his descent from the Hanmer family.
VOL. I 17

258 CHINA [chap, vh
But the end of his first administration and the
inevitable appeal to the electorate were even nearer
than either he or Delane anticipated.
The outrage on the lorcha Arrow had involved
Sir John Bowring in hostilities with the Chinese
Government, and though this was but one of a long
series of breaches of treaty and attacks upon British
subjects, a technical flaw in the registration of the
Arrow gave Cobden and his friends a pretext for
making party capital out of the incident, and declaring
that a grave breach of international law had been
committed. But Palmerston knew the requirements of China
well. He it was who sent Sir Henry Pottinger there
as envoy and superintendent of British trade during
the Opium War of 1840, when, by the Treaty of Nankin,
Hong-Kong was ceded to England and five Chinese
ports were opened to English trade.
His instructions to Bowring had been' much the
same as those he gave to Pottinger — to show a bold
front to the Chinese and to stand no nonsense.
When the raatter came before the House of
Coramons he warmly defended his representative's
action, somewhat high-handed though it was, and
scorned to shelter himself behind the plea that the
war had been begun by Bowring on his own initiative.
Cobden, however, succeeded in defeating the
Government by a small majority, and on the day
after the division Clarendon wrote to Delane:
We have decided upon dissolution, but it cannot
take place immediately on account of financial diffi
culties. Delay will be in favour of the Opposition
and damaging to the Government, and much will
depend upon the manner in which Palmerston
announces the intention in the House to-morro\y.
. . . The dishonest speeches of some of our public

1857] THE GENERAL ELECTION 259
men are doing infinite mischief on the Continent to
our national character and representative form of
government, and I shall be much surprised if our
friend Yeh, who is a clever fellow, does not turn
the vote of last night to account against us in China.
Palmerston's immediate object was to deprecate
factious motions or the introduction of any measures
which could not properly be dealt with by an
expiring ParUament and a Government that was
waiting for the verdict of public opinion.
On March 13 he wrote to tell Delane the arrange
ments he had made for adjusting the questions at
issue with China :
We have this day settled with Lord Elgin that
he shall undertake this duty. 1 believe that on the
whole we could not have made a better choice among
the limited number of persons who had the requisite
qualifications and were willing to go. Rank and
station tell more in China than in any other country,
and Lord Elgin is a man of unquestionable ability.'
At the general election, one of the most interesting
of the Queen's long reign, Palmerston routed his
enemies and increased his hold upon the country to
such an extent that, for a time at least, in spite of the
anxieties of the Chinese War and the still greater
strain caused by the outbreak of the Mutiny in India,
his position in Parliament was practically unassailable.
One hundred and fifty new merabers took their seats,
and the Prirae Minister found himself for the first time
surrounded by adherents who acknowledged no divided
allegiance and were well content to regard him as the
representative of a successful national policy.
' This important decision does not appear to have been generally
known until some weeks after the date of Paknerston's letter. Even
Charles Greville seems to have been unaware of it.

2.6o UNREST IN INDIA [chap.vh
The Times had deputed George Wingrove Cooke,
a facile writer and a man of remarkable energy, to
represent the paper in the Far East, but, on learning
of Lord Elgin's appointment, Delane exerted himself,
and with his customary success, to obtain for Laurence
Oliphant the post of private secretary to the British
Envoy. His insatiable love of travel and adventure, coupled
with the prospect of visiting a country so remote and
so little known to Europeans as was China fifty years
ago, rendered the duties of his new ofifice most con
genial to Oliphant. Not only has he left on record
a faithful and entertaining account of the principal
events of the mission, but he wrote from time to time
at some length to Delane from Singapore, Hong-Kong,
and Canton. One or more of these letters we shall
reproduce on a later page.
Lord Elgin proceeded to China in H.M.S. Furious,
a new paddle-wheel frigate commanded by Sherard
Osborn. He, too, was on terms of intimate friendship
with Delane, and thus from three independent sources
the editor of The Times was exceptionally well informed
as to the progress of the war.
Delane spent his Easter holiday at Bearwood.
Writing thence to Dasent on April 14, he said :
" Of course, you will make Woodham write about
the Indian news.' It looks nasty, but I can't believe
there is anything to be frightened about."
So Palmerston thought at this time, but when once
he realised the gravity of the native rising* (for the
disaffection spread like wildfire through Bengal in
^ The disbandment of a native regiment at Berhampore owing to
the men's refusal to take their cartridges.
^ The revolt at Meerut and the flight of the mutineers to Delhi took
place early in the month of May.

,857] OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 261
the course of the next three months), no statesman
could have acted more promptly than he did in dis
patching reinforcements. Deprecating anything in the
nature of panic, he did his utraost to soothe the public
alarm, and by the end of September 30,000 English
troops had reached India and the worst of the danger
was over.
The next important letter which Delane received
from the Prime Minister was a carefully reasoned
statement of the course he intended to pursue in
recommending to the House of Commons a dowry
for the Princess Royal on her marriage to the Prince
of Prussia :
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane
May 21, 1857.
As I think you may like to know beforehand what
we mean to propose to-morrow for the Princess Royal,
I tell you confidentially our intentions.
There are two precedents in point — the one in the
reign of George 11., the other in that of George III.
In both those cases the Princess Royal had on her
marriage an annuity of ;^5,ooo and a dower of ;^8o,ooo,
the dower being placed in the hands of trustees, the
interest to be paid to the Princess during her life, and
the principal sum to be bequeathed by her as she pleased
by will.
In the last case, in the reign of George III., the
dower was given by the British Parliament, the
;£'5,ooo annuity by the Irish.
Considering that any younger children our Princess
may have will be better provided for in Prussia than
those of George Ill.'s daughter would have been in
Wurtemberg, and considering also that it would not be
convenient to our financial arrangements to throw a
larger sum than necessary upon this year's expenditure,
we mean to propose to reduce the dower by one-half, and
to make it ;^40,ooo instead of ;^8o,ooo ; and, on the other
hand, to increase the annuity from ;£'S,ooo to ;^8,ooo.
The aggregate will not much exceed the amount of the

262 PALMERSTON'S SKILL [chap.vh
forraer grants, and the position of our Princess Royal
at the Prussian Court, where she will have to be
eclipsed frora time to tirae by Prussian magnificence,
renders it desirable that she should have a suitable
income of her own, though we do not pretend to
make her vie with the Grand Duchesses of Muscovy.
I should hope that the House of Commons will not
think this provision unreasonable nor disproportionate
to the conditions of the case ; and with regard to the
forraer precedents it may be observed that if the pro
posed grant is in a trifling degree higher than the
former grants, yet it bears a far sraaller proportion
to the revenue of the country now than those grants
did to the revenue of the country at the tirae when
they were raade. Yours sincerely, Palmerston.
I should wish these details not to be mentioned tiU
they are stated to-raorrow in the House of Coramons.
How skilful was his handling of the , House in
dealing with the proverbially difificult question of
Royal grants is shown by the fact that only one
division was challenged ; and when an attempt was
made to reduce the annuity to be paid to Her Royal
Highness from ;^8,ooo to £6,000 it was defeated by the
overwhelming majority of 328 to 14.
Soon after the outbreak of the Mutiny, General
Anson died of cholera on his way from Umballa to
Delhi. Palmerston's choice at once fell upon Sir
Colin Campbell to be his successor.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane
July I,, ,857.
You will of course have heard the news from India
which reached us by telegraph this raorning, announc
ing the death of General Anson. The successful
encounters with the mutineers under the waUs of
Delhi, with the capture of twenty-six pieces of cannon

,857] SIR C. CAMPBELL'S APPOINTMENT 263
from them, and the expectation that the town was
about to be taken by assault; while, on the other hand,
the disaffection had spread rapidly in the Bengal dis
trict and the North-West Provinces among the Sepoys,
30,000 of whom are said to have disappeared.
We have had in consequence a meeting of the
Cabinet, at which the Duke of Cambridge, the Com
mander-in-Chief, and Mr. Mangles, the Chairman of
the East India Corapany, were present. Sir Colin
Campbell has been appointed to succeed General
Anson, and he leaves London to-morrow evening to
catch the Indian mail stearaer from Marseilles, which
has been ordered by telegraph to wait for him. A
further force of Queen's troops, beyond the 14,000
already under orders, will be sent off as soon as
shipping can be engaged and fitted to receive them.
The gap which all this will make in our home force
will be filled up without loss of time by recruiting.
The desertion of the 30,000 Sepoys is better than
their mutiny would have been ; it will save all trouble,
difficulty, and expense as to disbanding them ; and as
one European regiment is worth at least two native
regiments, the 14,000 men going out frora hence
according to arrangeraents already in progress will
fully make up for this deficiency. Yours faithfully, Palmerston.
Sir Cohn, to whose conspicuous bravery, be it
remembered, the victory of the Alma was largely
due, set out, as he had promised, to reconquer India
on the day after his appointment. After making
what was thought to be a very rapid journey by the
overland route he reached Calcutta in the middle of
August. Though it is obviously impossible within the narrow
limits of two volumes to insert a tithe of the com
munications, many of thera of great interest, which
reached Delane frora India in the course of the next
few months, the following summary of the situation
as it existed at the beginning of July deserves to be

264 THE MUTINY [chap.vh
included, coming as it did from the pen of no less a
personage than Lord Canning : '
Things are not materially mending. Barnard was
still before Delhi on the ist, since which nothing but
vague bazaar rumours have been received ; briefly no
important news. If the reinforcements which he will
have received from the Punjab within the first week
of this month have not enabled him to take the city, I
see no chance of his doing so until other reinforcements
shall reach hira frora here ; and with the many points
that have to be guarded or relieved between this and
Delhi, it will be long before we shall have troops
enough at this end of the country to allow of any
being pushed up so far. The length of time will
depend mainly upon ray being able to extract more
than two regiments from Elgin.
He did not leave orders at Singapore for more than
the two first to turn this way ; and the second of these
carae into the river yesterday. I am pressing him for
more. There has been a dreadful horror at Cawnpore.
That fiend of a Mahratta, the Rajah of Bithoor (or
the Nana as you will generally see him called), after
murdering General Wheeler and the garrison as soon
as they capitulated, kept sorae of the women and
children (about thirty, it is supposed) in confinement.
Havelock's column marched upon him five days ago,
and before the engagement began the Nana massacred
every one of his captives.
It is sickening to think of these things, and to feel
retribution delayed. But in the present instance it is
possible that the reckoning may be short, for Havelock
has pursued the monster to his own stronghold, after
driving him out of Cawnpore ; and although he has
made it very strong, and is said to have 7,000 black
traitors and heavy guns against our 1,400 Englishmen
with field-pieces, I am sanguine of the result. The
venture must be tried ; for Lucknow cannot be relieved
until the villain is disposed of
Poor Henry Lawrence is dead : wounded on the
2nd and died on the 4th. It is a terrible loss, and a
' Extract from a private letter written by Lord Canning to Lord
Granville, and given by the latter to Delane.

,857] THE INDIAN MUTINY 265
very depressing one. I had not more than a week's
personal acquamtance with him last year, but 1 felt
quite an affection for him. He was such a gentleman
— so generous, so chivalrous — and had done his duty
so nobly in Oude.
I ask for raore troops by this mail— about 15,000 men.
If the Queen's army cannot spare them, I hope some
power of facihty for raising men will be given to the
East India Company. A few Militia companies put
together would make very effective regiments for
purposes here.
Suspicions having arisen that Russia might have
had a share in instigating the Indian disorders, Palmer
ston wrote to request Delane not to make any public
mention of this belief, " since any notice of that kind
might put our northern friends on their guard and
make it more difficult for us to discover the threads,
if any there have been. . . . We are about to call out
15,000 men of the Militia, and to form fifteen second
battalions of the Line, instead of the regiments gone
to India. The regiments not in India will, more
over, be raised from 840 to 1,000 men, according as
the progress of recruiting may give us men for the
purpose." '
September found Delane still in London :
I really did not mean to write to you, for there is
an absolute dearth of anything to write about to one
who, like yourself, can read between the lines of the
paper all 1 have got to tell. I am living here * because
my house is delivered over to the tormentors ; but I
find it a sad bore to go backwards and forwards.
Otherwise I am well enough, and rather enjoying the
entire desolation of London. There has been nothing
like it before, but I dare say the rain we have lately
had will help to send some of the truants back. 1
go to Brighton every Saturday. ... As to Printing
' Palmerston to Delane, August 31, 1857.
' At 10, Eaton Place South, his mother's house.

266 SCOTLAND [chap, vii
House Square, there is very little to tell. M. M.' just
as usual. B. F. fussy and Macdonald practical. Mozley
moderately laborious, but apt to sneak off to Bear
wood, and more lately to Derby. Knox gone, as of
course you saw. . . . Writing, sporadically, lots of
reviews ; but the public better pleased at telling it our
Indian tales, in innumerable letters, than in reading
anything we can supply. I shall not move until this
Indian affair improves, and there is really no use in
our both being here. S. is very useful, and if I might
cane him two or three times a week I should make
something of hira.*
But early in October he left the rudder in safe hands
and went to Scotland. Writing to his brother-in-law
from Inverawe (Loch Lomond), he said :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent
Inverawe (Loch Lomond),
October 6, 1857.
My dear G.,
I got here from Glasgow this evening after a
real heavy rain, with a good deal of wind and more
than enough cold. The loch is, I dare say, pretty
enough when its shores can be seen ; but such was not
the case to-day, and I am going on to Fort William
to-morrow with the comfortable belief that I might
just as well go to-night, for all I shall see by the way.
The fact is the equinoctials have set in, and there is
no hope for a week or two, by the end of which 1 hope
to be back again. The hill-tops are all covered with
snow, the coaches are taken off, the fast boats only run
this week on the canal, and, in fact, Scotland is over.
However, I am quite resigned ; I shall have " fulfilled
all righteousness," and am just as well pleased that the
thing turns out an imposture.
The Manchester Exhibition is a fine one, and weU
worth the three days I gave it. I spent all Sunday
there after church, and with only about a dozen people
it was most enjoyable. You raust send Woods down
' Mowbray Morris.
' Delane to G. W. Dasent, at Carron Hall, Falkirk, September 8,
1857.

1857] DELANE IN THE HIGHLANDS 267
in good time next week, and have a leader, too, upon
the closing. They will pay all expenses without any
previous subscription, and without any call upon the
guarantees. I saw, however, very plainly indeed how
correct my diagnosis was of the object the Manchester
folks had in view — they had made a great start socially ;
they knew it, and wanted to make the world know it.
Every one of them now counts half a dozen dukes
among his intimate friends, forgetting that, like lords
mayor, the friendships only last during the term of
office. The best thing, however, I saw at Manchester was
Whitworth and his guns. They are wonderful, and it
is only the stupidest routine which has prevented a
battery of them from being before Delhi now. The
Government admits everything — more than he ever
asserted. Their trials at Shoeburyness give results
which more than double the effects of their own fire,
and he fires a projectile of 100 lb. weight from a
9-pounder howitzer, so that, with only light field guns,
his shell is heavier and more effective than one fired
from a 13-inch mortar. Panmure and Storks are to
visit him to-morrow, and there ought to be some
result. I judge only from the Government records of
the firing, which are sure not to be too favourable.
Pray send me all papers from yesterday to Inver
ness. I shall see them at Glenquoich, but should like
to have a complete set. They are sure to be welcome
at the hotel, even if stale to me.
What a smash of the Central America\ It is the
old story — weak fastenings. They like their boats to
"work like a basket," which answers very well in
smooth water only. I think the floating party, each
supported by his own preserver, the most awfully
ludicrous thing I ever heard of
Send me a line or two to Inverness, if not to Glen
quoich. Ever yours,
J. T. D.
From Glenquoich ' he wrote * :
I can quite sympathise in your rejoicing that the
Fast Day is well over. 1 had feared it would be in
' Mr, EUice's house, ' On October 12,

268 AT GLENQUOICH [chap.vh
my way here, but nobody seemed to take much notice
of it. . . . Here .it is a kind of Cornish climate ; rather
damp, it is true, but so mild that the thermometer in
the garden this morning stood at 62°, and all kinds of
flowers and shrubs flourish in the open air. We have
Lord Digby and his wife and daughter. Lord Dacre,
ditto, ditto. Lady Harriette St. Clair, and Sumner, the
Yankee senator — a huge party having broken up last
Thursday. Everybody here is mad for deer-stalking,
and one ofthe women is as eager as any of the men,
and is said to be quite as good a shot. It is surprising
to think of J. W.'s building another house. This one
is not to be compared with Bearwood, and the bed
rooms are mere closets, so that there may be very many
of them. But I believe they can make up thirty beds
in much less than the space Bearwood affords, and the
other day they had twenty-five to dinner for a fort
night together, and pretty nearly as many servants to
put up, all of which was managed to everybody's
satisfaction simply because there was no attempt at
magnificence. There are no fine wines, no champagne,
and everybody drinks toddy after dinner instead of
wine at a pound a bottle, and with at least equal
content. The Indian news has not reached us yet, and I am
most anxiously expecting it. I think that after this
mail there ought to be, except by accident, no bad
news; but I much fear a great calamity this time.
Why don't you put in some reviews? It is very
handsorae to keep them all for me. I hope it is not
true that Colin Campbell has quarrelled with Canning.
It will be a great comfort when we begin to have a
Calcutta correspondent of our own, instead of having
to trust their most abominable papers. Ever yours, J. T. D.
I am still here [Glenquoich, October 15], the weather
being hitherto lovely, and so warm that the windows
are open all day. " The Bear " is the raost kind and
cheerful of hosts, always with sorae scheme for
making the day pass pleasantly. On Tuesday there
was a drive of the deer, sadly laborious for obese
parties, but in which everybody was good enough to
keep rae in countenance by raissing. Yesterday we

,857] GLENQUOICH AND HADDO HOUSE 269
had out the seine in the lake and caught such quantities
of trout that one felt quite ashamed at so much
destruction of fishy life. None of this can be very
interesting to you, but it is all I have to send, for an
account of the exploits of our several stalkers on the
" hull " would be still raore dull, and this is the only
kind of news which Glenquoich supplies. The garae
is so abundant that my wonder is they ever escape
killing a horse-load.
I don't much like the review of Dalhousie's minute
— it is too much of an encomium, and I don't see why
we need take up his defence. Perhaps it will be as
well to hold it over for the present. Brodrick did
not make nearly so good an article on Tom Brown
as he deserved. Should there not be something on
Dufferin's High Latitudes 1
From Haddo (Lord Aberdeen's) he wrote on
October 19:
This house is very gorgeous — quite a palace, in fact
— but not nearly so jolly as Glenquoich. The drive
by coach from Nairn to Keith was delightful.
Lord Granville wrote to him in the course of the
month :
You are doing much good in Indian matters, prevent
ing panic, and keeping up the spirit of the country.
Your brother' was a true prophet about the abuse
about to be showered on Canning.
The news of the fall of Delhi, which more than
anything else broke the spirit of the mutineers,
reached London before the end of October, and this —
the turning-point in the life-and-death struggle — had
been accomplished before the arrival of a single soldier
from England !
On November 12, shortly after Delane's return to
' George Delane, in a letter from Calcutta.

270 SUSPENSION OF BANK ACT [chap, vh
London, Palmerston wrote to him to announce the
intention of the Government to suspend the Bank
Charter Act. A grave coraraercial crisis had produced
a sudden deraand for gold from London, and, in view of
the alarming state ofthe Bank reserves, it w^s necessary
to suspend the legal limitation on the issue of
notes. In the same letter the Prime Minister intimated
his intention of calling Parliament together before
Christmas, in order to indemnify the Bank by statute.
The next day The Times announced the suspension of
the Bank Charter Act and the fact that Parliament
would be sumraoned.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane
Downing Street,
November 12, 1857.
My dear Sir,
You will of course have heard of the letter
which 1 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have
written this afternoon to the Governor of the Bank,
saying that if in the present emergency they should
deem it proper to issue a larger amount of notes
than the Act of 1845 allows, we would recommend to
Parliament to grant them indemnity. '
This is the course which was pursued by John
Russell and Charles Wood in 1847 under simUar
circumstances, with this difference, that the necessity
is more urgent now than it was then. The reserve of
the Bank is less and the stock of bullion is less also.
We must, however, follow the precedent of 1847 iii
all things, and we must call Parliament together to
submit the matter to them. Therefore, in treating the
matter you will perhaps assume as a matter of course
that Parliament will be assembled at an early day in
order that the step taken to-day raay be communicated
to them.
The law may be overstepped by the Bank or it may
not, but as we have authorised the Bank to overstep
the law, it is incumbent upon us to meet Parliament
and to tell thera what we have done, and why.
The probabiUty is — but this cannot be settled till I

,857] W. RUSSELL SENT TO INDIA 271
have got an answer from the Queen — that we shall
have a Council on Monday and that Parhament will
meet fourteen days afterwards. Yours sincerely, Palmerston.
J. Delane, Esq.
Although the suspension was necessary under the
circumstances, the paper-currency mongers were ready
to catch at the faintest indication of a misgiving as
to the principles of the Act of 1844, and Delane, in
accepting the temporary abrogation of Peel's scheme,
was careful to qualify his approval in The Times with
an expression of firm adherence to the principles of
the original measure.
" I think the less the Old Lady of Threadneedle
Street has to do with bill discounting the better," he
told a friend, " and as for Scotland, I will be bound
they never had a million sovereigns in the country
before. No wonder they require extra troops there
to prevent the people from scrambling for them ! "
In December Delane, who was fully persuaded that
the complete suppression of the Mutiny could only be
accomplished after a protracted carapaign, deterrained
to send out W. H. Russell, his famous correspondent
in the Crimea, to join Sir Colin Campbell's force.
Travelling by the overland route, across the desert
by rail to Suez, he there joined the P. & O steamer
Nubia and reached Calcutta at the end of January
1858, In the sarae ship with him were Courtenay,
Lord Dalhousie's ex-secretary, and Mr. (afterwards
Sir Richard) Temple, Sir John Lawrence's "pet rising
man," as Russell calls him in one of his letters to his
chief On arrival at Calcutta Russell went straight
to Government House, where he was kindly received
by Lord Canning. The Governor-General clearly

272 RUSSELL IN INDIA [chap.vh
explained to him the actual position of affairs, show
ing him what had been effected by the troops and
what yet remained to be done to re-establish British
power and prestige. He also gave him a letter of
recommendation to the Commander-in-Chief to show
that there was no desire on the part of the Government
to prevent his being attached to the camp.
When W. H. Russell joined Sir Colin at Cawnpore,
the treatment which he received from the Com
mander-in-Chief was widely different from the sus
picion with which the military authorities had
regarded him on his arrival in the Crimea. The
height to which he raised his profession in 1854-5
now ensured him a hearty greeting.
" Mr. Russell, you're welcorae," said Sir Colin.
" You have seen soraething of war. I ara going to
tell you everything. You shall see all my reports,
and get every information that I have myself, on the
condition that you do not mention it in camp, or let
it be known in any way, except in your letters to
England." And one of his staff — the future Lord
Napier of Magdala — ^was instructed to show him all
the plans and to render him every assistance in his
power. He was present throughout the siege of
Lucknow and the campaigns of Oude and Rohilcund,
having on one occasion an extremely narrow escape
of his life when a party of mutineers raided the
camp where his dhooly was lying. His account in
The Times of the faraous night march to Lucknow
equalled in descriptive power anything that he wrote
from the Crimea. It is characteristic of his inde
pendence of character that, when the rebeUion was
subdued, he raised his voice in protest against what
he felt to be the excessive severity of the punishment
inflicted upon the captured mutineers.

i857] DEATH OF HAVELOCK 273
Just before Christmas England was gladdened by
the receipt of the news of the relief of Lucknow,
though, whilst the country still rang with the praises
of Campbell, Outram, and Havelock, there came the
sad tidings of the latter's death. Above every other
leader in the war he had been generally recognised
as the type of a military hero. His fame extended to
more distant shores than our own, and it is pleasant
to remember that when his death was reported at
New York, vessels in the harbour lowered their flags
in token of mourning for England's loss. Worn out
with hardship and fatigue, the example of his death,
almost in the hour of victory, has probably done more
to inspire a spirit of heroism in the British Army
than if his life had been prolonged. Like Nelson, he
died before he could know how fully his services were
appreciated by a grateful country.
At the close of the year Lord Harrowby desired to
be relieved of the office of Lord Privy Seal, not from
any political difference with the Government, but
solely on account of the state of his health. To
succeed him Palmerston chose Lord Clanricarde,
" whose habits of business, official experience, and
debating ability will render him a useful accession
to the Government."'
Delane at once perceived that the appointment was
one calculated to do the Ministry great harm, for
Lord Clanricarde had a past, and the recollection of
a scandal in which he had been concerned some two
or three years previously was still fresh in the public
mind. When the news became generally known a howl
of virtuous indignation was raised, and— such an
uncertain thing is political popularity — the influence
' Palmerston to Delane, December 27, 1857.
VOL. I 18

274 DEFEAT OF PALMERSTON [chap.vh
of the Prirae Minister was soon perceptibly weakened
by what, after all, amounted to a mere tactical indis
cretion. Some reflection of this rapid change in public
opinion will be found in a passage in Greville's Diary
for January 28, 1858 :
Delane told me yesterday he thought the Govern
ment would not remain long in office, . . . and he
ridiculed the idea of its not being practicable to form
another. How speedily Delane's prediction was to be verified
will be seen in dealing with 1858, when, like a bolt
from the blue, a storm arose which cut short the life
of Palmerston's first administration and brought
Lord Derby and Disraeli back to office if not to
power.

CHAPTER VIII
LORD DERBY'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION
Delane in Paris — Letters from Canton (Sherard Osborn and Laurence
Oliphant) — Defeat of Lord Palmerston's Government on the
Orsini question — Delane and the crisis of February 1858 —
Arduous nature of his work at The Times office — Disraeli on
the new Ministry — The session of 1858 — The Cagliari dispute
and Lord Malmesbury — Final suppression of the Indian Mutiny
— Delane and the National Portrait Gallery — Purchase of the
Ascot Heath property — Palmerston at Compiigne — Lord Gran
ville's attempt to form an administration — Delane and the national
defences — The Suez Canal — Conflicting views of Palmerston arid
Delane.
The opening of the New Year found Delane once
more in Paris, where he had gone to see Lord Cowley.
He records in his diary having gone to the Opera
with Lady Cowley, and, by himself, to a masked ball
at the same place, but no letters which he wrote at
this time have been found.
On January 5 he left Paris at eight o'clock in the
morning and reached Serjeants' Inn at 9.30 p.m., or
nearly double the time now occupied by the journey
under favourable conditions.
On February 6 Lord Strangford (George Augustus
Smythe), Monckton-Milnes, Sir Henry Storks, Robert
Lowe, Venables, Mowbray Morris, and Higgins (Jacob
Omnium) dined with him, and on the 17th he mentions
" a very pleasant party " at Lord Alfred Paget's,
consisting of Lord and Lady Stafford,' Lord Dufferin,
' In later years, as Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, they became
most intimate friends of Delane's, and scarcely a year passed without
his visiting them at Dunrobin or at Trentham.
375

276 SHERARD OSBORN [chap, vm
Lord Canterbury, and Charles Dickens. His corre
spondence for 1858 opens with two long letters from
Canton, one from Sherard Osborn and the other
from Laurence Oliphant.
Osborn wrote, as a sailor not unnaturally would,
fuming and fretting at the inactivity of the expedition
and the slow progress of the negotiations with the
Chinese :
Though Canton was captured on December 29, when
the next step towards peace may be taken the wisest
amongst us would find it hard to foretell. No one
here in authority appears to understand the value of
following up a blow, and a slower foe than even a
Chinaman would have time to recover from such a
slow set of belligerents as we are. We have either no
right to be at war with Canton and its dependencies,
or else if at war, we should be active and energetic
in our operations. I was out here during the whole
ofthe last war, and can remember well the two policies
gursued, that under Charles Elliott and that under
[enry Pottinger. The former was ever blockading,
threatening, " diplomatising," and attacking at long
intervals ; the result was a long and desultory state of
warfare extending from November 1839 to July 1841.
The latter was stern and straightforward, knowing
well that " forbearance " was a word totally unknown
and impossible to an Asiatic. The result was a
favourable peace in twelve months, and of all the
Englishmen who have had official transactions with
the Chinese, I believe Pottinger was the only one whom
they understood and appreciated. When through the
long winter nights of 40° South latitude I saw my
little flotilla of gunboats struggling bravely towards
China, I assure you my sole hope was that their arrival
would inaugurate a new state of things in this land. . . .
What we should do is to open up the whole country
by means of our gunboats ; with thera in a country
so intersected with rivers and canals, we can and
ought to go everywhere, show ourselves not only as
ready to strike when necessary, but as deterrained to
go wherever a keel can carry us, without injuring
peaceful towns or traders. Between this town and

,858] THE CHINESE WAR 277
Honan, for instance, the whole south coast of Quantung
is intersected with rivers, opening into a rich silk and
tea country covered with thriving towns and a dense
population--and the only attempt to reach or com
municate with so unknown and interesting a region
was a visit made in October last by a solitary gunboat,
which, in exploring the broadway, fell upon a fine river
from the west, and reached a large town off which
there was abundance of water for our merchantmen.
Even Fatshan has not been visited by us, and
although Canton has been in our hands a fortnight,
you will hardly believe that out of twenty gunboats
and God knows how many frigates and sloops, not a
single British resident has passed beyond the points
occupied by us. On Christmas Day, the gunboats,
ably commanded, and in the most efficient condition,
are carrying down dirty linen to Hong-Kong and
bringing up poultry, etc., and the self-satisfied way in
which every one sits down to await the promotions
and rewards which are to follow the receipt of the
dispatches by the Admiralty would be highly amusing,
if one did not see that it is a simple repetition of Baltic
warfare likely in the end to be about as creditable to
our naval reputation. What perhaps adds to one's
annoyance at this state of things is the fact that we
have "one amongst us taking notes" in the Russian
Envoy. Count Poutiatine, a keen sailor, who evidently
looks upon the reputation of our Navy as a huge
imposition, and from his success against us at Petro-
paulskoi and Castries Bay he has certainly grounds
for his contempt. I ara most fortunate, as junior
captain in these waters, in having Lord Elgin, the
British Ambassador, as my guest. . . . Wingrove Cooke
I see a good deal of, and he deserves to be a great
favourite with every one both in the Array and the
Fleet. His life-like descriptions of China are a great
treat to those who see it daily before their eyes. I
shall not attempt to trench upon his privileges by
writing to you of Canton, of Yeh, or others who fell
into our hands in a grand battue of mandarins.
I send you what perhaps may be a curiosity, the
envelope of Yeh's letter refusing the terms of the
ultimatum. It was, I am told, a most impertinent
document advising Lord Elgin to follow the example
of Davis, Bowring, and others, who, by their judicious

278 LAURENCE OLIPHANT [chap, vm
conduct in making a great fuss about entering Canton,
but never doing it, obtained high honours from their
Queen.' Laurence Oliphant to J. T. Delane Canton,
January 14, 1858.
My dear Delane,
It is the height of presumption for me to write
to you with Cooke in the next room winding up his
voluminous correspondence — more especially as he is
as well if not better informed upon all matters than
I am, but my excuse is, my good friend Cator, our
first lieutenant, who has a very proper notion of your
omnipotence, and who tells me you have offered upon
a former occasion to befriend him, has asked me
to enclose the accompanying note. If you can help
hira I am sure you will, but at the same time I
told him not to set his hopes too much upon it,
as I know these sort of applications are not always
convenient, and I thought it as well to prepare him
for disappointments, and to relieve you, if it should
so turn out, from apparently forgetting him — ^firmly
convinced as 1 am that you have totally forgotten both
me and my chief — myself privately, the other publicly.
However, knowing how busy you are, and having had
good experience of your friendship, 1 am not nervous
about the first, and am satisfied that I live in your
remembrance, though you have not time to tell me so.
Let me hope that his lordship has done something
at last worthy of notice, and that whatever may be
said of his descent on Calcutta, people are of one mind
as to his descent on Yeh. When I see you — an event
which seems daily likely to be more remote — I will
explain a good deal that I could not write ; meandme
1 think things are prospering as well as possible under
the circumstances. We have had a very trying time
of obscurity and inaction, but at last there has been
something consolatory in the progress of events. The
capture of Canton was not half so difficult as its
management after we had got it, and the experiment
which is now being tried is new in the annals of our
' After the bombardment Governor Yeh was exiled to Calcutta
where he soon afterwards died.

1858] THE CHINESE WAR 279
Chinese wars. With only two people able to speak
the language, the task of governing successfully a
city containing a million of the most Ul-disposed and
turbulent Chinese was full of difficulty, if not impossible.
Lord Elgin therefore determined to avail himself of
the prestige attaching to the former Governor of
Canton, as well as of nis knowledge of the elaborate
machinery of Chinese municipal arrangements, by re
instating him as Governor of Canton, but at the same
time to let it be known that he was only exercising
his functions on sufferance, or rather as our servant,
by posting three hundred men in his yamen, and
appointing a tribunal coraposed of three officers, who
try cases in which foreigners are concerned, and who
countersign the Governor's proclaraations. The thing
seems likely to work well ; the people are beginning
to open their shops, and we have had none of those
disgraceful scenes of plunder and massacre which
characterised our occupation of Chinese towns during
the last war. I was fortunate enough to be with the
general throughout the operations. The scaling of
the walls was capital fun. Hoping that some day or
other I may hear frora yourself that you are governing
England as successfully as we are Canton. I see
instead of going to America you have been paying a
round of fashionable visits.
Believe me, my dear Delane,
Yours very sincerely,
L. Oliphant.

But in the same week that the news of the capture
of Canton reached England the Government was
defeated in the House of Coraraons, not this time
on the question of China, but by the same agency
which had brought about its fall in the previous
year. It was the Manchester School of Bright and Cobden,
so cordially disliked by Delane, which framed the
amendment on the affair of the Arrow, and it was
Mr. MUner Gibson, one of their ablest disciples, who
again acted as a teller in the division which over-

28o CONSPIRACY TO MURDER BILL [chap, vhi
threw Lord Palmerston on the Conspiracy to Murder
BiU. Hastily introduced after Orsini's attempt on the
life of Napoleon III., the BUl sought to constitute
the crime of conspiracy to murder a felony instead
of a misdemeanour.
The feelings of the French were alleged to have
been outraged by the discovery that the Orsini bombs
had been made in Birmingham, and the details of
the plot arranged in London. Walewski declared,
absurdly enough, in language which has found an
echo in other continental countries within our own
times, that England was the nursery and the asylum
of the anarchist and the political assassin.
The French press, headed by the serai-official
Moniteur, was filled with offensive denunciations of
her late ally. As often happens in politics, a decision
had to be taken between the popular and the right
course to pursue. Palraerston was the last man to
yield to clamour, and all he proposed to do was to
make an eminently reasonable change in the criminal
law and, at the same time, to allay the irritation which
existed against England across the Channel. But
he was declared by his enemies to have truckled to
France, and an unreal opposition sprang up against
the Bill. Lord John Russell in particular denounced
it on its introduction as repugnant to English feeling,
and with a spurious show of patriotism he laboured
to prove that it had been brought in at the dictation
of a foreign Power. But his speech was singularly
unconvincing. The House felt that he had overdone
his part, and leave was given to bring in the Bill by
a majority of two hundred. Lulled into a false sense
of security by this preliminary success, the Govern
ment whips failed to apprehend the magnitude of the

,858] DEFEAT OF PALMERSTON 281
danger threatened by Milner Gibson's cunningly de
vised amendment to the second reading. The debate
turned not so much on the raerits of the Bill as upon
the question whether Palraerston should have given
Count Walewski a written reply to his dispatch. The
Government had now to face the heavy artiUery of
Mr. Gladstone, who contended that the difference
having arisen, France must be in the right and England
wrong, and supported this argument by his vote.
When the division was taken, the majority against
the Government was nineteen — precisely the same
number as Lord Derby had been defeated by in 1853.'
But there was a much sraaller House than on the
occasion of Palraerston's defeat on the China question,
and many ministerialists were absent. " So confident
were the Government whippers-in," said Greville,
"that they made no exertions, and Hayter actually
allowed sorae of his people to go away unpaired,
teUing them that they were quite safe and their pre
sence was not necessary."
As another dissolution was obviously out of the
question, Palmerston had no alternative but to resign.
The Queen sent for Lord Derby, and Disraeli once
more essayed the heroic task of leading the House of
Commons without a working majority. By a perverse
fate he was destined never to succeed to any leadership
worth having until he was both old and weary.
Rapidly reviewing the arrangements which raust be
made for carrying on the Queen's Government, Delane
acted on the assuraption that the only alternative to
Lord Derby was Lord John RusseU. But as he would
come in with language of defiance to France on his
¦ By a singular coincidence Lord Derby was thrice commanded by
the Queen to form an Administration, and on two of these occasions,
according to Greville, on February 21.

282 THE CRISIS OF FEBRUARY 1858 [chap, vhi
lips, he did not see how it was possible for The Times
to support him. His first duty would have been
to answer the unanswered dispatch, and his next to
set about altering the law of conspiracy on his own
lines. Moreover the Peelites, without whose aid he
could hardly hope to form a Government, were com
mitted against Palmerston's India Bill, which his own
vote had been given in favour of While Delane thought
that Lord John would be ready to offer the Radical
party a larger dose of reform than they could have
extracted from Palmerston, on the whole he considered
government on sufferance by Lord Derby and Disraeli
preferable, under the circumstances, to setting up the
Chesham Place clique of the Whig party in Palmerston's
place. He considered that Lord Derby shone most in
opposition, regarding him as an orator rather than as
a statesman, and as a better critic than administrator.
But Lord Derby's followers, with Disraeli at their
head, having breathed the thin air of opposition for
many years, were naturally hungering after more solid
food. In writing the epitaph of the late Government Delane
was careful to point out that whatever blunders
Palmerston might have committed — such as the intro
duction of Lord Clanricarde into the Cabinet — these
could not be weighed against the very real services
which he had rendered to the country since he was
called to its aid in the dark days of the Crimean War.
He found it weak, and he left it powerful. He found
it carrying on a doubtful war with a great military
state. He left it triumphant not only over that state,
but over its enemies in China and in India.
A bundle of letters, neatly endorsed in Delane's
handwriting "The Crisis of February 1858," contains
the communications which he received frora, amongst

,858] DELANE AND THE CRISIS 283
others, Robert Lowe, Lord Granville, Abraham Hay
ward, Charles Greville, and last, but by no means
least, Benjarain Disraeh. He knew raost of the details
of the overtures which were on foot in various quarters
within a few hours of their inception. Greville and
Hayward were never more in their element than at
such times. From Downing Street to Pall Mall and
back again, from the Council Office to the Athenaeum
Club, these self-constituted intermediaries of the Press
flitted half a dozen times a day. And all the while
Delane sat in Serjeants' Inn sifting the wheat from
the chaff, and feeling the pulse of the crisis as it rose
and fell from hour to hour.
On the 23rd his diary has the following brief entry :
" Busy all day about the crisis." And yet how much
anxious toil is reflected in that single sentence ! When
a Cabinet was in process of making, his intuitive
perception of the tendency of events stood him in good
stead. A message coming in at a late hour, fraught,
it might be, with grave issues in foreign politics or in
home affairs, and perhaps necessitating drastic revision
of an article already prepared to his order, never found
him unready. Mowbray Morris once said of him to a
member of his staff who had been expressing wonder
and admiration at his promptitude and resource :
It is these flashes of sure intuition which save him.
If he were in the habit of hesitating he would often go
wrong. But, being what he is, even Avhen taken en
tirely by surprise, he rarely makes a mistake.'
Kinglake, who after visiting the Crimea in his com
pany was occasionally admitted to the privacy of the
editor's room at The Times ofifice, drew a picture
' See Days ofthe Past, by Alexander Innes Shand, in which will be
found a graceful appreciation of Delane's personality : 1905, p. 19,.

284 LORD DERBY AND CABINET [chap, vni
of Delane's which raay not inappropriately be inserted
here: A man of great ardour, great eagerness, and one
passionately imbued with the spirit of journalism. . . .
His society was beyond measure interesting to men
who cared eagerly for the actual state of the world.
He used generally to bend conversation in such a way
as to avoid coming into dispute with his comrades,
and liked best to reinforce what they said by con
veying in anecdote some fragments of that rare
knowledge concerning raen and their motives with
which he was abundantly armed. . . . He had the
outward composure, the air of power not yet put
forth that becomes a strong man of action; but it
could be seen that his energies were rather com
pressed than lulled — that the furnace, if so one may
speak, had its fires " banked-up " ready to blaze
into action.'
Sunday is pre-eminently the day of political canards,
as Disraeli says in one of the best of his novels,
and the crisis of February 1858 was no exception to
the rule. Everybody in the political and social world
of London was filled with curiosity to learn the com
position of the new Cabinet, and we may be sure what
the principal topic of conversation was when Delane
dined that evening with " Bear" Ellice.
In Monday's Times the editor put forward a tentative
list, "founded on fact, but not claiming any other
authority than that of plausibility." He was anxious
to see Lord Derby's son, of whose abilities he had
formed a high opinion, included in the Cabinet. The
post of Colonial Secretary had once been offered to
hira by Lord Palraerston and declined. Delane desired
to see him fill it on the present occasion or to preside
over the India Board. But at first his expectations
were not realised. "Young Stanley was never asked,"
' Invasion ofthe Crimea, 1880, vol. vi. p. 246.

,858] THE CRISIS OF FEBRUARY 285
Lowe assured him. " It is strongly asserted that Lord
Stanley has refused — good heir-apparent tactics,"
wrote Lord Granville. "That notion of Lord Stanley
replacing Canning is flung out frora Grosvenor Gate
to cover his refusal to join," said Hayward.
But on Thursday Disraeli wrote giving Delane the
full hst of the new Administration :
Benjamin Disraeli to J. T. Delane
Thursday night [February 25, 1858].
1 sent you, the night before last, by a mutual
friend, a list which I hear you would not look at,
but, though naturally imperfect, it raight have saved
you some mistakes.
The accompanying, with some deficiencies in minor
points not yet adjusted, is the real thing, and I think
will a little surprise you.
Lord Stanley is Secretary for Colonies. It was
offered to Sir Edward Lytton and reluctantly accepted
in the morning, as he was alraost sure of a contest,
and rightly was of opinion that doubtful contests on
the part of Cabinet Ministers were not at this moment
desirable. In the evening he relinquished it. I regret
to have lost an illustrative and an honourable colleague,
but if the Government lasts — as I begin to believe, as
the country does, that it will— he will find this cross
adjusted. I do not think at any time the secondary appoint
ments were so strong. Hardy, S. Fitzgerald, Sotheron
Estcourt, Edward Egerton, Carnarvon, Hardinge— all
very good. Legal — good. Irish — good.
After the Council I will send you my address to
Bucks, and to no one else.
On the next day his election address, entirely in his
own handwriting, reached Delane. Not a word did
it contain about Protection or any matter of domestic
concern. Dwelling solely on the necessity of main
taining a cordial alliance with France, it expressed
the conviction that by measures "at once firm and

286 THE INDIA BILL [chap, vm
conciliatory " all misunderstandings between the two
countries might be reraoved.
A few days later Greville wrote :
There are symptoras of a disposition on the part of
The Times to support the new Government, and I have
little doubt that they can secure that great advantage if
they manage their affairs with common prudence, and
set to work diligently to frame such measures of im
provement and utility as will satisfy public opinion.'
A question which could not be delayed was the
government of India. For when the Bengal army
mutinied the East India Corapany may be said to
have died by its own hand. As soon as it became
necessary to raaintain a considerable body of European
troops in India, all parties were agreed that the
Corapany must be dethroned and the government of
the Queen set up in its place.
The manner in which Lord Derby and Disraeli
proposed to effect the change did not raeet with
Palraerston's concurrence. His own views on the
subject he stated at some length to Delane during the
Easter recess.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane Broadlands,
April <), 1858.
General and well-founded objections have been
taken to the kind of constituencies proposed by the
India Bill of the present Government for the merabers
of the Council who are to be appointed by election.
But there is a primary objection to having any
members of the Council elected at all. The members
of the Council for India will be a part of the Executive
Government of the country, and it would be to depart
in an important matter frora one of the fundaraental
• Diary, March 3, 1858.

,858] PALMERSTON'S VIEWS 287
principles of our constitution and to introduce a new
and most objectionable principle, if we were to enact
that persons forming part of the Executive Govern
ment should be appointed not by the Crown or by
some officer holding authority from the Crown, but
by the choice of some other persons. This elective
arrangement is considered by high legal authority as
most unconstitutional.
The notion of having some merabers of the Indian
Council elected instead of their being all appointed by
the Crown was probably suggested by the circum
stance that all the Directors of the India Company for
a long course of time, and the greater part of them
since 1853, have been appointed by election. But this
is an instance of the errors which men are often led
into by using the same word for things different in
themselves. The Directors never have been elected
in the sense in which it is now proposed that a portion
of the India Council shall be elected — that is to say,
the Directors never were chosen or appointed by
an authority different from that which held the
sovereignty of India. The Directors were in fact
appointed by the authority to whom the Crown had
delegated the sovereignty of India — that is to say,
by the East India Company. But the East India
Company, being a corporation aggregate, had no other
method of making an appointment than by the votes
of the majority of its raembers ; but nobody was
allowed to meddle with these appointraents except the
persons who were fractions of the de facto sovereign
of India. There is, therefore, nothing in the circura
stance that the Directors were appointed by the votes
of the majority of the members of the East India
Company which can make that arrangement a pre
cedent for appointing any part of the members of the
new Council for India by the votes of the majority of
any set of men who may be formed into a constituency
for that purpose. Nor is there a good reason for
introducing into the Indian Government such a
novelty ; what is wanted is a council composed of able
men conversant with Indian affairs, who may give
information and advice to the responsible Ministers of
the Crown in regard to Indian affairs, and it is much
more likely that the responsible Ministers of the
Crown should be able to find out and appoint such

288 ELLENBOROUGH'S DISPATCH [chap, vm
men than that any set of persons who might be
formed into a constituency tor the purpose should
be able to do so. Yours faithfully, Palmerston.
In the end the popular constituencies which Disraeli
had proposed were abandoned as unworkable, and a
new Bill founded upon resolutions of the House of
Commons was successfully conducted through the
Lower House by Lord Stanley, who, after the resigna
tion of Lord EUenborough, had been transferred to
the very post which Delane had marked out for him
only a few weeks before. At the same time, Sir
Edward Lytton's "cross "was "adjusted," as Disraeli
had foretold, by his inclusion in the Cabinet as Colonial
Secretary, after Lord Derby had made a final attempt
to conciUate the Peelites by offering the post to
Gladstone. But though Lord Derby succeeded in his first
session in remodelling the government of India in the
form in which it still substantially remains, another
Indian question nearly brought about the downfaU
of his Administration.
Lord EUenborough, without consulting his colleagues,
had addressed a very intemperate communication to
Lord Canning, rebuking him, not indeed for his well-
known clemency, but for what he alleged to be the
undue severity shown to the mutineers of Oude in his
celebrated Proclaraation of March 3. To raake matters
worse he published his own dispatch, doing thereby
incalculable mischief by conveying to the disaffected
Sepoys the impression that the home Government
was not prepared to support the Governor-General'
' It is said that Lord Derby and the majority of his colleagues first
read of the predicament in which Lord EUenborough had placed
them in the columns of The Times of May 8.

,858] DISRAELI AND DELANE 289
Notice of a vote of censure on Lord EUenborough
was promptly given by Mr. Cardwell in the House
of Commons and by Lord Shaftesbury in the Lords.
But when the debate came on Lord EUenborough's
resignation had been tendered and accepted by the
Queen. As no great party advantage is secured by
censuring a departed Minister, signs of Liberal dis
union were not slow to appear. These the leader
of the House of Commons was quick to turn to his
own advantage, and what looked like an alraost certain
defeat was turned into a moral victory for Disraeli.
Delane very briefly mentions the incident in his diary
for May 21: "The Cardwell motion which was to
have thrown out the Ministry compromised." It was,
however, more of a fiasco than a compromise. Writing
to Dasent the same night (he was leaving town for
Norfolk the next day), he told him that he had
instructed Lowe to write a very careful and moderate
article on the party result of Disraeli's unexpected
triumph. " Pray take care that it answers my stipula
tions." Woodham was also to write on the Outram
correspondence, and G. S. Venables was ordered to
notice Bright's speech on Palmerston's treatment of
his party. The discomfiture of the Opposition was
seized upon by Disraeli as the text for a song of
triumph with which he delighted his constituents
during the Whitsuntide recess.'
A passage in his speech which referred to " the
once stern guardians of popular rights simpering in
the enervated atmosphere of gilded saloons '' was
generally thought to be pointed at Delane. He
' Mr. Paul calls it a " war-dance," adding : " This was the
Disraehan mode of saying that Mr. Delane went to Lady
Palmerston's receptions, and it did not amount to much, for Mr.
Delane was the most independent of editors." — History of Modern
England, vol. ii. p. 171.
VOL. I 19

290 END OF THE SESSION [chap, vm
was, however, the very last raan in England whose
deraeanour in society could be thus legitimately
described. Habitually somewhat grave, one did
not often see him laugh in public, and, when his
features relaxed, it was in rather a grim smile, the
very reverse of a simper, in the literal acceptation
of the word. Yet some countenance is given to
the popular assumption that Disraeli had him in his
mind by an entry in Delane's diary for June i6 :
" Dined with Dickinson at Stationers' Hall. Dufferin,
Dasent, Thackeray, Reeve, and Longman. A very
pleasant dinner. Afterwards to Lansdowne House,'
where I shook hands with Dizzy."
But if these oratorical pleasantries caused a tem
porary coolness between Disraeli and himself, it was
of very short duration. In spite of wide differences of
opinion, and a certain inability at times to thoroughly
understand one another, their friendship remained
unbroken to the end.^
On the whole Lord Derby emerged frora the session
with credit. Before its close the question of the
admission of Jews to Parliament, after a controversy
extending, as we have seen, over more than ten years,
was satisfactorily settled.
In foreign policy he had an equally good record to
show. Lord Malmesbury had finally disposed of the
troublesome Cagliari dispute. Sir Hugh Rose, per
haps even better known as Lord Strathnairn, had
quelled the last remnants of rebellion at Gwalior, and
the Treaty of Tientsin, which established diplomatic
' Yet another of the Disraelian gilded saloons.
' In one of the last letters which Delane received from Disraeli,
the leader of the Conservative party, as he then was, wrote : " We
have known each other now a very long time, and, notwithstanding the
harsh obstacles which political diflferences insensibly offer to social
intimacy, have maintained relations of more than friendliness."

,858] THE CAGLIARI CASE 291
relations between Pekin and the Courts of Europe,
was a solid and honourable raonuraent to Lord Elgin's
judgment and firmness.
With regard to the Cagliari case Delane held in his
possession secret information as to the causes which
led to the unwonted mildness of the Palmerstonian
policy in dealing with the matter. He was aware that
when the arrangements were complete for making
a demonstration against Bomba in the autumn of 1856,
it had occurred to the English Governraent that the
presence of the fleets at Naples might lead to an
insurrection. This, considering the activity of the
Muratists, might have involved the most important
results. Therefore, before final orders were given
to the English and French fleets, Lord Cowley was
instructed to come to an understanding with Walewski
as to the course which the two governments would
pursue in the event of the demonstration becoming
the cause of a revolutionary movement. The English
Government offered to bind themselves not to recog
nise a Neapolitan Republic if France on her part
would engage not to recognise Murat as king of
the two Sicilies. These engagements were embodied
in a memorandum which Louis Napoleon was invited
to sign.
The wording of his reply was extremely frank,
as no doubt he considered that it was improbable
that the details of the transaction would ever be
divulged. He denied that he had ever countenanced
the pretensions of Murat and appealed to facts to
prove that his statement was true. But at the same
time he declared that it was not for him to say that
the Neapolitan people should not be allowed to choose
a ruler of their own, and that he must therefore dechne
to sign the raemorandum. The contemplated naval

292 BOMBA AFFAIR [chap, vm
demonstration was abandoned, the Emperor suggest
ing meanwhile that it would be better to avoid any
act which raight lead to a collision between the two
Governments. When Lord Derby's Government came into ofifice,
it was hardly surprising that the Cabinet hesitated for
a time as to what part to take in the dispute. But
in deciding to demand compensation, and if refused
to enforce the claim, the new Foreign Secretary took
the right line — that of never forgoing an opportunity
of vindicating the rights of British subjects on account
of political and diplomatic considerations. This secret
page in the history of our conduct towards Bomba
reflects no little credit upon Lord Malmesbury, and
when he went out of ofifice in 1859 Delane was
careful to call attention to the courage and firmness
he displayed at what raight easily have become a
critical juncture.
The date of the prorogation was accelerated by
a pure, we might almost say an impure, accident.
Even the sewers apparently were on the side of the
Ministry. In other words, such was the foul condition
of the Tharaes during the hot summer of 1858 that
Members of Parharaent were afraid to enter the pre
cincts of the House, and coraraittees sitting in the
rooms overlooking the river could not obtain a
quorum. A Bill for the better drainage of the
metropolis was hastily introduced by Disraeh and
as speedily passed into law. Delane refers to the
atmospheric conditions which increased the speed
of the Parliaraentary raachine in such a novel raanner.
Writing to Dasent on August 18 he said :
Up here there is not rauch that is new except
that the stink has corae back with increased malignity.
Indeed for the past few days London has been more

,858] NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY 293
offensive than I ever knew it. I believe there is
some folly going on in the sewers which may help
to account for it. Otherwise there is a most whole
some dulness reheved only by that odd Norwood
story and Sam the Bishop.'
A matter unconnected with politics in which Delane
took a personal interest this year was the formation
of the National Portrait Gallery. It owed its exist
ence largely to the efforts of his friend Lord Stanhope,
and its energetic secretary and curator, Mr. (after
wards Sir George) Scharf To it Delane presented
the portraits of John Philip Kemble by Gilbert
Stuart, and Mrs. Siddons by Sir WiUiam Beechey.
They were the first portraits connected with the
English stage to find a home in the GaUery.
Long the Cinderella of the national collections, the
Portrait Gallery, which is now of great historical
value and interest, has undergone many vicissitudes.
In 1858 it was housed in very inadequate premises
in Great George Street, Westrainster, where the pre
sent writer remembers to have been taken to see it
in his boyhood. It was then transferred to a wooden
building at South Kensington, whence the obvious
danger of fire procured its temporary banishment
to Bethnal Green. Nor is its present home in
St. Martin's Place — the munificent gift of a private
benefactor — at all commensurate with its growing re
quirements. Little or no space remains for additions,
and as the vacant land in the iramediate neighbour
hood will before long be required for the extension
of the National GaUery, it seems probable that the
wanderings of the collection may even now not be
at an end.
In 1858 Delane bought a small freehold property
' WUberforpe,

294 PURCHASE OF ASCOT HEATH [chap, vin
at Ascot Heath, to which for many years it was his
delight to retire, if only for twenty-four hours, from
the smoke and turmoil of London, to breathe the
clear and invigorating forest air.
To all his other occupations he now added the
varied delights of a small farm, and numerous entries
in his diary attest the keen interest which he took
in everything connected with its up-keep and im
provement. But the soil of Ascot is poor and sandy, by nature
producing little but heather, gorse, and fir; and
when Delane first went to live there, he had but
few neighbours. The whole countryside from Sun-
ninghill to Easthampstead still lay open and unfenced
as in the days of his boyhood, and houses were few
and far between. In dry seasons heath fires were
a constant source of anxiety and even danger, and
within his recollection thousands of acres were tem
porarily devastated in this manner, notwithstanding
the vigilance of the local fire-watchers in the summer
months. Only by a slow arid costly process of
reclamation was he able to convert the barren sands
into permanent pasture and thriving plantations of
young trees.
Known locally as " trenching," this necessary work
of recovery consists in breaking through the hard
sandstone crust, or pan as it is called in East Berks,
which everywhere underlies the surface of the virgin
heath. And if land so reclaimed from the waste be
not kept in good heart and constantly enriched by
artificial means, such is the sterile nature of the
Bagshot sands that in time the heather will reassert
itself and not a blade of hard-won grass reraain.
Flowering American plants, rhododendrons, kalmias,
and azaleas (said to have been first introduced into

,858] AMATEUR FARMERS 295
England by the Duke of Gloucester at Bagshot
Park, where in the woods round Duke's HiU they
StiU abound) flourish exceedingly in the peaty soil,
though for the grower of fruit and the ornamental
flower gardener the local conditions are much less
favourable. But if there were no difficulties to be surmounted
in amateur agriculture and gardening, there would
be no satisfaction in success ; and the fact that
Delane found constant recreation in playing at farm
ing presents a close analogy to the case of Disraeli,
who liked to identify himself with the peaceful art
of husbandry at Hughenden. It is noticeable that
in more than one of Delane's letters to him, the
expression "we farmers" occurs, almost as if each
wished the other seriously to believe that agriculture
was one of the main occupations of his life, and not
merely one of its distractions.
But whatever Disraeli's love for the interests of
agriculture may have been, we may be sure that
not for a moment did he dream of such a sweeping
reduction of the county franchise as would include
the agricultural labourer. Anxious as he and his
great rival showed themselves to outbid one another
on the question of Parliamentary reform after Pal
merston's restraining influence had been removed, it
was not till 1884 that the urgent claims of some two
million rural voters to the benefits of the franchise
were discovered.
The neighbourhood of Ascot was endeared to
Delane from its being near his old home at East
hampstead and the scenes of his youth. His new
house was also most conveniently situated for Ascot
races, which he had long been in the habit of attend
ing. Divided only by the high road from the course.

296 HISTORY OF ASCOT HEATH [chap.vhi
the entrance-lodge — an ivy-clad archway, said to date
from the eighteenth century, from the roof of which
a panoramic view of the races may be obtained —
imraediately faces the gateway of the Royal enclosure.
Here for many years in the 'sixties and earlier
'seventies Delane entertained largely during the race
week, and there raust be many still living, from our
present King downwards, who reraember the annual
hospitalities of Ascot Heath House.
But when he bought the property there was neither
village, church, nor railway at Ascot, and to reach it
from London it was necessary to drive from Windsor
through the Great Park. But soon after he went to
live there, a branch line of the South- Western Rail
way came through the lower portion of his land,
the corapany, by way of corapensation, giving him
the great convenience of a private entrance to the
station. Ascot Heath House, so closely identified with the
narae of John Delane, has had a somewhat curious
history. On the enclosure of Windsor Forest it had
been given by George IV. to his favourite Lady
Harrington. After her death it was presented by an
enthusiastic free trader to Cobden, who, not knowing
what to do with it, sold it to Delane. It now belongs
to the Trustees of the Jockey Club, and has been
raore than once occupied during the races by the
King when Prince of Wales. The araenities of the
place have been somewhat impaired since Delane's
tirae by the erection of various unsightly buildings
used in connection with the business of the raeeting,
whilst a strip of land on the eastern boundary has
been lopped off to raake a covered pathway frora the
railway to the course.
The original house, which was both small and in-

,858] DELANE AND LORD STANLEY 297
convenient, stood on a plateau of high ground facing
south, and comraanding a beautiful and extensive
view over the surrounding country. This house,
after frequent repairs and alterations, was eventually
puUed down by Delane and replaced, in 1867-8, by a
much larger one from the designs of the architect
who built Bearwood for Mr. John Walter.
In later years Mowbray Morris and George
Webbe Dasent became his neighbours, the one
within a short walk, at Englemere,' and the other
some three miles away, at Tower Hill, standing
on very high ground and adjoining the woods of
Swinley.^ With the new Government Delane soon established
relations almost as friendly and confidential as those
which he had so long maintained with their prede
cessors. Lord Derby, who had now quite recovered
from his former attitude of hostility to The Times,
corresponded regularly with its editor, though he
never attained to so great a degree of intimacy with
Delane as did his son. The latter, now the first
Secretary of State for India, consulted him freely in
making the new appointments rendered necessary by
the abolition of the East India Company, and in
return Delane showed him some of the private letters
which he received frora W. H. RusseU from Simla
and elsewhere. The two printed below, selected from
a large number of similar communications, are fair
specimens of the value which he attached to Delane's
opinion in making his new appointments :
' Englemere was afterwards owned by Sir Robert Meade, and is
now the property of Field- Marshal Lord Roberts.
2 This house, with most of its contents, was unfortunately totally
destroyed by fire in 1890. But having been rebuilt it was oc
cupied by Sir George Dasent till his death, which occurred there
in 1896.

298 INDIAN APPOINTMENTS [chap, vm
Lord Stanley to J. T. Delane
St. James's Square,
August 17, 1858, 4 P.M.
Dear Mr. Delane,
You raay add the name of Gen. Sir R. Vivian
to those who have accepted seats on the Council. He
represents the Madras army and Presidency, which
you will observe has no representative in the elected
part of the Council, nor among those hitherto proposed
for nomination. He was a nominee Director of 1853.
I fear my best men are already polled, and the
difficulty of choosing the rest increases. A hundred
claims are put forward, where no one is pre-eminent.
1 am pledged {but this is not for the public as yet) to take
Sir H. Montgomery, also from Madras, who was on
Lord EUenborough's list, and very highly thought of
by him. There will then remain two seats to fill,
Sir J. Lawrence making the sixth.
Have you (I ask this privately, and in confidence)
heard anything of a Mr. Freeman, who is an Enghsh
zemindar, a representative of the colonising class in
Bengal, and by what 1 hear of him, and see of his
writing, a clever man? I want one of that class if
I can find a good one — they see Indian society and
government in a light so very different from that
which falls on official eyes. Mr. F. is recommended
to me, and that strongly, by several good judges ; but
like aU of that stamp (except the late Mr. Venables)
he is unknown to the public. Perhaps he may have
come across you, for he was full of reforms and
grievances. Tell me if you know him.
1 am open to any suggestion about him, or indeed
any one else. Very faithfully yours, Stanley.

Balmoral,
October 14, 1858.
My dear Sir,
1 ara really rauch obliged by your sending me
Mr. Russell's letter. Its contents are painful, even
disgusting; what Government can do to stop these
atrocities is being done. But opinion will effect

,858] ATTRACTIONS OF ASCOT 299
more than official instructions, and over opinion I
have little power.'
You probably know that the Chief Justice of
Madras has resigned. The Chief Justice of Bombay
(Sir H. Davison) has asked to replace him, on private
grounds. The appointments are about equal in value
and equal in rank. I have consented to the transfer,
which may be announced.
1 wUl let you know who goes to the Chief Justice
ship of Bombay as soon as I get an answer from the
gentleman to whom I have offered it.
It is nearly certain now that Sir J. Lawrence comes
home, but I have no means of knowing whether he
will accept a seat in our Council.
Very faithfully yours, Stanley.

Delane did not take an extended holiday this
autumn. He found the attractions of his new house
at Ascot so great that he did not care to leave it
for any length of time. His movements during the
month of October are sufficiently explained by the
following letters to Dasent :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Shirenewton,
Wednesday, October 6, 1858.
My dear G.,
1 have been staying here for the last two days,
very comfortable, except for my doubts as to whether
or no I should go to Ireland, as I had promised a
dozen times over to do. The weather, however, has
been so bad, so wet, and so windy that it has at last
overcome my natural vacillation, and 1 have deter
mined the question in due form by determining not
to go. I shall, therefore, stay here to-day and write
by this post to propose a visit to Berkeley Castle until
Saturday, when I think of returning to Ascot, and of
passing through London on the Sunday en route for
' RusseU had written in terms of strong condemnation of the severity
shown to the mutineers.

300 A BAD BANKING CONCERN [chap, vm
Brougham HaU and Keir— possibly for the North of
Scotland, where 1 have solemnly engaged to make my
appearance some tirae this autumn.
I would have written before to tell you of my plans,
but they were entirely dependent on the weather, and
so changed from day to day.
The papers have been very good, but the readifig is
execrable. I never see a paper but 1 long to slay
a reader. In the first column of the Indian yesterday
elan was spelt elau, and the rebels were described as
" covering " not " cowering," the verb " to cover " with
out a specified subject being, I believe, only eraployed
for stallions.
I see the Western Bank of Scotland, after having
almost ruined its shareholders by calling up ;^25 a
share, has now made another call of ;^ioo per share.
Pray make Lowe write an article upon this astounding
evidence of the rottenness of the concern. 1 suppose
it will ruin all the unhappy persons who by great
sacrifices have been able hitherto to raeet the loss of
their property and the supplementary call.
I enclose a letter from Russell, the tone of which is
evidently tinctured by his own bodily ailments.
Ever yours,
J. T. Delane.

Ascot Heath,
Sunday, October lo, 1858.
My dear G.,
Though I hope to see you this evening, 1 write
a line or two on the enclosed letters.
First, I think Muller's a very sensible view of
Prussian affairs. I remember in 1841 being nearly
torn to pieces for an article suggesting that very
probably the King, like all other new kings, would
disappoint expectations. Also, 1 think Pattison'
promises fair, and that we may accept his services
with a reasonable prospect of his succeeding. As
to Brougham, you will, of course, send special to
Liverpool, and if he says all he promises about the
Press, we can have no difficulty in supporting him.
Please put in old Byng about the Argyll Rooras.
' Mark Pattison was The Times correspondent at Berlin in 1858,

,858] DELANE ON LORD J. MANNERS 301
Why don't you use Bourne's Herodotus, and Forster's
and Hayward's Essays ? They are all fair to middling.
Ever yours, J. T. Delane.
I enclose some very interesting letters from Temple
and Oliphant, which will do for Woodham and Cooke.

Keir, near Dunblane, N.B.
Thursday, October 14, 1858.
My dear George,
1 have read the article on John Manners in
Tuesday's paper with yery great regret. I care nothing
in the world about him, though I never heard him
accused of anything worse than weakness, and no
freat excess of intellect is required for his office. But
care a great deal for ourselves and our own character,
and 1 am sure both these are very seriously damaged
by an article upon a rather inoffensive individual which
the world will, with too much reason, characterise as
an outrage. Surely there was no necessity for it.
He did nothing to provoke us to inflict such damage
on ourselves — for damage it will do us all, collectively
and individually.
I suppose the article was Lowe's. But we must
always remember that he is shooting his own arrows
from behind our shield, and that it is we that suffer
when his shots provoke public indignation.
Pray do not let him write any more upon any
personal question. Indeed, there is happily no need
to deal in personalities at all now that there seems
a truce to all personal, as almost to all political,
differences. Ever yours,
J. T. Delane.
Brougham Hall,
Tuesday, October 19, 1858.
My dear G,
1 send you a few things for publication. Please
to mend old Berkeley's style as much as it admits of
As he says, his education finished at eleven, and he
has not made much progress since.
The people here are all raad for coursing, and the
courtyard is full of squires and greyhounds.

302 POWER OF THE TIMES [chap.vhi
I left Edinburgh yesterday in a storm of snow,
and the hills here are covered with that detestable
material. Everybody says the winter has set in with
unusual ferocity in the Highlands, and I don't there
fore regret having turned back.
I shall be in town either to-morrow or Thursday.
Ever yours, J. T. D.
The ill-advised visit which Palmerston paid to
Corapiegne in the autumn caUed forth an amusing
letter from Delane to Bernal Osborne, who begged
to be allowed to retain for his collection of auto
graphs the original comraunication frora Palraerston
referred to. That frora Lord Clarendon appears to
be lost. Palmerston's own explanation of his conduct
is a document of historical value, as showing the
enormous political power of The Times and its editor
at this epoch :
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane 94, Piccadilly,
November lo, ,858.
My dear Sir, —
I am told that you disapprove of the visit of
Clarendon and myself to the Eraperor at Compifegne,
but it seemed to us impolite to avoid going thither.
The invitation was not sought for by us, and was
to both of us very unwelcome. As for myself, I
was comfortably settled at Broadlands, greatly en
joying the amusements, pursuits, and interesting
occupations belonging to a country residence, free
from the incessant interruptions by messengers and
red boxes which for some years past have everywhere
haunted rae, and there is nothing which I less desired
than to cross the Channel and leave home.
Moreover, I well know that the Emperor is much
out of favour at present with the Liberal party, and
that they will be far from well pleased at seeing us go
to him.
But then we felt that to refuse the invitation without

,858] PALMERSTON AT COMPIIGNE 303
some good and acceptable reason would be an incivility
almost amounting to an affront. But good reasons we
had none to give, except the true ones, which would have
been anything but well taken. To tell a Sovereign that it
was a bore to leave one's home to accept his hospitalities
would be a rudeness not sanctioned by established
usage ; and to tell a Sovereign whom we wish to have
as an ally that public men in England are afraid of
going near him because he is so hated by the British
nation, that anybody who accepts his invitation will
fall under the ban of public censure, would not be a
very good way of securing a good understanding
between the two countries. If either Clarendon or
I had been tied by the legs by gout, that would have
been a sufficient excuse, but we are both known to be
just now remarkably well. We therefore decided that
it was better that we should face any additional abuse
which our going might bring on us personally than
run the risk of producing upon the Emperor's mind
an impression which would be injurious to the interests
of this country, by souring the feelings of the Eraperor,
and by greatly cooling down that personal goodwill
which he now entertains for Clarendon and myself,
and the maintenance of which is far from unimportant
in its bearings upon the rautual relations of the two
countries. We may, moreover, have opportunities of
speaking to the Emperor about some things with even
more freedom than if we were in office, and 1 cannot but
think that what both Clarendon and I urged upon him
when last we saw hira may have led in some degree
to the abandonment of the African slave trade opera
tions, announced in his letter to Prince Jerome. But
this is a matter of the utmost delicacy, and to speak of
it would defeat our purpose. When a right course is
taken it ought to be allowed to appear entirely
spontaneous. Yours faithfully, Palmerston.
It wiU be seen that in his letter to Bernal Osborne
Delane enters into a somewhat detaUed review of
the new Governraent, and contrasts the holders of
the principal offices not unfavourably with their pre
decessors.

304 DELANE VIEWS ON COMPIEGNE [chap, vm
J. T. Delane to Bernal Osborne Serjeants' Inn,
November 25, ,858.
My dear Osborne,
I am most sincerely glad to hear that you are
safe out of the fangs of inflararaation, and that three
surgeons can write in so cheery a tone. I have no
news half so pleasant to send you. The Rothschilds
indeed are well and jolly. . . .
Lionel has been a month in Paris with C. Villiers,
Anthony is in full bloom as High Sheriff of Bucks and
Consul-General of Austria, and Meyer rejoices as
before in North Lincoln. They have a large party
at Mentraore to-day to meet Disraeli. Your friend
Lady Molesworth came back at the beginning of the
week. Torrington, it is said, is in disgrace. Certainly
he came back long before the Duchess. As to the
suns of our late firmaraent, they are all obscured.
Did any one ever hear of or imagine such folly as
the visit of Palmerston and Clarendon to Corapiegne ?
Not that it now makes much difference to either, but
because people see that they need not bolt the door
against their return. I enclose, in confidence, Palmer
ston's excuse for himself Clarendon's is much to
the same effect — if possible, still more lame. 1 think
you may safely recant your allegiance to both these
luminaries. No star shines very bright above the
horizon, but these two seem to have hopelessly set.
Your old leader, Lord John, is well and fat. He
has drawn large houses in the provinces, but I doubt
if he has added much to his permanent capital. He
had better leave such business to Dicky Milnes — who,
by the bye, has just called in the full gloss of his
mourning — it makes him look quite slim and clean.
In the raeantirae, except for the Ionian scrape, the
Governraent has certainly not done ill. Everybody
who has anything to do with thera says that the worst
of all the departments is very well and quietly done.
Panmure is not regretted at the War Ofifice, nor, strange
to say, Charles Wood at the Admiralty. Malmesbury
is, at least, not worse than Clarendon, nor Walpole
than that god of Whig idolatry. Sir George Grey.
As to Dizzy, the revenue has been so productive as
to bring him home in his very speculative finance, and
1 don't hear of his making any blunders. Indeed, the

,858] PALMERSTON, DELANE, NAPOLEON 305
only great foUy 1 have heard of is on the part of that old
goose Salisbury, who has managed to give the Catholics
a grievance with respect to their schools, of which he is
not soon likely to hear the last. Ellice (Ursa) dined
here with Lowe yesterday. He is wonderfully well
and fresh, notwithstanding a dreadful voyage horae.
He met those furious easterly gales, and they had
even to burn the coops and spars to keep up the
steam. Have you any news of Lismore ? London
looks delightfully sloppy, but is full of people and as
pleasant as usual. When do you come ? . I shall
write Mrs. Osborne a letter of her own, so 1 will now
only send my most kind regards to her and the young
ladies, who are, I hope, becoming famous horsewomen.
Ever yours,
John T. Delane.
Towards the close of the year Palmerston wrote
to suggest the adoption of a less hostile tone towards
the French Emperor, but within a month of the
date of his letter, Europe was startled by the partial
disclosure of yet another of Louis Napoleon's
ambitious schemes. His high-handed attitude towards
Austria had been determined upon in conjunction
with Cavour, who saw an opportunity of furthering
his own designs for the aggrandisement of Sardinia
by means of a temporary alliance with France.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane 94, Piccadilly,
December 5, 1858.
My dear Sir,
1 am sure you will take in good part what I
wish to say, whether you may agree with me or not.
I quite concur in the reasoning of vpur article to-day
about the proper functions of a free Press ; but I would
suggest for your consideration whether it might not
be good to slacken The Times' fire against the Emperor
of the French. The continuance of attacks wiU not
dethrone him, and there would be no advantage to
England in doing so, even if it were possible. But
VOL. I 20

306 A GOOD INDIAN STORY [chap, vm
constant attacks irritate and create resentment, and
it seems undesirable to excite those feelings in the
mind of the man upon whose will the relations between
England and France in some measure depend, and
who is one of the few men in France who really,
for any reason whatever, has a friendly disposition
towards us.
Of course, I do not mean to suggest the cessation
of criticisra ; but might not just criticisra be equally
effectual with less of personal asperity of tone ?
' Yours sincerely, Palmerston.
Pray do not answer this.
Early in 1859 Delane decided to recall W. H. Russell
frora India. At the end of January he was still with
Lord Clyde, and in one of his last letters from Lucknow
he tells a delightful story which he heard from the
Commander-in-Chief Alluding to his landlord at
Allahabad, Lord Clyde said, " You doubtless heard
what he did ?" " No." "WeU, he was much in debt
to native merchants when the Mutiny broke out.
He was appointed special commissioner, and the
first thing he did was to hang all his creditors."
The idea of a general merchant who used to suspend
payment now and then, and finally suspended his
creditors, recalls to our mind a story of the old
revolutionary days in Paris, when all the fashionable
tailors were unaccountably shot !
The year opened inauspiciously for the preservation
of European peace. An announcement made by
Louis Napoleon on New Year's Day of hostile
intentions towards Austria was part of a pre
arranged scheme with Cavour, by which the Austrians
were to be driven out of the Duchies, and the kingdom
of Sardinia placed at the head of the moveraent for
Italian unity so dear to the Minister's heart.
Frora force of habit English politicians professed

,859] FRANCE, AUSTRIA, AND ITALY 307
to see signs of a secret understanding between France
and Russia, though this impression was not shared by
Delane. On the contrary, he openly stated that he
believed this supposition to be erroneous. On this
occasion there was no such understanding between St.
Petersburg and Paris. Russia, engrossed with a revolu
tionary movement at home, dreaded anything which
would disturb the peace of Europe anew, and while
not averse on principle to the emancipation of Italy,
she was resolutely opposed to the aggrandisement
of France. For these reasons her diplomatic action
was confined to an attempt to keep Austria in the
right. Lord Malmesbury, who was better acquainted
than any other English Minister on the Tory side
with the rapid workings of Louis Napoleon's mind,
told Delane that in his opinion the Emperor was
not seriously contemplating the annexation of any
portion of Northern Italy to his dominions.
Had Lombardy and Venice been in the place of
Sardinia he might have entertained such visions, but
to establish a domination over a State so vigorous
and so free as Piedmont was obviously a task beyond
his powers.
Whilst his tortuous ambition might be gratified
by a Murat superseding Bomba at Naples, it was the
condition of the Papal states, as well as the question
of the Duchies, which gave him a pretext for picking a
quarrel with Austria.
Professing himself ready to withdraw his troops
from Rome if Austria would only do the same, or
at least fix a term for the evacuation, he desired
that the interval should be employed in urging the
Pope to introduce such reforms as would render
the presence of foreign troops unnecessary to the
maintenance of his authority. But Austria did not

3o8 FUTILE NEGOTIATIONS [chap, vm
act on this occasion with quite her usual sagacity.
Violent counsels prevailed at Vienna, and by taking
the initiative she unwisely provided the real authors
of the war with a technical justification of their policy.
Pray raake everybody who writes on the Italian
subject keep in view the necessity of our taking
no share in the raess. We shall be involved in it
before the war has lasted twelve months, but we
shall then have a better chance of taking our proper
side than if we rushed into it now.
So wrote Delane to Dasent on January 13.
Louis Napoleon, who was almost as fond of con
ferences which were never intended to meet as Lord
John Russell was of Reform Bills which were never
meant to pass, proposed to refer the quarrel to the
arbitration of Europe, and then arose fresh complica
tion. Sardinia, backed up by the English Govern
ment, made answer that she would only disarra on
an equality of time and circurastances with the larger
Powers. Lord Malraesbury, in a letter to Delane, brings the
record of the negotiations for the abortive conference
down to April 1 5 :
The position is this. Austria long and stubbornly
insisted on the disarmament of Sardinia previously to
our going into congress, and this we refused to ask
her to do. . . . After endless trouble Austria agreed
to disarm at once, and before going into congress, if
France and Sardinia would do the same. Nothing
could be fairer and raore practical, but France, then
having consented to disarm as well as Austria, now
turns round and states that she had no idea that
Sardinia was included in the disarmaraent, and will
not invite her by herself or collectively with us to
disarm. Such is now the hitch, and you see who at
the present moment have put themselves completely
in the wrong.' ' Lord Malmesbury to Delane, April 15, 1859.

,859] NAPOLEON III. AND ITALY 309
Louis Napoleon's object was to gain time, but
ultimately, much to Cavour's disappointment, he
affected to agree in the principle of general
disarmament. But it was now Austria's turn to make difficulties,
and by ignoring Lord Malmesbury's proposals she
soon turned Cavour's attitude of despair into one
of exultation at the prospect of the early liberation
of Italy by force of arms. Azeglio, the Sardinian
envoy to Great Britain, whose acquaintance Delane
had long enjoyed, communicated to him on April 23
(the day of the dissolution of Parhament) ' an im
portant message which he had just received from
Cavour. Turin,
23 Avril, %\ heures.
La somraation Autrichienne est arrivee a I'instant.
Elle est congue en termes menagants et annonce que
si la reponse n'est pas satisfaisante I'Autriche aura
immediatement recours aux armes. Les pleins pouvoirs
au Roi ont ete votes par la Chambre des Deputes a
une grande majorite. Le pays est calme et decide.
Cavour.
Palmerston's shrewd comment, when Delane told
him the news which Azeglio had brought him, was,
" This seems to show that Austria has thrown away
the scabbard. The result may prove that she has also
thrown away her Italian provinces." His sympathies
with Cavour and the cause of Italian unity were well
known, but Delane was of opinion that by many of
his public utterances at this time, and also by the
fulsome praise which had been bestowed upon the
Emperor of the French by a section of the English
Press, though not by The Times, Louis Napoleon
' Lord Derby's Ministry had been defeated by thirty-nine votes on
the second reading of Disraeli's Reform Bill on March 31.

310 DELANE ON NAPOLEON III [chap.vhi
had received direct encouragement to engage upon
this war to further his own unworthy ends.
To the late Mr. Richard Potter, a Lancashire
gentleman, who wrote to him venturing to suggest
that The Times was not in accord with popular
sentiment in its estimate of the character and aims
of the Emperor, Delane sent the following closely
reasoned reply :
J. T. Delane to Richard Potter
Printing House Square,
May 6, 1859.
The editor of The Times presents his compliments
to Mr. Potter, and begs to thank him for his suggestions.
The editor, however, ventures to think that so far
from his tone respecting the Eraperor Napoleon being
unpatriotic or likely to produce ill-effects, a sirailar
tone on the part of the Ministers of the Crown, past as
well as present,would have prevented the Emperor from
engaging in the war which now threatens to desolate
the Italian Peninsula and to extend over the best part
of Europe. He believes that the base adulation of the
Emperor by all classes in this country — from the Court
to the Comraon Council — has, much more than any
other cause, led the Emperor to indulge the passion
for foreign war which is the tradition of his family,
and that had he been met by strong remonstrances
instead of weak entreaties, even so late as a month
since, he might have been turned frora his purpose.
The editor believes that nothing is gained by a
nation shutting its eyes to the dangers which threaten
it, and that the besetting fault of England is over-
confidence in itself, in its ruler, in its allies, in the fair
dealings which it desires to practise and which it
expects from others. He does not believe it is possible
to deceive Louis Napoleon by affecting a confidence in
him which it is impossible any longer to feel, and which
the preparations in our dockyards would belie, and he
therefore thinks it desirable the nation should know
the whole truth as to its danger while there is yet
abundant tirae for our arraaraents and no excuse for
panic.

,859] DELANE AND POTTER 311
The editor has written this letter to Mr. Potter
in entire reliance upon his character as a gentleman,
and begs that it may be considered a private com
munication from himself to Mr. Potter, and to no
one else.
To Mr. Potter's credit, it should be added that in
a further communication to the editor he wrote that,
"remembering a disclosure made by Mr. Carlyle in
his Life of Sterling of a letter written by the late
Sir Robert Peel, and found among the Thunderer's
papers, I make secrecy safe by returning your letter,
and thanking you heartily for it."
The above is therefore a transcript of Delane's
original letter. Had it not been honourably returned
by Mr. Potter, it could not have been included in these
pages, as the writer kept no copy of this interesting
vindication of his attitude towards Louis Napoleon.
Mr. Potter also naively remarked, in the course of
a very long letter, that he had " had the opportunity
recently of spending a week with Lord John Russell
at CornewaU Lewis's, and in the course of constant
daily intercourse and family life I was amazed at the
total difference of tone in the real estimate which Lord
John and CornewaU Lewis formed in their innerraost
convictions of the character and projects of Louis
Napoleon as corapared with their public declarations
and the sentiments which they addressed to the country.
Though a member of the Liberal party, I must say
that no public man on our side has spoken with
so much truth and sound instinct as Disraeli, and
if The Morning Post of yesterday and to-day repre
sents correctly the views of Lord Palmerston upon
foreign politics, I would rather see Lord Malmesbury
at the Foreign Office."
The appointment of Persigny as Ambassador to

312 AUSTRIAN BLUNDERS [chap.vhi
England was considered by both Delane and
Palmerston to be a pledge that the Eraperor meant
to adhere to the English alliance.
I am not so sure that we shall be gainers by the
substitution of Drouyn de Lhuys for Walewski, but
the Emperor will remain his own Foreign Minister
with the one as with the other.'
It is outside the scope of this work to trace in detail
the success of the French arms from Montebello to
Solferino, and the hasty peace proposals of Villa-
franca ; but at the very beginning of the war
Delane pointed out the blunders which the Austrians
committed in departing frora their original position
of injured innocence by becoming aggressors, and
in placing themselves in a military position from
which they would inevitably have to retire with
discredit, whether of their own accord or by com
pulsion after defeat.
A great deal of unnecessary importance has been
attached to an entry in Greville's Diary relating to
Delane's action at the time of Lord Granville's unsuc
cessful attempt to form an Administration after the
defeat of Lord Derby's Cabinet. The leading article in
The Times of June 13 reproduced substantially the
details ofthe conversation which took place between the
Queen and Lord Granville on the occasion referred to.
The article was not based — as has been assumed by more
than one writer upon the political events of the period
—upon a conversation between Lord Granville and
Delane, but upon a letter which the forraer wrote
to the editor of The Times after his return from
Buckingham Palace.
A reference to this letter, perhaps one of the most
interesting which Delane ever received, shows that
' Palmerston to Delane, May 7, 1859.

,859] LORD GRANVILLE AND DELANE 313
if any indiscretion was committed the fault lay not
with him but with his distinguished correspondent :
Lord Granville to J. T. Delane Bruton Street,
fune 12, 1859.
My dear Delane,
The Queen sent for me yesterday at four o'clock,
and after hearing all the objections 1 had to make,
commanded me to attempt to form a strong and com
prehensive Administration. " Her Majesty s thoughts
had first been directed to Lord Palmerston and Lord
John, who had both served her long and faithfully;
but it was a painful and invidious task to make her
selection between the two, and as both represented
different sections of the Liberal party, the leader of
the Liberal party in the Lords, in whora both the two
lords had been in the habit of placing confidence, might
have greater facilities in combining the whole Liberal
party." I went first to Lord Palmerston, who con
sented in the handsomest manner, and without
hesitation, to act under me. 1 secured the adhesion
of the men most necessary to form the nucleus of
a strong Liberal Government ; I at first feared that
Lord John's conditions would make his union with
Palmerston impossible, with or without me. After
a second communication with Lord John, I found that
I should be an obstacle to the union instead of a
facility, and that an arrangement was possible if one
of the lords was sent for. I immediately informed
the Queen that such being the case, 1 should be acting
contrary to Her Majesty's interests if I continued my
attempt to perform the task which she had so unex-
Sectedly and so graciously imposed upon me. The
!ueen then sent for Palmerston, who will have no
difficulty in forming a Government which will save
us from the enormous disgrace of failure, after the
vote of Friday.
If you make any use of this information, pray wrap
it up — as you know how to do — and do not, please,
say anything uncivil about Lord John, who, although
he wavered and gave false reasons, acted in a manner
of which in general we have no right to complain. Yours, G.

314 PALMERSTON IN OFFICE [chap.vhi
That the writer intended that Delane should make
any use of the letter which he thought fit is apparent,
not only from the last paragraph, but from its not
being even marked " private." Greville adds, on
June 27, that Lord Clarendon was able to convince
Her Majesty that the article in The Times had, in fact,
been eminently serviceable to her, inasrauch as it
negatived any suspicion of intrigue or underhand
dealing in any quarter, while representing her own
conduct in such a raanner as to excite universal
approbation. Lord Granville having failed to induce Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell to serve under
him, the Queen once more sent for the more con
servative of the two Liberal leaders. And this time
his appointment as first Minister of the Crown,
at the ripe age of seventy-five, was for life. His
avowed sympathies with Italy and Lord John's
thinly disguised hostility to Austria were unpalatable
to the Court, and some wit — it was, we believe.
Lord Torrington — gave them the nickname of the
" old Italian masters."
Having recently dealt at some length with the
incidents of a ministerial crisis, we shall not make
any considerable extracts from Delane's correspon
dence on the occasion of Lord Palmerston's return to
office. The foUowing letter from Lord Clarendon
deserves, however, to be included, if only for the sake
of the final paragraph :
Lord Clarendon to J. T. Delane
Grosvenor Crescent,
June 13, 1859.
My dear Delane,
Palmerston, before he coraraunicated with Lord
John, insisted upon my returning to the Foreign
Ofifice, and I agreed to do so, thoiigh not willingly,

,859] MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS 315
first, because I have no liking for ofifice and have had
enough of it, and secondly, because 1 doubted whether
it would be a popular appointment, as during the last
year a run has been made at Palmerston for his foreign
policy, not by his opponents only, but by his former
supporters, who sought to justify their desertion of
him, and I have been treated as his unworthy agent,
etc., etc. 1 was ready, however, to place such know
ledge and experience as 1 might have acquired during
five years at the service of the public.
Palmerston most properly gave Lord John the
choice of offices, and he claimed the Foreign Office,
which did not surprise me, as he always had a turn
for foreign affairs, and has unbounded confidence in
his own diplomatic talents, and 1 gladly recognised
the superiority of his claims to mine. 1 was pressed
in the most friendly manner by Palmerston and my
former coUeagues to take any other office 1 pleased,
but for that I did not see that there was any necessity,
and as there is a demand for new names 1 felt sure
that I should best consult the public taste by making
way for some one who had not been in Palmerston's
Government. 1 shall, therefore, not sit on the Treasury
Bench, but my support of the Government will be as
active and sincere as if I did.
Whenever, if ever, you write the history of the
formation of the new Cabinet, you will perhaps have
the goodness to notice the above-mentioned facts, as it
is of importance to me that my conduct should not be
misinterpreted, and pray excuse me for troubling you
about it at this busy time. Ever yours truly,
Clarendon.

Two days after Lord Granville's important com
munication to Delane, he wrote : " Derby and Dizzy
wUl hold office during Ascot races, though this will
not prevent the former from going there."
On June 30 Palmerston was inclined to think that
Cobden would accept his offer of a seat in the Cabinet,
whilst Lord Granville, at the same date, was equally
sure that he would refuse.

3i6 COBDEN AND VILLIERS [chap.vhi
Cobden's quite natural desire to retain his indepen
dent position gave Delane an opportunity of urging
the claims of a veteran Free Trader of a very different
stamp upon the attention of the Prime Minister. On
July 5 he was able to announce that —
Lord Palmerston has done a very graceful as well as
a very just act, in offering to Mr. Charles Villiers that
seat in the Cabinet which remained, or rather, which
had become vacant, in consequence of Mr. Cobden's
refusal to join the Administration. Mr. Milner Gibson
is promoted to the actual post which had been reserved
for Mr. Cobden, and now the ofifice which Mr. Gibson
had vacated has been conferred upon Mr. Villiers.
As pointed out by The Times, Charles Pelham
Villiers was practicaUy the originator of the Free
Trade movement. For years before Cobden and
Bright were heard of as politicians, he annually
brought the subject before Parliament. Standing
half-way between Adam Smith and Richard Cobden,
he never got the credit of the philosopher who origi
nated the idea, or the popular leader who manipulated
the masses and eventually forced Peel's hand. Disdain
ing the noisier arts of the agitator, to him it was
mainly due that the settleraent of the question was
carried in an orderly and Parliamentary raanner.
Villiers's hearty letter of thanks to Delane lies before
us as we write, and in it he acknowledges how much
his advancement was due to his good offices. It is
conceivable that Delane was the more anxious to
see him in the new Cabinet since his brother, Lord
Clarendon, was not a member of it.
Warned by the experience of the Crimea, and
holding the great question of the national armaments
to be above all party considerations, Delane continued
to call attention to the urgent necessity which existed

,859] DELANE ON NATIONAL DEFENCES 317
for strengthening our defences by sea and land. Partly
from suspicion of Louis Napoleon and partly from a
fear that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer would
not recognise the gravity of the situation, he published
article after article on the subject, and it is a moot point
whether he or Palmerston was the first to arrive at
the determination that a large sum must forthwith be
spent on the protection of our naval and military
ports if England was to be rendered secure against
attack. We seem to see the earliest germ of the Portsdown
Hill and Spithead defences in a letter which Delane
received from Palmerston shortly before his return to
office :
1 do not share the belief that the French Emperor
meditates an attack upon England. I do believe,
however, that an attack upon England, if attended
with any measure of success, would rejoice the heart
of every Frenchman ; and 1 fear it must be admitted
that in the present relative state of naval and military
armament of England and France, the French might
successfully strike a blow by no means agreeable to us.'
The conclusion which Palmerston drew frora
this state of things was that until French raeans of
aggression and English means of defence were more
nearly equalised by the lessening of the first and the
strengthening of the second, no national advantage
was to be gained by irritating and provoking the man
upon whose single passions and will the relations of
France with England depended.
It will be necessary, when we corae to treat of i860,
to refer more fully to this important subject and to
the share which Delane had in placing the country
in a state of security, but we may mention that
' Palmerston to Delane, March 2, 1859.

3i8 A GREAT FRENCH EFFORT [cHAP.vm
Lord Malmesbury, on vacating the Foreign Office,
wrote to assure him of his belief that Gladstone was
contemplating drastic reductions on the Navy votes :
This is no party question, and you have always
treated it as it deserves. In ray opinion, and 1 speak
advisedly, no greater treason could be purposely
planned than this ignorant and pedantic mistake. The
French Emperor put four more liners in commission
last week. . . . Here is a man who in six weeks has
sent an army, admirably equipped, of 170,000 raen, 300
field pieces, and 200 siege guns, frora France to Milan,
and 50 large men-of-war to the Adriatic. His uncle
never perforraed such a feat of adrainistrative and
physical power. If the Press and the House of
Commons allow these colossal facts to be met by a
magnificent oration and a commonplace Budget, their
vocation will be gone before three years arrive. We
have put a large fleet in coraraission, for I never let
my colleagues alone till it was done, but it takes a
year before the crews are in fighting order, and even
now the French have raore frigates than England.'
While Delane, with all his military ardour, could
not go so far as to support his old friend Lord Lynd
hurst in advocating an army of 100,000 regular troops
and embodied militia, combined with 100,000 dis
embodied, but trained, militia, he wrote in The Times
on July 6:
We indeed, above all others, have laboured in the
sense in which Lords Lyndhurst, Stratford, and
Brougham yesterday addressed the House. Ever
since the French Emperor gave the first signs of
abandoning the alliance of the EngUsh people, we
have lost no opportunity of recomraending defensive
preparations. We are proud to believe that alraost everything that
has been done in England in the way of defence for
the last few years has been in a high degree owing
to the advocacy of this journal. Nor have we been
' Lord Malmesbury to Delane, June 21, 1859.

,859] DELANE ON INCREASE OF NAVY 319
behindhand in exposing the demerits of the French
Emperor, whom we thought, and still think to be, a
suspicious friend and a most dangerous enemy. But
does the Government make the best use of what is
voted for the national defences ?
He went on to insist upon an increase of the number
of men borne in the Navy, and the formation of an
effective reserve, pointing out that while the Navy
estimates had risen between 1852 and 1859 from under
six to over twelve millions, the great bulk of that
difference was spent in ships and coals, yet we had
only an available force of seamen amounting to 50,000.
In 1859, while there were 358 captains on the active
list, there were only ships enough for 100. " We know
very well where to put our hands upon the captains ;
but where are the men ? " he said. In the old days of
the press-gang England had 140,000 seamen borne on
the books. They were drafted to sea as they were
wanted, and flogged into sailors. That possibility
being gone, it became necessary to find a substitute.
There is nothing left but persuasion in the shape
of hard cash. For a miUion of money we might have
a reserve force of 50,000 sailors, who could not be
matched throughout the world.'
At the end of September Delane went to Italy to
visit the late theatre of war, writing, amongst others,
the following letters to Dasent during his travels :
J. T. Delane to G. W. Dasent Turin,
Thursday, September 29, 1859.
My dear G.,
We got here on Tuesday morning after a very
pleasant run across France, doing the whole distance
from Calais to Chambery, which has twice cost me
' The Times leading article, September 8, 1859.

320 TURIN [chap, vhi
seven days, in rather less than twenty-four hours.
It took just the same time to cover the hundred
miles between Chambery and Turin.
This place is as handsome and as dull as before — a
kind of Italian Brussels ; you fancy at first that it
would be a delightful place to live in, but are soon
undeceived by the total absence of life in it. 1 believe
it was excited to a kind of spasmodic activity during
the early part of the war, but that has long subsided,
and what people there were have gone into the country,
either to retirement or to get in their vintage, so that
there is very little doing. It is the same in their
politics : having conceived the grand design of becoming
the head of Italy, and being enabled by a variety of
most favourable circumstances to almost effect it, the
Governraent seeras now to have repented of its
design, and to have become indifferent just as it had
attained success. The fact is that, having turned
out Cavour, they then "set the cat to keep the
cream " — they appointed a retrograde Ministry to
carry out the grand design which was Cavour's alone,
and with Lombardy secured by treaty and the Duchies
praying to be annexed not a step has been taken to
secure possession. 1 am assured that there is not
yet a single Piedmontese soldier in all Lombardy,
and Piacenza, almost in sight of Alessandria, and
a standing menace so long as the Austrians hold
it, is only held by the National Guard of the place.
Of course no troops have been sent into the Duchies,
and so the whole territory seems likely to go by
default to Plon-Plon. Piedmont is indeed only a
small country, and though Cavour enabled it to
play a very large part, his grand ideas of merging
Piedmont in a great Italian kingdom have only had
a very imperfect echo in the minds of the Piedmontese,
who would much rather make all Italy Sardinian than
become themselves Italians. The present Govern
ment is the representative of this idea; it looks on
the late events as so far fortunate, as that they have
added Lombardy to Piedmont and made room for so
many more Piedmontese. They would like very well
to have all Central Italy on the same terms, but object
entirely to being swamped in it. In the meantime
they see with no little disgust the return of all the
rich Lombard exiles to Milan and the general tendency

,859] DELANE IN ITALY 321
to return to that pleasant capital. So that as long as
power remains in their hands it is not likely that
much wUl be done towards the union of Italy.
1 went to Genoa yesterday, and found the port still
crammed full with French transports and commissariat
stores, the place as gay and beautiful as ever, and a
freat contrast in its activity and movement to Turin.
go to Milan by way of Magenta to-morrow, and shall
probably make it my headquarters for a week or so —
the centre of trips to Solferino, Malegnano, etc., and
then go to Florence. The weather is magnificent —
as hot as we had it in London last July, and in Genoa
yesterday almost too hot even for me. 1 hope it has
rained steadily in both Scotland and Ireland, so as to
excuse me for coming here. Of course I know nothing
of what has happened at home, for our last paper here
is of Friday — the day 1 left.
Pray keep Chenery from quarrelling with Napoleon.
That vein is exhausted, and we had better not reopen
it. Eber is very agreeable ; Galton leaves us to-day ;
Cooke has not yet been heard of
Good-bye. Ever yours, J. T. D.
Please write to Milan, and send any letters worth
the postage ; but write at once. Milan,
Sunday, October 2, 1859.
My dear G.,
I find I was misinformed as to there being no
Piedmontese troops in Lombardy. There is one strong
brigade here and a good many cavalry. In fact the
place swarms with soldiers. In one street to-day
Galton and I counted fifteen uniforms to three civilians,
and though that is a large proportion, at least half the
outdoor population are always soldiers. It was the
same at La Scala last night. However, they are all
extremely well behaved, and I believe a single British
regiment in a foreign town would commit more
excesses than this whole army.
Since 1 wrote last I have been to Magenta, and I
am only waiting for Cooke to make a trip to the
lakes, Solferino, etc. In the meantime I am very
idle and comfortable, busy only in learning Itahan
VOL. I 21

322 ANVITI AFFAIR [chap.vhi
and dawdling about the galleries, and in the evening
riding one of Eber's horses in the Corso. La Scala
opened last night, and was very splendid indeed — far
ahead of Gye. If Cooke does not come, I shall go
about Wednesday to Genoa on my way to Florence,
and then either to Rome and Naples or back again.
Pray write to Florence. Ever yours, J. T. D.
Naples,
Thursday, October 2^, 1859.
My dear G.,
I arrived here on Monday last from Rome, by
way of Civita, and 1 am afraid exhausted all my luck
in a smooth and pleasant passage, for it came on to
blow very hard last night, and the usually decorous
sea is now almost running into the windows of the
room at which I am writing. I have taken my passage
direct for Marseilles by the Pausilippe, which sails on
Saturday, and I hope by that time the weather will
have improved. In due course I should be in Mar
seilles on Monday afternoon, and in Paris on Tuesday
night, so that I am pretty sure to be in London on
Thursday, even if I do miss a train or two.
I raade Wreford's acquaintance yesterday, and went
to Vesuvius with hira. He reminds me very much of
Romaine, but he has in conversation the same fixed
ideas which pervade his correspondence. You may
be sure that I have endeavoured to enlarge his scope
of view and to suggest new topics.
I am very glad you took so moderate and reasonable
a view of the Anviti affair at Parma. All those poor
people in the Duchies are in a state of chronic funk lest
the old dynasty should be restored, which is sure to
produce atrocities unless it is soon appeased. They
know they have no raercy to expect from either
Bourbon or Austrian, and had but too rauch reason
to suspect that Anviti was " after no good." Of course
it was neither wise nor just to kill hira in such a raanner,
but there were raany old scores to arrange, and it was
very rash of him to give them a chance. It is a
lamentable outrage only because it brings discredit
on a cause hitherto unstained ; as regards the victim
it is no subject for regret.

i859] DELANE ON ITALY 323
Of course I have been to Pompeii, to the Museo
Borbonico, to Castellamare, etc. ; but you don't want
me to write of such things. My chief interest at
present is in the raging, foaming monster which
meets my eyes whenever 1 look up.
1 have had no letters or papers either at Rome or
here, and have heard from nobody but you ever since
1 started, so I don't thank anybody else.
Good-bye. Ever yours, J. T. D.
Mosquitoes ferocious, especially since the storm.
Friday. — I open this to say that the weather is
worse than ever, and unless it moderates 1 shall come
by land. Indeed, I doubt if any boat here would face
the sea. I shall try to go by Rome and Ancona and
Trieste.

On his way home he halted in Paris in order to
admonish his correspondent there, as he was not at all
satisfied with the tone of some of his recent letters
to the paper.
Writing to Dasent from Ascot Heath on November i
he said :
1 don't think the terras mentioned in the Emperor's
letter will satisfy Italy, unless they are plainly under
stood to be merely ad interim. I don't believe Tuscany
wUl take back the Grand Duke or the Romagna accept
the Pope, however disguised. The terms are, how
ever, much better than those of Villafranca, for
Piedmont gets Parma and Piacenza, and the plain
absurdity of leaving Peschiera and Mantua in the
hands of Austria is averted. The difficulty in Tuscany
is that the Grand Duke has made himself so con
temptible that nobody would be content to serve him.
As to the Pope,' to restore hira means to restore the
priests and their government, and it is this the people
object to. The poor old man hiraself is inoffensive
enough. ' Pio Nono.

324 DISTRUST OF FRANCE [chap.vhi
As the year drew to its close Palmerston became
more and more suspicious of the Emperor. Writing
from Broadlands on November 5, he said:
I must own that it looks as if those who direct
the policy of France were banking up their fires in
order to be ready to start against us. . . . The con
clusion I come to is, that the English Government
ought to accept as if seriously tendered every assurance
of deterraination to raaintain the Anglo-French alliance,
and at the same time to push on our own defensive
preparations just as if we believed those assurances
were given only to lull us into a false security.
On December 14 Delane began to prepare the public
mind for the heavy expenditure which Parliament
would be called upon to sanction in the coming session
to render the dockyards secure. Whilst approving
the principle, he demurred to the raising of the whole
ten millions at once. Rather than adopt the course
recommended by the Commission on Fortifications
he desired to extend the payment over a term of
years. " The works," he wrote, " cannot with any
reasonable prospect of solidity or economy be com
plete in less than five years, and if only the ten
millions of the Coraraission's estimate be required, this
will give only two millions a year — a sum which a
nation so rich and prosperous as our own ought not
to grudge for defences which it considers to be
necessary to its safety."
But if in agreement with the Prime Minister on
the essential points of his defence scheme, Delane
differed from him entirely as to the merits of M. de
Lesseps's project for uniting the East and West by
means of the Suez Canal.
It is interesting to observe that, in an article pub
lished in The Times of December 16, Delane predicted

,859] DELANE FAVOURS SUEZ CANAL 325
that if the Canal should ever be made — which at the
time seemed highly probleraatical — it would, so far
from doing England any harm, be of advantage to
this country.
It will be so far a British canal that it will be
traversed by British ships, devoted to British traffic,
and maintained by British tolls. We are justified
as a nation in looking out for the best and safest
highway to the East, for the finest realm of the East
pertains to the British Crown. If the Suez Canal
should ever become a reality, it would be for our
benefit and not for our disadvantage.
These prophetic words were written at a time when
the French were openly proclaiming their belief that
the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez would prove
to be "the defect in the British cuirass." On this
Delane remarked : " We only wish our ' cuirass ' had
no weaker point than this, for in that case we should
not be looking about just now for ten millions of
money to be spent on our home defences." He held
the opinion that the French, by indulging in such
wild talk, misconceived the sources of commercial
and maritime supremacy. " If they were," he wrote,
"to pierce every isthmus and neutralise every sea
they would not affect results which depend on national
qualities alone."
Delane's foresight in approving the construction
of the Canal, so abundantly justified in the years
which have intervened since the commencement of
M. de Lesseps's great undertaking, called forth the
longest letter which he ever received from Palraerston.
We may remark that in this beautifully written docu
ment of nearly seven quarto pages there is not an
erasure, a verbal alteration, or even a blot.
It was Palmerston's habit, even in his old age, to

326 THE SUEZ CANAL PROJECT [chap.vhi
write all his letters standing at a high desk. This
interesting piece of furniture is still preserved in the
sunny library which he built at Broadlands overlook
ing the River Test. Asked by a friend why he adopted
this singular mode of conducting his correspondence,
he replied : " I have so many letters to write in the
course of my day's work that if I was once to sit
down I should fall asleep ! " Delane wrote all his
letters, invariably using a quill pen, at a small daven
port, now in the possession of the present writer, and
his inkstand was formed out of the hoof of one of his
favourite horses, set in silver.
Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane 94, Piccadilly,
December l6, 1859.
I was sorry to read The Times article to-day
in favour of the Lesseps scheme of the Suez Canal,
which has been truly described by Girardin as founded
in political hostility to England. The attack on our
interests is twofold — first as regards Egypt, next as
regards India. It has been deemed by all English
statesmen that the possession of Egypt by France
would be injurious to England, and the like opinion
has always been entertained by French rulers, from
the First Napoleon to the Third. The French, there
fore, have always tried to separate Egypt from Turkey,
as a first step towards making it French. We, on the
contrary, have always endeavoured to maintain the
connection of Egypt with Turkey, in order to prevent
Egypt from becoming French. The French have long
laboured to place Egypt in a condition of independence
of Turkey. The Mediterranean coast of Egypt has
been industriously fortified according to plans framed
in the new War Department at Paris, executed by
General Gallois (Gallois Bey), and partly paid for
by French money in Louis Philippe's time. These
works would mount from three to four hundred guns,
and would make a landing very difificult. The road
to Alexandria by Cairo frora the Red Sea, by which

,859] PALMERSTON ON SUEZ CANAL 327
some of our troops came from India in 1801, has been
closed by a military work erected under the modest
name of " a barrage for agricultural purposes." The
road from Syria by the coast remains open, and one
object of the Suez Canal, which would be accomplished
even if the canal was as a passage impracticable, is to
cut a deep and wide trench from the Mediterranean
into the desert, to stop the march of an army from
Syria. A canal three hundred feet wide and thirty feet
deep, with batteries on the Egyptian side, would be
an impassable barrier to a Turkish force coming to
re-establish Turkish authority in Egypt, and if this cut
were only carried far enough into the country to cut
off all practicable route for an array, the rasha of
Egypt for the time being would only have to choose
his own time for throwing off all connection with the
Sultan. Then comes in French influence. Part of the
scheme is an extensive grant of land in Egypt for Mr.
Lesseps's company, a wide district on each side of the
canal and a large district at right angles to the canal
from the canal to the Nile — a French colony in the
heart of Egypt. It requires no great sagacity to see
how in many ways this would lead to constant inter
ference by the French Government ; and this con
sideration has opened the eyes of the Pasha and made
him adverse to the scheme. All these evils to us
would be completed even though the canal should
prove physically impracticable.
But if the canal could be made, it would open to the
French in the event of war a short cut to India, while
we should be obliged to go round the Cape. The first
thing the French would do would be to send a force
from Toulon or Algeria to seize the canal. An expedi
tion, naval and military, would steam away through the
canal to India, sweep our coraraerce, take our colonies,
and perhaps seize and materially injure sorae of our
Indian seaports, long before our reinforcements, naval
and military, could arrive by long sea voyage ; and we
might suffer in this way imraense loss and damage.
As to the comraercial advantage of the canal if raade,
it would be next to nothing. The railway suffices fbr
all purposes, or would do so if better managed. The
Red Sea would not answer for sailing ships and for
steamers ; the navigation would be quite as expensive
as round the Cape.

328 PALMERSTON ON SUEZ CANAL [chap, viii
The wind blows down the Red Sea halfway to Bab-
el-Mandeb during great part of the year; the sea is
narrow for ships to beat up against a wind, and full
of coral reefs.
Then, again, Egypt would lose the profit made from
passengers overland ; and this also the Pasha sees
and feels.
On the whole, the scheme is, as Emile Girardin de
clares, conceived in hostility to the interests and policy
of England. If the canal cannot be made to carry sea
going ships the scheme will lay the foundation for the
severance of Egypt frora Turkey, and for its being
converted into a dependency of France, in furtherance
of the scheme of raaking the Mediterranean a French
lake. If the canal can be made, it will pay no re
munerative interest on the capital invested, but it will
open to the French, whenever they want it, a short cut
to the Indian Seas, to the Mauritius, to Ceylon, to
Australia, to New Zealand, and possibly to Bombay,
or even to Calcutta. For a long time the French
Government promised not to interfere in the matter ;
their schemes of advance policy raay now be more
ripe, and they depart from their former assurances
and give Mr. Lesseps open support. For a long time
he was paid by the Pasha. Charles Murray opened
the eyes of the Pasha, and his money supplies ceased.
The French Government thereupon seem to have
thought that it was necessary for them to step in,
and to take up a scheme which both the Porte and
the Pasha opposed. Yours sincerely, Palmerston.

END OF VOL. I

Printed by Hatill, Watson &• Vine)/, Ld., Landtn and Aylesiury, England.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03747 5986