Lord Palmerston

It was thus he signified his final triumph to his brother,—or intended so to signify it, but quoted the passage wrongly.

There is in this a boyish feeling of the happiness of success. And yet he was seventy years old. We cannot fancy such an expression coming from Lord John or Lord Aberdeen. Though either had felt it, he could not have so written to his brother. Here I am at last,—Prime Minister of England, in spite of all accidents. My old friend, Lord John, turned me out of the Foreign Office the other day. And I was obliged to go at his bidding. And I had a bad quarter of an hour in the House of Commons when, for reasons which are always paramount with an Englishman, I was unable to take my own part. They said I was crushed. “There was a Palmerston.” But when these times of war had come, I was wanted, And now my Lord John is my lieutenant. All that was not loudly expressed in the “volvenda dies en attulit ultro;” but it was understood both by the writer and by his brother. And he goes on: “Here am I, writing to you from Downing Street as First Lord of the Treasury. The fact was, that Aberdeen and Newcastle had become discredited in public estimation as Statesmen equal to the emergency; Derby felt conscious of the incapacity of the greater portion of his party, and their unfitness to govern the country; and John Russell, by the way in which he suddenly abandoned the Government, had so lost caste for the moment that I was the only one of his political friends who was willing to serve under him.” “I think our Government will do very well. I am backed by the general opinion of the whole country, and I have no reason to complain of the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the Court.” Lord Aberdeen had himself done his best to make the matter easy for Lord Palmerston. I quote the following words from the “Life of the Prince Consort” (vol. iii. p. 209);—“Lord Palmerston had good reason to appreciate the generosity with which his old chief had interposed to remove this formidable impediment to his success.” Nor was Her Majesty less grateful; and in her letter, 6th of February, announcing to Lord Aberdeen that Lord Palmerston had just kissed hands upon his appointment as Premier, she told him that she was now relieved from great anxiety and difficulty, and felt that she owed much to Lord Aberdeen’s kind and disinterested assistance. Then he states the terms which he intends to propose to the enemy, and in doing so prophesies the future almost exactly. “We must also ask for the destruction of the works at Sebastopol, although we should not make that a sine quâ non unless we had taken the place and had destroyed the works ourselves.”

A majority of the House of Commons, led by Mr. Roebuck, and with the people of the country to back them, insisted on inquiry, on punishment, on improvement, and increased activity. We still remember how “red tape” and “routine” were in all our mouths. Mail after mail brought home news of increased suffering. Palmerston had become Prime Minister in February, 1855, and it was during the winter then drawing to its close that the sufferings and struggles of the Army had been most intense. Balaclava had been fought in October; the battle of Mount Inkerman in November; the great storm was on the 14th of that month; and, as the winter wore on, tidings of the difficulties of transit from Balaclava to the heights reached us,—and at last the road was made. It was in the middle of all these difficulties that Palmerston had become Prime Minister, and that Mr. Roebuck urged on his committee. Sir James Graham, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Sydney Herbert then retired; but others came in their places, and Lord Palmerston still went on; and during all the misery of the time,—for England was miserable with the sense of failure, or, at least, of performance not perfected,—he never quailed, or expressed any diffidence as to the work to which he had been called. It was the nature of the man not to be diffident, and therefore he succeeded. His courage was coarse and strong and indomitable, like that of a dog. We should say that he never trembled, even when he laid his head upon his pillow, because of the task imposed upon him. He would go on, having England at his back, and did not doubt but that the country would be found standing on its legs when the struggle should come to an end. I do not know that there was any one concerned in the matter whose heart was exactly of the same calibre. It was the very type of health, unadorned,—as also unalloyed,—by romance or high feeling, or poetry, or even sentiment.

In the midst of these things, in the early spring, the Emperor Nicholas died,—died broken-hearted, a victim to his own pride; but the contest went on the same as ever.

A second conference, to which Lord John went on the part of England, was held at Vienna, to arrange, if possible, the terms of peace, and to fix the four principal headings,—the condition of the Principalities, the navigation of the Danube, the power which Russia was to assume, or not to assume, in the Black Sea, and the independence of the Porte. In his operations there Lord John was held by the country to have failed. Indeed, he had never really succeeded in any political effort since the day on which he had ventured to dismiss Lord Palmerston. And yet Lord Palmerston had been true to him. Lord Palmerston had never opposed him since the great blow by which he had turned him out on the Militia Bill. In truth, the people had not been with him, and had ceased to trust him. But to the other man the people had been true throughout. Lord Palmerston had no capability for thought equal to that of which Lord John was the master; but he possessed an instinctive sympathy with the masses which supported him to the end of his days.

The Vienna Conference was broken up, but the war still was carried on, certainly with the most exemplary care on the part of the septuagenarian Prime Minister. He writes as follows to Lord Panmure, the Minister for War;—“This is capital news from the Sea of Azoff, and the extensive destruction of magazines and supplies in the towns attacked must greatly cripple the Russian army in the Crimea. I am very sorry, however, to see so sad an account of the health of the Sardinians, and I strongly recommend you to urge Raglan, by telegraph to-day, to move the Sardinian camp to some other and healthier situation. Such prevalence of disease as the telegraphic message mentions must be the effect of some local cause.” “As the cholera seems to be increasing among the troops, I should advise you to send for the doctor I mentioned.” “We are 40,000 men short of the number voted by Parliament, and we shall be without the shadow of an excuse if we do not resort to every possible means and every possible quarter to complete our force to the number which Parliament has authorized.” “Do not forget to suggest to our commissariat people in the Black Sea that large supplies of oxen to be eaten, and of horses to be ridden and to draw, may be derived from the country on the eastern shore of the Sea of Azoff.” “It would be well also to point their attention to the projecting neck of land or island called Krassnoi, in the Bay of Perekop, which is said to abound in sheep and hay.” From these quotations it will be seen how sleepless was his watchfulness, and how minute his attentions to the affairs of the war. He writes to his brother in August of the same year, and speaks of the probable fall of Sebastopol. “Our danger will then begin—a danger of peace, and not a danger of war.” “I must try to fight the battle of negotiation as well as the battle of war, and, fortunately, the spirit of the English nation will support us. I wish I could reckon with equal confidence on the steady determination of the French.”

In September Sebastopol had fallen, and the difficulties did in truth begin. He had now to contend not only with Russia, but with Austria and also with France. It is said of course that his spirit of contention was simply interference, and that in all things he wrote and spoke as a bully. It is difficult indeed to defend his manner; but that which he desired to get, he desired honestly. He desired it always on behalf of his country, and he usually got it. He writes as follows in January, 1856, to our Ambassador at Vienna;—“My dear Seymour,—Buol’s statement to you the night before last was what, in plain English, we should call impertinent. We are happily not yet in such a condition that an Austrian minister should bid us sign a treaty without hesitation or conditions. The Cabinet of Vienna, forsooth, must insist upon our doing so! Why, really our friend Buol must have had his head turned by his success at St. Petersburg, and quite forgot whom he was addressing such language to.” “We know the exhaustion, the internal pressure, difficulties, and distress of Russia quite as well as Buol does; but we know better than he does our own resources and strength. He may rest assured, however, that we have no wish to continue the war for the prospect of what we may accomplish another year, if we can now obtain peace upon the conditions which we deem absolutely necessary and essential; but we are quite prepared to go on if such conditions cannot be obtained. The British nation is unanimous in this matter. I say unanimous, for I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. for anything.” And he was right. The British nation did support him, and, in spite of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, would have supported no minister who had acted otherwise. The Emperor of the French, now that the war was over,—now rather when it was possible to bring it to an end,—was desirous of softening the terms for Russia. But England was not specially desirous,—was not in a hurry. England was better able to continue the fight than she had been to begin it, and was by no means willing to give up any of those points for which she had expended her blood and her money. It had cost her fifty millions and 25,000 men. Having paid so dearly for her whistle, she was determined to have as much of it as might be possible. Therefore it must, I think, be admitted, that Lord Palmerston, in his arrogance, showed no more than the concentrated essence of an Englishman. It may be said that the feeling of the country was bulldog, turbulent, arrogant, and headstrong; but it was honest, and in all that it did it was guided by the feeling that each man should have that which was properly his own.

It would be vain in such a memoir as this to go back to the question of the right or wrong of the Crimean War. Lord Clarendon wittily declared that we had “drifted” into it. The word has been considered happy, and, since our passion on the subject has been over, has been used extensively to indicate our own folly in the matter. But if we had not gone to war, together with our French allies, would not Nicholas have been allowed to drift into Constantinople? It has been one of the chief efforts of Europe in the present century to restrain the ambition of the Czar of Russia. Whether this has or has not been a wise desire need not be discussed here. But it will, I think, be admitted, that when the Emperor’s troops had crossed the Pruth and occupied a position on Turkish territory, they would not have receded without doing something on their master’s behalf—unless they had been made to do so. Lord Aberdeen had thought that they could be made to go back by the force of argument. And the Czar had thought that he need not go back without gaining some portion of his road to Constantinople, because Lord Aberdeen’s thoughts had been of so peaceful a nature. Therefore Lord Palmerston was put into Lord Aberdeen’s place, and the Czar had to go back—with terrible consequences to himself. How it might have ended had the English people been less turbulent and headstrong, it would require a wise man to say. But had not Palmerston been there to their hand, some other Prime Minister would have been found to do the work, and to do it probably with less skill in the management.

The feelings of England with regard to Turkey, and also in regard to Russia, have changed since the Crimean War. And there has been reason for the change. At that time it had been the intention of the Emperor Nicholas gradually to swallow the Sultan’s dominions,—to swallow them, or to have them swallowed by some other confederate and hungry animal. We all remember, as though it were yesterday, the proposal for the partition of the sick man’s goods. The suggestion did not suit us. But as we would have none of these goods for ourselves, neither would we permit another to take them. We felt that for us Russia would be a more dangerous occupant of the Eastern Mediterranean than Turkey. And though we thought but little of the Mahommedan, we thought almost less of the Russian Christian. It was, at any rate, indispensable for our purposes that the Turk should be maintained. The half of the population of Turkey in Europe were Christians, whom we thought to be as near to civilization as the Muscovite from further North; and we flattered ourselves that it might be possible for us to teach them and their Mahommedan compatriots some touch of better manners. With the Russian we conceived that we could do nothing. There was much of mistaken vanity in this, because we had told ourselves that this people, thoroughly averse to us in customs, might be tamed and reduced and made like ourselves by the execution of a few treaties and the loan of a good deal of money. They took our money, and increased their harems, and laughed at our treaties. But still we had gained our object in this, that the Turk and not the Russian owned, and was likely to own, Constantinople. We had beaten back the Russian, to whom, though we did not begrudge him the power to increase his borders in Asia,—except in our own special direction,—we did refuse any advance in Europe. With these ideas, and on this theory, we went to war, and as we were by treaty the joint protectors of Turkey, the war was surely justifiable. Whether we got a good investment for our fifty millions, and, also, for our 25,000 English lives, is a question which we cannot now settle. The way in which it is settled by each individual depends on his own occupation in life. Does he breed cattle, or does he make carpets?

But in the quarter of a century which has passed since the Crimean War the Turk has done very much to make the blood of an Englishman boil. We lent him money on the promise of certain performances. He has spent our money, but has performed none of his promises. We have called upon him again and again to reform, and he has replied by expressing his desire for more money. He has done nothing to change his habits, and has only proved to us that a Mahommedan Turk cannot become a good Christian.

And this is the man for whom we expended 25,000 lives in war and fifty millions in war expenses, for which we have no claim on any one,—and many other millions in loans, as to which it would be better for our peace of mind if also we had no claim! The Mahommedan must certainly be made to go out of Europe, but it must be by slow degrees, and not at the instance of a despotic Emperor, who, under the name of a religious protectorate, would take possession of the country. Let any one who is still unhappy on the score of Turkey take the modern map of Europe, and compare the lines as they are drawn now and as they were drawn sixty years ago. He will see that the banishment of the Turk has not been so very slow.

Not, therefore, from dislike to Turkish rule should the English reader decide that the war into which he will have been told we had drifted, was inexpedient or more expensive than has been justified by the objects attained. That war was essentially one of Lord Palmerston’s making. He advised it, commenced it, carried it on, and completed it. His hand—instant, urgent, and pressing—is to be seen in it throughout. We cannot yet say that it was all wise. It may well be that the world shall never be able to say with any certainty whether it was wise or foolish; but as far as the world has gone yet, no verdict has been given against it.

CHAPTER XII.

THE INDIAN MUTINY.

ON the 12th of July, 1856, at the Court at Buckingham Palace, Lord Palmerston was made a Knight of the Garter, it being understood that this was done in recognition of his services in reference to the Crimean War. When we remember what had occurred a few years back as to his dismissal from the Foreign Office, we may allow that he was bound to accept this token of her Majesty’s favour. Lord Melbourne is reported to have said some years earlier, when a similar opportunity had come to him, that he had no need to bribe himself;—and he died without having K.G. written after his name. It is probable that no such word was used by Lord Melbourne, and that the cynical phrase was one merely made to suit the occasion. But there was a truth in it which took hold of men. There is, perhaps, a feeling that, as the Prime Minister is supposed to recommend the recipients of this honour for Her Majesty’s acceptance, Palmerston would not now stand lower in the world’s esteem had he declined it. Lord Fortescue, who was installed on the same day, could well afford to accept the blue ribbon. There was a reason why Lord Palmerston should accept it. But had he not done so, there would have been an increased glory in going to his rest, as Lord Melbourne had done, without burdening his name with the additional title.

In August, 1856, when Lord Palmerston was surrounded by the difficulties incident to the completion of the war, he lost his only brother; and with him those letters came to an end, which give us the freest account of Lord Palmerston’s thoughts, his ambition, his arrogance, and his justice. We do not hear a word from him afterwards about his brother. He might have been the merest casual friend, chance-selected for some smaller embassy. For his elder brother had never pushed him up to the higher places at Paris, Constantinople, Vienna, or St. Petersburg. Sir William Temple had probably lacked something either in intellect or energy, or perhaps in discretion, of that fitness for the duties of an ambassador which had been found in Lord Granville, Sir Stratford Canning, and Sir Hamilton Seymour. At any rate Lord Palmerston was determined that he would not be accused of nepotism. In expressions of grief there is somewhat of feminine feeling, which, to the nature of Lord Palmerston, was antipathetic. His brother had lived at Naples for many years, our Minister at a third-rate Court. Now he had come home and died, and, as far as Lord Palmerston’s outside life was concerned, there was an end of him.

Early in the Session of 1857 there sprang up a difficulty in China in reference to a small ship which has ever since been known as the lorcha Arrow. The Arrow, on a charge of piracy, was boarded by certain Chinese from a war junk, and Sir John Bowring, who was our Governor at Hong-Kong, demanded reparation from Commissioner Yeh. Then arose a quarrel and a fight, in which, of course, the English got the better. The matter, which was of importance at the time, has by lapse of years become so trivial as to be hardly worthy of notice here,—but that it led to a dissolution of Parliament. A motion was brought forward in the House of Lords by Lord Derby, blaming the Government, and was carried by a majority of thirty-six. Mr. Cobden brought a similar motion before the House of Commons, and was supported by Mr. Disraeli, Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Disraeli twitted Lord Palmerston with having made his complaint to the country, and bade him follow his complaint by an appeal. The motion was carried by a majority of sixteen against the Government, and Lord Palmerston did appeal.

That Lord Palmerston, as Prime Minister, should have been distasteful to Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gladstone we can understand. He was essentially a War Minister, and had latterly dealt with war alone. To Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gladstone he must have been the incarnation of insular aggression. But Lord Derby and Sir James Graham, Lord John Russell and Mr. Disraeli, could have entertained none of this feeling. They had shown themselves at least anxious to conduct the war, and we cannot imagine that the question of the lorcha Arrow can have so operated upon them as to make them feel it imperative for the sake of England’s glory to turn instantly upon the man who had just brought England through her difficulties. It was simply a party conflict, in which Aristides had been too just. But Aristides resolved that he would follow his enemies’ advice, and see what the country would say to it.

He must have known when he went to the country what would be the result. He had just carried the war to a successful end, and the country would not see him displaced. The normal Englishman was thoroughly proud of him, proud of his bad jokes, proud of his unflinching energy, and proud of his years. He called his opponents, when they denied that they combined together against him, “the fortuitous concourse of atoms.” The joke was better worth quoting than those he usually made. The country was even proud of him because he stuck to Tiverton instead of accepting a more glorious seat. To have deserted old friends in his glory, who had been true to him before his glory came, would not have been like Palmerston. So he got his majority in spite of the lorcha Arrow, and Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden were both excluded from the new Parliament.

Then came upon us the Indian Mutiny; and men who had never doubted during the Russian campaign, though they felt that England must strain every nerve for victory, began to fear that the few who were there to bear the brunt must perish in the attempt. It was a common fear that if India was to belong to us for the future, India must be conquered a second time; and while men thought of this, their hearts fell within them as they remembered what must be the fate of the British men, and children, and women, who were doomed to suffer things many times worse than death. And there was a feeling by no means uncommon, and very deadly, that India would be lost for ever, and with it all the glory of England. That this idea prevailed in France, which had just been our ally, and in Russia, which had just been our enemy, and in the United States, which of all nations was the nearest akin to us, cannot be doubted. When men’s hearts are so heavy they show it in their faces rather than by their speech. There were months in 1857 when men in England hardly dared to speak aloud what they thought and felt about India. But of Lord Palmerston it must be said that he was made of some stronger and coarser fabric than other men, better prepared for hard wear, and able to bear without detriment rain and snow and dirty weather. Through that period of the Indian Mutiny,—which must have been harder, we think, for an English Prime Minister to bear even than the temporary failures of the Crimea,—he never blanched.

It was said by the Edinburgh Review, just before the tidings of the Mutiny reached us, that “the past Session found Lord Palmerston covered with the glory of having trodden down the wine-press alone.” This was the very pinnacle of the column of praise which was raised to his honour on behalf of his steadfastness against Russia by those of the Press who supported his side in politics. But it was true. He had done it alone. If we look back we can find no other Minister who had not failed, or hesitated, or remained in the background. But yet we think that the effort made by him to suppress the Indian Mutiny was the greater of the two. It came easier to him because he had been made familiar with the efforts necessary for such work by the Russian war; and coming, as the Mutiny did, close after the Russian war, and dealing with matters less palpably open to the mind’s eye than the Russian quarrel, it created, with all its horrors and all its triumphs, a less abiding thoughtfulness. India had been ours, and must be ours. So we felt when India was again ours. But it had nearly come to pass that India, at any rate for the time, was not ours. But Palmerston went on governing the country through it all with apparent equanimity. In three months we had sent 30,000 troops to India, with all their horses, appurtenances, clothing, and armour. When we remember the distance, the rapidity required, the scattered positions of the men to be collected, and of the transports needed, I think we may boast that no other country ever made such an effort.

After all, much of the hardest fighting was done by the army stationary in India before the troops from England arrived. It would be unfair to say even a few words about the mutiny without declaring this. Delhi had been taken from the mutineers. Outram, Havelock, the Lawrences, and Inglis had done their work. When all were true and all were heroes, there need be no jealousy of praise. But to Lord Canning, the son of Palmerston’s old tutor in politics, the Canning who had been so hard on Palmerston in the Don Pacifico debate, the Canning who had gone to India most unwillingly in obedience to Palmerston’s commands, the Canning to have said a word against whom required the self-annihilation of a Minister,[N] Canning who completed by his death his victory in the country he had been sent to govern,—to him and to those brave men whom the Mutiny, bursting from its swarthy ranks, had found in India, the first praise for crushing it is due.

Lord Palmerston in the Mansion House had to blow England’s trumpet in addressing the normal Mansion House audience. “An Englishman,” he said, “is not so fond as the people of some other countries are of uniforms, of steel scabbards, and of iron heels; but no nation can excel the English, either as officers or soldiers, in knowledge of the duties of the military profession, and in the zeal and ability with which those duties are performed; and whatever desperate deeds are to be accomplished,—wherever superior numbers are to be boldly encountered and triumphantly overcome—wherever privations are to be encountered, wherever that which a soldier has to confront is individually or collectively to be found, there, I will venture to say, there is no nation on the face of the earth which can surpass,—I might, without too much national vanity, say, I believe there is no nation which can equal,—the people of the British islands. But, my Lord Mayor and gentlemen, while we all admire the bravery, the constancy, and the intrepidity of our countrymen in India, we must not forget to do justice also to our countrywomen. In the ordinary course of life the functions of women are to cheer the days of adversity, to soothe the hours of suffering, and to give additional brilliancy to the sunshine of prosperity; but our countrywomen in India have had occasion to show qualities of a higher and nobler kind, and when they have had either to sustain the perils of the siege, or endure the privations of a difficult escape, to forget their own sufferings in endeavouring to minister to the wants of others, the women of the United Kingdom have, wherever they have been found in India, displayed qualities of the noblest kind, such as have never been surpassed in the history of the world. Henceforth the bravest soldier may think it no disparagement to be told that his courage and his power of endurance are equal to those of an Englishwoman.”

We can hear the words of the old man now, and tell ourselves that this was a moment in which national vanity might be forgiven. And we can hear the cheers, laden with vanity, as also with true glory, with which they were received. There had been some discussion during the Mutiny as to the expediency of accepting such foreign helps as had been offered. Two Belgian regiments had been suggested. But Lord Palmerston had set his face against all assistance, even from Belgium. He wrote as follows to Lord Clarendon on the matter;—“The more I think of it, the more I feel it is necessary for our standing and reputation in the world that we should put down this mutiny and restore order by our own means; and I am perfectly certain that we can do it, and that we shall do it.” And now it had been done.

We must pause for a moment here, to state that a Bill was now brought before Parliament for entirely altering the system under which India was governed. My readers will probably know that up to this time the East India Company did exist, with the power, which had gradually been curtailed indeed, and brought more or less under Government control, of managing the affairs of India as though it were simply the scene of certain commercial transactions. There was a Board of Control attached to the Government, but there was no Secretary of State for India. There was a Board of Directors, but no Indian Council directly appointed by Government. And my readers also know that there is at present a Secretary of State, equal in rank to the other Secretaries; and that India has become a branch of our Government,—as the Colonies are, and Foreign Affairs. I do not know that I need go further into the nature of the change effected than to say that it was carried out in conformity with the proposition made by Lord Palmerston, and in compliance with the Queen’s Speech in the previous December. This was done early in 1858. There was a long debate on the first reading, and infinite delays were proposed. This was chiefly due to Mr. Disraeli. He declared that “at present we are undertaking an immense liability; we are entering into engagements which will some day make us tremble; and we have no security whatever that those who really possess power in India, who really manage the resources of the country, will be in the least controlled for our benefit.” Nevertheless, upon a division, the Bill was carried by a majority of 145, against an amendment moved, recommending delay. Such was the end of the East India Company as a ruling power; and since that date India has been simply a dependency of the British throne, as are Canada and the Australias. This, too, is to be reckoned among the performances of Lord Palmerston.

Then there arose a question on which Lord Palmerston was most absurdly turned out of office; and he remained out from February, 1858, to June, 1859. It was done absurdly, because the matter in dispute was one in which, not only the country, but also the House of Commons, was altogether at one with him. An attempt had been made to murder the Emperor of the French. It had been done in a manner altogether reckless of human life, the number killed and wounded when the Emperor escaped having been stated as high as 150. And the horror was felt to have been aggravated when it was known that the Empress had been with the Emperor when the attempt was made. Orsini, an Italian, was the leader of the gang by whom the grenades were thrown beneath the Emperor’s carriage; and it came out in evidence that Orsini, with his fellow-assassins, had lived in England, and had here constructed his murderous machine. The French Minister of the Emperor applied to our Foreign Office for co-operation in the matter, and desired that the law might be so altered as to make it impossible that suspected assassins,—assassins suspected—should to be so by the English or French Government, be able to carry on their trade in London. Lord Palmerston assented, and a Bill, intending to give the Ministry of the day the power of dealing with such persons, was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of no less than 200. This may be taken as the outspoken opinion of the House, when its feeling was simply one of indignant wrath in regard to Orsini.

But in the meantime the “French Colonels” had signalized themselves. The French Colonels were certain officers who were indignant on the matter. They had known that Orsini had brought his grenades from London, but had not known that the British Government was anxious to do as the French Ministers would have them. They consequently sent various addresses to the Emperor, in which the abominable conduct of England was described in very strong language. The “Colonels” appeared to have thought that all England had been engaged in making murderous weapons for the accommodation of Orsini. And these addresses were unfortunately published in the Moniteur, whereby a quasi-official authority was attached to them; because all things published in the Moniteur were supposed to have received an official stamp. The French Ambassador expressed his regret, stating that the addresses had passed into the Moniteur without notice, and Lord Palmerston urged the House to disregard the vapourings of the “Colonels.” But the insult to the nation was there, in the columns of the Moniteur, and was much more widely known than the apology which had been sent. There does appear to have been some lack of official despatches which might have been made known to the House. At any rate, an amendment was now proposed,—“That this House cannot but regret that Her Majesty’s Government, previously to inviting the House to amend the law of conspiracy at the present time, have not felt it to be their duty to reply to the important despatch received from the French Government, dated January 20”—and this was carried by a majority of 19.

When that former strong expression of opinion had been given by 299 votes to 99, the Government had been supported by the desire of the Tories at large, to keep down such a nest of hornets as Orsini and his conspirators. To banish them from the country, or to hang them if it were necessary, must have seemed good, and did seem good, to Lord Derby’s party. And it was not the less good because of the French “Colonels”—who after all were a gallant set of fellows enough, standing up for their country and their Emperor. But it was seen that an instant advantage might be taken of Lord Palmerston and his Government; and they who led the Tory party were not slow to take advantage of it. Lord Palmerston, who seems to have been moved to wrath by such desertion, resigned on the following day, and Lord Derby came into office with Mr. Disraeli as his first lieutenant. Palmerston remained out for sixteen months; but before we go with him into comparative obscurity, we must point out that he had now been dismissed—on the motion too of Mr. Milner Gibson, one of his old enemies, the peace-party,—not because as of yore he was supposed to have been arrogant on the part of England, and in the general course of his policy to have given offence to foreign nations; but because he was supposed,—erroneously supposed,—to have truckled to French orders. Palmerston was the same as ever; but so also was the English nation. When he was accused of arrogance abroad, he was dear old Pam to the normal Englishman. But when he was foolishly conceived to have unduly yielded an inch to French influence, there came instantly to his opponents the power of turning him out,—which his opponents were not slow to do.

During his holiday he took the chair at the Royal Literary Fund dinner, and there, as elsewhere, he made a speech serviceable to the occasion. To make a speech at the Literary Fund dinner seems to be a duty expected from an ex-Prime Minister. Then came a Reform Bill introduced by the Tories;—this was in 1859. But Lord John was not going to accept a Reform Bill from the Tories as long as he could avoid it. The Government was left in a minority, Lord John having moved an amendment condemning the Tory Bill. Thereupon Lord Derby went out, and the Queen was again called upon to form a Ministry.

These formations of new Ministries seem to come very rapidly in the record of one man’s life, and to be passed by as though they were matters of no real importance! But to us looking back now over the intervening years,—and twenty-three years have intervened,—how momentous was that unexpected sending for Lord Granville when Lord Derby retired! Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston had made a compact together that, as the Queen might choose between them, either would help the other; Lord Palmerston had by this time resolved to abandon his wrath, and Lord John, who expected probably to regain his ascendency, still would not decline to serve a second time under his old colleague should the Queen require him. But the claims of the two were equal, and Lord Granville, as being between them, was selected. When Lord Palmerston had before been asked to reconstruct a Ministry, the country had been at war, and every Englishman was in earnest. Then there had been no alternative. But now there could be no reason why Lord Palmerston should not go back to the ranks; though there might be a reason why he should not serve under Lord John. When it was suggested to Lord Palmerston that he should serve under Lord Granville he wrote as follows to the Queen; “Viscount Palmerston and Lord John Russell, before they called the meeting at Willis’s Rooms, came to an agreement to co-operate with each other in the formation of a new Administration, whichever of the two might be called upon by your Majesty to reconstruct your Majesty’s Government. That agreement did not extend to the case of any third person; but Viscount Palmerston conceives that the same sense of public duty which had led him to enter into that engagement with Lord John Russell should also lead him to give assistance to Lord Granville towards the execution of your Majesty’s commands. Viscount Palmerston’s promise to Lord Granville has, however, been conditional.” “The promise therefore, which he has given to Lord Granville has been made conditional on Lord Granville’s success in organizing a Government so composed as to be calculated officially to carry on the public service, and to command the confidence of Parliament and of the country.” But Lord Granville was not successful. He found, we are told, that Lord John was unwilling to serve under him, and at the same time to leave the leadership of the House of Commons in Lord Palmerston’s hands. Consequently Lord Palmerston was again sent for, and became a second time Prime Minister in his seventy-fifth year.

CHAPTER XIII.

PALMERSTON AS PRIME MINISTER, FROM 1859 TO HIS DEATH.

These were the matters as to which, in regard to Italy, the British Cabinet was at the present moment anxious. Palmerston’s dislike to Austria,—we might almost call it hatred,—still remained hot as ever. In a memorandum prepared for the Cabinet, Lord Palmerston defended Napoleon as against Austria. “Austria took our subsidies, bound herself by treaty not to make peace without our concurrence, sustained signal defeat in battle, and precipitately made peace without our concurrence. But on what occasion has the Emperor Napoleon so acted?—on none.” This was written in January, 1860; but a little later on, when the story of Savoy and Nice was known, he shows his jealousy of Napoleon. In April of the same year, he writes to Lord Cowley at Paris; “The Emperor’s mind is as full of schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits, his schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism.” And there is a record of a conversation which he had with Count Flahault a few days previously. Count Flahault was just going to Paris, and asked him what he should say to the Emperor. The Prime Minister was, what we shall call, very outspoken. England desired peace, he said, but if the Emperor was desirous of war, he would find that England was quite ready for him. And he says in a letter to the Duke of Somerset; “I have watched the Emperor narrowly, and have studied his character and conduct. You may rely upon it, that at the bottom of his heart there rankles a deep and inextinguishable desire to humble and punish England.” He says to Lord Cowley; “The seizure of Savoy and Nice, and the breach of promise towards Switzerland about the cession of the Swiss of the neutralized district, are matters which cannot be got over easily.” From these quotations it will be seen how intent he was on keeping the Emperor in his place, and saving this country, if it might be saved, from some future battle of Dorking. But in regard to the state of Italy at the time, he had expressed himself very strongly in the memorandum above quoted; “There can be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that both France and Sardinia would unite with England in maintaining the principle that the Italians should be secured against foreign compulsion, and should be left free to determine, according to their own will, what shall be their future political condition.”

In all these matters Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell were, between them, successful—at any rate in the accomplishment of their wishes. Austria was altogether driven out of Italy. The French Emperor did not attempt to avenge Waterloo. And Italy has become a united nation, ruling herself in accordance with her own will.

But in order to make good the boasts which he had made to Count Flahault, it was necessary that the country should be on its guard. Its security, by military means, was always present to Lord Palmerston’s mind. He had written a letter in December, 1859, to Mr. Gladstone on the subject, and he must, we should think, have startled Mr. Gladstone by the nonchalant audacity with which he proposed that ten or eleven millions should be at once voted for fortifications to defend Portsmouth and Plymouth. Then he goes into the manner in which the money should be raised,—as to which we cannot but imagine that Mr. Gladstone had his own way. But the millions were voted, and the fortifications were erected; and the Volunteer Force was set on foot,—with what enormous results is now patent to the whole country. In consequence of what was then done, England has now got a double army, one for service abroad, and the other at home. It is only now beginning to be seen and understood that the defence of our own shores may be trusted to men less expensively organized than in regiments of the line.

In 1861 Lord Palmerston was installed as Warden of the Cinque Ports, by which he obtained the use of what was believed to be a comfortable residence near Dover. As Broadlands and Brocket Hall, as well as Cambridge House, in Piccadilly, to which he had long since removed, were all on his hands, this could not have been much to him. But the installation gave him at any rate the pleasure of going down once more to Tiverton, and meeting his old friend Mr. Rowcliffe, the butcher. For the Wardenship was an office, so called, of profit, and the new election was necessary. He was returned without a contest, but not without the usual preliminary discussion with Mr. Rowcliffe.

It is hardly possible to refer to all the measures, or even to all those of importance, with which Lord Palmerston was concerned at this period of his life. In 1860 the paper duties had been discussed; and now that this matter has been well-nigh forgotten among the things that have been quickly settled, we can hardly realize the disturbance to our feelings, and even the animosity, which they created. The House of Lords took upon itself to throw the bill out; whereas a remission of taxation is an affair which the Lower House conceives to belong exclusively to itself. But Palmerston, whose own heart was hardly in the matter, but who was much concerned in keeping peace between the two Houses, contrived to smooth matters down, so that the bill was passed in 1861, and nothing more has been since heard of the paper duties. To us it seems that a penny is, and ever has been, the normal price of a daily newspaper,—unless when the Times, or some other daily journal if there be another, chooses on behalf of old gentlemen and ladies to be absurdly luxurious at threepence.

In 1861 the American War of Secession commenced, and in the same year, on the 14th of December, the Prince Consort died. It must have been pleasant to Lord Palmerston to remember that all feelings of animosity,—or rather of hard judgment against him,—had passed away. We can all remember the intense personal sorrow with which the death of the Prince was received by us. A good man had gone from among us, leaving vacant a place which could never more be filled. A man so good at all points is a rare possession, and England has never ceased to want him and to mourn him.

Almost exactly at the same time there sprang up an incident in the American War of Secession which nearly carried us into the whirlpool in spite of the careful efforts we made to avoid the danger. The Southern States had seceded because they had been unwilling to see the government of the country pass from them, the Democratic party, into the hands of their opponents, the Republicans. The Democratic party had grown up and been in power almost since the days of the Adamses, and now felt aware that all their most cherished political institutions were endangered by the appointment of Mr. Lincoln as President. Mr. Lincoln was a thorough Republican. To show how the two parties had hitherto fought the battle, each by the creation of new States which should, or should not, foster slavery within their boundaries, is too long a task to be undertaken here. Should Texas, which was devoted to slavery, become one State or should it be four? Should Kansas be slave or free? Should Nevada and Nebraska, free-soil States as they would be, be admitted or excluded? Each State must have two Senators, and on the number of Senators the manipulation of the powers of government depended. The growing wealth and population of the North at last won the day, and the South, seeing how it was with them, determined to secede. They did endeavour to secede, and a state of war was the consequence.

There can now be no doubt, I think, in any unprejudiced mind that the sole effort made by the English Government during the war was to hold their own hands with absolute impartiality, and allow the Americans to fight it out. In private life, opinions varied; and, following a broad line, we may say that the commercial classes were in favour of the North, and the agricultural and the aristocratic of the South. And these feelings, either on the one side or the other, were enhanced by the growing deficiency of cotton. We find even Lord Palmerston suggesting that the idea of a French Ambassador should be entertained, for compelling the Northern States to let cotton from the South make its way to Europe. A more unjust, or indeed impossible, solution of the difficulty could not be found. But Palmerston simply mentioned the matter to a colleague in the Cabinet, and the question of interference or non-interference, of recognition or the reverse, was, as far as outsiders could perceive, left chiefly in the hands of Lord Russell, who was Foreign Secretary. Lord John had been created a peer in July, 1861. By the entire Cabinet the decision was come to that England would not interfere, and would not recognize the South. As far as the English Government was concerned, of which Lord Palmerston was the head, such was its line of policy from first to last; and the Northern party in the war was certainly not justified in feeling animosity against England.

But such a feeling was very strong in the States. It was thought that England should at once have patted the North on the back, as having that side in the quarrel to which manifest justice belonged. Then sprang up the Trent affair, which, but for the united wisdom of two men in the States, of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward his Chief Secretary, would certainly have brought us into war. And here, no doubt, Lord Palmerston did take an active part in preparing, under certain circumstances, for active measures.

As the North believed in England’s enmity, so did the South in her friendship. As the fighting became brisk and hard, could they not send two Commissioners to England to arrange terms for their recognition? With this view Messrs. Slidell and Mason were to be sent. But passenger ships did not run then from Charleston to Liverpool with more freedom than cotton ships. The gentlemen had to be smuggled to England, and made their way as far as Cuba on their road. One would say that the difficulties of the journey were then overcome. And so they thought when they took their places on board the British mail steamer Trent, which ran from the Havanah to St. Thomas. At St. Thomas they would be as though they were in England.

But there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. As the Trent was running up to St. Thomas, she was stopped by an American man-of-war, the San Jacinto, under the command of the redoubtable Captain Wilkes, and the Southerners were taken out of her and carried back to Boston. A great fuss was made about the achievement, as though Captain Wilkes had done something very heroic, and there was some talk of giving him a sword. Thanks were voted to him by Congress. He had done nothing but a policeman’s work, and had done it without orders. But it was conceived he had gone halfway to beating the South,—and not only the South, but England also.

It was then that the Guards were sent to Canada. It was the quickly expressed determination of England, in uttering which Lord Palmerston was the mouthpiece of the country, that unless these two men were sent over to England at once,—or were enabled to make the journey which they had promised themselves when they got on board the Trent,—our Minister should be withdrawn, and war should be declared. A man-of-war did come to the Potomac, ready to take away Lord Lyons and his suite. In Washington, we heard that on the next day war was to have been declared,—unless Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward yielded. Mr. Sumner, who as Chairman of the Committee of the Senate on Foreign Politics was something akin to our Foreign Secretary, was hot against it. He was supposed to be the true patriotic American of the day. But before we went to bed that night in Washington we had been told that Messrs. Slidell and Mason were to be sent on to England. When they got there they could do nothing for the recognition of the South. England passed through that danger, and Lord Palmerston was enabled to think of other things.

We are drawing now to the end of Lord Palmerston’s career, and have only further to notice the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and the great debate which took place respecting it in July, 1864. There had previously been questions of the ill-treatment of the Poles by Russia, and of the re-modelling of the Treaty of Vienna. In neither of these matters was anything effectual done by England; but in both of them Palmerston showed the caution which had come to him, not from years, but from his thorough acquaintance with the state of Europe. England had seen the third Napoleon become, as it were, her natural ally. But against the craft of the Emperor our Prime Minister was specially on his guard. France desired confirmation for what had lately passed, and a new Treaty, so that Europe should be re-arranged as she specially desired to arrange it; and France specially wanted some plea by which she could stretch her boundaries as far as the Rhine. This matter is only interesting to us now as showing the care which Lord Palmerston, on the part of England, exercised in his latter days against his old friend the Emperor.

Then came the affair of Schleswig-Holstein, which it would be very difficult to explain in the penultimate chapter of such a book as this; and which would be very uninteresting if explained. Denmark was undoubtedly Denmark. Holstein was undoubtedly German, though at present she was under the dominion of the King of Denmark. Schleswig may be said to have been half one and half the other. The encroachments of Prussia, destined to envelop all adjacent German-speaking countries, had commenced; and Austria, having then a part in the German Diet, joined herself with Prussia in attacking Denmark. Here, in England, the general opinion was undoubtedly in favour of Denmark. It was so in the British interpretation of the law of Europe on the subject; and also in the idea that a little country was undergoing ill-usage from two others that were much larger and more powerful. Lord Russell, as Foreign Secretary, became indignant, and said words which enabled his eager friends and his active enemies to declare that he had promised assistance to Denmark. Lord Palmerston, always since the days of Savoy and Nice on his guard against the Emperor of the French, and having, as Prime Minister, reversed his character as the general tyrant of Europe, wrote as follows to his colleague: “I share fully your indignation. The conduct of Austria and Prussia is discreditably bad, and one, or both of them, will suffer for it before these matters are settled. I rather doubt, however, the expediency of taking at the present moment the steps proposed. The French Government would probably decline it, unless tempted by the suggestion that they should place an armed force on the Rhenish frontier in the event of a refusal by Austria and Prussia,—which refusal we ought to reckon as nearly certain.” But he partially agreed with Lord Russell. He wrote to the Duke of Somerset; “I own I quite agree with Russell, that our squadron ought to go to Copenhagen as soon as the season will permit, and that it ought to have orders to prevent any invasion of, or attack upon, Zealand and Copenhagen.”

Louis Napoleon at last refused to join with us in any attempt to be made on behalf of the Danes. He saw no reason for fighting with the Germans unless he were to be allowed to stretch himself to the Rhine. Lord Russell,—and with him the British Cabinet,—found himself unable to undertake the task single-handed; and consequently Denmark was abandoned, and the Government had to bear the reproach of having deserted their friend. An attack was made upon it in both Houses. In the House of Lords, Lord Palmerston and his colleagues were beaten by a majority of nine; and Mr. Disraeli brought the matter forward in the Commons with many thunderclaps of furious speech. He asked the House to agree with him that the Government “had lowered the just influence of their country in the councils of Europe, and thereby destroyed the securities for peace.” The debate lasted for four nights, and Mr. Disraeli’s thunderclap of elocution was certainly loud and frightful. To tell the truth his speech on the occasion was very strong. Lord Palmerston spoke on the last day; and as he went down to the House, day after day, all the people cheered him. There was at the moment a feeling against Lord Russell, because it was thought that he had promised the Danes much, and had performed little. But Palmerston was still the people’s favourite, and they cheered him to the last. He altogether laid aside the matter at issue, and went into the general question of the merits of the Government. Let the people of the country see what had been done by the present Government for the taxes of the country, and then he would be afraid of no vote which the House of Commons could give against him. The Government got a majority of eighteen, and were thus re-established in power, at any rate till the next session.

This had taken place in 1864, and the speech he had then delivered was the last of the great efforts he had made on that arena. During the next year he reached his eightieth birthday. In that same year Parliament, having nearly run out its term of existence, was dissolved, and he was again elected for Tiverton. He went from thence to Brocket Hall, having chosen that residence because of its vicinity to London, and there, with Lady Palmerston to watch over him, he breathed his last. It is a singular fact that in the room adjacent to that in which he died another Prime Minister of England had left this troublesome world but a few years previously, and Lady Palmerston had been the sister of that other Prime Minister.

They laid him in Westminster, among the statesmen and men of letters of whom his country was proud, and they put up a statue to his name in the close neighbourhood of the Chamber in which he had sat almost continuously since it had been built thirty years before. What more could they do to perpetuate his memory? But all that would have been nothing had he not made for himself a lasting position in the minds of Englishmen.

Looking back through all the History of England and her worthies, I do not know the life of any man who has shown such a career of unchequered good fortune and jocund happiness,—or more unblemished honesty and truer courage.

CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

PALMERSTON’S great merit as a governing man arose from his perfect sympathy with those whom he was called upon to govern;—and his demerit, such as it was, sprang from the same cause. He was bold, industrious, honest, strong in purpose as in health, eager, unselfish, and a good comrade. He was at the same time self-asserting, exacting, never doubting himself when his opinion had been formed, and confident against the world in arms. We cannot be surprised that such a one should have been loved by us, and still less so that he should have been hated by others. He was an enemy to the Ministers of other Courts, not only because he was bold, honest, and eager, but also because he showed himself plainly to have those qualities, and was never tired of asserting himself because of them. Who is this man that claims to himself to be more hardworking and honester than any among us,—and who is making good his pretensions? Such were not the spoken words of any foreign statesman of the day; but they describe the feelings on which they seem to have acted. And these men at the same time did believe themselves, and truly believed themselves, to be intellectually his superiors. Let us take Guizot as one of the number, who had much to do with Palmerston, and with whom Palmerston was much concerned. Guizot must have been conscious of brighter faculties and greater thinking power. But he must have been aware that in all discussions among men of the same class Palmerston’s word was the strongest, because of his probity, and truth, and industry.

The same idea occurs to us in reading what has been written of him since his death. He is called “stupid” and “blundering” by those who have been opposed to his politics as a War Minister. But such as his politics were, they were always those of his countrymen for the time being; and in a country professing to be ruled under the Constitution which here prevails, I do not know what higher praise can be given to a Minister. Let the people change their principles; let the Cobdens and Brights teach them that war is altogether a bad thing, and that commerce will suffice to procure for us the respect of other nations. I do not say that it may not be so, and that the teaching of Cobden and Bright may not approve itself in the long run. But such has not yet become the opinion of Englishmen generally; and until Cobden and Bright have taught their countrymen, the country requires such a Minister as was Lord Palmerston. They liked his honesty; they liked his self-assertion, and they did not like it the less, because he expressed himself with a hectoring tongue.

Mr. Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,” vol. ii. p. 189, has said of Palmerston, that Sir John Bowring was wrong in the affair of the Arrow, and should have been recalled. He then goes on as follows; “It was not, however, to be expected from the statesman, whose politics never got beyond Civis Romanus, especially when he was dealing with a very weak power.” The charge here made is manifestly unjust. Had he said that Palmerston had preached the doctrine of Civis Romanus against all nations, weak or strong,—usque ad nauseam,—there might have been some truth in the saying. But the sting of the reproach lies in the assertion that he had preached it especially when the weak were opposed to him. He has intended to imply that when Greece or Portugal were concerned, then, on behalf of Britons, Palmerston exclaimed, Civis Romanus; but that he lowered his colours and bated his breath when he had to deal with France or Austria, with Russia or Prussia. Against this I protest. Take all the matters in which he was engaged with other countries,—the creation of Belgium, the Spanish marriages, his treatment of Metternich and Buol, and his life-long battle with Nicholas, and then say whether he was Civis Romanus “especially with the weaker powers!” The word has escaped Mr. Morley in the pride of his contempt, and should be recalled from a work destined to live long because of merits which his prejudice cannot obscure.

But we do know that Lord Palmerston was unpopular among the foreigners, especially in the early part of his career. Mr. Greville thus wrote of him in his journal in 1834; “Madame de Lieven told me that it was impossible to describe the contempt as well as dislike which the whole corps-diplomatique had for Palmerston, and, pointing to Talleyrand, who was sitting close by, ‘surtout lui.’ They have the meanest opinion of his capacity, and his manners are the reverse of conciliatory.” Again, he says, in 1835; “Palmerston is beaten in Hants, at which everyone rejoices.” But by degrees Mr. Greville mends his verdict. “The other night I met some clerks in the Foreign Office to whom the very name of Palmerston is hateful. But I was surprised to hear them,—Mellish particularly, who can judge both from capacity and opportunity,—give ample testimony to his abilities.”

It will be seen from this that even among Englishmen likely to be intimate with the diplomatic circle in London, so late as 1835 Lord Palmerston was supposed to have been generally unpopular, and his want of punctuality is spoken of, a fault likely to interfere much with the comfort of others. But at that time he was a man of fashion, and though he had been for many years specially noted for his industry in mastering all the details of his office,—at the War Office for instance, through his many years of service before he was appointed to the Foreign Office,—it may be surmised that he preferred to work at such hours as best suited himself. If this was so, it only gives an additional proof of that determination to have his own way which governed him through all his life. But his popularity as a Minister did not commence even among Englishmen till after the dates above quoted from Mr. Greville’s journal;—nor that respect among foreigners, did in fact mean a reverence for the power he exercised. It was not in truth known to the world at large how great had been his influence in regard to the creation of Belgium, nor how powerful had been his policy as to the quadruple alliance, till long after the period in question. And though he was sowing the seed for that respect which afterwards grew till he had become the arbiter of European politics generally, the men in whose minds the seed was growing would not, to themselves, admit the growth until the full plant was there, ripe for the use of the nations. In such a career it was necessary that the man should be hated before he was esteemed. Therefore it was that Madame de Lieven spoke of him with contempt, and told of him how Talleyrand specially disliked him. Had he been courteous and servile, and fit to take a place among themselves, the Russian lady and the French gentlemen would have loved the polished man of fashion well enough.

And in those days Palmerston was a Tory, though he was a member of a Whig Government. It must be remembered that the death of Mr. Pitt was still nearer than the death of Lord Palmerston himself. There had to run more than thirty years before the latter event came. It was less than thirty years since Pitt had died. And Palmerston was still regarded as a man brought up in the courtly manner; and the fashion after which he was prepared to form a way of living for himself was not yet deciphered or understood. It was not believed that he intended to be so wise, so plastic, and so attentive a politician. In this respect he was running the same career which Canning had taken before him, and which Gladstone has taken since;—and which indeed Peel may be said to have adopted in the last year or two of his life. He had grown into accord with the people of whom he was one. But neither did he do this as Canning had done, with whom it was an affair of genius, of impulse, and of anger; nor as Peel, with whom it was conscience; nor as Gladstone, on whose versatile mind all motives which are not ignoble seemed to have acted with dangerous rapidity. Palmerston changed slowly without knowing that he changed, and learned to wear the common garb of an Englishman because Englishmen around him wore it. “It is a brave spectacle,” says the Edinburgh, in an eloquent article on his death, written in January, 1866;—“it is a brave spectacle to look back on, to see the skill and courage with which nearly single-handed he fought and baffled continental despotism for more than thirty years.” “Since Cromwell’s time no other British statesman has had the honour of having his name made a bugbear to frighten children and despot-ridden lands.” “He was accused of being insolent and aggressive; he was accused of being truckling and cowardly. But now that he is gone there is not a man of us but would say, with his generous antagonist, ‘We are all proud of him,’” The generous antagonist had been Sir Robert Peel; and the words he then spoke were the last which he uttered in the House of Commons. The writer then goes on;—“He is gone; peace to his ashes! It is sad to think we shall never see again that pleasant face, that jaunty air, still dashed by a tinge of the dandyism of the regency, that never-failing figure on the Treasury Bench which drew all eyes; never hear the cheery trumpet tone, not unmusical in its cadences; never learn from his graver wisdom, nor meet his old familiar smile again. We laid him in Westminster Abbey with pride as well as sorrow, side by side with the dust of his great compeers, not dearer or mightier than he. He was a great man. He loved his country and his country loved him. He lived for her honour, and she will cherish his memory.”

As I am now quoting what was said of him shortly after his death, I will give an extract from an article which appeared in August, 1868, in the Saint Paul’s Magazine, and was from the hand of Mr. Peter Bayne;—

“When we were at war with Russia, and when the nation, after trying statesman after statesman, continued in the distressing consciousness that the administration lacked vigour, the man who, for a quarter of a century, had been checkmating the policy of Russia was naturally called for. In no spirit of confidence or enthusiasm,—feeling clearly that others had failed, but by no means certain that the right man was yet discovered,—England said, ‘Try Palmerston.’ It was on the 8th of February, 1855, that the Earl of Derby withdrew, and that he took the helm. On the 16th he explained his position to the House. Already all the machinery of an energetic administration was at work, and as the new Prime Minister glanced at department after department, detailing what had been done and what was planned, members felt that a new spirit of energy was already penetrating the framework of Government. The country looked on in hope, beginning to breathe more freely. Month after month went by; month after month the public watched. Troubles came at first in threatening battalions upon the Ministry; but the practical instinct of the nation gradually decided that Palmerston was the man to whom the business of the war could be committed, and in whose hands the name of England was safe. It was astonishing with what ease he held the reins at that noisy time, and with what lightness and self-possession he encountered the obstacles in his path. In May the Opposition made a determined attempt to unseat him, and a long and stormy debate took place. Mr. Disraeli, anxious to avail himself of the uneasy and disconted feeling which still widely prevailed, and to make the most of the inarticulate shouting of a number of ill-informed people who called themselves Administrative Reformers, moved a resolution to the effect that the language of Her Majesty’s Government was ‘ambiguous and uncertain.’ The Opposition maintained the attack with spirit and animosity, and the men below the gangway on the Liberal side, in whose eyes Lord Palmerston never found favour, kept up a raking fire of argument, taunt and invective. Mr. Disraeli closed the attack in one of his most impassioned philippics. One can still see him with the mind’s eye as his sentences rang through the House, his right arm coming down with fierce emphasis at each rhetorical close, while he asked, in impetuous torrent of interrogatives, whether the Prime Minister had not done this, that, and the other evil thing? It was beautiful to observe Lord Palmerston sitting in fixed and placid attention, cool as an old admiral cut out of oak, the figure-head of a seventy-four gun ship in a Biscay squall. At last, as the hours of morning stole on, he placed his hat quietly on the table, and, amid the intense excitement of the House, sprang to his feet. Not a shade of agitation or anxiety could you trace on that brave, clear, splendidly intelligent face. The forehead, broad and expansive, the eye frank, fearless, and sparkling, the whole countenance radiant with energy, courage, good temper, spoke assurance to his party and defiance to the Opposition. He had got into the heart of his subject,—eleven and a half columns of Hansard had been spoken,—when the cry of ‘Black Rod’ echoed through the House, and the usher who rejoices in that mysterious title summoned the Commons to the bar of the Lords, to receive her Majesty’s assent by commission to certain Bills. Lord Palmerston was interrupted; the Speaker left the chair, and, with as many of the members as chose to accompany him, proceeded to the Upper House. After a while the Speaker returned, and Lord Palmerston resumed. ‘I think,’—these were his first words,—‘I have some reason to complain of the impatience of the other House in not waiting for the censure which the right honourable gentleman opposite is desirous of inflicting, but in prematurely administering the rod.’ The Opposition, joining in the titter which ran along every bench, learned that the tempest they had so passionately raised had agitated the mind of Lord Palmerston to no greater extent than was consistent with its wafting towards them a jest so feather-light as this. The next second he was grappling with the arguments of his opponents, and in one or two minutes all recollection of the interruption had passed from the memory of the House. His speech may be pronounced one of the noblest ever uttered in Parliament. Simple, manly, luminous, convincing, high in tone and unanswerable in reasoning, it told upon the intellect not only of Parliament, not only of England, but of the civilized world. Some of its sentences deserve to be remembered. ‘I feel that, in whatever hands the Government is placed, the will of the country must and will be obeyed. I know that will is that England, having engaged in a war necessary and just, in concert with our great ally and neighbour, France, must and shall succeed.’ From the moment he was Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston felt that he held a trust higher than the interests of party, and not in the utmost fervour of debate, not in the most unguarded moment of social converse, could an expression pass his lips which, in discrediting his adversaries, cast a slur upon the name of England. In a still loftier tone, one seldom assumed by Lord Palmerston, and never except in a spirit of deep reverence and sincerity, is the following: ‘The fate of battle is in the hands of a Higher Power. It is not in our power to command success, but it is enough for us to do all in our power to obtain it. That we have done. In a cause which we consider to be just, necessary, and honourable, we confidently place our trust in a Higher Power.’ Mr. Disraeli was beaten by a majority of one hundred, and the Government confirmed in the hands of Lord Palmerston.

“From that night he was a kind of monarch in England. We learned to call him Old Pam, and to love him better than any Prime Minister was ever loved throughout the three kingdoms. All parties in the House took to him. It was pleasant to sit under his parliamentary government, and though there were Liberals more liberal than he, and Conservatives more conservative, the majority both of Liberals and Conservatives secretly preferred him to their special chiefs. He had not the slowness and heavy decorum of Earl Russell; he did not startle country gentlemen with extravagances, paradoxes, and freaks of intellectual rope-dancing, like Mr. Disraeli; and his virtue was not of that grim and earnest kind which rebukes a worldly-minded legislature in the person of Mr. Gladstone. The great neutral party in and out of the House discovered that the firebrand Palmerston would not kindle dangerous conflagrations, but was opulent in the heat that warms without burning.”