The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4

Hesse. Leaving at night, the Queen was in Antwerp early next morning (9th), and on the 10th at Greenhithe, whence the Fairy, steam tender to the royal yacht, conveyed her to Woolwich. Driving to Nine Elms, she took train to Windsor, greatly pleased by the hearty greetings she received from crowds of people at the chief stations on the way. The autumnal holiday was, as usual, spent at Balmoral, where a kindly and sympathetic family party gathered round the Queen. Prince Louis of Hesse and the Princess (Alice) stayed with her at the Castle. The Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, with their family, were lodged hard by at Abergeldie. The Princess Louis of Hesse devoted herself to her mother, and with characteristic energy endeavoured to dispel the heaviness of heart which was again settling on her. For this purpose she urged the Queen to resume the old open-air life among the mountains, from which she had derived incalculable benefit in times past. The Princess therefore organised an expedition to Clova, which her mother was induced to join. The party consisted of the Queen, the Princess Louis of Hesse, the Princess Helena, the Queen’s coachman, Smith, and her gillie, John Brown, and “Willem,” a little black page-boy in the service of the Princess Louis. The excursion was marred by an alarming accident which befell the party on the way home. The coachman lost his way in the dark, and about two miles from Altnagiuthasach the carriage was upset—the Queen being flung violently on her face to the ground. “Alice,” writes the Queen in her “Journal,” was “soon helped up, by means of tearing all her clothes to disentangle her; but Lenchen (Princess Helena), who had also got caught in her dress, called out very piteously, which frightened me a good deal, but she was also got out with Brown’s assistance, and neither she nor Alice was at all hurt. I reassured them that I was not hurt, and urged that we should make the best of it, as it was an inevitable misfortune.... Meantime the horses were lying on the ground as if dead, and it was absolutely necessary to get them up again. Alice, whose coolness was admirable, held one of the lamps while Brown cut the traces, to the horror of Smith, and the horses were speedily released, and got up unhurt.” The Queen’s common-sense advice to “make the best of it” was taken, and the Royal party encamped in this desolate mountain solitude, while Smith was sent on to get another carriage. Then the Princesses discovered that their mother had been bruised severely on the face, and that her right thumb was sprained. “A little claret,” the Queen says, “was all we could get either to drink or wash my face and hands.” Luckily, the groom, who had gone on in front with the “shelties,” or rough little mountain ponies, which the Queen and her family use for hill climbing, got alarmed at their long absence, and he very sensibly rode back to see if any accident had happened. When he came up the Queen insisted on mounting at once and riding all the way home, which she reached after ten o’clock at night, to find the Crown Prince of Prussia and Prince Louis of Hesse at the door of the Castle anxiously looking out for her. A week after this accident (13th of October) the Queen was present at the inauguration of Marochetti’s statue to the Prince Consort at Aberdeen. “I could not reconcile it to myself,” she said, in replying to an address from the subscribers, “to remain at Balmoral while such a tribute was being paid to his (Prince Albert’s) memory, without making an exertion to assure you personally of the deep and heartfelt sense I entertain of your kindness and affection, and at the same time to proclaim in public the unbounded reverence and admiration, the devoted love, that fills my heart for him whose loss must throw a lasting gloom over my future life.” It was a mournful ceremony for the Queen, whose emotion was so great that she had to depute Sir George Grey, the Minister in attendance, to read her reply. Dense crowds of people filled the streets, but forbore to cheer, greeting the Royal widow merely with silent and respectful sympathy. In a letter to the Lord Provost of the city, the Queen, on her return to Balmoral, assured him how fully she appreciated the consideration which was shown for her feelings, not only by those who took part in the ceremony, but by the townspeople generally, “on an occasion which was one of severe and painful trial” for her. During the months of September and October the Princess Louis of Hesse was in attendance on the Queen, who was much cheered and benefited by her affectionate companionship. But her visit came to an end in October, when the Princess, in a letter to her Majesty written from Buckingham Palace, on her way to Darmstadt, says of her sojourn, “It was such a happiness to speak to you, and in return to hear all you had to say, to try and soothe you, and try to make your burthen lighter.... I can only say again, trust, hope, and be courageous, and every day will bring something in the fulfilment of your great duties which will bring you peace and make you feel that you are not forsaken, that God has heard your prayer, felt for you as a loving Father would, and that dear papa is not far from you.”[176] The 14th of December—the anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death—was passed in deep seclusion by the Queen at Windsor. As the year closed the country was relieved of all anxiety as to the Cotton Famine in Lancashire. The crisis had, indeed, passed early in summer, and the nation no longer feared that the calamity would prove unmanageable. The history of the Cotton Famine may be termed a history of agreeable disappointments. It was predicted that the prostration of trade in Lancashire would deal a mortal blow at English commerce—that the revenue would dwindle to a vanishing point—that the problem of sustaining vast masses of pauperised labour, whose pauperism must be but the harbinger of general bankruptcy among their employers, would prove insoluble—that their starvation would breed pestilence and lead to outbreaks of violence and crime, ending with seditious attacks on the Government and all institutions that upheld law and order. Already it has been shown that commerce, so far from declining, flourished apace during 1862-63, and that the revenue increased so rapidly that Mr. Gladstone actually remitted taxes.

The problem of relieving the distress was solved with ease and simplicity. There were no epidemics of pestilence, and, save in Stalybridge, no riotous disturbances. The noble resignation, the heroic patience of the sufferers, and their perfect confidence in the sympathy and the helpfulness of their countrymen, in fact compelled the admiration of the civilised world. In the month of December, 1862, there were 500,000 cotton operatives receiving relief in Lancashire, and the loss in wages from lack of employment was estimated at £168,000. Cotton then came in, though in small quantities, and some mills were able to run. Emigration and the transference of labour to other employments also relieved the pressure, so that in June, 1863, only 256,000 persons were receiving relief in the afflicted districts. At the end of the year this number was reduced to 180,000. So far from the health of the people suffering, it rather improved. There was less infant mortality than usual in the cotton districts, possibly because female operatives, being thrown out of work, were able to devote more attention to their children.[177] Enforced

sobriety gave the people more power to resist disease, and sanitary precautions which, at the instance of the Executive Committee in Manchester, were taken by local authorities also tended to keep the villages wholesome. The funds by which distress was relieved came from special local rates levied by consent of Parliament in the unions; from loans raised by local authorities under Parliamentary sanction, and spent on public works which gave employment to the operatives; and, last of all, from voluntary subscriptions, which were sent from all quarters of the world. At first it was thought that little could be expected from the cotton districts themselves. “Lancashire,” said Mr. Cobden to Lady Hatherton, “with its machinery stopped is like a man in a fainting fit. It would be as natural to attempt to draw money from the one as blood from the other.”[178] But in one form or another, in voluntary contributions, rates, loss of wages, depreciation of fixed capital, business losses, Lancashire spent an aggregate of £12,445,000 in coping with the Cotton Famine. Lancashire, indeed, raised £1,400,000 of the voluntary contributions received up to April, 1863, which came to £2,735,000. The work of administration was chiefly centred in the Executive Committee at Manchester, the President of which was the Earl of Derby. The voluntary labour at their command must have been very great, for the cost of administration came only to 15s. for every £100. What was afterwards called “the Conservative reaction” in Lancashire set in after this Fund was distributed, for in time, when the old generation of Radicals died out, their successors in the districts which had been saved from starvation by the almoners of the Fund, who were often zealous Anglicans, nearly all went over to the Tory Party. The Queen did her utmost to contribute to the success of the Fund, and her joy was unalloyed when she saw that its administrators had, in the beginning of 1864, averted the disaster that menaced her Northern Duchy.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DANISH WAR.

The year 1864 gives one a vivid illustration of the stagnant condition of politics in England under Lord Palmerston. The mind of the country was absorbed in one question, and one only, namely, whether England should make war in Prussia and Austria to maintain the integrity of Denmark and uphold the Treaty of London. Ten years before, England had rushed headlong into war for a cause that was more shameful, and for “British interests” that were much more visionary than those which were now at stake. But great progress had been made during these ten years. The disasters and disgrace which had fallen on the nation during the Crimean struggle had not been endured for nothing. Englishmen had no longer boundless confidence in the aristocratic war party, whose clumsy diplomacy and military incapacity had involved the country in the inglorious contest with Russia. Moreover, while the Court was neutral in that struggle, latterly leaning, if to any side, to the side of the war party, in 1864 the Queen was obstinately determined to keep out of war, and Palmerston found in her a much more formidable antagonist than either Mr. Cobden or Mr. Bright. Mr. Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,” asserts that it was his (Cobden’s) influence, and the pressure brought to bear on the Ministry by Lancashire, that thwarted Palmerston at the end of the struggle. Count Vitzthum, on the other hand, credits the Queen with the honour of defeating the Premier. The truth is that neither the Queen nor Mr. Cobden, acting alone, could have saved their country from a fate as melancholy as that which smote Austria to the dust at Sadowa. [179]

But, acting together, though quite independently of each other, they represented a combination of social and political forces, which would have crushed not only Palmerston, but his Cabinet, had he continued to resist them with blind oppugnancy.

At the beginning of the year the Danes, acting on English advice, had withdrawn from Holstein, where Prussia and Austria had put in Federal execution on behalf of the Diet. Danish and German troops therefore faced each other on the Eider, which divided Sleswig from Holstein, and Europe waited with almost breathless excitement for the first shot that would kindle the far-darting flames of war. Councils of moderation had been pressed by Lord Russell on the Danish Government, but in vain. They were urged by Lord Wodehouse, who had been sent on a special mission to Copenhagen, to withdraw the Constitution of November which had provoked the intervention of Germany. His mission was a failure. Politicians at home and abroad were alarmed by an extraordinary essay known to be from the pen of Lord Robert Cecil, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, advocating war against Germany on behalf of Denmark, and it was supposed to represent the policy of the Tory Party. It, however, did not represent the views of Mr. Disraeli, who, in a confidential conversation with Count Vitzthum, disowned it, and as for Lord Derby, he had no well-defined views on the subject. Had it been otherwise, Lord Palmerston could have easily frightened his Cabinet into war. “Any doubt,” writes Count Vitzthum, “as to the validity of the Treaty of 1852 offended so deeply the amour propre of the Prime Minister that he was capable of going any lengths. The plan which he devised, to save his work, was to attack with one portion of the British ironclad fleet the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany, and with another portion, Trieste and Venice, to support with English gold Mazzini and Garibaldi in Italy, and Kossuth in Hungary, and thus kindle a general conflagration.”[180] This might have been Palmerston’s plan at the beginning of the year. A few week’s reflection, however, toned it down, for in a private letter to Lord Russell, dated the 13th of February, it seems that, though his animus against Germany had not abated, he was of opinion that “it would be best for us to wait a while before taking any strong step; though,” he adds, “it is very useful to remind the Austrians and the Prussians privately of the danger they were running at home.”[181] A few days after that, in a private letter to the Duke of Somerset, Palmerston’s plan is found to be still further modified, but this time in a mischievous direction. It now took the form of sending the Fleet to Danish waters, with orders to prevent the Germans from attacking Zealand and Copenhagen.[182] Every word spoken and every line written on the Sleswig-Holstein Question by Palmerston and Russell at this juncture, deluded the Danes into the belief that the British Government were prepared to defend by force of arms the integrity of Denmark as a British interest. But for this delusion Denmark would not have obstinately resisted even the most moderate demands which were made for concessions to the Germans in Sleswig-Holstein.

The case against Austria, Prussia, and the Diet was capable of easy statement in a popular form. Hence it is not surprising that the large class of Englishmen who act on what may be called the public schoolboy theory of high politics took the side of the Danes. Denmark was a small Power, whereas Austria and Prussia were two large Powers, who were “bullying” Denmark. Austria, Prussia, and most of the minor States of Germany did not come into court with clean hands. They had individually sanctioned the Treaty of London, to which they now objected, because the German Diet, of which they were members, had not ratified it. They refused to be bound by it because Denmark had violated antecedent engagements, made independently of it, and on another subject than the Danish Succession, with which the Treaty dealt. Austria and Prussia could hardly be disinterested in coming forward as the champions of Constitutionalism, and “the doctrine of nationalities” in Sleswig and Holstein. The Treaty of London of 1852 was the work of England, and to uphold it by arms was a debt of honour which Englishmen ought to pay. The big-boy-and-the-small-boy argument was founded on a strange misconception of the facts. In Holstein and Sleswig the

Danes played the part of the big boy who was bullying the little one. When they were asked to hold their harsh hand by stronger Powers they pleaded their weakness as an excuse for their tyranny. The bad motives of the champions of the Sleswig-Holsteiners, however, did not affect the rights or wrongs of their clients. Moreover, Englishmen quite mistook the German argument, which was this: The German Powers who sanctioned the Treaty of London did not allege that it was null and void because Denmark had not kept the engagements of 1851. They said that Frederick VII. had died before he had lawfully established in his kingdom the order of succession which the Treaty sanctioned, and which, had Denmark stood by her engagements, they would have had no difficulty in supporting. This being the case, they were, they said, entitled to repudiate a Treaty which was illegal in the eyes of international law, till ratified by the German Diet, by the Sleswig-Holsteiners, and by the heirs to the Duchies who had been set aside by it.

So far as the Queen was concerned, Palmerston’s arguments had no effect on her mind. She had warned him that the change in the Danish succession, effected by the Treaty of London, was illegal, and would one day be disputed. It might have been legalised by a fait accompli—that is to say, if the Germans in the Duchies had been induced to accept the change by a conciliatory policy. On the contrary, the policy of the Danes had been so offensively anti-German, that the Sleswig-Holsteiners were more opposed to the Treaty than ever. Moreover, Germans all over the Fatherland were with them, and it was therefore idle to ask German Sovereigns to risk revolution by forcing on Germans in the Duchies an oppressive foreign government. To propose English intervention was equally objectionable to the Queen. She was firmly convinced that the English people wanted peace and not war, and that the integrity of a petty Northern State was not, in their opinion, essential to their Imperial existence. Her Majesty laid her finger at the outset on the point of folly in Palmerston’s policy, which was the maintenance of the Treaty of 1852. Would Englishmen consent to levy war on the German race to uphold an instrument which the carelessness of English diplomatists, in refusing to obtain legal ratifications, had rendered invalid? And then what would men of business say when asked to bear the burden of such a war, to uphold a Treaty that thrust dynasty on a people who did not want it? Curiously enough, the same line of argument was subsequently taken by Mr. Cobden, though he did not know the secret history of the Treaty of London. “In 1852,” said he, “by the mischievous activity of our Foreign Office, seven diplomatists were brought round a green table in London to settle the destinies of a million of people in the two provinces of Sleswig and Holstein without the slightest reference to the wants and wishes, and the tendencies or interests, of that people. The preamble of the Treaty which was then and there agreed to, stated that what those seven diplomatists were going to do was to maintain the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and to sustain the balance of power in Europe. Kings, emperors, princes, were represented at that meeting, but the people had not the slightest voice or right in the matter. They settled the Treaty, the object of which was to draw closer the bonds between those two provinces and Denmark. The tendency of the great majority of the people of these provinces—about a million of them altogether—was altogether in the direction of Germany. From that time to this year the Treaty was followed by constant agitation and discord; two wars have sprung out of it, and it has ended in the Treaty being torn to pieces by two of the Governments who were prominent parties to the Treaty.”[183] Still, the Queen was so desirous of peace that she did not refuse her sanction to proposals of compromise which were from time to time made by Lord Russell, but which proved abortive. In one of these, addressed to the German Diet on the 31st of December, 1863, Lord Russell said that England “demands, in the interests of peace,” (1), a Conference of the signatory powers in London to compose the dispute, and (2), the establishment of the status quo till this Conference finished its labours—one of those “demands” which, according to Sir Alexander Malet, Herr von Bismarck treated with “disdain.”[184]

Anxious Cabinet meetings were held in January, and reports of Ministerial dissensions flew round. Projects for giving the Danes material support seem to have been broached, but, according to Lord Malmesbury, writing on the 29th of January, the Ministry found “great difficulties in the opposition of the Queen.”[185] In these circumstances Lord Palmerston, knowing that the Tory Party were ready to support him in defending Denmark, began to look to Lord Derby for aid. To his colleagues he said, “If we do not begin the war, the Tories will turn us out in order to do it themselves.”[186] But here he was again foiled. The Queen had an interview with Lord Derby at Osborne, which ended in the leader of the Opposition becoming convinced that the integrity of the Danish Kingdom was a mere phrase involving no British interest which justified a war—an opinion which Mr. Disraeli enforced in private when he scornfully described the “integrity of Denmark” not as “a phrase,” but as “humbug.” He told Count Vitzthum, that he believed if Denmark ever again possessed a fleet she “would fight in the next war not for England, but for Russia and France.”[187] As for making war with France for an ally—another Palmerstonian idea—Lord Derby was asked whether that did not mean sacrificing Antwerp to save Copenhagen? There thus remained for Palmerston but one more chance of committing the country before Parliament met, and that was by inserting a bellicose paragraph into the Royal Speech. Again he was thwarted by the Queen’s opposition. Her Majesty refused to sanction a threatening speech, and her objections were sustained by a majority of the Cabinet, much to Palmerston’s chagrin. “It was not,” says Count Vitzthum, “till the day before Parliament opened, that her Majesty approved the colourless speech which was read on her behalf. Every one,” he adds, “was waiting with the keenest anxiety for the debate on the Address, and the House of Lords was crowded when Lord Derby (February 4) rose to make his three hours’ speech. I stood on the steps of the throne, close by the front railings. It so chanced that Lord Palmerston, who had been fetched by the Duke of Argyll, was standing next to me, and thus I was able to watch the impression produced on the Prime Minister by the eloquence of his opponent. The House listened with breathless silence to Lord Derby’s solemn admonitions on behalf of peace, in which he enlarged with statesmanlike tact and rare skill on the proposition that a war with Germany would be the gravest calamity to England. A perfect storm of applause was the orator’s reward, and Lord Palmerston left the House in evident uneasiness.”[188] And no wonder. He knew that his colleagues would now be all the more disposed for peace, for it was only too obvious that the result of Lord Derby’s interview with the Queen at Osborne had been a pledge that he would not permit his party to aid the Prime Minister in goading the country into war. “That particular danger,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was over. Twice more, however, in the course of that Session did Lord Palmerston attempt to drag the Cabinet along with him and carry his project of a war. Each time he was outvoted. Thrice did the Queen gain a victory over the would-be Dictator in the bosom of his own Cabinet.”[189] The criticism of the Tory chiefs was, however, directed to raise general distrust in Palmerston’s foreign policy as a whole. Lord Derby described it as one of “meddle and muddle.” “Nihil intactum reliquit,” observed Lord Derby, laughingly, “nihil tetigit quod non conturbavit.” In the meantime the whole question was passing out of the sphere of diplomacy.

On the 14th of January, Austria and Prussia asked the Diet to sanction the occupation of Sleswig, pending the withdrawal of the obnoxious Constitution incorporating Sleswig in Danish territory, and all fulfilment by Denmark of her engagements to respect the civic privileges of all Germans in the Duchies. The Diet considered that the Danes might comply with the German demand, and thus recover the Duchies. Hence the Austro-Prussian proposal was defeated, the ostensible reason given by the Diet being that it had no jurisdiction beyond Holstein. Prussia and Austria then intimated that they would themselves occupy Sleswig. The Prussian Chamber, adopting the view of the Diet, refused to grant the Government supplies, because, as Herr Schultze-Delitzsch said, this policy could only lead to the restoration of the Duchies to Denmark. Von Bismarck’s retort was “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.[190] If you refuse supplies, the Government will take them in spite of you.” Austria, eager to recover the military prestige she had lost in Italy, and alarmed at the progress which democracy was making every day in the Duchies, perhaps also somewhat afraid lest Prussia might win all the glory of a strong and resolute pan-German policy, joined Prussia, thereby striking a mortal blow at the authority of the moribund Germanic Confederation among the German-speaking race. On the 1st of February the Austro-Prussian Army of occupation crossed the Eider, which was the answer the allies gave to Lord Russell’s “demand” for a Conference and the establishment of the status quo. Within a week the Danes were driven northwards behind their fortifications in Düppel—their last line of defence in Sleswig. Lord

Palmerston, who had imagined that they could gain time for him by holding the Dannewerk, now found that he had made a sad mistake. The English Government accordingly implored France and Russia to join England in giving moral and material support to Denmark. But Von Bismarck, though still opposed by the Prussian Chamber, laughed at Palmerston’s efforts to roll back the tide of German conquest. “He had,” as his biographer says, “already taken care to be sure of his men, in expectation of such a contingency. Russia, as we have seen, had been laid under a counter-obligation to Prussia by the services of the latter in the matter of the Polish insurrection.”[191] As for France, she had been propitiated by a favourable Commercial Treaty, and Napoleon III. was reminded that it was not Prussia, who had accepted, but England, who had refused to accept, his project for an European Congress of Sovereigns in 1863, who had dealt a cruel blow at his prestige. Palmerston now awoke to the painful fact that there was another obstacle in the way of carrying out a war policy. He and Lord Russell had left England without a single ally in Europe. In vain did the two Ministers struggle with their fate. Their protests and their proposals were answered by German victories. At last, when Jutland was invaded—territory so sacred that Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell had resolved to resent its invasion by naval intervention—the Danes offered to negotiate for peace on the basis of the status quo, as established by the Treaties of 1851-52. Von Bismarck’s answer was that the offer came too late, for Prussia no longer considered herself bound by Treaties which war had cancelled. Still, Prussia would not object to a Conference, but it must be a Conference without a basis or an armistice—England having insisted on both. The proposal of an armistice soon had no practical interest. On the 18th of April, after a destructive cannonade, the Prussians stormed the redoubts of Düppel, and captured them after half-an-hour’s fighting. The excitement now became intense in London. Was it possible that the hitherto invincible diplomacy of Palmerston was destined to fail whenever it was met by an antagonist who, as Sir A. Malet says, treated “cajolery and menace” with equal disdain?

“At this juncture,” writes Count Vitzthum, “Lord Palmerston thought fit to offer a spectacle to the London mob, which was calculated to inflame still more their revolutionary passions. Mindful of the panem et circenses of the Roman Emperors, the veteran Premier sought to please the people by showing them Garibaldi. The latter, who had been released from his imprisonment after the affair at Aspromonte, was to be employed, if Palmerston succeeded in carrying through his scheme, against Venetia, and, if necessary, against Rome. Ovations were showered on the guerilla leader from the moment of his landing.[192] In London he was met at the railway station by the Duke of Sutherland, and conducted in pomp through the leading thoroughfares to Stafford House. Countless multitudes thronged the streets, and hailed this triumphal procession with acclamations. There had scarcely been such crowds at the entrance of the French Emperor and Empress in 1855, or at that of the Princess of Wales.[193] Garibaldi was lodged like a prince at the Duke of Sutherland’s mansion. Thither came the most distinguished ladies of the Whig aristocracy to court the favour of a look or a smile from the fêted champion of freedom. The Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition met together at the banquet given in his honour at Stafford House.[194] London society filled the splendid apartments in the evening, and thronged round the lion of the day.... Among those most profuse in their attentions was the Duchess of Sutherland, late Mistress of the Robes, who gave a luncheon party at Chiswick to the adventurer, and received him like a king at the door of her mansion dressed in full attire. Lord Clarendon, not to miss this festivity, postponed his journey to Paris, where he was to make the last fruitless attempt to induce Napoleon to take action.[195] There was something indescribably comic in this exaggerated display of British hero-worship. The only man who was unaffected by it was Garibaldi himself. The old sailor was not the least imposed on by it all—not the least impressed. He made his appearance in the gilded saloons without coat or waistcoat, and paraded in his red flannel shirt. In the streets he wore his black felt hat, with a red feather. Festivities and attentions bored him intensely. He made no secret of his aversion to old women, even though they wore the ermine of duchesses. After the banquet at Stafford House he said that he was not accustomed to sit so late and so long at his meals. He called for his pipe of tobacco. The Dowager Duchess [of Sutherland] overcame her dislike to tobacco smoke, took Garibaldi into her boudoir, lit his pipe with her own hands, and never left him till he had finished it.”[196] This strange episode did not impose on the Queen either, who had reason to believe that nobody concerned was deceived, except the good-natured British populace, whose honest hero-worship was being exploited by Palmerston for diplomatic purposes. The reception of Garibaldi was meant as a warning to Austria that if invincible in Denmark she was vulnerable in Venice; to France, that if through pique she thwarted Palmerston’s diplomacy in Northern Europe, there would soon be trouble brewing for her at Rome; and to Russia, that if she deserted England she would find that the spirit of revolution could yet be roused in Poland. How far the Tory leaders were parties to the imposture is not clear. Lord Malmesbury tries to persuade us that they took part in it merely from motives of childish curiosity. A fashionable lion was reported to be in Stafford House, and so he and his colleagues went there to hear him roar.

One of the most curious projects broached by Lord Palmerston’s satellites was that of raising a subscription among “the gentry of England” to furnish Garibaldi with funds for attacking Austria in Venice, and France in Rome. This scheme, says Lord Shaftesbury, who euphuistically describes it as one for “furthering his [Garibaldi’s] Italian purposes,” was quashed by

the patriot himself, happily in time to save his credit as well as the credit of “the gentry of England.” After “many sittings of committees,” writes Lord Shaftesbury, who was one of the most active of Lord Palmerston’s agents in this business,[197] “myriads of letters and private requests, we had in two months obtained payments and promises for a sum considerably under three thousand pounds.” Whether Lord Shaftesbury was, like Garibaldi, a tool in Palmerston’s hands it is impossible to say. But it is a singular fact that we find him writing to the Duc de Persigny on the 8th of April assuring him “that there is not in it [Garibaldi’s visit] a notion of politics.” On the other hand, he himself discloses, in a posthumous Memorandum unearthed by the industry of his biographer, the whole story of his abortive attempt to raise subsidies for Garibaldi’s revolutionary designs. Nay, when the Tory chiefs went to Stafford House to dine with the hero, Lady Shaftesbury, who was Lady Palmerston’s daughter, appears on the scene laughing at them for having fallen into a trap.[198]

But after the lion had roared loud enough to wake the echoes of the Tuileries, Lord Clarendon was sent to Paris on a private diplomatic mission. His object was to induce the Emperor Napoleon to support Lord Palmerston’s proposal for a Conference of the Powers on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, a scheme which France as yet did not sanction. It must be allowed that if the German Powers scoffed at the attempt to frighten them by a Cockney demonstration in favour of Garibaldi, Lord Palmerston and his envoy seem to have made it serve their turn in Paris. Napoleon III. agreed at last to support the Palmerston-Russell scheme of a Conference, provided Palmerston would send Garibaldi out of England as quickly as possible. This was an embarrassing condition to fulfil, as the guerilla chief was becoming far too popular to be treated in such an unceremonious fashion. He had entered into an engagement to proceed to Manchester, and from thence on a provincial tour of agitation, which greatly disquieted Napoleon III., and which must therefore be stopped. The end of the farce may be told in Lord Malmesbury’s words. In his Diary on the 20th of April he writes:—“Garibaldi leaves England on Friday.... Certainly there must be some intrigue, as Mr. Ferguson, the surgeon, writes a letter to the Duke of Sutherland—which is published—saying it would be dangerous for Garibaldi’s health if he exposed himself to the fatigue of an expedition to Manchester, &c. &c. On the other hand, Dr. Basile, Garibaldi’s own doctor, says he is perfectly well, and able to undergo all the fatigue of a journey to the manufacturing towns.”[199] This communication from Dr. Basile was published, because Garibaldi was naturally angry at having been overreached by Palmerston and the Whig aristocracy, who sacrificed him whenever he was of no more use to them as a piece on the political chessboard. What made matters worse was that Garibaldi felt certain that, if he had been allowed but one week for agitation in the provinces, he would have stirred up so much popular feeling that he could have defied Lord Palmerston to order him home.

As usual in cases where Lord Palmerston was forced to do something that displeased the populace, it was promptly insinuated far and wide that he was again the victim of the Court. Garibaldi, it was hinted, had been expelled in deference to the Queen’s pro-Austrian sympathies. It is but right to vindicate her Majesty from the absurd suggestions that were then current, and for that reason it has been deemed expedient to tell the true story of Garibaldi’s visit to London in 1864. Let it be admitted, however, that at least one member of the Whig aristocracy refused to turn against the hero when the mot d’ordre went forth from Cambridge House that he must be dropped. This was the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, who carried the discarded lion away to Cliefden, and tended him faithfully till he left Plymouth on the 25th of April. It was her enthusiasm that inspired one of the diners-out of the day with an anecdote which rendered the wonderful party at Stafford House on the 13th of April almost as memorable as Garibaldi’s presence there. “She” (the Dowager Duchess), said one of the company, “is noble, richly jointured, romantic, and a widow—why, then, does she not marry her hero?” “Ah,” was the reply, “but you forget he has a wife living.” “That,” said another guest—alleged to have been Lord Palmerston—“is of no consequence; I have Gladstone here, and can easily get him to explain her away.” Yet, though the duchess and the mob alike forgot to mourn for their hero after his expulsion had ceased to be a nine days’ wonder, it is pleasing to know that their fidelity to his cause was unwavering, and that their admiration of the man himself was absolutely untarnished by sordid and selfish calculations.

The project of the Conference on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, now that France accepted it, was fairly started, and it gave Palmerston a chance of extricating his Ministry without much ignominy from the complication in which they had become enmeshed. The Queen favoured it, as she favoured any arrangement that seemed likely to make for peace; but, as the Conference was to meet without a basis and without an armistice—indeed, as the capture of Düppel had made Prussia and Austria masters of the situation, an armistice was of little consequence—her Majesty’s view of the issue was not so sanguine as that of her Prime Minister. “Austria and Prussia,” says Count Vitzthum, “were not sorry to take advantage of it (the Conference) in order to escape from a false position, in which they had placed themselves as belligerent Powers and cosignatories of the London Treaty. Both of them declared their readiness to attend the Conference, on condition that the German Bund received, as such, an invitation also. It was the first time since its existence that the Diet had been invited to attend and vote at a European Conference. The choice of its representation fell on the Saxon Minister of State, the most active advocate of the Federal standpoint. He accepted the choice, but was unable, from the haste with which the matter was arranged, to reach London on the 20th of April, the day fixed by the impatient Lord Russell for the opening of the Conference.”[200]

As might be expected, this led to a hitch in the proceedings. Austria and Prussia alleged that they could not take part in the Conference until Count Beust appeared on the scene, so that the first meeting of the diplomatists was ominously abortive. It was not till the 25th of April that the Conference met for work, and the story of its transactions is somewhat painful for Englishmen to recall. It soon became apparent that the real object of the German representatives was to thwart the policy of the English Government, and tear up the Treaty of London under the very eyes of their English colleagues. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell speedily discovered why the Diet had been invited for the first time to take part in a European Conference. Austria and Prussia, being cosignatories of the Treaty of London, found it a little embarrassing to take the initiative in “denouncing” that futile instrument; but they put forward Count Beust, as the representative of the Diet, to repudiate it, and he, on behalf of corporate Germany, declared that no solution of the problem could be accepted which did not provide for the complete separation of the Duchies from Denmark. In vain did Palmerston and Russell resist a demand that was utterly irreconcilable with the policy of maintaining the integrity of Denmark which was formulated in the Treaty of London. Russia and France abandoned them, and it became evident that continued victory would render the Germans, not more moderate, but more exacting in their demands. “Lord Clarendon,” writes Count Vitzthum, in his bright but brief account of the secret history of the Conference, “who, though nominally second, was in reality the first British plenipotentiary, induced Lord Russell, with a view of checking the bloodshed, to propose the separation of Holstein, Lauenburg, and South Sleswig. The neutrals—Russia and France—agreed to this, but the Danish representatives declared that their instructions were exhausted, and thus the matter remained to be settled by the sword.”[201]

Count Vitzthum’s narrative does not seem quite fair to Denmark. The Danes, it must be noted, have always alleged that they agreed to a frontier proposed by Lord Clarendon, and accordingly they assumed that after such a surrender of their position England would defend them and stand by her own proposition. Lord Russell, however, in his statement of the 27th June, denied that England had, through Lord Clarendon, committed herself to maintain this frontier. The fact is that Austria and Prussia, at a meeting of the Conference on the 17th of May, brought the proceedings to a deadlock by declaring that they would no longer recognise the King of Denmark as Sovereign of the Duchies. The neutral Plenipotentiaries then met privately at Lord Russell’s house and concocted a compromise by which Denmark should cede Holstein and Sleswig as far as the Schlei, and that the European Powers should then guarantee the rest of the Danish Dominions. Denmark accepted this proposal, but the German Powers, whilst eagerly accepting the principle of separating the Duchies from Denmark, objected to the frontier. According to a statement made by Bishop Monrad in the Danish Rigsraad, it is clear the compromise was not distinctively an English project, though it originated in Clarendon’s suggestions. But, according to Bishop Monrad, “Earl Russell promised that neither would he make a proposal himself nor support the proposal of any other Plenipotentiary which would be less favourable for Denmark, unless Denmark herself should consent to such new proposals.” Yet after the boundary of the Schlei had been suggested, Earl Russell, at a meeting of the Conference, proposed that the question of the frontier should be submitted to arbitration—the King of the Belgians being mentioned as arbiter—although Denmark did not consent to such a proposal. This proposition, partially accepted by Austria and Prussia, was rejected by Count Beust on behalf of the Diet. France then proposed that, while Germany should take German and Denmark should keep Danish Sleswig, the intervening part, with a mixed population, should by a plébiscite determine its own destiny. This was also rejected by Denmark, and so the Conference, which met at the request of England without a basis, separated without a result.

The obstinacy of the Danes, who seem to have built their hopes of English succour on Lord Palmerston’s marvellous power over a servile House of Commons, secured the triumph of Austria and Prussia—who up to this point were encumbered by their signatures to the Treaty of London. Lord Clarendon’s