But the one speech of the occasion was that delivered by Lord Palmerston, and it was the greatest speech he ever made. It proved that had he chosen to devote himself to that branch of politics, he could have become a great orator. The debate lasted for four nights, and this speech occupied four hours and a half. He was, in truth, pleading for his life. And yet he seemed to take it quite calmly, and did not, during the whole of the four hours, allow himself to be carried into any violence. He went on with his arguments, never allowing them to fall flatly, but seldom attempting to rise to any excessive height. He laid down his idea as to the redress to which an Englishman is entitled. “I say, then, that our doctrine is, that, in the first instance, redress should be sought from the law courts of the country; but that in cases where redress cannot be so had,—and those cases are many,—to confine a British subject to that remedy only would be to deprive him of the protection which he is entitled to receive.”
Going on to the special case of Don Pacifico, he then explains the circumstances. “What happened in this case? In the middle of the town of Athens, in a house which I must be allowed to say is not a wretched hovel, as some people have described it,—but it does not matter what it is, for whether a man’s home be a palace or a cabin, the owner has a right to be there safe from injury,—well, in a house which is not a wretched hovel, but which, in the early days of King Otho, was, I am told, the residence of the Count Armansperg, the chief of the Regency,—a house as good as the generality of those which existed in Athens before the sovereign ascended the throne,—M. Pacifico, living in that house, within forty yards of the great street, within a few minutes walk of a guard-house where soldiers were stationed, was attacked by a mob. Fearing injury when the mob began to assemble, he sent an intimation to the British Minister, who immediately informed the authorities. Application was made to the Greek Government for protection. No protection was afforded. The mob, in which were soldiers and gens-d’armes, who even, if officers were not with them, ought, from a sense of duty, to have interfered and to have prevented plunder,—that mob, headed by the sons of the Minister of War, not children of eight or ten years old, but older,—that mob for nearly two hours employed themselves in gutting the house of an unoffending man, carrying away or destroying every single thing the house contained, and left it a perfect wreck.”
Then he passes on to the general foreign policy of his administration, and answers the charges which had been made against him at great length by Sir James Graham. We cannot follow him here, as to do so we should be driven to go back over the whole work of his life. But the clearness with which it is all done is of such a nature that no one can now obtain a more lucid statement of the English view of European politics during the period; and he then concludes his view of the manner in which Great Britain could wish that her foreign affairs should be governed, and in which he thinks that they have been governed by him. “I do not complain of the conduct of those who have made these matters the means of attack upon Her Majesty’s Ministers. The Government of a great country like this is undoubtedly an object of fair and legitimate ambition to men of all shades of opinion. It is a noble thing to be allowed to guide the policy, and to influence the destinies of such a country; and, if ever it was an object of honourable ambition, more than ever must it be so at the moment at which I am speaking. For while we have seen, as stated by the right honourable baronet the member for Ripon, the political earthquake rocking Europe from side to side,—while we have seen thrones shaken, shattered, levelled,—institutions overthrown and destroyed,—while in almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged the land with blood, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, this country has presented a spectacle honourable to the people of England, and worthy of the admiration of mankind.”
The speech was liked by the whole House, foes as well as friends. It was thus that all Englishmen felt that they would wish that an English Minister of State should defend himself and the Government to which he belonged. “It has made us all proud of him,” said poor Sir Robert Peel, who, after that day, never lived to express such pride again. Then came the division; and, in a House of five hundred and seventy-four members, Lord Palmerston was acquitted by a majority of forty-six. On the next day,—or, in truth, on that day, for the division was not taken till nearly four o’clock,—he sent a word of joy over to Lord Normanby. “Our triumph has been complete in the debate, as well as in the division; and, all things considered, I scarcely ever remember a debate which, as a display of intellect, oratory, and high and dignified feeling, was more honourable to the House of Commons.”
There never had been a pitched battle fought on that arena in which the thing to be fought for was better understood, in which the combatants were marshalled in fairer order, in which the strategy was of a higher nature, or the courage displayed more brilliant. Should the Whigs, plus Palmerston, be kept in office, or should they be expelled from office because of Palmerston’s ungovernable arrogance? The House of Commons and the Whigs determined to keep Palmerston in his place. The victory was very great, and the glory almost unbounded. The House of Lords was set at naught, and a majority of forty-six in the House of Commons was taken as showing the will of the entire nation.
But it was not to last for long. Lord Palmerston knew, or asserted that he knew, where lay the real force which he had to encounter; and though he sounded his trumpet loudly on the occasion, and in the moment of his triumph forgot that his enemies still existed, he lived to remember their power. He thus wrote to his brother William; “The attack on our foreign policy has been rightly understood by everybody as the shot fired by a foreign conspiracy, aided and abetted by domestic intrigue.” He goes on in the same letter to tell how he was invited to dinner by two hundred and fifty members of the Reform Club, and how the banquet might have been extended to a thousand had it not been thought well to limit the demonstration. It was after this victory that the famous portrait of Lord Palmerston was painted, and presented to Lady Palmerston, by a hundred and twenty members of the House of Commons. This period,—the end, that is, of the session of 1850,—was the culminating point in the fortunes of our great Foreign Minister. He lived, indeed, to be twice Premier, and to have superintended the counsels by which Nicholas was beaten to his death in the Crimean War; but I do not think that he was ever as great as on the night on which he defended himself for having protected Don Pacifico. Such is the story of Don Pacifico. How the battle was renewed under other auspices in the next year, and how Lord Palmerston was then dismissed by the same Lord John Russell who now had defended him, must be told in the next chapter.
LORD PALMERSTON achieved his triumph in 1850, and encountered his disgrace, if it is to be so considered, in 1851. There was but the one year and a few months before his foes were too many for him. In describing this second battle, I shall endeavour to tell the story as though the blow had come from Lord John Russell, the head of the Cabinet, with such aid and counsel as may have been given to him by others of his own class. Of the action of the Court, as told to us in detail by Sir Theodore Martin, I have spoken in the first chapter, and it will be more convenient if I go on with Lord Palmerston’s career without much further allusion to it. He himself believed that he had been the victim of a foreign conspiracy, aided by those Englishmen who agreed that its purpose was good. In September, 1850, he thus wrote to his brother,—after the affair of Don Pacifico; “I have beaten and put down and silenced, at least for a time, one of the most widespread and malignant and active confederacies that ever conspired against one man without crushing him; but I was in the right, and I was able to fight my battle.” “The death of Louis Philippe delivers me from my most artful and inveterate enemy, whose position gave him in many ways the power to injure me.” The readers of to-day will dislike the use of the word conspiracy, and will think that the powers brought to bear against the Foreign Secretary were no more than those of fair political opposition. And it will probably be thought that Lord Palmerston was becoming too powerful in foreign affairs,—or was wont to express himself too loudly,—as has since come to be the case with another great arranger of European strategy in another country. It was so. It is not within the compass of a man’s nature to stretch his voice afar and yet to control the power of his own hand. Looking back, we can understand that Palmerston should have fallen; but we all feel that had he not risen to higher place because of his fall, England would have lost much by his falling.
In the autumn of 1850 General Haynau came to London, and, among other sights, visited Barclay & Perkins’ brewery. According to English ideas he had shown himself to be a brute during the Hungarian war; and very brutally was he treated by the draymen. His name should not be mentioned here but that all England was in a momentary ferment because of what had been done. It was generally thought that he had been maltreated, and that, as he had not ill-used Englishmen or English women, we should have contented ourselves with simply ignoring him when he trusted himself to our hospitality. Palmerston’s judgment as to what had been done was lenient. “The draymen were wrong in the particular course they adopted. Instead of striking him, which, however, by Koller’s account, they did not do much, they ought to have tossed him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then sent him home in a cab, paying his fare to the hotel.”
In his sixty-seventh year (January, 1851) he wrote to his brother from Broadlands. Speaking of the Christmas just past, he says; “I took a fling, and went out several days hunting and shooting in the fine of the early day, coming home, of course, for work earlier than if I had been only a sportsman.” Let gentlemen of sixty-seven who habitually go out hunting and shooting,—for I am aware that there are Englishmen of the age who do so,—bethink themselves of the manner in which they pass the remainder of the day after they have come home. Are they tired, and do they sleep, or sit over their tea? Do they congratulate themselves that at sixty-seven they have been still able to perform so well many of the feats of their youth? I think I may say that they, none of them, betake themselves to the hard thoughtful work of their lives; and that, if such work still falls to their lot, it has to be done before they go out hunting or shooting.
He, however, takes his share in all matters of interest. He knows what is doing as to fortifications, and takes a strong interest in the subject. He writes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; “Could you but take a sum, however small, to make a beginning, for similar defences at Plymouth?” He is very eager as to some system of volunteering. “Every other country that deserves to be called a power has this kind of reserved force.” Then comes the great Exhibition of 1851,—the first of those marvellous palaces of industry which have since been studded thick over the world’s surface. He is writing to Lord Normanby, and is speaking of the multitude. “The Queen, her husband, her eldest son and daughter, gave themselves in full confidence to this multitude, with no other guard than one of honour and the accustomed supply of stick-handed constables.” And the Papacy has to be put down. “Our Papal Aggression Bill will be carried in spite of the opposition of the Irish members who are driven on by the influence of the priests over the Irish electors.” As to this bill, however, I do not know that we are now inclined to take much pride to ourselves. Then Mr. Gladstone’s Neapolitan letters were written, and so moved Naples, through England, that the Neapolitan prisons were at last opened. On this subject he tells an excellent story. “Walewski told Milnes the other day, as a proof of the goodness of heart of the King of Naples, that at his, Walewski’s request, the King had at one time promised to set free three hundred prisoners against whom no charge or no proof had been established. ‘How grateful,’ said Milnes, ‘these men must have been! Did they not come and thank you for their release?’ ‘Why,’ said Walewski, ‘you see, after the King had made the promise, the Chief of Police came to him, and said that if the men were set free he could not answer for the King’s life. And so, you see, the men were not set free.’”
In November, 1851, we come to the cause of his fall,—which cause was in truth Napoleon’s Coup d’Etat. The feeling in England, when the Coup d’Etat was first made known, was very averse to it. There was a belief that Napoleon had been guilty of falsehood and treachery. Mr. Kinglake, in his great work on the invasion of the Crimea, translates the words which Napoleon had used on the 13th of November, 1850—“The noblest object, and the most worthy of an exalted mind, is not to seek when in power how to perpetuate it, but to labour incessantly to fortify, for the benefit of all, those principles of authority and morality which defy the passions of mankind and the instability of laws.” About a year after he had uttered this philanthropic but sententious idea he had filched the Empire. Englishmen did not like that; and though they were gradually won by the fealty of the Emperor to his English alliance so as to endure him, the stain of the falsehood still stuck to him through his twenty years of governing. Such we think has been the English feeling.
Such was not the feeling of Lord Palmerston, who knew more as to the state of Europe than any other Englishman, and was more keenly alive to the immediate needs of both France and England. He writes to Lord Normanby; “There is no other person at present competent to be at the head of affairs in France; and if Louis Napoleon should end by founding a dynasty, I do not see that we need regret it as far as English interests are concerned.” “At all events, I say of Louis Napoleon, laudo manentem.” But it was known that there had been private friendship between the two men while Louis Napoleon was living in England, and also that there had been a strong aversion on the part of Palmerston to the whole family of Bourbons. The Bourbons had during the entire period of his career, both before and after the coming of the Citizen King, ruled after that mysterious and crafty fashion which had produced at last the Spanish marriages. Palmerston no doubt desired something better than craft and mystery. The Bourbons had been expelled by the Revolution; but the Republic, as established with Louis Napoleon as its President, had not acted with much wisdom. To Palmerston’s thinking something more nearly akin to the established rule of a dynasty was necessary for France,—and for England also if it was to remain in alliance with France,—than the wild and uninstructed enthusiasm of the Assembly. He did believe in Louis Napoleon, and continued no doubt to believe to the end of his life, justified, as he thought, by the French Emperor’s early successes, and also by his friendship for England. He had left the world of politics before Napoleon had spun all his thread and run his reel out to the end. To me who write this, even the memory of the Emperor is distasteful. But the fall that was about to come upon Palmerston may have been in part due to his feeling for a man who stood higher in his estimation than in that of his countrymen. Years afterwards, in 1858, he had to retire with his Government, of which he was then the head, for a reason which was partly similar. We shall come to that before long; but it afforded another proof of the general tone of his mind towards Louis Napoleon.
Lord Normanby was our Ambassador in Paris; and from some cause, of which I know nothing, entertained different feelings. It may probably be that he, as an honest man, disliked the dishonesty of the President. There was a variance between him and Palmerston, and that too no doubt had its effect upon the coming circumstances. And it must be remembered that Lord Palmerston was already labouring under a sense of the disapprobation of his superior officers in that he would not submit his despatches in time for such surveillance as it was thought that they should receive. He had then against him at this moment the Prime Minister and his own Ambassador in Paris, who had been a Cabinet Minister, and the Court influence, and he had the feeling that he himself was on too friendly terms with the man who had achieved the Coup d’Etat by not the fairest means that ever were used in politics, and not by the cleanest instruments.
On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that Palmerston knew himself as few men do, and his own sagacity, and his general popularity in the country. His object was so to administer foreign affairs as might best redound to the honour of his country, and he was aware that there was no man in England who could teach him a lesson in that respect. As to his despatches, it was to him quite impracticable to encounter the required delay. There was an order to that effect, and other orders came. He, however, if he remained Foreign Secretary, must do so after his own fashion. But there arose at this moment another source of displeasure against him, which, joined to his disobedience as to the despatches, caused his dismissal.[H] Lord Palmerston had expressed to M. Walewski, who was then the Ambassador from France in London, his approbation of the Coup d’Etat. This assent had been given somewhat in an off-hand manner, so as not to have bound him absolutely to the words which he had used. He alleged that it was so. Count Walewski of course sent home to the new Emperor his report of the English Foreign Secretary’s opinion.
Two days afterwards Palmerston instructed Lord Normanby as to his conduct; “I am commanded by her Majesty to instruct your Excellency to make no change in your relations with the French Government.” And it seems that some ill-feeling was engendered in Paris by priority of the private to the official communication made. The private communication had been to the effect that Lord Palmerston entirely approved of what the President had done. It must be said that he did not admit having gone so far as this. He pointed out that Walewski had reported from memory the words spoken; that Turgot, the Minister in France, had reported the words verbally to Lord Normanby; and that Normanby had written home his remembrance of the anger which M. Turgot had expressed. M. Turgot was at loggerheads with Lord Normanby, M. Turgot representing the President-Emperor. “You need not at all trouble yourself to tell us ‘what you are commanded by her Majesty to instruct me,’ because we have known two days since what was our friend Lord Palmerston’s opinion.” It was thus that Turgot answered Lord Normanby,—with scorn added to acrimony, because Lord Normanby had ventured to suggest that had the English Government pleased, the English Government might have interfered with the French Government. Lord Normanby, in his official report, distinctly stated that he had made this communication to M. Turgot. But Lord Palmerston had never so instructed him; “I am commanded by her Majesty to instruct your Excellency to make no change in your relations with the French Government.” There is no message contained in this, and these are Lord Palmerston’s words; but Lord Normanby seems to have misunderstood them. At any rate the private communication had reached Paris first, and the official despatch two days afterwards. Then there were official and semi-angry despatches between the two Lords in London and Paris, and the question of which was right fell into the hands of Lord John Russell as Prime Minister.
The gravamen of the charge now made was that the Foreign Secretary, without the sanction of the Cabinet, had taken upon himself to tell the French Ambassador that the President-Emperor had done uncommonly well by arranging the Coup d’Etat. That readers should think that the President did very ill has nothing to do with the question. It is not alleged that there was disagreement in the Cabinet on that point,—though no doubt there was either in the Cabinet or without the Cabinet. This is simply a memoir of Lord Palmerston, and does not presume to be a vindication of his policy. And the present object is to show why he was dismissed, and how he turned upon those who had dismissed him, and got the better of them. He himself, in a letter written a few days later to his brother, gives a detailed history of the whole affair, in which he takes the trouble to show that as he had expressed himself to Walewski, so had other members of the Cabinet said the same thing to the same man at the same period; and he quotes Lord Lansdowne, and Charles Wood, and John Russell himself. Am I forbidden to do that which my colleagues did, what all London was doing,—that part of London who knew what they were talking about?
I will quote his own words, in which he tells his brother how he had defended himself to Lord John Russell. “I answered that his doctrine, so laid down, was new and not practical; that there is a well-known and perfectly understood distinction in diplomatic intercourse between conversations which are official and which bind Governments, and conversations which are unofficial and which do not bind Governments; that my conversation with Walewski was of the latter description, and that I said nothing to him which would in any degree or in any way fetter the action of the Government; and that if it was to be held that a Secretary of State could never express any opinion to a foreign Minister on passing events, except as the organ of a previously-consulted Cabinet, there would be an end of that easy and familiar intercourse which tends essentially to promote good understanding between Ministers and Governments.” But as he goes on he expresses himself more warmly; “It is obvious that the reason assigned for my dismissal was a mere pretext, eagerly caught at for want of any good reason. The real ground was a weak truckling to the hostile intrigues of the Orleans family, Austria, Russia, Saxony, and Bavaria, and in some degree also of the present Prussian Government. All these parties found their respective views and systems of policy thwarted by the course pursued by the British Government, and they thought that if they could remove the Minister they would change the policy.”
The “weak truckling” and the “hostile intrigues” I will lay aside, leaving it to the individual reader to judge of these expressions as he may please. But it is manifest that there were running at the time in Great Britain two currents as to foreign politics: the one which I can only define as English;—and the other, which I call the policy of absolutism, because I do not wish to descend to abuse, which I must do if I give to it any national name. That both were held with high patriotic ideas we should not doubt. Emperors and their Ministers naturally believe in Emperors and their Ministers. Those who are opposed to them are, to their thinking, a stubborn revolutionary crowd. If by little tricks the absolute party can gain a point in their own favour, a great stroke of policy is made. But they who maintain that the united opinion of the world at large may be best used for the governance of the world, may be as wise, and at any rate as honest, as their opponents. A comparison of the national success of nations is in their favour. Lord Palmerston, during his whole life after he had come to think of these things, and especially during the strongest part of his life in which he presided at the Foreign Office, held the British view, and would not allow himself to be driven from it for a moment. A constitutional king did not, as he thought, rule in the sense of holding the strings of national policy in his own hands. In defence of his view, he was authoritative, imperious, arrogant,—sometimes even tyrannical, if you will. The bull-dog can hardly hold tight by his bone without crushing it. But it is very difficult to get a bone out of the mouth of a bull-dog.[I]
When called upon for his explanation by Lord John, Lord Palmerston gave it, with more precision than accuracy. His letter is dated the 16th of December. He went at length into the question of the President’s conduct, and justified the President’s judgment in the Coup d’Etat. But it was not that which was now called in question. There was a rejoinder made to him in which he was expected to acknowledge his error in having spoken to Walewski. This he refused to do, and then, on the 19th of December, there came the blow. Lord John wrote as follows; “I have just received your letter of yesterday. No other course is left to me than to submit the correspondence to the Queen, and to ask Her Majesty to appoint a successor to you in the Foreign Office.” Lord Palmerston was dismissed. The dismissal of a Cabinet Minister, and of such a Cabinet Minister, was at any rate a most uncommon occurrence. It struck Lord Macaulay as “rashly, needlessly harsh.” Lord John himself repented of it. “My own judgment upon it is, that it was hasty and precipitate,” he says—page 258, of his “Recollections and Suggestions.” He thought to soften the blow by offering to the dismissed, but ever active Secretary of State the fainéant retreat of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. One is almost tempted to think that Palmerston was right when in his earlier years he spoke of the average Minister as one who would “by instinct come round to the oat sieve.”
He, however, would not come round after that fashion. He felt that it had been for some time intended that he should be dismissed; and, now that the blow had come, was by no means prepared to retire into obscurity and silence. But he seems to have experienced great difficulty in making up his mind how he would act. He did nothing;—nor was there anything to be done till Parliament should meet early in February. But it was, of course, manifest that Lord John should offer to the House his explanation of the most unwonted circumstance. This he did in a very powerful speech; but he could speak, knowing that the Court was at his back. Lord Palmerston answered him, but he did so without such backing; and could hardly have made his points good without a reference to the Court which his loyalty would forbid him to use. He seems to have recognized the fact that he must accept his dismissal, and bide his time, and try another fall with Lord John on other grounds. He knew his popularity with the country, and did not doubt his own power. Could he succeed on other ground, the Queen would be bound to accept him. A short time afterwards the Queen did accept him very willingly. But in his present difficulty even his popularity would not suffice to put him straight before the Parliament. It would not suit him, the old public servant of his country,—him who still hoped to serve his country long,—to take upon himself the rôle of a demagogue, and join as he must have joined the ultra-radicals in a vain endeavour to get a majority against his old chief. He made no effort of the kind, but allowed the matter to pass by, defending himself only on small points,—as to which it was not claimed for him by his friends that he was especially successful.
The debate was thus described by Lord Dalling, who was especially Palmerston’s friend. “His speech,”—John Russell’s—“certainly was one of the most powerful I ever heard delivered. It was evidently intended to crush an expected antagonist, and, by the details into which it went, took Lord Palmerston by surprise. I listened to his reply with the most affectionate interest, since he was kind enough to mention my own name with praise; but I felt, and all his friends felt, that it was feeble as a retort to the tremendous assault that had been made on him.” “‘Palmerston is smashed’ was, indeed, the expression generally used at the clubs; but it did not in the least convey the idea that Lord Palmerston had formed of his own position. I must say, in truth, that I never admired him so much as at this crisis. He evidently thought he had been ill-treated; but I never heard him make an unfair or irritable remark, nor did he seem in anywise stunned by the blow he had received, or dismayed by the isolated position in which he stood.” It was on this occasion that the witty Statesman expressed his opinion that “there was a Palmerston”—Fuit Ilium et ingens gloria Teucrorum. That Statesman intended to express his opinion that the power of Palmerston was a thing of the past.
THE world had not to wait long. Lord Palmerston had, as we have seen, been turned out on the 19th of December, 1851. Parliament met on the 8th of February following, and before the month was over Lord John was out of office. A Militia Bill was brought in by him to which Palmerston expressed himself as antagonistic. It is not supposed that he had been anxious to turn out his late chief on that special question, but had rather selected it as a commencement for his attack; but the House reconsidered the matter on which Lord John had been triumphant, and supported the late Foreign Secretary so loudly by its cheers, as to make it apparent to the Head of the Government that he could no longer stand his ground. It was then that Palmerston wrote as follows to his brother;—“I have had my tit-for-tat with John Russell, and I turned him out on Friday last. I certainly, however, did not expect to do so, nor did I intend to do anything more than to persuade the House to reject his foolish plan and to adopt a more sensible one. I have no doubt that two things induced him to resign: first, the almost insulting manner towards him in which the House, by its cheers, went with me in the debate; and, secondly, the fear of being defeated on the vote of censure about the Cape affairs which was to have been moved to-day.” Lord Palmerston speaks of Lord John’s “foolish plan.” It may probably be surmised that the abstract folly of the plan was not so potent with the writer of the letter as the determination of which he speaks “to have his tit-for-tat with John Russell.” It cannot be but that personal questions in the bosoms of Statesmen should share the ground with matters of public import, and often lead to the forming of an opinion or the riveting of a doubt. If I hear of a public man with whom it has not been so, I feel that he must have lacked the warmth necessary for party conflict. “Measures not men,” is a great war-cry by which to gain the voices of the ignorant; but, when they have been gained, men will count almost for as much as measures.
Lord Palmerston had at any rate delivered a knock-down blow, and Lord John was out. Lord Derby was sent for by the Queen, and in making his Cabinet offered to Lord Palmerston the place of Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was just forty-three years since the same place was offered him before, and then, as now, by a Tory Prime Minister. What a length of life to run between two such proposals! We are taught now to think that a man who first undertakes such duties as those of regulating the finances of his country at sixty-eight years of age, is taxing human nature too far; and certainly were we to hear that a youth of twenty-five had been so selected, we should think that he was very precocious, or that the Prime Minister was very silly. But this man refused both offers; and, without going into the motives which induced him to decline Lord Derby’s proposition, we cannot but rejoice that he saw his way clearly to the refusal. We cannot but think that there would have been a drifting back to Toryism under Lord Derby which would have materially interfered with that popularity by which he was to be lifted up to the management of affairs during the Crimean War. In discussing with his brother the state of parties at the time, he thus says;—“The truth is that the Whigs would be glad to get rid of John Russell and to have me in his stead, if this change could well be accomplished.” That, in truth, was the change which the Liberal party desired, without probably any defined expression of such a wish. The qualities of Lord Palmerston’s mind had taken possession of men, and though the English Liberal of to-day would probably think twice before he would place the thoughtful statesmanship of the one below the happy audacity of the other, at the moment undoubtedly the country was tired of Lord John, and inclined to turn against him because he had turned out his old colleague.
No weaker Government than that of Lord Derby’s was ever formed in England. The only persons in it well known at the time to political life were Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, who had fallen into the vacancy made by the death of a much weaker man than himself. Lord George Bentinck had gone, and left to Mr. Disraeli the leadership of the House of Commons. But when we look back over the not long interval of nineteen years we hardly know who they were that he had to lead. It has been said that besides Lord Derby and Mr. Herries there was not an English Privy Councillor among the number. It included none of Sir Robert Peel’s followers. Free Trade was the one matter in dispute, and on the question of Free Trade there was a majority against Government consisting of Peelites, Whigs, and Radicals. Lord John and Lord Palmerston, together with Sir James Graham and Mr. Gladstone, declared it to be impossible to carry on the Government in such a condition of things. A new Parliament was called, and on the 11th of November, 1852, the Queen’s Speech was read to them. Parliament was invited to consider whether recent legislation had not inflicted unavoidable injury.[J] This was intended as a direct slap in the face for the advocates of Free Trade. Mr. Villiers moved a counter-resolution, full, as Mr. Disraeli said, of “odious epithets.” This was rejected by 336 votes to 256. Lord Palmerston then proposed a second resolution, declaring “That it is the opinion of the House that the improved condition of the people ... is mainly the result of recent legislation.” This was directly at variance with the convictions of the Ministry, but it was accepted and allowed to pass by a great majority. The resolution is supposed to have been prepared by Sir James Graham, in concert with Lord John. And the fact of its adoption by Lord Palmerston, and its promotion by him in political concert with Lord John, proves that at this moment there was no war between the two old colleagues. The cause for war still remained, and did in fact prevent for the present any combination of Statesmen in which Lord Palmerston should serve under Lord John; but of personal quarrel there was none, and the two men were thus able to act together within twelve months of the day on which the fatal letter had been written. Lord Palmerston had in June of that year declared his purpose not to serve under Lord John. “He certainly has entirely lost mine.” Lord John had lost Lord Palmerston’s confidence. “I feel no resentment towards him personally or privately; but it would require strong inducements to persuade me to become again a member of a Government of which he was the head. I feel no confidence in his discretion or judgment as a political leader, and could place no trust in his steady fidelity as a colleague, having my official position at his mercy.”
It was in vain, however, that Lord Derby accepted the resolution in favour of Free Trade. Mr. Disraeli brought in his Budget, which was at once thrown out by 303 votes to 286. This took place on the 16th of December, and on the 20th Lord Derby declared that the Ministry had resigned. Lord Aberdeen was then sent for, and formed the Administration in which Lord John Russell went in as Foreign Secretary and Lord Palmerston to the Home Office. There must have been to him in this a certain bitterness. He had at first declined Lord Aberdeen’s offer because Lord Aberdeen’s policy as Foreign Minister had for many years been at direct variance with his own. He had, however, been persuaded by Lord Lansdowne, who had been better able, perhaps, to read the signs of the times than could he himself, and the feelings of the minds of men towards him against whom the Court had used its influence. He was assured that the administration of Foreign Affairs would not rest with Lord Aberdeen, but with Lord Clarendon or Lord John,—and of the general liberality of both of these he was well assured. He says himself to his brother that he had determined that he himself would not in any case take the Foreign Office. In this, no doubt, there was some boasting,—natural and understood. It would have been impossible that Lord Palmerston should then have returned to the Foreign Office.
There is something almost ludicrous in the energy displayed by Lord Palmerston at the Home Office; and yet it was essentially useful. He visited prisons and wrote memoranda on the ventilation of cells. He arranged tickets-of-leave for convicts, and attempted to abate the nuisance of smoke in London. He built cemeteries, and fixed the winter assizes. Such matters are by no means ludicrous. It is by attending to them that the welfare of a people is in a great measure obtained. They are, no doubt, as important as those foreign arrangements for the government of Europe,—and, indeed, of the world at large,—in which Lord Palmerston had been hitherto engaged. But they do not loom so large before the imagination. And we can imagine that he himself felt the difference when he descended from instructing Sir Stratford Canning to consulting a factory inspector.
It was about this time, I think, that he fell into a habit of intercourse with the public generally which adhered to him till the day of his death. He became notorious as a joker. He passed on from the light, courteous persiflage of the Foreign Minister to the common John-Bull fun of an English magistrate, without an apparent effort, but with an evident intention. The wit was never very good. It must be acknowledged that it was generally commonplace, and that from the mouth of another it would have had no effect. But the world had so come to love its Palmerston that it was ready to laugh at everything; and when the world of deputations has been made to laugh, much has been achieved. The deputations did laugh, and Lord Palmerston obtained the character of being the wittiest Englishman of his day. No character was ever more cheaply earned, or used to a better effect.
Looking back at these days, we seem to remember that Lord Palmerston, as Home Secretary, appeared larger to us than did other Ministers of the day. He was not only Home Secretary, but had confided to him the duty of general adviser in public matters. The great trouble of the Crimean War was coming on, and the state of things was not so well known to others as to him. There was, too, a question as to Reform, regarding which he all but felt himself compelled to resign. “My office is too closely connected with Parliamentary changes to allow me to sit silent during the whole progress of a Reform Bill through Parliament; and I could not take up a Bill which contained material things of which I disapprove, and assist to fight it through the House of Commons, to force it on the Lords, and to stand upon it at the hustings.” This he said in a letter to his brother-in-law, Lawrence Sulivan. We can understand that, for the satisfaction of his own political feelings, he need not have stirred himself much on any question of Reform. But it must have been difficult for him to have a Reform Bill settled for him while he was Home Secretary. There was, too, a double reason for his disagreement at the moment. Should the fleet move up to the Dardanelles, or should it remain in the Mediterranean? This was in anticipation of that which afterwards became the Crimean War, and was a matter on which Lord Palmerston was likely to have a more decided opinion than in regard to the Reform Bill. But at last he withdrew his resignation. “I remain in the Government. I was much and strongly pressed to do so for several days by many of the members of the Government, who declared that they were no parties to Aberdeen’s answer to me, and that they considered all the details of the intended Reform measure as still open to discussion. Their earnest representations and the knowledge that the Cabinet had on Thursday taken a decision on Turkish affairs in entire accordance with opinions which I had long unsuccessfully pressed upon them, decided me to withdraw my resignation, which I did yesterday.”
This was at the close of 1853, when Parliament was not sitting, and for the next two years the Crimean War became so completely the one matter of vital interest to England as to make it necessarily the point on which a memoir of Lord Palmerston’s life for those two years must altogether hang. He was Home Secretary when the war began, but had been lifted up to the position of Prime Minister before its close. This was done that England might be able to have, as she ought, the most competent man she possessed to conduct it for her. I am not expressing an opinion that he was the most competent man,—only that England so thought, and justified her opinion by the final result. But in truth the capability of a man for such work does not depend on any power of intellect, or indomitable courage, or far-seeing cunning. The man is competent simply because he is believed to be so. A nation trusts a man, and will go to work under him in a manner which is impossible for it to adopt under a leader that it does not trust. And, as seems to be the case with all men who are brought into a difficult operation, and succeed in it, just at the moment convenient for success, Lord Palmerston took the matter in hand exactly at the right time. It may be that Aberdeen had failed because he was Aberdeen, and Palmerston succeeded because he was Palmerston, each by such lights and gifts as were in him. That was, and still is, the average Englishman’s idea. Or it may be that Palmerston, with his usual luck, stepped in just when the evil days were over and success was becoming possible. That is the idea of clever critics of affairs. Who shall say which was correct?
We must go back here, and in the slightest possible manner touch upon the causes of the great war. They had had their beginning while Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, even if they be not said to have commenced earlier than that. The nominal cause was a dispute which grew up in Jerusalem between the Latin and the Greek Churches for possession of the highest authority over the Holy Places. It was acknowledged that the Holy Places should be open to both, but it was considered essential that one should be supreme. It need hardly be said that with this contest England had no personal concern. It was settled at last by the perplexed Turk on the advice of the English Ambassador. But it was so settled as to make Nicholas, the Emperor of Russia, more convinced than ever of the general necessity of taking all the members of the Greek Church in Turkey especially under his protection. This he attempted to do in the fulness of autocratic authority. Then, when demur was made to the Emperor’s claim, Count Mentschikoff was sent across the Pruth so as to occupy the Danubian Principalities, which, as far as this transaction was concerned, were at the time a part of Turkey. All Europe at once went to work to induce him to return. England, France, Austria, and Prussia, at any rate, did so. But Nicholas, who had long been busy and greedy over the chattels of the “sick man,” would not retire without achieving something. And Turkey, thoroughly supported by that famous Englishman, Sir Stratford Canning,—who had now become Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,—would grant him nothing in the way of a protectorate. A conference met at Vienna, with a pundit from each of the four countries, to save Turkey, and at the same time to save if possible the feelings and the honour of the Czar. But the attempt came to nothing, and was at last altogether abortive.
Mr. Kinglake seems to attribute to Lord Palmerston almost more than a friendly compliance with Napoleon in this matter. “There was not, perhaps, more than one member of the English Cabinet who desired the formation of this singular alliance on grounds like those which moved the French Emperor.” We presume that Lord Palmerston was the Cabinet Minister here indicated. Again he says; “Of the bulk of the Cabinet, and possibly of all of them except one, Lord Clarendon’s pithy phrase was the true one. They drifted” (vol. i. p. 440). Napoleon probably was anxious to obtain for himself the éclat of going to war with Queen Victoria for his ally. For a man who had obtained his empire as he had done it was a great thing to appear before the world with such a Sovereign for his friend. We can understand that in fighting Russia he should be actuated by such a motive. But the Coup d’Etat had taken place in the winter of 1851-1852, and the pundits were at their work of peace in Vienna during the summer of 1853. The dates do not hold good for the continuance of such a project on the part of Napoleon. It might have served for three months to keep his throne, but could hardly have been serviceable after fifteen. We do know that Lord Aberdeen was weak, doing his best to stave off war if he could do so. And we know also that Palmerston was strong, anxious from the beginning to act in accordance with the English Ambassador at Constantinople. But we doubt whether there be reason to suppose that he had lent himself to the wishes of the Emperor of the French, or desired to go beyond his own Ambassador.
Looking back at the whole character of the man through a long life, we find that his fault has been that of confident,—almost that of self-opinionated audacity. Having the advantage of his private correspondence,—which had not been revealed to Mr. Kinglake when his first volumes were published,—we can read in it no trace of such friendship, or, we may say, of such anti-British feeling. He was ready to fight any man who was not an Englishman for any point,—and any man who was an Englishman who opposed him, as long as he had a leg to stand upon. I am inclined, therefore, to think that Palmerston, in his readiness for war with Russia, was in no degree guided by imperial sympathies. In July he wrote as follows to Lord Aberdeen; “I quite agree with you that we ought to try whether we can devise any proposal which, without involving any departure by the Sultan from the ground of independence on which he has taken his stand, might satisfy any just claim which the Emperor can put forward. In the meantime, however, I hope you will allow the squadrons to be ordered to go up to the Bosphorus as soon as it is known in Constantinople that the Russians have entered the Principalities, and to be further at liberty to go into the Black Sea, if necessary or useful for the protection of Turkish territory.” And he ends his letter as follows; “I am confident that this country expects that we should pursue such a course, and I cannot believe that we should receive anything but support in pursuing it from the party in Opposition.” Then he writes to Lord John Russell; “In my opinion, the course which the Emperor”—the Emperor of Russia,—“has pursued on these matters from his first overtures for a partition of Turkey, and especially the violent, abusive, and menacing language of his last manifesto, seem to show that he has taken his line, and that nothing will satisfy him but complete submission on the part of Turkey; and we ought, therefore, not to disguise from ourselves that he is bent upon a stand-up fight.”
“I tried again to persuade the Cabinet to send the squadrons up to the Bosphorus, but failed; I was told that Stratford and La Cour have powers to call for them. This is, no doubt, stated in public despatches, but we all know that he has been privately desired not to do so. Words may properly be answered by words, but acts should be replied to by acts; and the entrance of the Russians as invaders into the Turkish territory ought to be followed and replied to by the entrance of the squadrons into the Bosphorus as protectors.” Here Palmerston seems to speak with his wonted voice. It was as though the foreign affairs of England were all but under his control. It may be that he and the Emperor of the French were of one mind. Or it may be that the Emperor, knowing which way Palmerston was inclined to lead, foresaw that he could best play his own part by walking with him. But of the two men we think it probable that Lord Palmerston knew Eastern Europe the better, and had the clearer idea of what he intended to do. Still in July, he writes thus to the members of the Cabinet; “The Russian Government has been led on step by step by the apparent timidity of the Government of England; and reports, artfully propagated that the British Cabinet had declared that it would have la paix à tout prix, have not been sufficiently contradicted by any overt acts.” But Lord Aberdeen was instinctively against the war into which, as Lord Clarendon afterwards said, England had drifted, and Lord Clarendon, who had become Foreign Secretary, agreed with Lord Aberdeen.
It must be remembered that the Emperor Nicholas was thoroughly convinced that England, and especially England under the guidance of Lord Aberdeen, would not allow herself to be driven into war. He read the speeches in the House of Commons, and probably counted even the votes. To the English money-making commercial mind, war he conceived to be of all things the most antipathetic. Looking forward as well as his intellect would allow him, he thought he saw that the British power was in her decline. Sir Stratford Canning and Lord Palmerston he had always hated. They were two special foes; but they were only two. All England, with her bales of cotton, would certainly not go to war. Such was the conviction of the Emperor Nicholas. And, since Lord Aberdeen had come into power at the preceding Christmas, such also had been the tendency of the English Prime Minister’s mind. But the will of Lord Palmerston,—and the will also of the Emperor of the French,—had been stronger than that of Lord Aberdeen. Very much in compliance with Palmerston’s instructions, the two fleets did pass up the Dardanelles on the 14th of October, and were brought to an anchor immediately off Constantinople. The two Lords in the English Cabinet were still hardly acting in concert, though Lord Aberdeen’s nature was so gracious as to make actual opposition to his colleague almost impossible. He, too, had at his back the Prince Consort, who, though he agreed to war under certain circumstances, was not of one mind with Lord Palmerston as to what those circumstances were.[K] Lord Palmerston defines his ideas in the following words; “We passed the Rubicon when we first took part with Turkey, and sent our squadrons to support her; and when England and France have once taken a third Power by the hand, that third Power must be carried in safety through the difficulties in which it may be involved. England and France cannot afford to be baffled, and whatever measures may be necessary on their part to baffle their opponent, those measures must be adopted; and the Governments of the two most powerful countries on the face of the earth must not be frightened, either by words or things, either by the name or by the reality of war.” That was dated on the 1st of November, hardly a clear month before Sinope, and indicates what were then his intentions.
When the fleets had passed up the Dardanelles, the anger of Nicholas was very great. He had never thought that by crossing the Pruth he had given a casus belli; and as without such provocation the passage of the fleets up to Constantinople would have been an infraction of a well-understood treaty, he considered himself to have been grossly insulted and misused. Was it the fact that these English did intend to fight him? He was a Sovereign who had made awful preparations for war, and he was aware that the English army was, in these latter days, always maintained on a peace-footing,—what to him must have appeared a cheap and nasty military arrangement. If these English attempted to follow up their fleet, he would let them feel the weight of his right hand. But it was incumbent on him, at any rate, to punish the Turks. Therefore he sent his own fleet out from Sebastopol, and arranged matters for Sinope.
The reader must remember that during this time Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State for Home Affairs, and was by no means specially called upon to attend to this Russo-Turkish question. He had his smoke and his cemeteries, and his factories and his law courts, to look after.
THE war began in earnest with the naval conflict at Sinope. It was a terrible deed, and done, we must say, altogether in revenge. The English and French fleets had gone up the Dardanelles, and by doing so had offended the proud nature of Nicholas past all immediate forgiveness. The Russian ships came out from Sebastopol, and, after hovering about the Black Sea for a fortnight, to see, probably, whether the combined fleet would interfere, and finding that the small Turkish squadron lying at Sinope was at their mercy, went in and destroyed it altogether. “It was believed by men in authority,” says Mr. Kinglake, “that 4,000 Turks were killed, and that less than 400 survived, and that all these were wounded.”[L]
England was full of wrath, and nothing would appease her anger but a conviction that now, let the Prime Minister say what he would, we should fight Russia. Looking back on the circumstance over many years, we must acknowledge that the Emperor of Russia had on his side any legal rights which a state of war can give. He, out of his own mad sense of power, had crossed the Pruth, and we,—the French, that is, and ourselves,—had on the part of our allies taken our fleets up to Constantinople. The Russians had returned back across the Pruth; but Nicholas refused to say that he would give up his idea of a protectorate. The allies had therefore gone with their fleets into the Black Sea, and there could be no doubt that a state of war existed. But the Russian Admiral had six or seven ships of the line on the spot, whereas the Turks had but seven frigates. There was no hope for them, but still they fought bravely while they had a gun to fight, and perished at last almost to a man. Our fleet, the meanwhile, was lying at the Bosphorus, and all England was angry. Nothing but war could now serve to quiet the minds of Englishmen.
On the 10th of December, 1853, Lord Palmerston wrote to the Prime Minister, recommending that we in England should at once prepare to fight;—“What I would strongly recommend, therefore, is that which I proposed some months ago to the Cabinet, namely, that the Russian Government and the Russian Admiral at Sebastopol should be informed that so long as Russian troops occupy the Principalities, or hold a position in any other part of the Turkish territory, no Russian ships of war can be allowed to show themselves out of port in the Black Sea.” Lord Aberdeen declined the advice thus given, and on the 15th Lord Palmerston resigned. But the Government could not go on without him. “In truth,” says Mr. Kinglake, “he was gifted with the instinct which enables a man to read the heart of a nation.”[M] He was no sooner gone than the Cabinet in his absence did decide upon sending the fleet into the Black Sea; and then the resignation was withdrawn. Lord Aberdeen wrote to him as follows;—“I am glad to find that you approve of a recent decision of the Cabinet with respect to the British and French fleets, adopted in your absence. I feel sure you will have learnt with pleasure that, whether you are absent or present, the Government are duly careful to preserve from all injury the interests and dignity of the country.” On the 7th of February the Russian Ambassador was recalled, and troops were immediately sent to the East. Then there was a dinner given to Sir Charles Napier at the Reform Club, for which Lord Palmerston was held to be specially responsible. It was not, perhaps, done in the best taste or with the most correct judgment. A triumphant banquet to a conquering hero should follow, and not precede, the victories to be celebrated. Lord Palmerston presided, and was very triumphant and very jocund. He told stories of all that the Admiral had done in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, and suggested all that he would do in the Baltic. Mr. Bright fell very foul of him, and perhaps deservedly. Lord Palmerston retorted on Mr. Bright with severity, and a considerable amount of ill-feeling was engendered. Mr. Bright belonged then, as now, to the Peace party, and found an ample scope for attack in the loud joy of a Minister who was exciting his fellow-countrymen to war; and, undoubtedly, he had the best of it in the end, as Sir Charles did not return triumphant.
The British troops now flocked into Turkey, and the transit across from Varna to the Crimean Peninsula was quickly achieved. On the 14th of September the first detachments of the English and French armies landed, and a few days later the battle of the Alma was fought and won. We can still remember the feeling of triumph with which the news was heard, and the spirit of conquest which was enhanced by the false tidings, believed at the time, that Sebastopol also had fallen. England did think for a few hours that she had already done that which was to cost her twelve months of heart-rending anxieties, many millions of taxes, and woe beyond measure. Hitherto, as we have read the records of the preparations for the campaign, it has appeared that Lord Palmerston, as Home Secretary, has had more to do with the war than any other Minister. But he escaped the personal annoyance to which those were subjected who had the management of the details in their hands, and who were supposed to be responsible for what was amiss. But the time was soon to come in which he would cease to be an underling;—and then, such was his luck, all things went well.
After the battle of the Alma things did not go prosperously. England, when she was brought back from the feeling of triumph which had almost overpowered her on the false report of the fall of Sebastopol, expected that though the stronghold had not yet fallen into her hands, it should be made to do so very quickly. She was unreasonable in the severity with which she treated her servants, both civil and military, at home and in the Crimea. England, not being accustomed to war on a great scale for the last forty years, could not at first carry it on as though she were used to it, and accused all her servants of “routine,” “red tape,” blundering, and ignorance. We can look back now and see that such were the charges made by the austere mistress, and remember the names of Lord Raglan and the Duke of Newcastle with affection and respect, though we broke the heart of the one and the spirit of the other by our usage. But if the servants are noble-minded, as is generally the case with English servants in high places, even when broken-hearted, they leave examples behind them which instigate others to renewed efforts.
When the tidings of failures came Lord John Russell was himself the first to declare that his own colleague at the War Department was unfit for his position. That colleague was the unfortunate Duke of Newcastle, and Lord John recommended that “before Parliament meets Lord Palmerston should be entrusted with the seals of the War Department.” Lord Aberdeen, however, declined to dismiss the Duke of Newcastle, and then Mr. Roebuck moved for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the condition of our army. Lord John immediately resigned, by no means with the good-will of his colleagues. Lord John had been leader of the House, and on his desertion the defence of Lord Aberdeen and of the Duke of Newcastle was left to Lord Palmerston. He said, which was true enough, that our misfortunes had come from the inexperience caused by a long peace. The House divided on Mr. Roebuck’s motion, and the Ministry were defeated by a great majority. It was found that 305 members followed Mr. Roebuck into the lobby against only 148, who supported the Government. It was clear, at any rate, that Lord Aberdeen must resign.
But though Lord Palmerston must resign also with his chief, and appeared for the time as the second in command of a beaten army, it was to him a moment of great triumph. There was no longer a question whether he should again serve under Lord John or with Lord John, or whether he should be compelled on behalf of his country to serve under one whose general politics were so distasteful to him as those of Lord Aberdeen. Lord Derby was at once invited to form a Government,—but in vain. He applied to Lord Palmerston to help him; but it was not thus, we can fancy, that Lord Palmerston saw his way through the future troubles. Lord Derby could well understand that if he were to be a successful Prime Minister in a War Cabinet, he must have Lord Palmerston as his right-hand man. But it was not so long since this same Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, had brought against him in the House of Lords the bitterness of the Don Pacifico arraignment. It was not that this would have stood in Palmerston’s way, had it been possible for him to have thrown his heart into the work in conjunction with Lord Derby. But such a conjunction cannot be always attained by mere volition. Political coalitions are never firm, because they are formed of individual men, and each man has a heart in his bosom in which he carries his memories of the past as well as his hopes for the future. “I have come to the conclusion,” he said, “that if I were to join your Government, as proposed by you, I should not give to that Government that strength which you are good enough to think would accrue to you from my acceptance of office.” Lord John was then sent for, and made the attempt. Lord Clarendon and others of the party would not serve with him, though Lord Palmerston had consented to do so. Lord John, in telling Lord Palmerston of his failure, offered to serve with him, should the Queen require his services. There was no other alternative. Indeed there was no other man than Lord Palmerston in England who could have carried on the war. The Queen sent for him, and Lord John did join him.