1861
LORD LYONS
Towards the end of November, 1861, there was a moment when it seemed
as if a war between England and the United States was inevitable. By
the prudence and tact of one man that dire calamity was averted. It
may be doubted whether any diplomatist ever rendered greater service
to his country than Lord Lyons did at that time. The part which he had
to play would have been delicate in any circumstances, but in his case
the difficulties were accentuated by the fact that on one side of the
Atlantic he was instructed by Lord John Russell, a minister who seemed
to delight in giving offence, while on the other side he had to deal
with Mr. Seward, a Secretary of State who was never conciliatory and who
introduced into diplomatic argument something of the bullying manner of a
_nisi prius_ lawyer.
Lord Lyons was blessed with a gift of inexhaustible patience and perfect
temper, which throughout the negotiations on the famous “Trent” affair
won for him the gratitude of all Englishmen and the respect of his
formidable adversary. Personally I had the greatest admiration for Lord
Lyons, and welcomed the story of his life so admirably told by Lord
Newton. In private life Lord Lyons was charming. His quiet and subtle
humour gave a zest to his conversation: “When shall you be taking a
holiday and coming over to England?” I asked him once at Paris. “I’m
sure I don’t know,” he answered, in his dry way, with a little familiar
twinkle in his eye, “but I’ve told Salisbury that I really can’t wait for
the settlement of the Oriental question.” At the age of ninety-eight he
would have been still waiting to-day! His old-fashioned courtesy had a
charm which was quite characteristic; Lord Chesterfield himself could not
have been more of a grand seigneur.
When Lord Newton’s life came out, I, full of respect for one of our great
chiefs in the diplomatic service, wrote a notice of the book for the
_Candid Review_. My excuse for reproducing it here is that it recounts
some of the most memorable events which took place during my diplomatic
days—it also incidentally alludes to some of the chiefs whom I knew well.
Could I do better in honour of Lord Lyons, I would.
* * * * *
The old diplomacy is as dead as Queen Anne, but unlike Queen Anne,
without any hope of resurrection. Like many other old institutions,
it has been killed by the nineteenth century and its inventions. The
position of an Ambassador is still one of great dignity, and he can help
largely to keep up the prestige and authority of the nation which he
represents. He is consulted, and, if the Government are wise, listened
to, but in the determination of policy his initiative has been strangled.
He is so far as that is concerned little more than a clerk at one end
of a telegraph-wire, whose duty it is to carry out the instructions of
Downing Street with as much exercise of power of conciliation as may be.
It is hardly possible to conceive a situation so sudden, so unforeseen,
that it would not be the duty of the Ambassador to abstain from any
move without having first consulted the Secretary of State and the Home
Government. Whether this is altogether an advantage is open to grave
doubt. In the warp and woof of complicated and delicate negotiations,
there are often intricacies and slight shades of which it is difficult,
if not impossible, to communicate the full importance in writing, still
more by telegraphy, but which the “man on the spot,” if he be worth
his salt, can turn to account. In the interchange of views between
negotiators, “c’est le ton qui fait la musique,” and it is precisely the
fine subtleties of the gamut the reality of which it is so difficult to
convey by correspondence.
It not seldom happens that the man at the other end of the wire, though
he may be thoroughly acquainted with the brutal facts under discussion,
may, for lack of knowledge of the temper of a minister and of the
peculiar pressure which at a given moment is being brought to bear upon
him by the internal politics of the country which he represents, be
inclined to some move which the astute agent, wary and watchful, would
easily avoid, by smoothing difficulties and counterchecking dangerous
arguments.
It is difficult in these days to realize the initiative power exercised
by some of the older diplomatists. A Russianized Pozzo di Borgo forces
on an alliance between Austria and the country which employs him for the
annihilation of a brother Corsican. A Stratford de Redcliffe, in the
execution of a policy of which his own government hardly conceals its
hatred, plunges five great nations in war. Such masterful agents as these
are unthinkable to-day. Not much more astonished would the world be by
the dispatches of ministers accredited to the long since defunct small
German and Italian Grand Ducal Courts—proud records of august handshakes
prolonged beyond those accorded to rival plenipotentiaries, chronicles
of snarlings and bickerings over some vital question of precedence at a
Court supper or dinner.
These were subjects upon which the lesser men expatiated in deadly
earnest, deeply penetrated with a sense of their importance—and yet they
were not altogether without their value, for we owe them some measure
of grateful respect, since the judicious handling of such twaddle
occasionally brought to light the talents of a man fitted for the nice
conduct of real affairs. Indeed it was such a case that first gave the
Foreign Office an inkling of the worth of a man who in the story of later
years was destined to play a dominant part, the importance of which not
even his excessive modesty and self-effacement could keep altogether in
the background.
There is little need to call Dr. Johnson into court to prove that “nobody
can write the life of a man, but those who have eat (sic) and drunk and
lived in social intercourse with him.” Lord Lyons has been lucky in
having such a biographer as Lord Newton, who not only had daily social
intercourse with him, “eating and drinking with him” for some years, but
being moreover a man of his own profession and his intimate subordinate,
though at the time when they were together only a brilliant youngster,
had something more than the ordinary opportunities of estimating his
chief’s public worth. Lord Newton is, as the House of Lords well knows,
a master of subtle humour and delicate irony; he writes excellent
English—terse, bright and to the point; and with these qualifications it
is no wonder that he has produced a book, which, seeing the momentously
important events in which Lord Lyons took a leading part, must be largely
consulted in all attempts to write the history of the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
I use the words “leading part” advisedly; for Lord Lyons was essentially
a leader, guide, and instructor, upon whose wisdom those who had the
ultimate decision of affairs were able to lean with confidence. For
the relation of intricate negotiations, Lord Newton has been happily
documented with material that is entirely new and unpublished. The word
“intricate” need scare no reader, for he has marshalled his facts so
skilfully that much which might have been obscure is crystal-clear.
The great Lord Lyons—for he was great—was born in 1817, the son of that
famous old sea-dog and diplomatist, Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, afterwards
the first Lord Lyons. Like his younger brother, he was sent to sea when
he was little more than a child—only ten years old. But he was quite
unfitted for a sailor’s life; he was a martyr to sea-sickness, which he
never got over, and so, as Lord Newton says, “it was probably with no
slight satisfaction that the navy was exchanged for Winchester.” But it
is a coincidence worthy of note that the two diplomatic achievements
which chiefly made him famous were, as we shall presently see, both of
them connected with the sea and shipping and maritime law.
One would have liked to have had some knowledge of his early days, for
the childhood that was to father a man of so marked a personality could
not have been without interest, but upon this point his biographer
is silent; indeed, a bare page and a half is all that is devoted to
transferring him from Winchester to Christchurch, where he took his
degree in 1838, and to the thirteen years during which he was eating out
his heart as an attaché at Athens (where his father, the Admiral, was
minister), despairing of promotion and half-minded to leave a profession
in which he was destined to be so distinguished a figure.
In 1853 we find him at Rome, a post of some importance, though, as
England had no diplomatic relations with the Vatican, it was always
filled by an official of no higher rank than one of the Secretaries of
Legation at Florence, and afterwards at the Italian Court when it was at
Turin, and later transferred to Florence. It was a post which needed no
little skill and tact, and was later occupied with conspicuous ability by
Lord Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill).
Lord Lyons’ experience showed, as he himself wrote, that “in spite of my
peculiar position, notwithstanding a very strong opinion to the contrary,
at Rome, as at most other places, one succeeds best by transacting one’s
business in the most plain and straightforward manner, and through the
most direct channels. By acting on this principle and by being very quiet
and unobtrusive, I think I have in part allayed the suspicions which are
felt towards us always more or less at Rome, and I am certainly on a
better footing with Cardinal Antonelli than I had at all expected to be.”
This saying of his—uttered at the very beginning of his first experience
of an independent post—is worth quoting, for it gives us the keynote of
his whole diplomatic career, and reveals the secret of the success which
he achieved when he was afterwards placed in positions as difficult and
as delicate as any that a diplomatist was ever called upon to face.
Four years later Lord Lyons was called upon to settle “one of those
trivial questions which so deeply exercised the diplomacy of a former
generation”—a question, indeed, which it is nowadays difficult to imagine
occurring outside of the Court of the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein. Lord
Normanby, K.G., Ex-Viceroy of Ireland, was British Minister at Florence,
and had gone on leave, furious, in circumstances which were grave indeed.
The Pope having visited Florence, a banquet in his honour had been
given by the Grand Duke, and the diplomatic body were invited; but to
their great indignation they were not seated at the _Tavola di Stato_,
the sovereign table. Lord Normanby demanded an apology, and the _chers
collègues_ having agreed to support him, backed out at the last moment;
so Lord Normanby went off fuming and fussing, and “uttering dark threats
that he would not return unless the apology was forthcoming.” Mr. Lyons
was summoned from Rome to act as _chargé d’affaires_, and upon him fell
the task of making the Tuscan Government apologize. For three weary
months a correspondence at which so essentially practical a man as Lyons,
with his subtle sense of humour, must have laughed in his sleeve, used
up reams of paper, until at last, after “a severe rebuke” from Lord
Clarendon, the Tuscan Government ate some infinitesimal particle of dirt,
“the injured Lord Normanby returned to his post, and Lyons resumed his
duties at Rome.” For the full enjoyment of Lord Newton’s account of the
episode it is almost necessary to have known the two men as I did—the
Turveydrop-like pomposity of the one, and the simple sober dignity of the
other, gifted with the most delicate feeling for proportion.
It was in March, 1858, that Lord Lyons had his first great opportunity.
Diplomatic relations with Naples having been broken off for some years,
Mr. Lyons received orders from Lord Malmesbury to proceed to Naples to
inquire into the case of the _Cagliari_. It was a difficult matter and
created a great excitement at the time.
The _Cagliari_ was a mail steamer plying between Genoa, Sardinia and
Turin, and on 25th June, 1857, “a number of Mazzinians who had taken
passage in her, seized the master and crew, altered the course of the
vessel, landed at the Island of Ponza in Neapolitan territory, where they
liberated three hundred political prisoners, and subsequently proceeded
to Sapri, in the neighbourhood of Salerno. Here they again disembarked,
expecting the inhabitants to rise in their favour, but encountered a
superior force of Neapolitan troops, who killed or captured the whole
party, while the _Cagliari_ was seized by Neapolitan warships as she was
making her way ostensibly to Naples. Some weeks later it was ascertained
that among the prisoners in Naples were two English engineers, Watt and
Park by name, and it was stated that these two men were entirely ignorant
of the conspiracy, and had been forced by the conspirators to work the
engines under threats of being summarily shot if they refused.”
Naturally the British Government demanded that these two men should
at least have fair trial, and Lord Clarendon, then Foreign Minister,
there being no Legation at Naples, wrote personally to Signor Carafa,
the Neapolitan Foreign Minister, on their behalf; but the Neapolitan
Government shuffled and delayed, and in March, 1858, the two men were
still in prison, where owing to cruel treatment after the manner of the
Naples of those days, “the health of both was completely broken down, and
Watt had become partially insane.” It was in these circumstances that,
Lord Malmesbury having succeeded Lord Clarendon at the Foreign Office,
Mr. Lyons was ordered to proceed to Naples to investigate the case. He
was successful. The two Englishmen were released, and after further
negotiations an indemnity of £3,000 was paid to Watt and Park, and
finally the _Cagliari_ was placed at Mr. Lyons’ disposal.
The question had been complicated by our relations with Sardinia, and
Lyons had been ordered to use threats of our making common cause with
that Power against Naples should his demands be refused; but as Lord
Newton points out, it was an additional satisfaction for Lyons to be
able to say, “Far from threatening, I did not even go so far as my
instructions warranted, for I did not say that His Majesty’s Government
proposed that the mediator should retire at the end of three months, nor
did I tell Signor Carafa that I was myself ordered to go back to Rome if
the mediation should be refused at the expiration of ten days.”
The same methods of suave and gentle persuasion which answered so well
in this case were to be the secret of his success a few years later in
another hemisphere and in far more critical circumstances. The conduct of
the _Cagliari_ case resulted in his being appointed Minister at Florence,
and in the following November (1858) “came the offer of the Washington
Legation, an offer which, with characteristic modesty, he accepted with
considerable misgivings as to his competence.” It was a good thing for
England that any such scruples as he may have entertained were overcome.
His mission to Washington was big with fate. In the same month his father
died and he succeeded to the peerage.
In February, 1859, Lord Lyons sailed for Washington in H.M.S. _Curaçao_.
In these times of huge liners and rapid passages, with the possibility
already in view of still swifter crossings of the Atlantic in airships,
it is startling to read of a voyage which occupied forty-two days, “a
period which must have been singularly disagreeable to a man who, in
spite of some years’ naval service, always suffered from sea-sickness.”
It was no doubt something of a relief to Lord Lyons to meet with a
most courteous reception when he presented his credentials to Mr.
Buchanan, the then President of the United States, for he might well
have anticipated that, at any rate at first, the Legation at Washington
would not be a bed of roses. He had to take up the succession of Sir
John Crampton, a diplomatist who, though, first as secretary of Legation
and afterwards as minister, he had served for a good many years at
Washington, had never succeeded in making himself popular with the United
States authorities.
There had been much ill-feeling between the two countries on account of
enlistments for foreign legions at the time of the Crimean War; Crampton,
who did not realize the susceptibilities of the Americans, had been very
active in this recruiting scheme, and matters had reached a point of such
tension that in May, 1856, President Pierce broke off relations with
Crampton, who had to return home.
Things had more or less quieted down in the meantime, but in December,
1858, a Presidential message containing “some rather ominous passages
with regard to the relations between England and the United States”
was delivered. There were at the time not a few signs of underground
forces at work which might at any moment break out into open eruption.
Lord Lyons would have been superhuman if he had not felt some emotion
at entering upon duties which must manifestly be fraught with unusual
difficulties; still, “the sentiments now expressed were friendly in
character and showed a disposition to settle pending difficulties in an
amicable spirit.” Statesmen so minded, and animated by this conciliatory
feeling, might reckon upon being wholeheartedly seconded by the new
minister.
For a year or two Lord Lyons had no very crucial question to face. The
San Juan “difficulty,” in which the United States Government showed the
most conciliatory temper, and the question of the possible absorption
of Mexico by the United States, in which Great Britain had no more than
a philanthropic concern inspired by the feeling that it would have
threatened the extension of slavery, could hardly be reckoned as coming
under such a category.
In the meantime, in such negotiations as he had to conduct, his
conciliatory and unobtrusive policy, his great discretion, had won for
him golden opinions and much respect among all classes of American
politicians; that, together with the popularity which the Prince of Wales
never failed to gain and which was a conspicuous result of His Royal
Highness’s visit to Canada and the United States in 1860, happily placed
the relations between the two countries on such a footing as had probably
never existed since the separation. The value of this was felt when the
great strain came. In 1861, Mr. Buchanan had faded into that Stygian
darkness in which ex-presidents of the United States flit as phantoms of
a past dignity.
Abraham Lincoln ruled in his stead—Abraham Lincoln, tree-feller,
rail-splitter, village postman, and one of the greatest men that ever
made history.
This tall, gaunt, raw-boned, lantern-jawed man, fresh caught from
Illinois, with none of the graces which the gods have given, save
that supreme grace of truth and pellucid honesty which sweetens all
intercourse, would have been an easy man for a minister like Lord Lyons,
himself the very incarnation of transparent sincerity, to deal with.
His Secretary of State, Mr. H. Seward, was a man of another kidney. Mr.
Seward was a New York lawyer, a rough, coarse, unconciliatory nature,
one of those impossible people who mistake bluster for courage, and
braggadocio for strength—so unmannerly was he that on one occasion
when he was a guest at a dinner-party at the British Legation, he
talked so offensively to certain of the diplomatists present that Lord
Lyons, a past-master in the art of turning a sharp corner, broke up
the conversation by saying that as host it was now his duty to go and
talk to the ladies. It needed all the tact, patience and self-control
of Lord Lyons to treat with such a man. That he succeeded in taming him
into something approaching to the amenities—I had almost written the
decencies—of diplomatic intercourse, was one of Lord Lyons’ most notable
achievements.
In 1860 the United States were on the brink of a volcano. The secession
of the Southern States was imminent, and on the 10th of December Lord
Lyons wrote to the Duke of Newcastle: “It is difficult to believe that I
am in the same country which appeared so prosperous, so contented, and
one may say so calm when we travelled through it.... Our friends are
apparently going ahead on the road to ruin with their characteristic
speed and energy. The President [Buchanan] is harassed beyond measure.”
Lincoln was inaugurated as President in March, 1861, and in the following
April the dogs of war were let loose with a vengeance, “and the capture
of Fort Sumter [by the Confederates] signalized the fact that a
population of little over five millions of white men had had the audacity
to challenge over twenty-two millions of their fellow-countrymen.” The
blockade of the southern ports became all important for England. Lord
Lyons, writing to Lord John Russell, said: “If the United States are
to be permitted to seize any ship of ours wherever they can find her
under their jurisdiction on the plea that by going to a southern port
she has violated the U. S. Customs Laws, our commerce will be exposed to
vexations beyond bearing, and all kinds of new and doubtful questions
will be raised. In fact, this, it seems to me, would be a paper blockade
of the worst kind. It would certainly justify Great Britain and France in
recognizing the Southern Confederacy, and sending their fleets to force
the U. S. to treat British and French vessels as neutrals in conformity
with the law of nations.” Mr. Seward was apparently convinced of the
reality of this danger, but when he saw how violent the President and
his colleagues were, veered round and became “the fiercest of the lot.”
Lord Lyons went on to say, “I am in constant apprehension of some foolish
and violent proceeding of the Government with regard to Foreign Powers.
Neither the President nor any man in the Cabinet has a knowledge of
foreign affairs; they have consequently all the overwhelming confidence
in their own strength which popular oratory has made common in this
country.”
The position of the British Minister at Washington was one of supreme
difficulty. The Government had wisely made common cause with France, but
no clear instructions as to procedure had been issued to Lord Lyons,—Lord
John Russell contenting himself with saying that he relied upon “the
wisdom, patience and prudence of the British Minister to steer safely
through the danger of the crisis.” The Law Officers of the Crown gave
it as their opinion “that we must consider the civil war in America as
regular war—_justum bellum_—and must apply to it all the rules respecting
blockade and letters of marque, which belong to neutrals during a war.”
They went on to express a pious wish that both parties should agree to
the Declaration of Paris regarding the flag covering the goods and the
prohibition of privateers.
Pious wishes do not always bear fruit, and seeing the vital importance to
England, and especially to Lancashire, of trade with the Southern States,
it was evident that blockade running would soon become a common practice,
and, seeing how ineffectual that blockade was, would be resorted to with
the result that considerable fortunes would be amassed by it.
Matters were not made easier by the negotiations which were taking place
at home between Lord John and Mr. Adams, the new American Minister, who
had succeeded Mr. Dallas. Mr. Adams said that the language held by Lord
John to his predecessor had given umbrage in the United States, and might
even lead to the termination of his own mission unless the unfavourable
impression should be corrected. He complained, moreover, of the
recognition of the South as a belligerent. Lord Newton very justly points
out that Lord John Russell was honest in his endeavours to show that
England, as a whole, was in sympathy with the North—popular feeling was
naturally all on the side of the abolition of slavery. The ovation which
Mrs. Beecher Stow received in London was not yet forgotten, and “Uncle
Tom’s Cabin,” now a forgotten book, was still selling by thousands. But
Lord John Russell as a negotiator was neither conciliatory nor tactful,
and it was certainly remarkable that while on the other side of the
Atlantic Lord Lyons was using all his tact, all his discretion, both
natural and trained, to soften the asperities of Mr. Seward, Mr. Adams,
on this side, was confronted with the querulous acrimony of the English
Foreign Minister.
There was, moreover, another British statesman whose clumsy activities
and hardly concealed partiality were peculiarly exasperating to the men
of the North. Mr. Gladstone never quite shared the indignation and horror
with which slavery was regarded by the bulk of his fellow-countrymen,
and when, later in the conflict, the cotton famine and the attacks of
the American Press had alienated many Englishmen from the North, there
were “demonstrations of pleasure” in the House of Commons at McClellan’s
defeat, and Mr. Gladstone declared that “Jefferson Davis and the leaders
of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy, and
they have made what is more than either, they have made a nation.”
Language such as this, held at the moment when the fortunes of the
Federals were at their blackest, could not but arouse the bitterest
feeling. Mr. Gladstone was apt to be anything but happy when he dealt
with the susceptibilities of foreign nations. A passage in a speech of
his, delivered on the 17th of March, 1880, during the famous Midlothian
campaign, is unforgettable. I shall allude to it at length elsewhere. His
utterances in regard to the War of Secession in America were even more
dangerous than this. Austria might be offended by his insults, but they
would not, could not, lead to open hostilities. But there were moments
during the great contest across the Atlantic which were crucial, and
no responsible statesman should have hampered friendly negotiations,
the object of which was to avoid a fratricidal war between two peoples
of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is necessary, in order to understand the
difficulties with which Lord Lyons had to deal, to show what were the
elements of conflict working on both sides of the Atlantic which he had
to meet and overcome. That he succeeded, that when he went home on leave
to consult with the Cabinet he was able to write to Lord Russell, “I had
quite an affectionate parting with the President this morning,” was one
of those triumphs of peace of which the laurels are greener and more
fragrant than any that ever hid the baldness of a Cæsar.
The course of the great War of Secession is followed with conspicuous
ability in Lord Newton’s life. It is impossible to say more about it here
than that throughout those terrible years in which gifts of the most
consummate tact and judgment were put to the test, Lord Lyons continued
to work with patriotic patience and with such great restraint that one
is almost tempted to say silently; indeed, in one letter to Lord Russell
he himself talks of “my language, or rather silence.” One only goal was
ever before his eyes, and that goal the prevention of any cause or excuse
that might lead to an outbreak of hostilities between the two countries.
I can go into no details here, but there were two episodes in which his
moderating influence curbed the hot heads of both nations.
The first was the famous case of the _Trent_. On the 8th of November,
1861, “the English mail steamer _Trent_, one day out from Havana, was
met by the American warship _San Jacinto_, and stopped by a shell fired
across her bows. She was then boarded by a party of marines, and the
officer in command of the party demanded a list of the passengers. The
production of the list having been refused, the officer stated that he
knew the Confederate delegates to Europe, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, to
be on board, and insisted upon their surrender. While the discussion was
in progress, Mr. Slidell made his appearance and disclosed his identity.
Thereupon, in defiance of the protests of the captain of the _Trent_
and of the Government mail agent, Mr. Slidell and Mr. Mason, together
with their secretaries, were seized and carried off by force to the _San
Jacinto_, and taken as prisoners to New York.”
When the news arrived in England the excitement and indignation were such
that no one who witnessed them will ever forget that fever of wrathful
resentment. On the other side the less thoughtful portion of the American
public worked itself up into a perfect delirium of patriotic enthusiasm.
Captain Wilkes, the commander of the _San Jacinto_, was raised to the
dignity of a national hero; banquets were held in his honour and the
Governor of Boston made a speech in which he said “That there may be
nothing left to crown this exultation, Commodore Wilkes fired his shot
across the bows of the ship that bore the British lion at its head.”
Promotion to the rank of Admiral was the heroic captain’s reward.
Peaceful and conciliatory as Lord Lyons was, and deeply concerned as
he had shown himself in the avoidance of giving or of unnecessarily
accepting any cause of offence, he was as convinced as the Home
Government that in this procedure of Captain Wilkes the limit at which
patience was possible had been reached, and it must have been a relief
to him to receive the despatch in which “The United States Government
were informed that International Law and the rights of Great Britain had
been violated, that Her Majesty’s Government trusted that the act would
be disavowed, the prisoners set free and restored to British protection.
Should this demand be refused, Lord Lyons was instructed to leave
Washington.”
Before the despatch was sent off, on the 30th of November, it was sent
for approval to the Queen. Her Majesty was constantly in the habit of
amending Lord Russell’s despatches, always rather slipshod affairs, and
often couched in offensive language. She never did so with greater effect
than upon this occasion when, acting upon the suggestions of that most
sagacious adviser, the Prince Consort, written at a moment when, as he
himself said, he was so ill that “he could hardly hold the pen,” she so
toned down such expressions as might have wounded the sensitive feelings
of the United States that the despatch, when it was received by Mr.
Seward, raised no dissatisfaction, and that he “handsomely acknowledged
the great consideration which had been shown by Lord Lyons in his conduct
of the negotiations.”
In their deep sorrow it must have been a happy memory for the Queen,
the Prince of Wales, and his brothers and sisters to feel that the
last official act of the husband and father whom they loved and
venerated, on the eve of his entering into that peace which passeth all
understanding,[28] should have been largely the means of preventing what
would have been a tragedy indeed. It was a peace which was “a victory no
less renowned than war.”
Mr. Seward’s answer to the British despatch was a note “of the most
portentous length, abounding in exuberant dialectics, but the gist of
which was contained in the two following short paragraphs:
“‘The four persons in question are now held in military custody at Fort
Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will be cheerfully liberated.
“‘Your lordship will please indicate a time and place for receiving
them.’”
The rest of the note might as well have been left unwritten.
Messrs. Mason and Slidell were accordingly conveyed in an American ship
from Fort Warren to Province Town, and there embarked on a British
warship for Halifax, it having been expressly stipulated that the
transfer should not take place at night. From Halifax they proceeded to
Europe.
The affair ended even better than Lord Lyons had hoped. On the 19th of
December he wrote: “I don’t think it likely they will give in, but I do
not think it impossible that they may do so;” and to the very end he was
preparing for the worst. All the greater must have been the relief when,
on the 27th, Mr. Seward’s answer came. “The Americans,” he writes on the
31st of December, “are putting the best face they can upon the surrender
of Slidell and Mason, and as far as depended upon me I have done
everything to make the pill as easy to swallow as possible. But I cannot
disguise from myself that the real cause of the yielding was nothing more
or less than the military preparations made in England.” Coming from him,
these words sound like a warning, profitable, if we would but listen,
even in these days.
There are very few great events in history the credit for which it would
be just to ascribe to any one man, and so perhaps Lord Newton is right
when he says that “It would be an exaggeration to attribute solely to
Lord Lyons the credit of having successfully prevented the calamity of
a war between England and the United States.” Energetic action of the
Home Government, the wise moderation of the Queen and the Prince Consort,
the loyal moral support of the French Government, and the good sense of
the Americans, each and all of them played a restraining part. But when
all is said and done, it was to the extraordinary patience and delicacy
of touch of Lord Lyons, who never once made a mistake—never under the
most goading provocation lost his head—that the ultimate success of the
negotiations was due.
“In after years,” Lord Newton writes, “Lord Lyons frequently expressed
the opinion that if there had then been telegraphic communication across
the Atlantic it would have been impossible to avert war, and it is more
than likely that he was correct, although it is improbable that many
people realized it at the time.” It was a notable case of a victory
gained by the man on the spot.
If a difficulty of the most threatening character had been conjured away
there were soon others to which a war such as that which was raging was
bound to give birth. Enlistment, desertion and other pretexts drove
scores of men to seek protection of the consuls both in the North and in
the South, on the ground of being British subjects.
An article from a Southern newspaper is worth quoting: “We can conceive
nothing more disgraceful than the conduct of Irishmen, for example, who
have been cursing the British Government ever since they could talk, who
have emigrated from their country to escape the British yoke, but who
now run to an English Consul and profess themselves subjects of Queen
Victoria in order to evade their duties in the land of their adoption.”
That, of course, alludes to the South, but Lord Lyons himself on 11th
May, 1863, writes no less bitterly: “I have been unwell for more than a
month, and am beset by a quantity of small vexatious business concerning
the wrongs of the British subjects who have suddenly proclaimed their
unswerving loyalty to the British Crown and demand my protection.”
Also there was the Alabama case—a very real stone of offence—and the
bitter Anglophobia of Admiral Wilkes; all matters in which the United
States Government behaved generously and even magnanimously. The work,
however, which devolved upon Lord Lyons was stupendous; in November,
1863, he recorded that he had already received nine hundred notes from
Mr. Seward in that year. But there was one episode so comic that it is
difficult to repress a smile in alluding to it. Is there not a comedy in
every tragedy? Is there not a gravedigger in _Hamlet_?
A great change had, during the last year or two, come over the terrible
Mr. Seward. Tamed by the British Minister, he was now roaring as
gently as any sucking dove, and would come to feed out of the hands of
Lord Lyons or M. Mercier, the French Minister, with all the caressing
softness of a pet lamb. In August, 1863, in a confidential conversation
with Lord Lyons, he expatiated upon the necessity of reviving a better
feeling between Great Britain and the United States, and of making some
demonstration in return for the visit of the Prince of Wales before the
war, which had been productive of the happiest results.
Now it was the turn of the United States to make a corresponding display
of good will, but it was difficult to devise the means of doing so, as
the President could not travel and America possessed no princes. Would
Lord Lyons think the matter over? Lord Lyons could not see the necessity
for such a step; but Mr. Seward returned to the charge, and Lord Lyons,
who was not slow in seeing his object, wrote: “The only conjecture I can
make is that he thinks of going to England himself. He may possibly want
to be absent for some reasons connected with the Presidential contest. If
he thinks that he has himself any chance of being taken as a candidate
by either party he is the only man who thinks so at this moment. It is,
however, generally considered to be an advantage to a candidate to be
out of the country during the canvass.” (In view of recent Presidential
elections these last words are amazing. Times have changed since 1863.)
To think of a visit by Mr. Seward, of all men, as an adequate compliment
in exchange for the Prince of Wales’ visit! Needless to say, that
demonstration did not take place.
However conciliatory Mr. Seward might have become, mainly owing to the
correct attitude of the British Government in detaining Confederate
ironclads in England, public feeling in America, and even in certain
members of the Government, was bitterly hostile. Mr. Wells, who was
Naval Minister, and Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, were
cases in point. The latter knew well that he was harping upon a popular
string when on an electioneering tour he talked of “taking old Mother
England by the hair and giving her a good shaking.” Mr. Sumner, another
distinguished politician, outdid him in rancour.
Lord Lyons’ difficulties and trials were never destined to cease so long
as he remained at Washington. For the details of these I must refer the
reader to Lord Newton’s masterly narrative. In a mere appreciation such
as this it is impossible to do more than hint, even where the subject
tempts the writer to expatiate. To add to his troubles, the long years of
grinding work and harassing anxieties had begun to tell upon the health
of the Minister. A trip to Canada to escape for a while from the great
heat of Washington could not restore a man who was evidently suffering
from nervous prostration. Lord Lyons felt at the end of 1864 that he
could hold out no longer. It was not surprising. During the year 1864
no less than 8,326 despatches and letters were sent out by him—mostly
drafted by himself, but in any case, revised and corrected by him. His
attachés and secretaries were at work from nine in the morning until
seven, without an interval for luncheon—and often they had to return
after dinner and write into the small hours. That is the sort of life
that is led in times of stress by those members of the diplomatic service
whom the public is apt to look upon as mere dancing dogs! As I shall show
later on, the Legation at Washington during the war was not the only
theatre of such work.
Lord Lyons went home and took up his abode with his sister, the Duchess
of Norfolk, and on 16th March, 1865, he wrote to Mr. Stuart, the _chargé
d’affaires_ at Washington: “You will have seen that I have gone out of
the service altogether and have become a gentleman at large, without
pay or pension. My health did not admit of my fixing a time for going
back, and the Cabinet became nervous about leaving Washington without a
Minister in these critical times.”
Lack of space forbids me to reproduce the very handsome expressions of
regret at Lord Lyons’ departure which he received both from Mr. Seward
and from Lord Russell. He had, indeed, served both countries well,
and as Lord Newton says in regard to the letter of the former: “It
is satisfactory to realize that these two men, between whom so many
encounters had taken place, parted on terms of friendship and mutual
esteem.” They appreciated one another’s good qualities, and that Lord
Lyons retained in his heart a soft corner for the rugged New York lawyer
is shown by the fact that “in subsequent communications with his own
Government Lord Lyons frequently expressed the hope that Mr. Seward
would continue to be responsible for the foreign policy of the American
Government.”
* * * * *
Rest and the society of his relations—the best of all restoratives to
a man of Lord Lyons’ affectionate nature—in contrast to the strenuous
labours of those four exhausting years, soon effected a cure. He was
out of the service, but such a man could hardly be spared, and in the
month of July, 1865, he was appointed to the Embassy at Constantinople,
in succession to Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling). It would have been
difficult to find two men more different than Bulwer and Lord Lyons.
Bulwer was a clever curiosity, and a born intriguer. On leaving
Cambridge, he had been successively a Greek patriot, a cornet in the
Life Guards, an ensign in the 58th Foot, had retired upon half-pay, had
achieved success as a gambler and dandy (not quite of the first water),
and finally entered the diplomatic service. In appearance, in his old
days, he was a small shadow of a man, as wizened as Tithonus, with an
insane desire to show the frame of an athlete. To this end he used to
encase himself in numberless great-coats, from which, when he came to
the Foreign Office and the heat became intolerable, he would pray some
kindly clerk to set him free, and the poor old mummy was unrolled.
As Ambassador at Constantinople he had ample opportunities for the
exercise of his peculiar talents; he was often in hot water, but, like
a famous bishop, always contrived to come out with his hands clean.[29]
His methods were not those of Lord Lyons, they were far more nearly in
accord with those of the Russian Ambassador, General Ignatieff, whom the
Turks called “the father of lies.” Lord Lyons’ transparent honesty must
have been an astonishment to Constantinople, which was used to being a
hotbed of underhand machinations, plots and counterplots, and where no
diplomatist trusted anybody else, least of all the colleagues with whom
he was supposed to live in brotherly love. However, it was a time of
comparative calm, and Lord Lyons, accompanied by his two trusty henchmen,
Malet and Sheffield, whom, with his usual affection for his friends, he
had insisted upon taking with him, was able to enjoy all the charm of
that most captivating city in a peace of mind to which he had long been a
stranger.
The Danubian principalities were a worry, as they always had been, and
as, now that they have been exalted into Kingdoms with a rich importation
of ready-made monarchs from abroad, they continue to be. Crete was
another difficulty, as it has been ever since the days of the three evil
Kappas. Still there were troubles which, after the years of perpetual
pin-pricks and imminent international dangers on the other side of the
Atlantic, must have been looked upon by Lord Lyons as no more than enough
to keep his armour from growing rusty.
In 1867 Lord Cowley resigned the Embassy at Paris, and the post
was offered by Lord Stanley to Lord Lyons. Lord Cowley was a model
diplomatist of the old school, self-restrained, undemonstrative,
absolutely ignorant of those arts of advertisement which form too large a
portion of the equipment of the statesmen of to-day. He had been brought
up in the strictest sect of diplomacy, and only six years, during which
the Embassy at Paris had been held by Lord Normanby, separated him from
the time when his father held the same post. The first Lord Cowley was
one of those three famous brothers, the other two being the great Duke
of Wellington and the Marquess of Wellesley, of whom it would be idle
and out of place to say aught here. The second Lord Cowley, afterwards
created an earl, had gained an influence at the Court of the Tuileries
which on more than one occasion saved a difficult situation. Never was
this more conspicuously shown than when, in 1860, Mr. Cobden was sent to
Paris on his famous mission in connection with the treaty of commerce.
The negotiations, so long as Mr. Cobden insisted on conducting them by
himself, were none too prosperous. Indeed, there came a day when after a
protracted conference, Mr. Cobden came back to the British Embassy ready
to throw up the sponge. Lord Cowley comforted him and said: “Let me see
what I can do.” He skilfully turned the corner and the treaty was signed.
But Cobden claimed and received all the glory.
It was in the footsteps of this great diplomatist and statesman, whose
quiet dignity, no less than his political sagacity, had made him a very
real factor in all international affairs, that Lord Lyons was to follow.
He felt that it was a difficult succession; he wrote to him: “When I
first heard that you were likely to give up Paris, I felt, as I think
I said in my letter to you, alarmed at the prospect of the Embassy’s
falling into other hands. I should have been indeed alarmed had I then
known into whose hands it was likely to fall.” This was characteristic
modesty, but Lord Lyons need have been under no alarm. Lord Cowley might
well feel that his successor would be worthy of him, and it is hardly too
much to surmise that his advice was sought by Lord Stanley before the
appointment was made. Lord Cowley was acquainted as no other man could be
with all the forces at work in France from the Emperor downwards; he knew
the whole intricate network of French politics, and he was in a position
to take the measure of all the men who might be “in the running” for the
Embassy. It is hardly thinkable that so judicious a statesman as Lord
Stanley should not have consulted him. Be that as it may, the wisdom of
the choice was fully justified.
Lord Lyons had now reached the highest reward which his profession had
to offer. The Embassy at Paris must always be, in importance as in
dignity, superior to any other diplomatic post. In the days of which
we are writing it was, and probably still is, more or less an annexe
of the Foreign Office in Downing Street. There are few international
questions in which the interests of England and France are not almost
equally concerned, whether they be acting in opposition to one another or
in concert. Every despatch which reached the Foreign Office, no matter
whence it came, was copied for Paris. The labour which it entailed
upon the Ambassador was Herculean; indeed, since the day after all
consists of only twenty-four hours, it may be doubted whether even such
indefatigable workers as Lord Cowley and Lord Lyons could have found time
to read and digest all the matter which was sent to them. There were
certain excellent and worthy ministers whose verbosity experience must
have taught them to put on one side. Still, even the absolutely necessary
work of reading was exhausting.
It really seemed as if, in some sense, Lord Lyons was destined to be the
stormy petrel of diplomacy. He was sent to Florence, and the Grand Ducal
reign collapsed. He went to America, and the War of Secession broke out.
He was promoted to Paris, and there came the great catastrophe. So shrewd
an observer as Lord Lyons could not fail to see that the throne of Louis
Napoléon was tottering. The poor Emperor was surrounded by difficulties
with which he seemed quite unable to cope. Abroad there were many
troubles, not the least of which was the question of the occupation of
Rome, which meant the bolstering up of the Papal Government. Then there
was the growing power of Russia and such matters as the annexation of the
Grand Duchy of Baden to the North German Confederation. Greek affairs,
the perennial question of ceding Crete and other portions of the Ottoman
dominions to Greece, was another source of disquietude.
In France there was a great feeling of discontent, owing, as Lord Lyons
said, “mainly, I imagine, to the inconstancy of men, and Frenchmen in
particular. In fact he has reigned eighteen years, and they are getting
tired of so much of the same thing and want novelty.” The glitter of the
Empire had ceased to dazzle, and even the brilliant Cent Gardes no longer
captivated the women and aroused the enthusiasm, tempered by jealousy, of
the men.
In his own family the Emperor had, as everybody knew, to deal with a wife
who was taking more and more part in public business, in spite of her
declaration that she meant to abandon politics for works of charity. Lord
Lyons’ account of an interview with Her Majesty is very instructive on
that point.
Then there was Prince Napoleon to be reckoned with—a very astute
politician, with something of the prophet’s eye and, like many another
prophet of old, but little of a comfort to the ruling power. With him
also, for he was a frequent visitor to the Embassy, Lord Lyons had much
talk, during which—notably upon the subject of the Roman question—it is
strange to be told that the Prince expressed his views in the hope that
they would thus be brought before the Emperor—the English Ambassador to
be the intermediary between Prince Napoleon and his cousin! This Prince,
who in many ways was a deplorable person, was able to impress Lord Lyons
by his ability and shrewd common sense. “He spoke with great animation
and remarkably well.”
In the spring of 1868, Prince Napoleon made a tour in Germany. He
returned fully impressed with the danger of a war with Prussia, with the
folly of attempting to annex the Rhenish provinces, and with the vanity
of talking of disarmament (how history repeats itself!), seeing that
Prussia alone had two hundred thousand men under arms. Though opposed to
war, if war there must be, it should be made at once; the consolidation
of Northern Germany was proceeding surely and rapidly; the adhesion of
Southern Germany would soon follow, and “hereafter war would have to
be waged with Germany thoroughly united and perfectly organized.... He
considered that an unsuccessful war would overthrow the Emperor and
his dynasty and send the whole Bonaparte family to the right-about; a
war only partially successful would rather weaken than strengthen the
Emperor at home; while a thoroughly successful war would simply give His
Majesty a fresh lease of Cæsarism, and adjourn indefinitely the liberal
institutions which he [Prince Napoleon] considered essential to the
durability of the dynasty. The Prince is not without apprehension as to
war being made this season [1868]. He fears weak men, and he looks upon
the Emperor as a weak man. He fears the people who surround His Majesty,
the generals, the chamberlains, the ladies of the Palace.”
These views of Prince Napoleon, which are among the many new
contributions to history contained in Lord Newton’s book, seemed well
worth giving _in extenso_. The Prince was not the only man who looked
upon the relations with Germany in a spirit of grave anxiety. What the
intimate views of the Emperor may have been upon this subject it would be
hard to say. When, in 1863, he sulked in his tent, his abstention from
interference in the invasion of Denmark contributed not a little to the
aggrandizement of Prussia; it was his fate to be continually hatching
broods of homing chickens.
In the meantime the Emperor was trying to bring about a conference of
the Powers to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him in regard to
the Roman question. A conference was his panacea for all diplomatic
ailments. In this he was warmly seconded by the Empress, who, in a long
conversation with Lord Lyons, in which “she spoke with much grace both of
manner, and, I think, with very great ability,” urged the importance and
propriety of non-Catholic, as well as Catholic, Powers taking part in it.
Lord Stanley’s comment upon this letter was characteristic. He said
that the Empress’s “frank and sensible conversation” furnished the best
reason he had received yet for keeping out of the affair altogether.
Why should we be asked to bear for the Emperor the responsibility which
he had assumed? Prince Napoleon shared Lord Stanley’s views. He thought
that the best service England could render the Emperor would be to advise
him to give up the idea of a conference and settle the matter with Italy
by satisfying, at least in a certain measure, Italian aspirations. “He
declares,” writes Lord Lyons, “that Italy will never be quiet, and that
the unity of Italy will never be assured until she gets Rome for her
capital. He believes that the Emperor’s support of the Pope is very
unpopular with the great majority of the French people, and that it will,
if persevered in, be a serious danger to the dynasty.” ... He wishes
England to advise the Emperor that “He will not be able to hold his own
unless he abandons the system of personal government and gives a large
increase of liberty.”
Grumbling and growling everywhere! The Emperor at his wits’ ends and
talking of “moral influence,” that last poor refuge of a desperate
statesman!
In spite of political troubles, and the manifest lack of sympathy on the
part of England, Louis Napoleon was not slow in discovering the charm and
sterling merits of Lord Lyons, whose tact could not fail to ingratiate
him wherever he went. “The Emperor talked to me a long time and related
to me interesting anecdotes, some very amusing, of the conduct of various
persons towards him in past times.” But unfortunately Lord Lyons was no
gossip, and so these “very amusing” stories have been lost.
How entertaining it would have been to be carried, like Cleofas by
Asmodeus, _le diable boiteux_, through the roof, and allowed to listen
unseen to the talk between the two. To the world at large Louis Napoléon
in the Tuileries was a mystery as silent as the Sphinx in the desert,
for so the newspapers described him. Few men suspected that in the grey
volutes of the brain which lay behind that wooden mask there was a sense
of rather sardonic humour, which, when he chose to give it play, made
him the best of company. We may be sure that the Ambassador, no less
gifted in that respect, would not be slow to throw back the ball in these
encounters of wits.
Like the Emperor, Lord Lyons had a quite irresistible trick of giving a
whimsical expression to a commonplace subject. He, too, was in his quiet
way a humorist. The personal relations between him and the Emperor were
always pleasant and sometimes, perhaps, cordial. Lord Lyons liked His
Majesty, though, in one of those rare outbursts of confidence in which he
revealed his thoughts, he confessed to Lord Newton that he had formed no
very high opinion of his abilities.
The attempt to arouse in England interest in the Roman question was
fruitless, but he never quite gave up the hope of inducing the English
Government to act as pacificators between France and Germany. But he had
lost confidence, he was out of spirits, and when Lord Cowley, in August,
1868, paid him a visit at Fontainebleau, he told Lord Lyons on his return
that he found him much depressed and aged—a disappointed man, who would
willingly, had it been possible, have retired into private life. The
glamour of the early glories of his reign had faded into mist, and he was
weary.
A little later in the same year Lord Clarendon, whose influence with him
and with the Empress, whom he had known from her childhood when he was
Minister at Madrid, was a matter of common knowledge, dined with His
Majesty at St. Cloud, and having just returned from Berlin, was able
to repeat to him the pacific language which he had heard from the King
and Queen of Prussia and General Moltke. This was good hearing, but
the Emperor was at no pains to conceal his anxiety lest anything should
occur that might arouse the feeling of the army and the nation, and he
expressed his earnest wish that “England should step in to enable France
and Prussia to withdraw with honour from their present antagonistic
attitude.”
Lord Clarendon, with that nobility which characterized all his dealings,
communicated to Lord Lyons all that he had learned both at Berlin and
at St. Cloud, although he knew that it would be for the benefit of his
political opponents. But by the end of the year there was a change of
Government in England, and to the Emperor’s great joy Lord Clarendon, the
friend whom he loved, was once more at the Foreign Office.
A visit of the Crown Prince of Prussia to England enabled Lord Clarendon
to tell Lord Lyons that His Royal Highness was to the full as peacefully
inclined as his father, and indeed he went a step further, for while he
personally was willing to see the army placed upon a peace footing, the
King would not hear of it. But how strange it seemed at a moment when we
in England have been proposing naval holidays to read talk of the same
nature earnestly exercising the minds of men nearly half a century ago.
In spite of all pacific assurances the thunder-clouds, black and ominous,
were gathering. War was imminent; Prince Napoleon went so far as to
express the opinion that it would break out in the spring; he was wrong
by some eighteen months. Much was to happen before what was an anxiety
should be crystallized into a storm ending in a tragedy such as the world
had seldom or never seen.
There was a Cretan conference; a whole web of intrigue about the
Luxemburg railway, and the Belgian question threatening the peace of
Europe; a proposal for a conference on international postage, until
Lavalette told Lord Lyons that the country was sick of the very name of
the thing; and in spite of conferences and pacific talk, trouble was
brewing in every direction.
Meanwhile Lord Lyons was subjected to an annoyance personal to himself,
but none the less real. In the month of June, 1869, Lord Lyons was
requested by Lord Clarendon to return to England to vote on the Irish
Church Bill. He strongly objected to doing so on the very proper
ground that an Ambassador ought to abstain from taking a hand in party
politics. Lord Clarendon, however, urged by Mr. Gladstone, returned to
the charge, and in such pointed terms that he could not refuse. How
sorely it went against the grain with him is plain from a letter which
two years later he addressed to Lord Granville, when the latter begged
him to come once more and vote on the Army Purchase Bill. That Lord
Lyons was right in maintaining that it was inexpedient for an ambassador
to vote on party questions must be manifest. Diplomatists, like other
permanent civil servants, are bound to serve ministers of whatever party
may be in office. If they assume the attitude of party men it is not in
human nature that they should command that intimate confidence which is
essential to their relations with the members of the Government which
they have helped to oppose.
It is a wise and cardinal rule of the English public service that its
members are neutral. The higher the position the greater the obligation
in this sense. Lord Lyons was deeply penetrated with the importance of a
principle which it is a matter of surprise to find two such large-minded
statesmen as Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville eager to set aside for
party purposes. It seems worth while to call attention to these two
incidents, because they show what was the opinion of one of the most
sagacious and prudent of men. Mr. Gladstone’s idea that the Government
had a right to call upon an ambassador for his vote needs no refuting.
In the course of the correspondence that took place at the end of 1869
it was clear that Lord Clarendon had lost all faith, if he ever had any,
in his friend Louis Napoléon. In one letter he went so far as to say,
“If the Emperor attaches value to the English alliance, he ought not to
sacrifice it by a sneaking attempt to incorporate Belgium, by means of a
railway company and its employés. If he wants war it is a bad pretext for
doing that which all mankind will blame him for.” Later, on the 31st of
August, he writes with prophetic instinct: “The prospect of affairs in
France gives cause sufficient for anxiety, and I have an instinct that
they will drift into a republic before another year is over.” Indeed, the
Fates were busy with the thread of the Empire’s life.
Abroad the attempts to induce Prussia to disarm pursued their gentle
but ineffectual course as before. Lord Clarendon did more than even
his best to try and persuade Bismarck. The man of iron and blood was
polite, but unmoved. The Duc de Gramont, known in his salad days as
“_le bel Agénor_,” had become Minister of Foreign Affairs, and when the
thunderbolt of the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain fell
in the early days of July, the ex-dandy Duke lost no time in intimating
to the British Ambassador that France would go to war with both Spain
and Prussia rather than allow a Hohenzollern to reign at Madrid.... “The
election of Montpensier might be looked upon as a _mauvais procédé_
towards the Emperor and the dynasty, but the putting forward a Prussian
was an insult and an injury to all France.” At the same time the warlike
Duke gave Lord Lyons to understand that he would be grateful to England
if she would use her influence with Prussia in order to bring about a
solution of the difficulty.
To the unspeakable sorrow of all England, and we might say of Europe,
Lord Clarendon had died on the 27th of June. It now fell to the lot of
Lord Granville to deal with foreign affairs. On the 6th of July, he paid
a generous tribute to his predecessor when he wrote: “It is very sad that
I should be writing to you in the place of one who would have had so much
personal power in such a matter as this.”
What I have to say of the war of 1870 and the causes which led to it
must be told elsewhere; here I am dealing really with the years of the
American rebellion, and have only skimmed the first volume of Lord
Newton’s great book.
In surveying the twenty years during which Lord Lyons was Ambassador in
Paris, the reader is fairly bewildered by the mass and the magnitude of
the questions with which he had to deal. The Presidency of Thiers—his
fall; the election of Maréchal Macmahon; Franco-German relations, always
a threatening subject; the purchase of the Suez Canal shares; the Treaty
of San Stefano; the proposal that Lord Lyons should go as English
plenipotentiary to the Congress of Berlin, which to his great relief
was settled by Lord Beaconsfield going himself with Lord Salisbury;
the election of President Grévy; the Eastern Question; the concert of
Europe, always playing out of tune; Tunis and Tripoli; the rebellion of
Arabi; England abandoned by France in Egypt; the pranks of the mountebank
General Boulanger—the Napoléon de Café Concert, an Agamemnon with Paulus,
the comic singer, as _vates sacer_, and “_en r’venant de la revue_” as
his anthem; changes of Government without end—these are but stray items
in the work with which that silent, self-contained, prudent man, gifted
with the true wisdom of statesmanship, had to wrestle. That he did so
without ever making a mistake accounts for the esteem in which he was
held by so many successive secretaries of state. Their confidence was
shown by the numberless cases in which he was left to act upon his own
discretion.
He never gave greater proof of wisdom than when he declined Lord
Salisbury’s offer to him in July, 1886, that he should take over the
seals of the Foreign Office. He was then sixty-nine years of age. He was
in failing health, worn out by the long exercise of almost superhuman
industry; indeed, he was nearer to his end than he himself imagined.
In a singularly graceful letter Lord Rosebery praised his decision. He
continued his work at Paris for another year, but on the 1st of November
he resigned and was created an Earl. On the 28th of the same month he had
a stroke of paralysis, and in a week he was dead.
It would be difficult to improve upon the portrait which Lord Newton
draws of his former chief. The impression left upon the mind of the
reader must be recognized as true by all those who had the good fortune
to know him. As a public man he was absolutely devoid of all petty
ambition; he never thought of advertising himself, on the contrary he
pushed modesty almost to a fault; himself a most indefatigable worker,
he expected something of the same quality in his subordinates, who loved
him for his just, honest and generous nature. In his private life he
was simple and unostentatious, yet always dignified. For the amusements
in which men of his caste are wont to find relief from the cares of
business, he had no liking. In no form did sport attract him. He was
content to go dowagering for an afternoon drive with Sheffield, the
“Hare,” so called from his large, almost flapping ears, and Dog Toby. The
party were a familiar sight to Parisians, who would watch the strange
trio with some amazement.
We are told that women had so little attraction for him that there never
was even the suspicion of a flirtation in his life. For his family,
on the other hand, for his father, his brother and his sisters and
their children he entertained the most devoted love, and his friends,
especially Sir Edward Malet and Mr. Sheffield, were held by him in an
affection which they on their side returned with interest. They became
inseparable.
“It was Lord Lyons’s fate,” writes Lord Newton, “to represent this
country at most critical periods during wars in the course of which
England, while desiring to observe the strictest neutrality, aroused the
bitterest hostility on the part of the belligerents.”[30] These words
contain no exaggeration.
His prudence, patience, and self-restraint steered the ship through many
hidden dangers. There is an old saw which runs: “Blessed is the minister
who does not make history.” It is given to few men to make history; it
is given to still fewer to prevent others from making it. These are the
greatest of all, and it is among them that Lord Lyons takes an honoured
place.