_ENGLISH POLITICAL LEADERS_
LORD PALMERSTON
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
LONDON
WM. ISBISTER, LIMITED
56, LUDGATE HILL
1882
Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH
CHANDOS STREET, LONDON
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. PALMERSTON AS JUNIOR LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY, AND SECRETARY
AT WAR, APRIL, 1807, TO MAY, 1827 14
III. PALMERSTON AS SECRETARY AT WAR, WITH SEAT IN THE CABINET 28
IV. PALMERSTON AS FOREIGN SECRETARY, NOVEMBER, 1830, TO NOVEMBER,
1834 45
V. PALMERSTON AS FOREIGN SECRETARY, APRIL, 1835, TO AUGUST, 1841 60
VI. PALMERSTON OUT OF OFFICE, AUGUST, 1841, TO JULY, 1846 80
VII. PALMERSTON AS FOREIGN SECRETARY, JULY, 1846, TO
DECEMBER, 1850 89
VIII. THE STORY OF DON PACIFICO 111
IX. PALMERSTON AS FOREIGN SECRETARY, TILL HIS DISMISSAL, IN 1851 129
X. PALMERSTON AS HOME SECRETARY, 1853 AND 1854 143
XI. THE CRIMEAN WAR. PALMERSTON PRIME MINISTER, 1855 158
XII. THE INDIAN MUTINY 174
XIII. PALMERSTON AS PRIME MINISTER FROM 1855 TILL HIS DEATH IN 1865 188
XIV. CONCLUSION 200
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
In looking for material on which to base this short memoir of Lord
Palmerston I have of course taken, as my guide to his general life, the
biography of Mr. Evelyn Ashley.[A] I have also referred to the
unfinished volumes by Lord Dalling, which Mr. Ashley adopted as far as
they went, and by his later edition has rendered unnecessary to the
general reader. Beyond this I have had recourse to the _Edinburgh_, the
_Quarterly_, the _Times_ newspaper, and various periodicals of the
period; and I have read many of his speeches and others. In dealing with
the Crimean War I have had recourse to Mr. Kinglake’s work; and in
various portions of my little book I have referred to other authors,
whom it may perhaps be unnecessary that I should name here. Having lived
through a great portion of Lord Palmerston’s career, I have trusted in
some things to my recollection, when I have been able to confirm my
memory. But I must add to this short list “The Life of the Prince
Consort,” by Sir Theodore Martin, in which the name of Lord Palmerston
has been brought under much discussion.
Sir Theodore Martin, in that work, has performed a most difficult task
with a devotion and loyalty beyond praise. There was a special merit in
selecting a man who has united so true a spirit with a patience so
exemplary and literary merit of such high character. And the subject of
his eulogy was certainly beyond all praise. To have found genius and
conscience and industry, with assured moral convictions and a tender
loving heart, to fill such a place as that occupied by the Prince
Consort, has been the good fortune of England. Let men consider what
might have been the condition of the country with a Consort less gifted
in any of these details than was the Prince. But with the verdict of the
Prince, declared in regard to Lord Palmerston as Foreign Minister, I am
compelled to differ. It is nothing that I and another do not agree with
it, but I think that I shall be able to show that England has disagreed
with his Royal Highness, and that England has been right.
It is better perhaps to say what must be said on this subject here, in
the first pages. It has to be said, or such a memoir as this would lack
every element of completeness. No man could thoughtfully undertake such
a task without feeling that he would have to express an opinion that the
Prince was right or wrong. The Prince has been so plain-spoken, and Sir
Theodore Martin has been bound to publish what the Prince has said in
language so resonant, that no one now dealing with Lord Palmerston’s
life can pass it over in silence.
That the Prince was conscientious, high-minded, modest in listening to
the advice of others, bold in declaring his opinion when he had formed
it, and patriotic in declaring it when formed, no thinking man can
doubt. Fault was found with him at first, by men who did not think; but
that has passed by. It did not now need his “Life” to make his memory
sweet to all Englishmen. He came among us and gave us his best, and
lived as though we were his own. In pursuance of a theory of government
which it was natural that he should adopt, he found fault with the
Minister who, at that time, had especially dealt between us and other
nations for a period of nearly twenty years. In this he followed the
political teaching which he had received from Baron Stockmar, a German
possessed of great abilities and gifted with a clear, conscientious
mind. He had been left to the Prince as a legacy by his uncle, King
Leopold. It can hardly be necessary to speak more in detail of Baron
Stockmar after the life of the Prince Consort by Sir Theodore Martin.
Lord Palmerston had gone to the Foreign Office in November, 1830, and
was dismissed in December, 1851. He had been out of office during six
years of that time, and, as we all understand in regard to politicians
in opposition, had then watched as closely as he had worked in office.
He knew the ways of the Foreign Office. He knew the ways of the Crown.
He knew the ways of the people on whose behalf he was employed, and
doubtless had a tendency to lessen the power of the Crown rather than to
increase it, and to think more of the House of Commons year by year as
years ran on. It was only natural that with the Prince the tendencies
should be on the other side.
Writing on 19th of December, 1851, Lord John Russell, who was then Prime
Minister, said to Lord Palmerston:--“No other course is open 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.” Thus did Lord John
Russell dismiss Lord Palmerston. The Prince, in writing to Lord John,
declared that the influence of England in calming down the dangerous
feelings on the Continent had been destroyed by Lord Palmerston: “This
influence has been rendered null by Lord Palmerston’s personal manner of
conducting the foreign affairs, and by the universal hatred which he has
excited on the Continent. That you could hope to control him has long
been doubted by us, and its impossibility is clearly proved by the last
proceedings.”[B]
No doubt Lord Palmerston had been rough. A man who will not be bullied
will sometimes bully. The passage is only quoted here to show the
disapproval of Lord Palmerston which existed in the mind of the Prince,
and to show also how impossible it will be, in dealing with the life of
Palmerston, altogether to ignore the disapproval of the Prince Consort.
The two charges brought against Lord Palmerston were, that by his
personal manner of conducting foreign affairs he had “rendered null the
influence” of England abroad, and that he had disobeyed the orders
received by him from the Court, through the Prime Minister. These orders
required that time should be allowed for the reading of despatches
prepared by him to be sent to Foreign Courts, and for the making of such
alterations as might seem good to the Prime Minister or to the Court.
That Lord Palmerston had “rendered null” the influence of England abroad
will hardly now be conceived. It will be for me to assert, as Mr. Ashley
has well shown, that no Minister has ever more thoroughly supported
English interests and English influence abroad. As to a certain amount
of disobedience, the disobedience of which complaint is made--I think
that it must be admitted. “There,” said the head of a Government office
one day, when he had just completed the writing of a set of minute
instructions to his subordinates--“if they can do all that, I’ll eat
them.” The subordinates by no means intended to be eaten; nor did Lord
Palmerston. In all ranks of life there are instructions which a man must
not say that he will not obey, but will know that he cannot. So it was
with Lord Palmerston. He did not, we suppose, intend to obey those
instructions to the letter. He had instructions also from his other
master, which made it impossible. He did intend to act as Foreign
Minister to the best of his loyalty, and to the best of his patriotism.
For the truth of what is here said, I must refer the reader to the
records of the man’s life, as about to be given;--as, indeed, they have
been given to the same effect, but at much greater length, by Mr.
Ashley. Lord Palmerston proved the unassailable strength of his position
by the rapidity with which he vanquished his old friend, Lord John, who
had dismissed him. How far this dismissal had been carried out by Lord
John himself, and how far he had been urged on by the Prince and the
Prince’s foreign adviser, it is not necessary that I should say. The
blow had come from the hands of Lord John, and Lord Palmerston at once
hit back at him. On the 19th of December, 1851, he was told to go. On
the 24th of February, 1852, he thus wrote to his brother: “I have had my
tit for tat with John Russell, and I turned him out on Friday last.”
Two months had done it. And how had it been done? Lord Palmerston had
found himself called upon to fight the Prime Minister,--and the
Ministers who remained in the Cabinet from which he had been
dismissed,--backed by all the powers of the Crown. And certainly he
could depend in no degree on the House of Lords. It was by the House of
Commons,--by his own influence there as opposed to that of Lord John
Russell so supported,--that he won his victory. Having won it, he (Lord
John) was at once deposed. This, at any rate, showed what was the
opinion of those to whom England had confided the political power of the
country. The mode of the battle and the cause which created it, must be
told further on. It soon became evident that Lord Palmerston had not
been “smashed,” as had been declared during those months. “There was a
Palmerston,” had been said by a witty statesman of the opposite party.
But it came to pass very soon that Lord Palmerston stood higher than
ever in the councils of his country. The war, of which many men said
that it would annihilate us, had come upon us; and in four years’ time
the various Prime Ministers of the day,--Lord Aberdeen and Lord John and
Lord Derby,--were calling for help to the “Palmerston that was.” Indeed,
he had been one of the Cabinet again since December, 1852; and then in
February, 1855, himself became Prime Minister, as being the only man in
England to whom England could trust the awful responsibility of that
period. That was the man on whose dismissal from his councils the Prince
had congratulated the then Prime Minister, telling him that England’s
influence was rendered null by the hatred abroad which the dismissed one
had created. This, I think, is strong proof that England did not agree
with him. Nor was the Sovereign slow to express her approval of the man
who had been so lately dismissed. “It would give her particular
satisfaction if Lord Palmerston would join in this formation,”[C]--the
formation of a new Cabinet. Then he was called on himself to form a
Cabinet, and we are told, in a page or two further on, that “Lord
Palmerston had good reason to appreciate the generosity with which his
old chief had interposed to remove this formidable impediment to his
success. Nor was her Majesty less grateful.” So was he welcomed back to
the highest seat. Nor was the Prince slow to show himself alive to the
fact that the country was best served by him whom the country had
selected for its servant. But he must surely then have acknowledged to
himself that the dismissal of a Minister of whom England thoroughly
approves, though it may be effected for a few months, can hardly be
maintained.
This, I think,--his dismissal from the Foreign Office which he loved so
well,--was the hardest trial to which Lord Palmerston was subjected
during his long official life. In the previous year an attack had been
made upon him in regard to Don Pacifico. It had been commenced in the
House of Lords, and was carried on through a memorable debate in the
House of Commons. During that period the Prince Consort had then written
to Lord John:[D] “Both the Queen and myself are _exceedingly sorry_ at
the news your letter contained. We are not surprised, however, that Lord
Palmerston’s mode of doing business should not be borne by the
susceptible French Government with the same good-humour and forbearance
as by his colleagues.” But in that affair Lord Palmerston had so managed
that he had come out of it, not dismissed, but triumphant. In that, as
will be seen, there was no grief to him, though much trouble. But it
had all been a part of the same conscientious but, to the feeling of
many, unconstitutional operation. It was written on Lord Palmerston’s
mind that he was England’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, acting, no
doubt, in conjunction with his colleagues, but subject to no immediate
control. But it was not so written on the mind of the Prince Consort.
Which idea was written on the minds of the people; and which theory was
it possible that either should carry out in accordance with the practice
of the country? Subsequently, when Lord Clarendon was Foreign Minister
with his entire approval, if not by his nomination, Palmerston must
surely have felt more interested in the Foreign Office than any other
Englishman. He was greatly successful afterwards as Premier, but his
years spent at the Foreign Office were those of his best activity. It is
as Foreign Minister that his memory will chiefly live.
* * * * *
He was in office altogether forty-nine years and some odd months;--all
but fifty years! No other Englishman has, I believe, ever served so
long. How should an Englishman serve so long, seeing that a young man
has to show some fitness before he is taken into office, and that then,
as parties are divided in England, he has to remain out during that
portion of his life in which his opponents are in? But this man did so.
He lived in all eighty-one years. Of these, twenty-two were those of his
boyhood and education; he enjoyed nine of enforced rest, though during
those nine he was, with the exception of a month or two, an active
member of Parliament; the remaining fifty saw him always in Parliament,
always in office, always at the oar. They offered to make him
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, as they had also offered to make him
Governor-General of India. But he laughed at the proposal. Not to be in
the centre of everything,--at St. Stephen’s, in Downing Street, in
London where the Mayor and the Fishmongers held their banquets, ready
for Greenwich dinners, ready for all attacks, for all explanations, for
all discussions--was to him not to live. But he did live always, till at
eighty-one he was taken to his rest, being at the moment Prime Minister
of England.
And yet he was by no means a man of genius, possessed of not more than
ordinary gifts of talent, with no startling oratory, and, above all,
with no specially strong liberal opinions. He had all that could be done
for him, both for good and evil, by a thoroughly English education of
the first class. He could fight and would fight as long as he could
stand; but as conqueror he could be thoroughly generous. He could work,
requiring no rest, but only some change of employment. He shot, he
hunted, he raced, he danced. But he seems to have cared for the niceties
of erudition neither in classics nor in philosophy. He was a man who
from the first was determined to do the best he could with himself; and
he did it with a healthy energy, never despairing, never expecting too
much, never being in a hurry, but always ready to seize the good thing
when it came. Through his active life he was fortunate in all things. He
avoided those scrapes to which such men are subject,--men who come early
into their fortunes and their titles, who profess to live, if not lives
of pleasure, lives to which pleasure lends all her attractions. He shot,
he hunted, he raced, and he danced; but he did not drink; he did not
gamble. The world has heard of no trouble into which he got about
women. He became so popular with the world generally that the world was
afraid to be censorious or to inquire into him with prying eyes. The
world called him “Cupid” when he was young, and the world said nothing
of him more severe than that. He had, too, the great gift of
uninterrupted physical health, without which no statesman can now do
great things in England. Even a Pitt, were a Pitt to come now, would
hardly succeed under the weight of responsibility and labour which he
would have to bear.
Lord Palmerston began life as a Tory, and only drifted gradually into
those Whig tendencies which held him to the end of his life, rather than
were held by him. Of the Honourable Henry John Temple, the eldest son of
the Viscount Palmerston of that day, the earliest news we have is that
he was measured for his first pair of breeches on the 4th of March,
1789, and that later in life complaints were made that Harry Temple was
too sedate and wanted animal spirits;[E] and we know that he passed
through Harrow School with fair credit and much popularity as a young
nobleman. From thence he was sent to Edinburgh to listen to the teaching
of Professor Dugald Stewart. The Professor thus writes about him to his
old Harrow master in April, 1801. He was then sixteen. “In point of
temper and conduct he is everything his friends could wish. Indeed, I
cannot say that I have ever seen a more faultless character at his time
of life, or one possessed of a more amiable disposition.” It is somewhat
exaggerated praise, and would hardly have been believed by Baron
Stockmar when, fifty years later on, he had to judge of the Foreign
Minister. From Edinburgh he went to St John’s, Cambridge. His father
had previously died; and here, though we only know it from himself, he
was so “commended for the general regularity of his conduct” that he was
advised to stand for the University. In January, 1806, Mr. Pitt died,
and the University had to elect a new member. Palmerston was twenty-one
years old, and was put forward as representing the Tory Government
party; but he was beaten by Lord Henry Petty and Lord Althorp,
afterwards Lord Lansdowne and Lord Spencer, with both of whom he for
many years sat in the same Cabinet. He then stood for Horsham in
November, 1806, and was returned; but he was unseated on petition. He
stood again for the University, in May, 1807, and was again
unsuccessful. He came in afterwards for a rotten borough, Newtown, in
the Isle of Wight. “One condition required” by the patron “was that he
would never, even for the election, set a foot in the place.”
But he had become the officer of the Government before he was a member
of Parliament, having, in anticipation of his lot in life, been
appointed one of the junior Lords of the Admiralty. He was nominated to
that office by the influence of Lord Malmesbury, who had been one of his
guardians. His duties as such were, as he tells us, confined to the
signing of his name. The Duke of Portland was the Prime Minister, but
Mr. Canning was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and gave the
Ministry what power it had. Soon afterwards, still in 1807, application
was made to Canning to appoint young Palmerston Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, but the place had already been given away. A
quarter of a century was thus left to run by, as Mr. Ashley remarks,
before he took his place in that department.
It was Under the Duke of Portland, as a special friend and follower of
Canning, that Lord Palmerston took his place as a Government servant, in
April, 1807. As such he remained, with six intervals, amounting in all
to about nine years, till on 16th October, 1865, he died at Brocket
Hall, in Hertfordshire, in the same house in which Lord Melbourne, whose
brother-in-law he became, had previously died in 1848. For four or five
months of his life,--in the winter of 1834-35,--he was without a seat in
Parliament, till in the April of that year he found himself landed in a
safe refuge in Tiverton. At the time at which he entered the Admiralty
he was not yet twenty-three years old. He possessed a fair patrimony,
but was by no means a rich nobleman. He had an Irish property in County
Sligo, partly in the town, but chiefly on the sea-coast. To this he paid
great attention. I remember having been told on the spot nearly forty
years ago that that wonderful “Irishman,” Lord Palmerston, had for the
last ten years spent all his income upon the estate. He had just then
been over, and the beauty of his presence had probably enhanced the
virtue of his operations. The family house was at Broadlands, near
Romsey, in Hampshire. Here he went into the country, sometimes for a
week or two at a time, whereas other country gentlemen go for months.
Nothing astonishes us more than the smallness of the periods allowed to
himself by Lord Palmerston for the amusements of life. But he makes his
statements in that respect without any feeling either of surprise or
self-praise. He does in one place break out into anger against a keeper
who spends his nights in the alehouse in order that the poachers may
spend theirs in the coverts. “Five guns killing sixteen pheasants in
Yew Tree!” Yew Tree we presume to have been a wood, and certainly must
have been unsatisfactory even in 1834, when the catastrophe took place.
The Foreign Secretary going down to his own preserves with four friends,
and for a very short holiday, and finding only three birds apiece among
them, cannot but have been exasperating! But Mr. Thresher, the keeper in
fault, probably thought that a man so greatly occupied with foreign
affairs as his master, could not want many pheasants.