PALMERSTON FOREIGN SECRETARY, JULY, 1846, TO DECEMBER, 1850.
We now come to Lord Palmerston’s third period at the Foreign Office,
which lasted from July, 1846, to December, 1851, but which we shall find
it better to divide into three chapters than to comprise it in one,
because it includes the romantic affair of Don Pacifico, which, by the
attempts made and the success achieved, will deserve a chapter to
itself. The _coup d’état_ and his dismissal will demand a third. We will
therefore take Lord Palmerston’s life at the Foreign Office down to the
year 1850, when the great Don Pacifico debate took place. There were in
the meantime various circumstances, all at the moment of intense
national interest, with which he was either specially concerned as
Foreign Secretary, or much concerned as a leading Cabinet Minister. The
chief among these were the Spanish marriages, Lord Minto’s mission to
Italy, the French Revolution and escape to England of Louis Philippe,
the first war between Austria and Sardinia, the French occupation of
Rome, and the wars in Hungary. With the minor operations of his official
life it is impossible for us here to deal.
When he got back to office, there had arisen a question as to the
expulsion of the Jesuits from certain Swiss cantons; but I do not know
that the English reader will care much now about the Jesuits in
Switzerland. Nor are we specially anxious as to the civil war which was
then carried on in Portugal. But the knot in European politics known as
the Spanish marriages had then an importance, and has since achieved
results, which make it necessary that we should not altogether pass it
over in any record, however short, of Lord Palmerston’s life. But for
those Spanish marriages Louis Philippe’s heirs might still have sat upon
the throne of France, and the name of king would not be altogether
disgraced in the realm over which Henry IV. had ruled. No prophecy shall
be ventured upon here as to the future of the French nation; but it is,
I think, notorious to the world at large that the last blow given to the
Bourbon family, in the opinion of Frenchmen, came from the Spanish
marriages.
I cannot but here remark that, strong, abiding, and consistent as was
Lord Palmerston’s conduct in reference to these transactions, and
assuredly as the disgrace would have been prevented could it have been
staved off by our English Minister, he does not seem to speak of the
foul political arrangements which were contemplated and carried out,
with that disgust which they must have engendered in the mind of every
honest and high-minded gentleman. But here we must remember that Lord
Palmerston, as English Foreign Secretary, accustomed as he was to speak
his mind freely, could not speak out quite plainly; and that of all that
he did say we probably do not possess the whole. But the consequence is
that up to this date men speak of the Spanish marriages as having been
tolerable in politics though bad in morals, and as projects which should
consign the inventors to no perdition, because they dealt, not with
private, but with public matters. To us it has seemed that the evil
intended, and in a great degree consummated, was of such a nature as to
deserve all the stigma which a private iniquity could bear. The Spanish
marriages are withdrawn from the comparatively easy regions of national
conscience by the intensity of private desire for aggrandisement, by the
private nature of the precautions taken, and by the private evil
accomplished.
Now, I must tell the story with as little matter of annoyance as may be
possible. It has already been told in Lord Palmerston’s life, and so
often before and since, that there can be no other reason for silence
but the abomination of the tale to be told. It is, however, impossible
to produce aright a memoir of Lord Palmerston’s life without telling it.
When kings and their councillors do amiss it is by no means the least of
the evil done that their doings must be made public and explained.
It had become to be important to us and other nations that the thrones
of France and Spain should be kept distinct, so that no French prince
might come to sit upon the throne of Spain. As there were now two
Spanish princesses,--Isabella, who was the Queen, and her sister, who at
the moment was her heir,--Louis Philippe was required to engage, and did
distinctly bind himself, that no son of his should marry Isabella, and
also that no son of his should marry the sister till the Queen should
have become a mother. Having bound himself by this undertaking the
King’s first endeavour was, to use an English phrase, to drive a coach
and horses through it. He determined that a son of his, or at any rate a
grandchild, should sit upon the throne of Spain, and presuming, as we
must surmise, that he found his opportunity in the comparative weakness
of Lord Aberdeen, he set to work to make such arrangements as might be
practicable. Palmerston had declared in 1836, when Isabella was about
five years old, that it would be so. “The fact is that he,”--Louis
Philippe,--“is as ambitious as Louis XIV., and wants to put one of his
sons on the throne of Spain as husband to the young Queen.” But since
then the young lady had grown to what in Spain is a marriageable age,
and the young Prince who was to become the link between the thrones was
twenty-two.
The King of the French did not see his way to break the engagement by
running counter to its first clause. He could not marry his son to the
young Queen. He might marry his son to the Queen’s sister, as soon as
that sister had a child. But that clause he did manage to break; and on
the day on which the Queen was married, the Duke de Montpensier was
married to the Princess. This was wrong, and false, and
mischievous,--likely to lead to quarrels and wars, and unlikely to lead
to increased power and dominion for any king or prince. But it was a
trick within the compass of certain kings and certain ministers, and was
not unroyal in all its bearings. Louis Philippe, however, was not
contented with this. He went farther, and selected the Prince who was to
marry the Queen. There was a Prince, unfortunate, as the minds of men
go, but hitherto not disgraced,--a poor man who could never become the
father of children. He it was whom Louis Philippe selected, with the
assistance and guidance of Guizot, in the absolute ignorance, I do not
hesitate to say, of Lord Aberdeen.
Such were the Spanish marriages. The fruits of them, as might have been
guessed, were disastrous. The Queen, at any rate, had children, on whose
royal birth no slur was openly thrown. The Duke de Montpensier lives as
an unknown nobleman in a foreign land, to whose name there clings
something of the flavour of his father’s deeds. M. Guizot, who was the
great Minister of the day, a man of high intellect, of thoughtful
habits, of religious feeling, and a Protestant, tarnished his name for
ever. And Louis Philippe ran from France as an exile, taking refuge in
England under the name of Mr. Smith. And here he died! The marriages
were perpetrated! But with what results to all who were concerned in
them! It may be doubted whether any meaner crime was ever committed in
the name of policy, or one of which the end was more befitting, or
better deserved.
The effect which this produced in Europe took eighteen months to show
itself. The marriages were solemnized in the autumn of 1846, and Louis
Philippe came to England and took up his abode at Claremont in the
spring of 1848. All his fine machinations had been blown like
soap-bubbles into air! The result of the marriages upon English feeling,
and upon Lord Palmerston, who was the one Englishman more concerned than
others, was that of distinct alienation. It afforded matter but for few
speeches in the House of Commons, and not much for private
correspondence, as it was done in secret, and the wickedness of the
arrangements could only creep out by slow degrees. Men at the time used
to whisper to each other that it was so, and men who received the
whisper declined to believe the story in all its foul enormity. Now it
has become a matter of history, and there is no ordinary reader who does
not know of what nature were the Spanish marriages. But Guizot is said
at the time to have become so lost to all decent feeling, so warped and
stung by the constant interference which he had received from Lord
Palmerston, as to have boasted that the political arrangement made was
the one great thing which France had herself achieved, unaided, since
1830!
It effected the entire break-up of the concert which had existed between
the great Powers of Europe, and clearly led to all the revolutions and
disturbances of 1848. England and France were severed, and by their
division Austria, Prussia and Russia were encouraged to expect to have
their way. A further appropriation of Poland was intended, and was
effected; but we find Palmerston endeavouring to prevent it. He writes
to Lord Normanby on the 19th of November, 1846; “I have prepared an
answer about Cracow, which I shall send off to Vienna without waiting
for Guizot.” “Guizot will make a show of resistance; but the fact is,
that, even if France and England had been on good terms, they have no
means of action on the spot in question, and could only have prevented
the thing by a threat of war, which, however, the three Powers would
have known we should never utter for the sake of Cracow. The measure is
an abominable shame, and executed by the most hollow pretences and the
most groundless assertions.”
In January, 1847, the Queen protested, in her speech from the throne,
against this new Polish outrage. Lord Palmerston was evidently nettled
to think that he could not interfere so as to prevent it. It was but
another scar on the Treaty of Vienna, and he could do nothing. Soon
afterwards a French political officer of high standing had been
condemned for corruption, and had endeavoured, or pretended to
endeavour, to commit suicide. “In either way, these things must be a
blow to Guizot and the Philippine system.” The Philippine system was to
Palmerston unutterably damnable. It was sly, fraudulent, false,
extremely courteous, and thoroughly un-English. But it was secret,
clever, and at this moment seemed to be triumphant. It was above all
things opposed to Palmerston. We can conceive nothing more bitter than
the hatred which at this time raged between the two statesmen. And in
speaking of it, we should by no means endeavour to wash Lord Palmerston
quite white. It may have been that had the “suaviter in modo” been more
customary with him, the “fortiter in re” might have been more apparent.
Being an older politician, and, we may say, a much wiser one, he had
thought to dominate the Frenchman; but the Frenchman knew himself to
possess a brighter intellect, a more brilliant style of eloquence, and,
in erudition, to be the greater man. We will concede it to him,--that he
was so. But Lord Palmerston possessed two virtues by means of which his
name will go down to posterity altogether unsullied. He was brave, and
he was honest.
We now come to Lord Minto’s mission to Italy, which had been, we
presume, arranged between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. Pio
Nono, the late Pope, had been elected in 1846, and Lord Minto started
for Italy in November, 1846. We still remember how decided was the
Liberalism of the new Pope, when he first filled St. Peter’s chair,--an
almost impossible condition for a Pope, and one which he soon vacated.
But Lord Minto went to assist him in his Liberalism, to give him such
aid as might be possible for an English Liberal Lord, and to find out in
return what the new pope could do for England in keeping quiet seditious
Irish bishops. “You will be at Rome,” said Lord Palmerston, “not as a
minister accredited to the Pope, but as an authentic organ of the
British Government, enabled to explain its views and to declare its
sentiments upon events which are now passing in Italy.” “Her Majesty’s
Government are deeply impressed with the conviction that it is wise for
Sovereigns and their Governments to pursue, in the administration of
their affairs, a system of progressive improvement; to apply remedies to
such evils as, upon examination, they may find to exist, and to
re-model, from time to time, the ancient institutions of their
country,--so as to render them more suitable to the gradual growth of
intelligence, and to the increasing diffusion of political knowledge;
and Her Majesty’s Government consider it to be an undeniable truth, that
if an independent Sovereign, in the exercise of his deliberate judgment,
shall think fit to make within his dominions such improvements in the
laws and institutions of his country as he may think conducive to the
welfare of his people, no other Government can have any right to attempt
to restrain or to interfere with such an employment of one of the
inherent attributes of independent sovereignty.”
We cannot but observe here the way in which Lord Palmerston lays down
the law for the governance of the nations generally. No doubt he was
right in what he said; but he said it with the air of some superior
being, whose word is to go for more than the words of other mortals.
Lord Minto does not go at once to Rome, but stays awhile at Turin,
where the Austrians have shown a desire to interfere with Charles
Albert, the father of Victor Emanuel. It is to be hoped that the
Ambassador Extraordinary knew the phraseology of the hunting-field as
well as did his correspondent. If so, he would understand when he was
told that, “As to the Austrians they have been headed, and will not
break cover towards Italy.” Then Palmerston explains that, for having
stopped the Austrians, the Pope ought to do him a good turn, in
silencing a meddlesome bishop or two. Alas, that an opinion so absurd
should ever have been held in regard to Pio Nono! “We wish to make the
Pope the plain, and simple, and reasonable request that he will exert
his authority over the Irish priesthood, to induce them to abstain from
meddling in politics, but, on the contrary, to confine themselves to
their spiritual duties.” “I shall be able to send you by the next
messenger, a memorandum about the letter which has recently been
received by McHale, from Rome, upon the subject of the Irish colleges.
This is an unkind and most mischievous measure, and was little to be
expected at the hands of the Pope at the very moment we were stepping
out of our way to be of use to him. It is an ungrateful return.” And a
little further on he writes to his correspondent; “You may confidently
assure the Papal authorities that at present in Ireland, misconduct is
the rule, and good conduct the exception, in the Catholic priests.”
Of course it would be so, human nature being the same with Roman
Catholics as with Protestants. Had we paid the priests, as we paid, and
still pay, the parsons, out of the funds collected by the Government,
the priests would have worked for the Government. To expect that they
should do so under other circumstances is to dream of a Utopia. But to
imagine that assistance could be got from the Pope to induce the priests
to do so, was beyond any Utopian dream. There was a notion afloat at the
time that the Pope should send an ambassador to London to carry out the
liberal views with which he was supposed to have been imbued. But to
this Lord Palmerston will give no assent. “As for the idea that we could
manage the Irish priests by means of a Roman priest in London, I am
convinced that the presence of such a man would only have given the
Irish priests an additional means of managing us.” Lord Minto writes
back word that “The Pope is a most amiable, agreeable, and honest man,
and sincerely pious to boot, which is much for a Pope; but he is not
made to drive the State coach.”
The honesty and piety of Pio Nono must be judged from his whole career.
Certainly Lord Minto could not teach him the political state of Europe.
“As to the poor Pope,” says Lord Palmerston, writing back to Lord Minto,
“I live in daily dread of some misadventure having befallen him. Events
have gone too fast for such a slow sailer as he is.” Then he speaks of
the deposition of Guizot’s ministry in Paris--for Guizot had been
deposed. “What has been happening in Italy ought to have been a warning
to Guizot. What has now happened to Guizot ought to be a warning to
Italy. Guizot thought that by a packed Parliament and a
corruptly-obtained majority, he could control the will of the nation,
and the result has been that the will of the Crown has been controlled
by an armed popular force. People have long gone on crying up Louis
Philippe as the wisest of men. I always have thought him one of the most
cunning, and therefore not one of the wisest. Recent events have shown
that he must rank among the cunning, who outwit themselves; and not
among the wise, who master events by foresight and prudence. This
surrender of the King of the Barricades to the commons of the National
Guard is, however, a curious example of political and poetical justice.”
This was in 1848, when all Europe was on the stir. “Was there ever such
a scene of confusion as now prevails almost all over Europe? Fortunate,
however, has it been for Italy that you crossed the Alps last autumn. If
the Italian sovereigns had not been urged by you to move on, while their
impatient subjects were kept back, there would by this time have been
nothing but Republics from the Alps to Sicily.” Then he ventures on a
prophecy which has become absolutely true in later years. “We have just
heard of the entrance of Sardinian troops into Lombardy to help the
Milanese. Northern Italy will henceforth be Italian, and the Austrian
frontier will be at the Tyrol. This will be no real loss to Austria.”
His dislike to Austria and Metternich is only second to his hatred for
Louis Philippe and Guizot. France itself he did not hate, or even
dislike--or, rather, liked as well as he could any country except
England. He says that Austria after such losses may, if well governed,
become a powerful State. But he adds: “The question is, Has she any men
capable of making any State a powerful one by good government.”
There had in the meantime sprung up a revolution in Sicily against
Naples, and Lord Minto had gone on to Naples, and into the Sicilian
waters, attempting to put it down. But it was not put down till 1849,
when the seditious efforts of the previous year were nearly quelled
throughout Europe. So Lord Minto returned home, having not apparently
done much, but having brought with him more correct views of the
Italian people than English Ministers had hitherto possessed.
Early in 1848 there came upon France that thorough disturbance of all
things which has never yet quite rectified itself. Indeed, it may be
said that there has been nearly a century of disturbance, during which,
however, France has grown wonderfully in wealth and intelligence. But in
1830 France had once more re-established herself, and the Citizen King
was put upon his throne as a thing of permanence and a just mixture of
monarchical principles with democratic ideas. It must be acknowledged of
Louis Philippe, as also of Napoleon III., that France did grow rich
under him. But in both cases the riches came “post hoc” and not “propter
hoc.” According to our thinking, neither the one ruler nor the other
could have benefited his people much, because neither of them was simple
in his way of ruling. Louis Napoleon was yet to come, but Louis Philippe
had now brought himself and his administration to an end.
There had been a great demand for reforms in Paris and the King had
expressed himself strongly. “I never will consent to reform,” he had
exclaimed. “Reform is another word for the advent of the Opposition.”
“Tell your master not to mind having popular assemblies,” is quoted by
Lord Normanby as said by Louis Philippe to some foreign ambassador. “Let
them only learn to manage things as I manage mine.” The dismissal of
Guizot, the Minister, was demanded among other things. Guizot had stood
high for personal integrity;--and we believe that he was perfectly
honest; but he got into various troubles in which he consented to the
expenditure of public money to satisfy the rapacity of others; and,
though he was honest himself, he seems to have dealt easily with
dishonesty in his subordinates. But Louis Philippe felt that to lose
Guizot was to own himself beaten, and clung to his Minister. Then came
the proposition for a popular banquet, and the stopping of the banquet
by the police, but with permission given for a procession; and then the
stopping of the procession; and then the catastrophe. Louis Philippe,
with his family, ran away, and in a few days appeared as Mr. Smith on
the coast of Sussex, at Newhaven.
On the 26th of February Lord Palmerston thus writes to Lord Normanby;
“What extraordinary and marvellous events you give me an account of. It
is like the five acts of a play, and has not taken up much more time.
Strange that a king who owed his crown to a revolution, brought about by
royal blindness and obstinacy, should have lost it by exactly the same
means, and he a man who had gone through all the vicissitudes of human
existence, from the condition of a schoolmaster to the pomp of a throne;
and still further that his overthrow should have been assisted by a
Minister deeply read in the records of history, and whose mind was not
merely stored with the chronology of historical facts, but had extracted
from their mass the lessons of events and the philosophy of their
causes.” And then he gives instructions as to what shall be done by the
English Ambassador in Paris. “Our principles of action are to
acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of
permanency, but none other.” “We will engage to prevent the rest of
Europe from meddling with France, which, indeed, we are quite sure they
have no intention of doing. The French rulers must engage to prevent
France from assailing any part of the rest of Europe.” Then he goes on
to lay down rules for different emergencies. What shall be done if the
Revolution endeavours to protect itself by using the army for foreign
conquest? But his heart beats warmly for his own child. “We cannot sit
quiet and see Belgium overrun and Antwerp become a French port.” “If
they will look to the stipulations of the treaty finally concluded
between the five Powers, Belgium, and the Netherlands, they will see
that there are in it guarantees which would have a very awkward bearing
upon any attempt by France to annex Belgium to its territory.” He
expresses his own feelings on the whole matter; “I grieve at the
prospect of a Republic in France, for I fear it must lead to war in
Europe and fresh agitation in England. Large Republics seem to be
essentially and inherently aggressive, and the aggressions of the French
will be resisted by the rest of Europe, and that is war; while, on the
other hand, the example of universal suffrage in France will set our
non-voting population agog, and will create a demand for an inconvenient
extension of the franchise, ballot, and other mischievous things.
However, for the present, ‘Vive Lamartine!’” Lamartine was the
provisional President of the New Republic, and while he remained in
office did behave with a better grace than could have been expected from
a man so abnormally situated.
“Here is a pretty to do at Paris,” he says a few days later on in a
letter to Lord Ponsonby at Vienna. “It is plain that, for the present at
least, we shall have a Republic in France. How long it may last is
another question. But for the present the only chance for tranquillity
and order in France, and for peace in Europe, is to give support to
Lamartine. I am convinced this French Government will not be aggressive
if left alone. But if the Austrian Government does not mitigate its
system of coercion in Lombardy and grant liberal institutions, they will
have a revolt there.” Our British difficulty at the moment arose chiefly
from the advantage endeavoured to be taken by the Irish of the French
revolutionary spirit. When all Europe was in revolt Ireland, of course,
would not remain calm. Smith O’Brien with various deputations was at
once in Paris. “I have written to you,” says Lord Palmerston to Lord
Normanby, “an official despatch about M. De Lamartine’s allocutions to
Irish despatches and his direct allusions therein to our internal
affairs, such as Catholic Emancipation, Irish agitation, Repeal of the
Union, and other matters, with which no foreign Government had any right
to meddle. I wish you to convey to him, in terms as civil as you can
use, that these speeches, and especially that to which my despatch
refers, have given great offence in this country.” It does not appear to
have occurred to him how often he himself was interfering in the foreign
affairs of other countries. But Lamartine seems to have taken the
observations in good part. “Pray tell Lamartine,” he says, “how very
much obliged we feel for his handsome and friendly conduct about the
Irish deputations.”
The amount of business which fell on to his shoulders at this time may
be well imagined, and yet he was now sixty-four years old. “As to your
not always getting letters from me by every messenger who passes through
Paris, never wonder at that, nor think it extraordinary.” This is still
to Lord Normanby. “Wonder rather when I am able to find time at all. I
am sure you would if you saw the avalanches of despatches from every
part of the world which come down upon me daily, and which must be read,
and if you witnessed the number of interviews which I cannot avoid
giving every day of the week. Every post sends me a lamenting minister
throwing himself and his country upon England for help, which I am
obliged to tell him we cannot afford him. But Belgium is a case by
itself, and both France and England are bound by treaty engagements in
regard to that country, which it is most desirable for the repose of
France and England that no events should call into active operation.”
Then he sends word to our Ambassador at St. Petersburg as to what may
there be expected of England in reference to certain Polish difficulties
which have cropped up. “We, the Government, will never do anything
underhand or ungentlemanlike in these matters. I wish we could hope that
the Emperor might of his own accord settle the Polish question in some
satisfactory manner.” Then there is an allusion to the one burlesque
English incident which graced the Revolution. “I conclude that he”--he
is Lamartine--“has escaped one danger by the refusal to naturalize
Brougham; for it is evident that our ex-Chancellor meant, if he got
himself elected, to have put up for being President of the Republic.”
In 1848, as a part of the European disturbance, the Chartist rows came
up in London, affording the most signal evidence that up to that time at
least the spirit of democratic enmity to order was not at work in
England. Nor, according to such evidence as we possess, is it so
now,--though at this moment, 1882, it is rampant in Ireland. The
question was one with which Lord Palmerston had not much immediate
concern. But, alluding to his branch of politics, he writes with his
usual vivacity. “The foreigners did not show; but the constables,
regular and special, had sworn to make an example of any whiskered and
bearded rioters whom they might meet with, and I am convinced would have
mashed them to a jelly.”
Then he interested himself very strongly in the attempt which was made
in 1848 to banish the Austrians from the North of Italy. “Things have
gone much too far to admit of the possibility of any future connection
between the Italians and Austria.” And again, “I certainly agree with
you and your Austrian friend that Austria would be much better out of
Italy than in it. Italy can never now be a useful possession for
Austria.” And again, “On the whole, the conclusion to which I should
come is, that the cheapest, best, and wisest thing which Austria can do,
is to give up her Italian possessions quietly and at once, and to direct
her attention and energy to organizing the remainder of her coast
territories, and to cement them together, and to develop their abundant
resources;”--to induce the Austrians to abandon their Austrian
possessions as a matter of pure policy. “But to do this there ought to
be some able men at the head of affairs, and our doubt is whether there
are any such now in office. First and foremost, what is the animal
_implumis bipes_, called Emperor? A perfect nullity; next thing to an
idiot.” Then he discusses the practicability of an abdication, or rather
two abdications, with a wisdom and foresight to which events have given
their ample testimony. Francis Joseph, the Emperor of to-day, was, after
a while, elected in place of his uncle, and has since reigned, through
many troubles, with good sense and moderation.
“How can an empire stand in these days without an emperor at its head?
And by an emperor, I mean a man endowed with intellectual faculties
suited to his high station.” And again, “I fear that his next brother is
little better than he is; but could not the son of that brother be
called to the succession?” But it is remarkable that this is all written
to our ambassador at Vienna, and is written as advice to be given to an
Austrian Minister. “Pray then, tell Wessemberg from me, but in the
strictest confidence, that I would entreat of him and his colleagues to
consider, for the salvation of their country, whether some arrangement
could not be made by which the Emperor might abdicate.” Can we imagine
any foreign minister recommending to an English statesman the abdication
of a British sovereign? In this case, no doubt, the abdication had been
previously discussed; but still the audacity, necessary for such advice
from an Englishman, was very great. Fighting, however, in the meantime,
was going on, and Radetsky, on the part of Austria, was victorious at
Milan. France and England joined to assist Sardinia by their moral
weight, and an armistice was concluded.
But Palmerston will not give up his points. “The real fact is that the
Austrians have no business in Italy at all, and have no real right to be
there.” This he writes to Lord Ponsonby at Vienna, and says very evil
things of the Austrian mode of governing. “The only Austrians have been
the troops, and the civil officers. She has governed it as you govern a
garrison town, and her rule has always been hateful.” Then he expresses
his strong resentment against attempts which have been made from Vienna,
or which he thinks have been made, to influence the English Court. “I
quite understand the drift and meaning of Prince Windischgrätz’s message
to our Queen; but pray make the Camarilla understand that, in a
constitutional country like England, these things cannot answer; and
that a foreign Government, which places its reliance upon working upon
the Court against the Government of this country, is sure to be
disappointed.” But in his strong feeling against Austria and in favour
of Italy, in his passionate dislike to the Austrian mode of government,
and his strong love for that which he believed would be the Italian mode
of government in Italy, he runs into some absurdities which are
contradicted in the same letter. “Providence,” he says, “meant mankind
to be divided into separate nations, and for this purpose countries have
been founded by natural barriers, and races of men have been
distinguished by separate languages, habits, manners, dispositions, and
characters.” Then he goes on; “North of the Alps, we wish her”--that is
Austria--“all the prosperity and success in the world;” though the
Austrian and the Hungarian are also distinguished by separate language,
habits, and manners. But for the moment the contest was brought to an
end by the victory of Austria, and ten years had to pass by before Lord
Palmerston saw all his hopes for Italy realized by the unification of
the country under the Sardinian crown.
Before the close of the Session in 1849 Mr. Disraeli brought on a vote
of want of confidence in the Government. Lord Palmerston writes thus to
his brother; “After all the trumpetings of attacks that were to demolish
first one and then another member of the Government--first me, then
Grey, then Charles Wood--we have come triumphantly out of all debates
and divisions, and end the Session, stronger than we began it. Our
division this morning, on Disraeli’s motion ‘On the State of the
Nation,’ was 296 to 156--a majority of 140.” And in the House of Lords,
Lord Brougham fared no better. “Sicily, Lombardy and Rome will be the
main topics on which Brougham, Stanley and Aberdeen--the three witches
who have filled the cauldron--will dilate.” France had at this time
“occupied” Rome. “The questions which will naturally be asked are; In
what character has the French army taken possession of Rome? Is it as
conquerors of a city to be added to France? Of course not; that answer
is easily given. Is it, then, as friends of the Pope, or as friends of
the Roman people?” It was a question which would naturally be asked. But
the French had taken possession of Rome to guard it equally from the
Pope and from the people. The above was written on the 16th July, 1849.
On the previous 24th of November the Pope had escaped from Rome in
disguise, and had got as far as Gaeta on his way to Majorca. He did not
go further on that journey, and there we may leave him, remarking that
it was less than thirty months since he had received as a reforming Pope
professions of universal affection from the Roman people.
Lord Palmerston feels himself compelled to ask hypothetical questions of
the French Government, and to put hypothetical answers into its mouth.
We can see that he is in truth jealous that there is a European pie in
which he is not allowed to have a finger. But there is not a word in
what he says in which an ordinary Englishman does not sympathize. “There
are mutually repellent properties between a reasoning people and an
elective priestly Government.” “The Roman people will ere long reply by
saying; We are no longer Papists; take your Pope and give him as
sovereign to those who are Papists still. The Reformation in Europe was
as much a movement to shake off political oppression as it was to give
freedom to religious conscience, and similar causes are apt to produce
similar effects.” Then there has come an attack upon him as Foreign
Minister from Lord Aberdeen, whom he takes an opportunity of “paying
off,” as he calls it. He does pay him off--with great severity, with
good thorough-going abuse, which is, however, altogether parliamentary.
The entire speech is too long to be given here with the necessary
explanations. But he winds up as follows; “I will only say that the
conduct of such men is an example of antiquated imbecility.” The “such
men” is, of course, Lord Aberdeen. The next day, no doubt, he would have
been on excellent terms with Lord Aberdeen had he met him.
Then, still in 1849, there is a difficulty as to the amount of
assistance to be given to Turkey in holding her own against Austria and
Russia. The Hungarian conflict had come on, in which Hungary had
endeavoured to maintain her own kingdom and her own government, as
separated from that of Austria. The Hungarians were willing that the
Emperor of Austria should be King of Hungary, but refused to assent to
any other joining of the two countries. Here again Palmerston had not
his fingers very deep in the pie. How far he may have been restrained by
colleagues in his Cabinet, we do not know; but we do remember how, when
Austria was hard pressed by her rebels, she was assisted by Russia; and
we do know, also, how ungratefully Austria behaved on the occasion. But
when the Hungarians were beaten, some of their leaders, and Kossuth
among them, escaped into Turkey. Then Russia and Austria demanded the
extradition of these rebels, and the Sultan was encouraged to withhold
them by Sir Stratford Canning, who now first comes forward as the great
friend of the Porte.
Lord Palmerston also warmly takes the part of the Turks, and will not
allow the men to be surrendered. It is this affair which gives the chief
interest to the autumn of 1849. He writes on the matter very hotly to
Lord Ponsonby. “As to working upon their feelings of generosity and
gentlemanlikeness”--the feelings of the Austrians--“that is out of the
question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have
been trained up in the school of Metternich, and the men in whose minds
such inborn feelings have not been crushed by Court and office power,
have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in
private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But
I do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country
and the Government which you represent, and that you will maintain the
dignity and honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the
disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this
country.” It is evident that he had heard something of which he does not
approve in Lord Ponsonby’s mode of thinking. “The remedy against these
various dangers, which are rapidly undermining the Austrian Empire,
would be generous conciliation; but instead of that, the Austrian
Government knows no method of administration but what consists in
flogging, imprisoning, and shooting. The Austrians know no argument but
force.” The two fleets (the English and the French) were moved up to
the Dardanelles. “In this affair we are trying to catch two great fish,
and we must wind the reel very gently and dexterously, not to break the
line.” This he says to Sir Stratford Canning. He declares to Brunnow,
“That our sending our squadron up the Mediterranean was, for the Sultan,
like holding a bottle of salts to the nose of a lady who had been
frightened.” Of course he has his way, and Turkey is not allowed to give
up the Hungarians, though he ascertains in the course of the
correspondence that Lord Ponsonby, his own ambassador at Vienna, is
opposed to the instructions which he receives. But he reprimands him at
last with severity. “I write you this, and desire you to do your best;
though I hear from many quarters that you oppose instead of furthering
the policy of your Government, and that you openly declare that you
disapprove of our course. No diplomatist ought to hold such language as
long as he holds his appointment.”