PALMERSTON AS PRIME MINISTER, FROM 1859 TO HIS DEATH.
The unification of Italy was the first matter of importance to which
Lord Palmerston’s new Cabinet had to apply itself. Lord John Russell was
Foreign Secretary, but we perceive that Palmerston kept a hold of the
reins himself. The things chiefly to be done were as follows. Austria
still held Venetia, but had been made to abandon Lombardy by Marshal Mac
Mahon at the battle of Magenta. Austria had to be put down and made to
depart out of Venetia if possible. France had been victorious; but the
Emperor claimed as his reward Savoy and Nice. It was too late for
Palmerston to save Savoy and Nice. That blot on poor Cavour’s name must
remain a stain for ever. He had told our Minister at Turin that they
were not to be given up, and had known when he said so that their doom
had been spoken. But the Emperor must be stopped and not allowed to run
headlong with the _éclat_ of his victories. In this matter the Emperor,
too, had deceived him. And Italy must be encouraged to take her place
among the nations of Europe.
These were the matters as to which, in regard to Italy, the British
Cabinet was at the present moment anxious. Palmerston’s dislike to
Austria,--we might almost call it hatred,--still remained hot as ever.
In a memorandum prepared for the Cabinet, Lord Palmerston defended
Napoleon as against Austria. “Austria took our subsidies, bound herself
by treaty not to make peace without our concurrence, sustained signal
defeat in battle, and precipitately made peace without our concurrence.
But on what occasion has the Emperor Napoleon so acted?--on none.” This
was written in January, 1860; but a little later on, when the story of
Savoy and Nice was known, he shows his jealousy of Napoleon. In April of
the same year, he writes to Lord Cowley at Paris; “The Emperor’s mind is
as full of schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits,
his schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism.”
And there is a record of a conversation which he had with Count Flahault
a few days previously. Count Flahault was just going to Paris, and asked
him what he should say to the Emperor. The Prime Minister was, what we
shall call, very outspoken. England desired peace, he said, but if the
Emperor was desirous of war, he would find that England was quite ready
for him. And he says in a letter to the Duke of Somerset; “I have
watched the Emperor narrowly, and have studied his character and
conduct. You may rely upon it, that at the bottom of his heart there
rankles a deep and inextinguishable desire to humble and punish
England.” He says to Lord Cowley; “The seizure of Savoy and Nice, and
the breach of promise towards Switzerland about the cession of the Swiss
of the neutralized district, are matters which cannot be got over
easily.” From these quotations it will be seen how intent he was on
keeping the Emperor in his place, and saving this country, if it might
be saved, from some future battle of Dorking. But in regard to the state
of Italy at the time, he had expressed himself very strongly in the
memorandum above quoted; “There can be no reasonable doubt, therefore,
that both France and Sardinia would unite with England in maintaining
the principle that the Italians should be secured against foreign
compulsion, and should be left free to determine, according to their own
will, what shall be their future political condition.”
In all these matters Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell were, between
them, successful--at any rate in the accomplishment of their wishes.
Austria was altogether driven out of Italy. The French Emperor did not
attempt to avenge Waterloo. And Italy has become a united nation, ruling
herself in accordance with her own will.
But in order to make good the boasts which he had made to Count
Flahault, it was necessary that the country should be on its guard. Its
security, by military means, was always present to Lord Palmerston’s
mind. He had written a letter in December, 1859, to Mr. Gladstone on the
subject, and he must, we should think, have startled Mr. Gladstone by
the nonchalant audacity with which he proposed that ten or eleven
millions should be at once voted for fortifications to defend Portsmouth
and Plymouth. Then he goes into the manner in which the money should be
raised,--as to which we cannot but imagine that Mr. Gladstone had his
own way. But the millions were voted, and the fortifications were
erected; and the Volunteer Force was set on foot,--with what enormous
results is now patent to the whole country. In consequence of what was
then done, England has now got a double army, one for service abroad,
and the other at home. It is only now beginning to be seen and
understood that the defence of our own shores may be trusted to men less
expensively organized than in regiments of the line.
In 1861 Lord Palmerston was installed as Warden of the Cinque Ports, by
which he obtained the use of what was believed to be a comfortable
residence near Dover. As Broadlands and Brocket Hall, as well as
Cambridge House, in Piccadilly, to which he had long since removed, were
all on his hands, this could not have been much to him. But the
installation gave him at any rate the pleasure of going down once more
to Tiverton, and meeting his old friend Mr. Rowcliffe, the butcher. For
the Wardenship was an office, so called, of profit, and the new election
was necessary. He was returned without a contest, but not without the
usual preliminary discussion with Mr. Rowcliffe.
It is hardly possible to refer to all the measures, or even to all those
of importance, with which Lord Palmerston was concerned at this period
of his life. In 1860 the paper duties had been discussed; and now that
this matter has been well-nigh forgotten among the things that have been
quickly settled, we can hardly realize the disturbance to our feelings,
and even the animosity, which they created. The House of Lords took upon
itself to throw the bill out; whereas a remission of taxation is an
affair which the Lower House conceives to belong exclusively to itself.
But Palmerston, whose own heart was hardly in the matter, but who was
much concerned in keeping peace between the two Houses, contrived to
smooth matters down, so that the bill was passed in 1861, and nothing
more has been since heard of the paper duties. To us it seems that a
penny is, and ever has been, the normal price of a daily
newspaper,--unless when the _Times_, or some other daily journal if
there be another, chooses on behalf of old gentlemen and ladies to be
absurdly luxurious at threepence.
In 1861 the American War of Secession commenced, and in the same year,
on the 14th of December, the Prince Consort died. It must have been
pleasant to Lord Palmerston to remember that all feelings of
animosity,--or rather of hard judgment against him,--had passed away. We
can all remember the intense personal sorrow with which the death of the
Prince was received by us. A good man had gone from among us, leaving
vacant a place which could never more be filled. A man so good at all
points is a rare possession, and England has never ceased to want him
and to mourn him.
Almost exactly at the same time there sprang up an incident in the
American War of Secession which nearly carried us into the whirlpool in
spite of the careful efforts we made to avoid the danger. The Southern
States had seceded because they had been unwilling to see the government
of the country pass from them, the Democratic party, into the hands of
their opponents, the Republicans. The Democratic party had grown up and
been in power almost since the days of the Adamses, and now felt aware
that all their most cherished political institutions were endangered by
the appointment of Mr. Lincoln as President. Mr. Lincoln was a thorough
Republican. To show how the two parties had hitherto fought the battle,
each by the creation of new States which should, or should not, foster
slavery within their boundaries, is too long a task to be undertaken
here. Should Texas, which was devoted to slavery, become one State or
should it be four? Should Kansas be slave or free? Should Nevada and
Nebraska, free-soil States as they would be, be admitted or excluded?
Each State must have two Senators, and on the number of Senators the
manipulation of the powers of government depended. The growing wealth
and population of the North at last won the day, and the South, seeing
how it was with them, determined to secede. They did endeavour to
secede, and a state of war was the consequence.
There can now be no doubt, I think, in any unprejudiced mind that the
sole effort made by the English Government during the war was to hold
their own hands with absolute impartiality, and allow the Americans to
fight it out. In private life, opinions varied; and, following a broad
line, we may say that the commercial classes were in favour of the
North, and the agricultural and the aristocratic of the South. And these
feelings, either on the one side or the other, were enhanced by the
growing deficiency of cotton. We find even Lord Palmerston suggesting
that the idea of a French Ambassador should be entertained, for
compelling the Northern States to let cotton from the South make its way
to Europe. A more unjust, or indeed impossible, solution of the
difficulty could not be found. But Palmerston simply mentioned the
matter to a colleague in the Cabinet, and the question of interference
or non-interference, of recognition or the reverse, was, as far as
outsiders could perceive, left chiefly in the hands of Lord Russell, who
was Foreign Secretary. Lord John had been created a peer in July, 1861.
By the entire Cabinet the decision was come to that England would not
interfere, and would not recognize the South. As far as the English
Government was concerned, of which Lord Palmerston was the head, such
was its line of policy from first to last; and the Northern party in the
war was certainly not justified in feeling animosity against England.
But such a feeling was very strong in the States. It was thought that
England should at once have patted the North on the back, as having that
side in the quarrel to which manifest justice belonged. Then sprang up
the _Trent_ affair, which, but for the united wisdom of two men in the
States, of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward his Chief Secretary, would
certainly have brought us into war. And here, no doubt, Lord Palmerston
did take an active part in preparing, under certain circumstances, for
active measures.
As the North believed in England’s enmity, so did the South in her
friendship. As the fighting became brisk and hard, could they not send
two Commissioners to England to arrange terms for their recognition?
With this view Messrs. Slidell and Mason were to be sent. But passenger
ships did not run then from Charleston to Liverpool with more freedom
than cotton ships. The gentlemen had to be smuggled to England, and made
their way as far as Cuba on their road. One would say that the
difficulties of the journey were then overcome. And so they thought when
they took their places on board the British mail steamer _Trent_, which
ran from the Havanah to St. Thomas. At St. Thomas they would be as
though they were in England.
But there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. As the _Trent_ was
running up to St. Thomas, she was stopped by an American man-of-war, the
_San Jacinto_, under the command of the redoubtable Captain Wilkes, and
the Southerners were taken out of her and carried back to Boston. A
great fuss was made about the achievement, as though Captain Wilkes had
done something very heroic, and there was some talk of giving him a
sword. Thanks were voted to him by Congress. He had done nothing but a
policeman’s work, and had done it without orders. But it was conceived
he had gone halfway to beating the South,--and not only the South, but
England also.
It was then that the Guards were sent to Canada. It was the quickly
expressed determination of England, in uttering which Lord Palmerston
was the mouthpiece of the country, that unless these two men were sent
over to England at once,--or were enabled to make the journey which they
had promised themselves when they got on board the _Trent_,--our
Minister should be withdrawn, and war should be declared. A man-of-war
did come to the Potomac, ready to take away Lord Lyons and his suite. In
Washington, we heard that on the next day war was to have been
declared,--unless Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward yielded. Mr. Sumner, who as
Chairman of the Committee of the Senate on Foreign Politics was
something akin to our Foreign Secretary, was hot against it. He was
supposed to be the true patriotic American of the day. But before we
went to bed that night in Washington we had been told that Messrs.
Slidell and Mason were to be sent on to England. When they got there
they could do nothing for the recognition of the South. England passed
through that danger, and Lord Palmerston was enabled to think of other
things.
We are drawing now to the end of Lord Palmerston’s career, and have only
further to notice the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and the great debate
which took place respecting it in July, 1864. There had previously been
questions of the ill-treatment of the Poles by Russia, and of the
re-modelling of the Treaty of Vienna. In neither of these matters was
anything effectual done by England; but in both of them Palmerston
showed the caution which had come to him, not from years, but from his
thorough acquaintance with the state of Europe. England had seen the
third Napoleon become, as it were, her natural ally. But against the
craft of the Emperor our Prime Minister was specially on his guard.
France desired confirmation for what had lately passed, and a new
Treaty, so that Europe should be re-arranged as she specially desired to
arrange it; and France specially wanted some plea by which she could
stretch her boundaries as far as the Rhine. This matter is only
interesting to us now as showing the care which Lord Palmerston, on the
part of England, exercised in his latter days against his old friend the
Emperor.
Then came the affair of Schleswig-Holstein, which it would be very
difficult to explain in the penultimate chapter of such a book as this;
and which would be very uninteresting if explained. Denmark was
undoubtedly Denmark. Holstein was undoubtedly German, though at present
she was under the dominion of the King of Denmark. Schleswig may be said
to have been half one and half the other. The encroachments of Prussia,
destined to envelop all adjacent German-speaking countries, had
commenced; and Austria, having then a part in the German Diet, joined
herself with Prussia in attacking Denmark. Here, in England, the general
opinion was undoubtedly in favour of Denmark. It was so in the British
interpretation of the law of Europe on the subject; and also in the idea
that a little country was undergoing ill-usage from two others that were
much larger and more powerful. Lord Russell, as Foreign Secretary,
became indignant, and said words which enabled his eager friends and his
active enemies to declare that he had promised assistance to Denmark.
Lord Palmerston, always since the days of Savoy and Nice on his guard
against the Emperor of the French, and having, as Prime Minister,
reversed his character as the general tyrant of Europe, wrote as follows
to his colleague: “I share fully your indignation. The conduct of
Austria and Prussia is discreditably bad, and one, or both of them, will
suffer for it before these matters are settled. I rather doubt, however,
the expediency of taking at the present moment the steps proposed. The
French Government would probably decline it, unless tempted by the
suggestion that they should place an armed force on the Rhenish frontier
in the event of a refusal by Austria and Prussia,--which refusal we
ought to reckon as nearly certain.” But he partially agreed with Lord
Russell. He wrote to the Duke of Somerset; “I own I quite agree with
Russell, that our squadron ought to go to Copenhagen as soon as the
season will permit, and that it ought to have orders to prevent any
invasion of, or attack upon, Zealand and Copenhagen.”
Louis Napoleon at last refused to join with us in any attempt to be made
on behalf of the Danes. He saw no reason for fighting with the Germans
unless he were to be allowed to stretch himself to the Rhine. Lord
Russell,--and with him the British Cabinet,--found himself unable to
undertake the task single-handed; and consequently Denmark was
abandoned, and the Government had to bear the reproach of having
deserted their friend. An attack was made upon it in both Houses. In the
House of Lords, Lord Palmerston and his colleagues were beaten by a
majority of nine; and Mr. Disraeli brought the matter forward in the
Commons with many thunderclaps of furious speech. He asked the House to
agree with him that the Government “had lowered the just influence of
their country in the councils of Europe, and thereby destroyed the
securities for peace.” The debate lasted for four nights, and Mr.
Disraeli’s thunderclap of elocution was certainly loud and frightful. To
tell the truth his speech on the occasion was very strong. Lord
Palmerston spoke on the last day; and as he went down to the House, day
after day, all the people cheered him. There was at the moment a feeling
against Lord Russell, because it was thought that he had promised the
Danes much, and had performed little. But Palmerston was still the
people’s favourite, and they cheered him to the last. He altogether laid
aside the matter at issue, and went into the general question of the
merits of the Government. Let the people of the country see what had
been done by the present Government for the taxes of the country, and
then he would be afraid of no vote which the House of Commons could give
against him. The Government got a majority of eighteen, and were thus
re-established in power, at any rate till the next session.
This had taken place in 1864, and the speech he had then delivered was
the last of the great efforts he had made on that arena. During the next
year he reached his eightieth birthday. In that same year Parliament,
having nearly run out its term of existence, was dissolved, and he was
again elected for Tiverton. He went from thence to Brocket Hall, having
chosen that residence because of its vicinity to London, and there, with
Lady Palmerston to watch over him, he breathed his last. It is a
singular fact that in the room adjacent to that in which he died
another Prime Minister of England had left this troublesome world but a
few years previously, and Lady Palmerston had been the sister of that
other Prime Minister.
They laid him in Westminster, among the statesmen and men of letters of
whom his country was proud, and they put up a statue to his name in the
close neighbourhood of the Chamber in which he had sat almost
continuously since it had been built thirty years before. What more
could they do to perpetuate his memory? But all that would have been
nothing had he not made for himself a lasting position in the minds of
Englishmen.
Looking back through all the History of England and her worthies, I do
not know the life of any man who has shown such a career of unchequered
good fortune and jocund happiness,--or more unblemished honesty and
truer courage.