CHAPTER X.

PALMERSTON.

THE death of Sir Robert Peel had left Lord Palmerston the most prominent, if not actually the most influential, among the statesmen of England. Palmerston's was a strenuous self-asserting character. He had given himself up to the study of foreign affairs as no minister of his time had done. He had a peculiar capacity for understanding foreign politics and people as well as foreign languages; and he had come somewhat to pique himself upon his knowledge. His sympathies were markedly liberal. In all the popular movements going on throughout the Continent Palmerston's sympathies were generally with the peoples and against the Governments; while he had, on the other hand, a very strong contempt, which he took no pains to conceal, even for the very best class of the Continental demagogue. Palmerston seized a conclusion at once, and hardly ever departed from it. He never seemed to care who knew what he thought on any subject. He had a contempt for men of more deliberate temper, and often spoke and wrote as if he thought a man slow in forming an opinion must needs be a dull man, not to say a fool. All opinions not his own he held in good-humoured scorn. In some of his letters we find him writing of men of the most undoubted genius and wisdom, whose views have since stood all the test of time and trial, as if they were mere blockheads for whom no practical man could feel the slightest respect. It would be almost superfluous to say, in describing a man of such a nature, that Lord Palmerston sometimes fancied he saw great wisdom and force of character in men for whom neither then nor since did the world in general show much regard. As with a man, so with a cause, Lord Palmerston was to all appearance capricious in his sympathies. Calmer and more earnest minds were sometimes offended at what seemed a lack of deep-seated principle in his mind and his policy, even when it happened that he and they were in accord as to the course that ought to be pursued. His levity often shocked them; his blunt, brusque ways of speaking and writing sometimes gave downright offence.

Lord Palmerston was unsparing in his lectures to foreign states. He was always admonishing them that they ought to

lose no time in at once adopting the principles of government which prevailed in England. While therefore he was a Conservative in home politics, and never even professed the slightest personal interest in any projects of political reform in England, he got the credit all over the Continent of being a supporter, promoter, and patron of all manner of revolutionary movements, and a disturber of the relations between subjects and their sovereigns. Palmerston, therefore, had many enemies among European statesmen. It is now certain that the Queen frequently winced under the expressions of ill-feeling which were brought to her ears as affecting England, and, as she supposed, herself, and which she believed to have been drawn on her by the inconsiderate and impulsive conduct of Palmerston. The Prince Consort, on whose advice the Queen very naturally relied, was a man of singularly calm and earnest nature. He liked to form his opinions deliberately and slowly, and disliked expressing any opinion until his mind was well made up. Lord Palmerston, when Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was much in the habit of writing and answering despatches on the spur of the moment, and without consulting either the Queen or his colleagues. Palmerston complained of the long delays which took place on several occasions when, in matters of urgent importance, he waited to submit despatches to the Queen before sending them off. He contended too that where the general policy of state was clearly marked out and well known, it would have been idle to insist that a Foreign Secretary capable of performing the duties of his office should wait to submit for the inspection and approval of the Sovereign and his colleagues every scrap of paper he wrote on before it was allowed to leave England. But the Queen complained that on matters concerning the actual policy of the State Palmerston was in the habit of acting on his own independent judgment and authority; that she found herself more than once thus pledged to a course of policy which she had not had an opportunity of considering, and would not have approved if she had had such an opportunity; and that she hardly ever found any question absolutely intact and uncompromised when it was submitted to her judgment.

The Queen and the Prince had long chafed under Lord Palmerston's cavalier way of doing business. So far back as 1849 her Majesty had felt obliged to draw the attention of the Foreign Secretary to the fact that his office was constitutionally

under the control of the Prime Minister, and the despatches to be submitted for her approval should, therefore, pass through the hands of Lord John Russell. Lord John Russell approved of this arrangement, only suggesting and the suggestion is of some moment in considering Lord Palmerston's defence of his conduct afterwards-that every facility should be given for the transaction of business by the Queen's attending to the draft despatches as soon as possible after their arrival. The Queen accepted the suggestion good-humouredly, only pleading that she should not be pressed for an answer within a few minutes, as is done now sometimes.' One can see a part of the difficulty at least even from these slight hints. Lord Palmerston was rapid in forming his judgments as in all his proceedings, and when once he had made up his mind was impatient of any delay which seemed to him superfluous. Prince Albert was slow, deliberate, reflective, and methodical. Lord Palmerston was always sure he was right in every judgment he formed, even if it were adopted on the spur of the moment; Prince Albert loved reconsideration and was open to new argument and late conviction. However, the difficulty was got over in 1849. Lord Palmerston agreed to every suggestion, and for the time all seemed likely to go smoothly. It was only for the time. The Queen soon believed she had reason to complain that the new arrangement was not carried out. Things were going on, she thought, in just the old way. Lord Palmerston dealt as before with foreign courts according to what seemed best to him at the moment; and his Sovereign and his colleagues often only knew of some important despatch or instruction when the thing was done and could not be conveniently or becomingly undone. The Prince, at her Majesty's request, wrote to Lord John Russell, complaining strongly of the conduct of Lord Palmerston. An important memorandum was addressed by her Majesty to the Prime Minister, laying down in clear and severe language the exact rules by which the Foreign Secretary must be bound in his dealings with her. The memorandum was a severe and a galling rebuke for the Foreign Secretary. We can imagine with what emotions Lord Palmerston must have received it. He was a proud, self-confident man; and it came on him just in the moment of his Pacifico triumph. But he kept down his feelings. It is impossible not to feel a high respect for the manner in which Lord Palmerston acted. He took his rebuke in the most perfect good temper. He wrote

a friendly and good-humoured letter to Lord John Russell, saying, I have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen, and will not fail to attend to the directions which it contains.' Lord Palmerston went a step farther in the way of conciliation. He asked for an interview with Prince Albert, and he explained to the Prince in the most emphatic and indignant terms that the accusation against him of being purposely wanting in respect to the Sovereign was absolutely unfounded. But he does not seem in the course of the interview to have done much more than argue the point as to the propriety and convenience of the system he had lately been adopting in the business of the Foreign Office. So for the hour the matter dropped. But it was destined to come up again in more serious form than before.

About this time the Hungarians had been making a desperate attempt to throw off the domination of Austria and assert their independence. The struggle had begun over some questions of constitutional rights involved in the connection between Hungary and Austria, but it grew into a regular rebellion, having for its aim the complete freedom of Hungary. For a time it carried all before it, but it was finally crushed by the intervention of Russia. This intervention of Russia called up a wide and deep feeling of regret and indignation in this country. Louis Kossuth, who had been dictator of Hungary during the greater part of the insurrection, and who represented, in the English mind at least, the cause of Hungary and her national independence, came to England, and the English public welcomed him with especial cordiality. There was much in Kossuth himself as well as in his cause to attract the enthusiasm of popular assemblages. He had a strikingly handsome face and a stately presence. He was picturesque and perhaps even theatric in his dress and his bearing. He looked like a picture; all his attitudes and gestures seemed as if they were meant to be reproduced by a painter. He was undoubtedly one of the most eloquent men who ever addressed an English popular audience. In one of his imprisonments Kossuth had studied the English language chiefly from the pages of Shakespeare. The English he spoke was the noblest in its style from which a student could supply his eloquence: Kossuth spoke the English of Shakespeare. Through all his speeches there ran the thread of one distinct principle of international policy to which Kossuth endeavoured to obtain the assent of the English people. This was the principle that if one State

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intervenes in the domestic affairs of another for the purpose of putting down revolution, it then becomes the right, and may even be the duty, of any third State to throw in the weight of her sword against the unjustifiable intervention. As a principle this is nothing more than some of the ablest and most thoughtful Englishmen had advocated before and have advocated since. But in Kossuth's mind, and in the understanding of those who heard him, it meant that England ought to declare war against Russia or Austria, or both; the former for having intervened between the Emperor of Austria and the Hungarians, and the latter for having invited and profited by the intervention.

The presence of Kossuth and the reception he got excited a wild anger and alarm among Austrian statesmen. The Austrian Ambassador in England was all sensitiveness and remonstrance. The relations between this country and Austria seemed to become every day more and more strained. Lord Palmerston regarded the anger and the fears of Austria with a contempt which he took no pains to conceal. Lord Palmerston knew that the English public never had any serious notion of going to war with Austria in obedience to Kossuth's appeal. There came a time when Kossuth lived in England forgotten and unnoticed; when his passing away from England was unobserved as his presence there long had been. The English crowds who applauded Kossuth at first meant nothing more than general sympathy with any hero of Continental revolution, and personal admiration for the eloquence of the man who addressed them. But Kossuth did not thus accept the homage paid to him. No foreigner could have understood it in his place. Lord Palmerston understood it thoroughly, and knew what it meant, and how long it would last.

Some of Lord Palmerston's colleagues, however, became greatly alarmed when it was reported that the Foreign Minister was about to receive a visit from Kossuth in person to thank him for the sympathy and protection which England had accorded to the Hungarian refugees while they were still in Turkey, and without which it is only too likely that they would have been handed over to Austria or Russia. If Kossuth were received by Lord Palmerston, the Austrian ambassador, it was confidently reported, would leave England. Lord John Russell took alarm, and called a meeting of the Cabinet to consider the momentous question. Lord Palmerston reluctantly consented to appease the alarms of his