Chapter II: The Prince Consort’s Position (3)

Some few days ago, Bryan Kenny returning to Mullingar on a car, with a labouring man, while passing some cottages and a public-house, was fired at and wounded by a man who walked deliberately away unmolested by several persons who witnessed the event. Sir John Nugent had given Kenny some land, from which he had ejected another tenant for non-payment of rent; and though Sir John had given the ejected tenant compensation, and Kenny had paid him and taken a receipt for his “goodwill in full,” the transaction was not considered satisfactory.

The day before yesterday, about 2 o’clock a.m., a party of nine or ten persons, some of them armed, went to the house of John Hazard, residing near Miltown. On gaining entry by force they wounded the man’s wife in the breast with a sharp instrument, and then, dragging Hazard outside, after beating him, endeavoured to induce him to swear he would not accept a situation as herd, from which another man had been dismissed.

Petty robberies and depredations continue to be committed in many parts of the country.

The Repeal movement goes on, but I have observed little energy with regard to it of late. Dissensions and mistrust are apparent amongst the members of this Association.

[NOTE.—“Repeal” at this time generally meaning
repeal of the Corn Laws, it should be remarked
that in the above paragraph it means Repeal of
the Union.]

ENGLAND AND THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION (1848).

=I.—Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 76. (London: 1876.)

A. _Lord Palmerston to Lord Normanby (British Ambassador in Paris)._

_February 26._

What extraordinary and marvellous events you give 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 reasons of events and the philosophy of their causes.

I can give you but provisional instructions. Continue at your post. Keep up unofficial and useful communication with the man who from hour to hour (I say not even from day to day) may have the direction of events, but commit us to no acknowledgment of any men, nor of any things. Our principles of action are to acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other. We desire friendship and extended commercial intercourse with France, and peace between France and the rest of Europe. 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. Upon such a base our relations with France may be placed on a footing more friendly than they have been or were likely to be with Louis Philippe and Guizot.

B. _To Lord Westmorland, Ambassador at Berlin. February 29._

It must be owned that the prospect of a republic in France is far from agreeable; for such a Government would naturally be more likely to place peace in danger than a monarchy would be. But we must deal with things as they are, and not as we would wish to have them. These Paris events ought to serve, however, as a warning to the Prussian Government, and should induce them to set to work without delay to complete those constitutional institutions of which the King last year laid the foundations.

C. _To Lord Ponsonby, Ambassador at Vienna. February 29._

I should advise the Austrians to come to a good understanding with Sardinia as to mutual defence if attacked, which, however, they are not at present likely to be. But if the Austrian Government does not mitigate its system of coercion in Lombardy, and grant liberal institutions, they will have a revolt there; and if there shall be conflict in Lombardy between the troops and the public, and much bloodshed, it is to be feared that the French nation will break loose in spite of Lamartine’s efforts to restrain them.

D. _To Lord Normanby. April 11._

Yesterday was a glorious day, the Waterloo of peace and order. They say there were upwards of one hundred thousand special constables—some put the number at two hundred and fifty thousand; but the streets were swarming with them, and men of all classes and ranks were blended together in defence of law and property. The Chartists made a poor figure, and did not muster more than fifteen thousand men on the common. Fergus was frightened out of his wits, and was made the happiest man in England at being told that the procession could not pass the bridges. The Chartists have found that the great bulk of the inhabitants of London are against them, and they will probably lie by for the present and watch for some more favourable moment.

E. _To Lord Ponsonby. November 12._

It is totally and absolutely impossible that Austria can keep quiet possession of the Italian provinces; and all you hear at Vienna to the contrary is nothing but the _bon à dire_ of the Metternich school, and is the result of the established practice of the disciples of that school to go on asserting as facts that which they know to be false, but wish to be true, under the absurd notion that by frequent repetition falsehood may become truth. The only consequence of this system is that those who act upon it and those who are misled by it govern their conduct upon entirely erroneous data; and the results of such false policy are, that men like Metternich and Guizot meet in exile in London; that Sovereigns like Louis Philippe drink unwholesome water and sour small beer at Claremont, instead of champagne and claret at the Tuileries; and that ancient empires like Austria are thrown into anarchy and confusion, and are brought to the very verge of dissolution....

I quite understand the drift and meaning of Prince Windischgratz’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.

II.—=Source.=—_Letters of Queen Victoria_, 1837-1861, vol. ii.,
p. 221. (London: 1907.)

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._

OSBORNE, _July 25, 1848_.

The Queen must tell Lord John what she has repeatedly told Lord Palmerston, but without apparent effect, that the establishment of an _entente cordiale with the French Republic_, for the purpose of driving the Austrians out of _their dominions_ in Italy, would be a _disgrace_ to this country.... The notion of establishing a Venetian State under French guarantee is too absurd.

CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB (1849).

=Source.=—_Letters of Queen Victoria_, 1837-1861, vol. ii., p. 257.
(London: 1907.)

_The Earl of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria._

CAMP, FEROZEPORE, _March 24, 1849_.

The Governor-General is not without fear that he may have intruded too often of late upon your Majesty’s time. But he is so satisfied of the extreme pleasure which your Majesty would experience on learning that the prisoners who were in the hands of the Sikhs, and especially the ladies and children, were once again safe in the British camp, that he would have ventured to convey to your Majesty that intelligence, even though he had not been able to add to it—as happily he can—the announcement of the surrender of the whole Khalsa army, and the end of the war with the Sikhs.

Major-General Gilbert pushed on rapidly in pursuit of the Sikhs, who were a few marches in front of him, carrying off our prisoners with them.

At Rawul Pindee, halfway between the Jhelum and Attock, the Sikh troops, as we have since heard, would go no further. They received no pay, they were starving, they had been beaten and were disheartened; and so they surrendered.

All the prisoners were brought safe into our camp. Forty-one pieces of artillery were given up. Chuther Singh and Shere Singh, with all the Sirdars, delivered their swords to General Gilbert in the presence of his officers; and the remains of the Sikh army, 16,000 strong, were marched into camp, by 1,000 at a time, and laid down their arms as they passed between the lines of the British troops.

Your Majesty may well imagine the pride with which British officers looked on such a scene, and witnessed this absolute subjection and humiliation of so powerful an enemy.

How deeply the humiliation was felt by the Sikhs themselves may be judged by the report which the officers who were present have made, that many of them, and especially the grim old Khalsas of Runjeet’s time, exclaimed, as they threw their arms down upon the heap: “This day Runjeet Singh has died!”

CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL (1850).

=Source.=—_The Greville Memoirs_, 1837-1852, vol. iii., p. 349.
(London: 1885.)

My acquaintance with Peel was slight and superficial. He scarcely lived at all in Society; he was reserved but cordial in his manner, had few intimate friends, and it may be doubted whether there was any person except his wife to whom he was in the habit of disclosing his thoughts, feelings, and intentions with entire frankness and freedom. In his private relations he was not merely irreproachable, but good, kind, and amiable. The remarkable decorum of his life, the domestic harmony and happiness he enjoyed, and the simplicity of his habits and demeanour, contributed largely, without doubt, to the estimation in which he was held. He was easy of access, courteous, and patient, and those who approached him generally left him gratified by his affability. The sacrifices he made upon two memorable occasions, upon both of which he acted solely with reference to the public good, forbid us to believe that he was ever influenced by any considerations but such as were honest and conscientious.... It is now impossible to fathom the depths of Peel’s mind and to ascertain whether he had any doubts and misgivings, or whether he sincerely believed that Catholic Emancipation could be resisted and prevented. I do not see how he can be acquitted of insincerity, save at the expense of his sagacity and foresight. The truth is that he was hampered and perverted by his antecedents and by the seductive circumstances of his position....

It is almost impossible to discover what the process was by which he was gradually led to embrace the whole doctrine of free trade. We cannot distinguish what effect was made upon his mind by the reasoning and what by the organisation and agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League. It may safely be assumed that, when he began to reorganise the Conservative party, he did not contemplate a Repeal of the Corn Laws, and that it was by a severely inductive process of study and meditation that he was gradually led to the conception and elaboration of that commercial system which the last years of his life were spent in carrying out. The modification, and possibly the ultimate Repeal of the Corn Laws must have formed part of that system, but what he hoped and intended probably was to bring round the minds of his party by degrees to the doctrines of free trade, and to conquer their repugnance to a great alteration of the Corn Laws, both by showing the imprudence of endeavouring to maintain them and by the gradual development of those countervailing advantages with which free trade was fraught. That, I believe, was his secret desire, hope, and expectation; and if the Irish famine had not deranged his plans and precipitated his measures, if more time had been afforded him, it is not impossible that his projects might have been realised....

He appears to have suffered dreadful pain during the three days which elapsed between his accident and his death. He was sensible, but scarcely ever spoke. Sir Benjamin Brodie says that he never saw any human frame so susceptible of pain, for his moral and physical organisation was one of exquisite sensibility. He was naturally a man of violent passions, over which he had learned to exercise an habitual restraint by vigorous efforts of reason and self-control. He was certainly a good, and in some respects a great, man; he had a true English spirit, and was an ardent lover of his country.

DON PACIFICO (1850).

=Source.=—_Hansard._ Third Series, vol. cxii., col. 380.

[NOTE.—Although the resolution in the House
of Lords against Lord Palmerston’s action in regard
to the claims of Mr. Finlay and M. Pacifico upon
the Greek Government was confined to those matters,
the resolution of confidence in the Government,
which was moved in the House of Commons later as
a rejoinder to the action of the Lords, was in
general terms supporting the Government’s foreign
policy, so that Lord Palmerston was able to make
his speech a wide defence of his policy.]

The resolution of the House of Lords involves the future as well as the past. It lays down for the future a principle of national policy which I consider totally incompatible with the interests, with the rights, with the honour, and with the dignity of the country, and at variance with the practice, not only of this, but of all other civilised countries in the world. The country is told that British subjects in foreign lands are entitled to nothing but the protection of the laws and tribunals of the land in which they happen to reside. The country is told that British subjects abroad must not look to their own country for protection, but must trust to that indifferent justice which they may happen to receive at the hands of the Government and tribunals of the country in which they may be.

Now, I deny that proposition, and I say it is a doctrine on which no British Minister ever yet has acted, and on which the people of England never will suffer any British Minister to act. Do I mean to say that British subjects abroad are to be above the law, or are to be taken out of the scope of the laws of the land in which they live? I mean no such thing; I contend for no such principle. Undoubtedly, in the first instance, British subjects are bound to have recourse for redress to the means which the law of the land affords them when that law is available for such purpose. It is only on a denial of justice or upon decisions manifestly unjust that the British Government should be called upon to interfere. But there may be cases in which no confidence can be placed in the tribunals, those tribunals being, from their composition and nature, not of a character to inspire any hope of obtaining justice from them....

We shall be told, perhaps, as we have already been told, that if the people of the country are liable to have heavy stones placed upon their breasts, and police officers to dance upon them; if they are liable to have their heads tied to their knees, and to be left for hours in that state; or to be swung like a pendulum, and to be bastinadoed as they swing, foreigners have no right to be better treated than the natives, and have no business to complain if the same things are practised upon them. We may be told this, but that is not my opinion, nor do I believe it is the opinion of any reasonable man. Then, I say, that in considering the cases of the Ionians, for whom we demanded reparation, the House must look at and consider what was the state of things in this respect in Greece; they must consider the practices that were going on, and the necessity of putting a stop to the extension of these abuses to British and Ionian subjects by demanding compensation, scarcely, indeed, more than nominal in some cases, but the granting of which would be an acknowledgment that such things should not be done towards us in future.

In discussing these cases, I am concerned to have to say that they appear to me to have been dealt with elsewhere in a spirit and in a tone which I think was neither befitting the persons concerning whom, nor the persons before whom, the discussion took place. It is often more convenient to treat matters with ridicule than with grave argument, and we have had serious things treated jocosely, and grave men kept in a roar of laughter for an hour together at the poverty of one sufferer, or at the miserable habitation of another, at the nationality of one injured man or the religion of another, as if because a man was poor, he might be bastinadoed and tortured with impunity, as if a man who was born in Scotland might be robbed without redress, or because a man is of the Jewish persuasion, he is fair game for any outrage. It is a true saying, and has often been repeated, that a very moderate share of human wisdom is sufficient for the guidance of human affairs. But there is another truth, equally indisputable, which is, that a man who aspires to govern mankind ought to bring to the task generous sentiments, compassionate sympathies, and noble and elevated thoughts....

With regard to our policy with respect to Italy, I utterly deny the charges that have been brought against us of having been the advocates, supporters, and encouragers of revolution. It has always been the fate of advocates of temperate reform and constitutional improvement to be run at as the fomenters of revolution. It is the easiest mode of putting them down; it is the received formula. It is the established practice of those who are the advocates of arbitrary government to say: “Never mind real revolutionists; we know how to deal with them. Your dangerous man is the moderate reformer; he is such a plausible man. The only way of getting rid of him is to set the world at him by calling him a revolutionist.”

Now, there are revolutionists of two kinds in this world. In the first place, there are those violent, hot-headed, and unthinking men who fly to arms, who overthrow established Governments, and who recklessly, without regard to consequences and without measuring difficulties and comparing strength, deluge their country with blood, and draw down the greatest calamities on their fellow-countrymen. These are the revolutionists of one class. But there are revolutionists of another kind—blind-minded men who, animated by antiquated prejudices and daunted by ignorant apprehensions, dam up the current of human improvement until the irresistible pressure of accumulated discontent breaks down the opposing barriers, and overthrows and levels to the earth those very institutions which a timely application of renovating means would have rendered strong and lasting. Such revolutionists as these are the men who call us revolutionists....

The government of a great country like this is undoubtedly an object of fair and legitimate ambition to men of all shades of opinion. It is a noble thing to be allowed to guide the policy and to influence the destiny of such a country; and if ever it was an object of honourable ambition, more than ever must it be so at the moment at which I am speaking. For while we have seen the political earthquake rocking Europe from side to side—while we have seen thrones shaken, shattered, levelled, institutions overthrown and destroyed—while in almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged the land with blood from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, this country has presented a spectacle honourable to the people of England, and worthy of the admiration of mankind.

We have shown that liberty is compatible with order; that individual freedom is reconcilable with obedience to the law. We have shown the example of a nation in which every class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence has assigned to it, while at the same time every individual of such class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale—not by injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality, but by persevering good conduct and by the steady and energetic exertion of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed him.... I maintain that the principles which can be traced through all our foreign transactions, as the guiding rule and directing spirit of our proceedings, are such as deserve approbation. I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give on the question now brought before it—whether the principles on which the foreign policy of Her Majesty’s Government has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow-subjects abroad are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged with the government of England: and whether, as the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say, “Civis Romanus sum,” so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPRICS (1850).

=Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 245. (London: 1876.)

_Lord Palmerston to his Brother. January 27, 1851._

The Papal aggression question will give us some trouble, and give rise to stormy debates. Our difficulty will be to find out a measure which shall satisfy reasonable Protestants without violating those principles of liberal toleration which we are pledged to. I think we shall succeed. But all the newspaper stories of divisions in the Cabinet on this or any other question are pure inventions, wholly devoid of any foundation. The Pope, I hear, and the people about him by whom at present he is guided, affect to treat lightly the excitement which his measures have produced in this country, and they represent the clamour as a thing got up by the Church—a parson agitation. They deceive themselves; the feeling is general and intense all through the nation, and the sensible Catholics themselves lament what has been done.

The thing itself, in truth, is little or nothing, and does not justify the irritation. What has goaded the nation is the manner, insolent and ostentatious, in which it has been done. The Catholics have a right to organise their Church as they like; and if staff officers called Bishops were thought better than staff officers called Vicars-Apostolic, nobody would have remarked or objected to the change if it had been made quietly and only in the bosom of the Church. But what offended—and justly—all England, was the Pope’s published Allocution and Wiseman’s announcement of his new dignities; the first representing England as a land of benighted heathens; the second proclaiming that the Pope had parcelled out England into districts—a thing that only a Sovereign has a right to do—and that he, Wiseman, and others were sent, and to be sent to govern those territorial districts, with titles belonging thereto.

THE HAYNAU AFFAIR (1850).

=Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 239. (London: 1876.)

_Lord Palmerston to Sir George Grey_ (_Home Secretary_).
_October 1, 1850._

Koller[2] is very reasonable about the Haynau affair.... I told Koller that it is much better that no prosecution should take place, because the defence of the accused would necessarily be a minute recapitulation of all the barbarities committed by Haynau in Italy and Hungary, and that would be more injurious to him and to Austria than any verdict obtained against the draymen could be satisfactory.

I must own that I think Haynau’s coming here, without rhyme or reason, so soon after his Italian and Hungarian exploits, was a wanton insult to the people of this country, whose opinion of him had been so loudly proclaimed at public meetings and in all the newspapers. But the draymen were wrong in the particular course they adopted. Instead of striking him, which, however, by Koller’s account, they did not do much, they ought to have tossed him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then sent him home in a cab, paying his fare to the hotel.

[2] Austrian ambassador in London.

PALMERSTON AND KOSSUTH (1851).

=Source.=—_The Life of Lord John Russell_, by Spencer Walpole,
vol. ii., p. 133. (London: 1889.)

A. _Lord John Russell to Lord Palmerston._

MY DEAR PALMERSTON,—I must once more press upon you my views concerning an interview with Kossuth. I wrote to you some time ago that I hoped you would not see him. I wrote to you afterwards from Windsor Castle that I thought your seeing him would be improper and unnecessary.

I wrote to you again yesterday to say that I thought that, if upon his first arrival he had asked to see you to express through you his thanks to the Queen’s Government for the efforts made by them for his safety and liberation, and you had at once seen him, it might have been thought a natural proceeding. But that, after his denunciations of two Sovereigns with whom the Queen is on terms of peace and amity, an interview with you would have a very different complexion.

The more I think on the matter, the more I am confirmed in this view.

It might have been right—although we did not think so—to interfere in the war waged by Russia in Hungary. But it cannot be right that any member of the Administration should give an implied sanction to an agitation, commenced by a foreign refugee, against Sovereigns in alliance with her Majesty.

I must therefore positively request that you will not receive Kossuth, and that, if you have appointed him to come to you, you will inform him that any communication must be in writing, and that you must decline to see him.

Yours faithfully,
J. RUSSELL.

B. _Lord Palmerston’s Reply._

PANSHANGER, _October 30, 1851_.

MY DEAR JOHN RUSSELL,—I have just received your letter of to-day, and am told your messenger waits for an answer. My reply, then, is immediate, and is, that there are limits to all things; that I do not choose to be dictated to as to who I may or may not receive in my own house; and that I shall use my own discretion on this matter. You will, of course, use yours as to the composition of your Government. I have not detained your messenger five minutes.

Yours sincerely,
PALMERSTON.

[NOTE.—In the end Lord Palmerston deferred to the wish of the Cabinet, and did not receive Kossuth.]

THE GREAT EXHIBITION (1851).

=Source.=—_The Life of the Prince Consort_, by Sir Theodore
Martin, vol. ii., p. 247. (London: 1876.)

_Extract from a Speech by the Prince Consort._

I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.

Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points—the realisation of the unity of mankind. Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities.

The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. On the other hand, the great principle of the division of labour, which may be called the moving power of civilisation, is being extended to all branches of science, industry, and art.

Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to the few, now they are directed on specialities, and in these, again, even to the minutest points; but the knowledge acquired becomes at once the property of the community at large; for, whilst formerly discovery was wrapt in secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes that no sooner is a discovery or invention made than it is already improved upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are intrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital.

So man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use; himself a divine instrument.

Gentlemen, the Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.

I confidently hope that the first impression which the view of this vast collection will produce upon the spectator will be that of deep thankfulness to the Almighty for the blessings which he has bestowed upon us already here below; and the second, the conviction that they can only be realised in proportion to the help which we are prepared to render each other; therefore, only by peace, love, and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth.

PALMERSTON AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT (1851).

I.—=Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 289. (London: 1876.)

A. _Lord Palmerston to Lord Normanby_ (_British Ambassador in Paris_).
_December 3, 1851._

MY DEAR NORMANBY,—Even we here, who cannot be supposed to know as much as people at Paris did about what was going on among the Bourbonists, cannot be surprised that Louis Napoleon struck the blow at the time which he chose for it; for it is now well known here that the Duchess of Orleans was preparing to be called to Paris this week with her younger son to commence a new period of Orleans dynasty. Of course the President got an inkling of what was passing, and if it is true, as stated in our newspapers, that Changarnier was arrested at four o’clock in the morning in council with Thiers and others, there seems good reason to believe, what is also asserted, that the Burgraves[3] had a stroke prepared which was to be struck against the President that very day, and that, consequently, he acted on the principle that a good thrust is often the best parry.... As to respect for law and the Constitution which you say in your dispatch of yesterday is habitual to Englishmen, that respect belongs to just and equitable laws framed under a Constitution founded upon reason, and consecrated by its antiquity and by the memory of the long years of happiness which the nation has enjoyed under it, but it is scarcely a proper application of those feelings to require them to be directed to the day-before-yesterday tomfoolery which the scatter-brained heads of Marrast and Tocqueville invented for the torment and perplexity of the French nation....

I find I have written on two sheets by mistake; the blank leaf is an appropriate emblem of the present state of the French Constitution....

[3] A nickname for the majority in the Assembly, comprising Thiers, Tocqueville, and others.

B. _The Same to the Same. December 6, 1851._

The great probability seems still to be, as it has, I think, all along been, that, in the conflict of opposing parties, Louis Napoleon would remain master of the field, and it would very much weaken our position at Paris, and be detrimental to British interests if Louis Napoleon, when he had achieved a triumph, should have reason to think that during the struggle the British representative took part (I mean by a manifestation of opinion) with his opponents. Now we are entitled to judge of that matter only by your despatches; and I am sure you will forgive me for making some observations on those which we have received this week. Your long despatch of Monday appeared to be a funeral oration over the President, with a passage thrown in as to his intentions to strike a _coup d’état_ on a favourable opportunity, as if it were meant to justify the doom which was about to be pronounced upon him by the Burgrave majority. Your despatches since the event of Tuesday have been all hostile to Louis Napoleon, with very little information as to events. One of them consisted chiefly of a dissertation about Kossuth, which would have made a good article in the _Times_ a fortnight ago; and another dwells chiefly upon a looking-glass broken in a club-house, and a piece of plaster brought down from the ceiling by musket shots during the street fights.

C. _Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _December 23, 1851._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,—I have the great pleasure in announcing to you a piece of news which I know will give you as much satisfaction and relief as it does to us, and will do to the whole of the world. Lord Palmerston is no longer Foreign Secretary, and Lord Granville is already named his successor!! He had become of late really quite reckless, and in spite of the serious admonition and caution he received only on the 29th of November, and again at the beginning of December, he tells Walewsky that he _entirely_ approves Louis Napoleon’s _coup d’état_, when he had written to Lord Normanby by my and the Cabinet’s desire that he (Lord Normanby) was to continue his diplomatic intercourse with the French Government, but to remain perfectly passive, and give no opinion.

II.—=Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 316. (London: 1876.)

_Lord Palmerston to his Brother. January 22, 1852._

As to the main point, John Russell distinctly narrowed down the ground of my dismissal to the fact of my having expressed an opinion on the _coup d’état_ without reference to the nature of that opinion, Johnny saying that that was not the question. Now, that opinion of mine was expressed in conversation on Tuesday the 3rd; but on Wednesday the 4th, we had a small evening party at our house. At that party John Russell and Walewsky[4] were, and they had a conversation on the _coup d’état_ in which Johnny expressed his opinion, which Walewsky tells me was in substance and result pretty nearly the same as what I had said the day before, though, as he observed, John Russell is not so “expansif” as I am; but further, on Friday the 6th, Walewsky dined at John Russell’s and there met Lansdowne and Charles Wood; and in the course of that evening John Russell, Lansdowne, and Charles Wood all expressed their opinions on the _coup d’état_, and those opinions were, if anything, rather more strongly favourable than mine had been.[5] Moreover, Walewsky met Lord Grey riding in the Park, and Grey’s opinion was likewise expressed, and was to the same effect. It is obvious that the reason assigned for my dismissal was a mere pretext, eagerly caught at for want of any good reason. The real ground was a weak truckling to the hostile intrigues of the Orleans family, Austria, Russia, Saxony, and Bavaria, and in some degree also of the present Prussian Government. All these parties found their respective views and systems of policy thwarted by the course pursued by the British Government, and they thought that if they could remove the Minister they would change the policy. They had for a long time past effectually poisoned the mind of the Queen and the Prince against me, and John Russell giving way, rather encouraged than discountenanced the desire of the Queen.

[4] The French Ambassador in London.

[5] Just before Lord Palmerston’s dismissal was discussed in Parliament, Walewsky reminded Lord John Russell of these facts, and added that, whereas he had only conveyed Palmerston’s opinion in a private letter to M. Turgot, he had made Russell’s the subject of an official despatch. Lord John Russell asked whether Lord Palmerston knew all this, and meant to state it in the House of Commons (_Life of Palmerston_, ii. 326).

RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA (1853).

=Source.=—_Life of Lord John Russell_, by Spencer Walpole,
vol. ii. (London: 1889.)

A. _Lord Aberdeen to Lord John Russell._

I think that it will be necessary to be very careful in preparing instructions for Lord Stratford, if, as I presume, we must consider his memorandum as giving an outline of what he would desire.

“The assurances of prompt and effective aid on the approach of danger” given by us to the Porte would in all probability produce war. These barbarians hate us all, and would be delighted to take their chance of some advantage, by embroiling us with the other Powers of Christendom. It may be necessary to give them a moral support, and to endeavour to prolong their existence; but we ought to regard as the greatest misfortune any engagement which compelled us to take up arms for the Turks.

I do not believe that any Power, at this time, entertains the intention of overthrowing the Turkish Empire, but it is certainly true that any quarrel might lead to this event; or, as Lord Stratford says, it might take place without such a deliberate intention on the part of any one of these Powers.

We ought by all means to keep ourselves perfectly independent, and free to act as circumstances may require. Above all we ought not to trust the disposal of the Mediterranean fleet—which is peace or war—to the discretion of any man.

B. _Lord John Russell to Lord Clarendon. March 20._

The vast preparations at Sebastopol show a foregone purpose, and that purpose is, I fear, to extinguish the Turkish Empire.... My own opinion is that, in case of the invasion of Turkey by Russia on any pretence, we ought to send a message to Petersburg and _demand_ the evacuation of the Turkish territory, and, in case of refusal, to enforce this demand both in the Baltic as well as in the Dardanelles.

We should, of course, enter into concert with France.

C. _Lord Aberdeen to Lord John Russell. August 26._

I always expected some difficulties to arise at Constantinople, but those which have taken place are very vexatious. We received yesterday a telegraphic despatch from Lord Stratford of the 19th, in which he said that the Turks proposed to make some modifications of the note sent by the four Powers for their acceptance.... They are not of great importance; but, after what the Emperor has already done, I doubt if he will accept them. At all events, after his prompt acceptance of our note, and his ready agreement to the alterations made by the English Government in the interests of the Porte, it is clear that we have no right to ask him.

D. _Memorandum by Lord John Russell for Lord Aberdeen,
Lord Palmerston, and Lord Clarendon. September 3._

Supposing the Emperor of Russia to agree to some of the amendments and reject others, there remains a fair ground for the conference to attempt a compromise. But, if he reject altogether the amended note, we must recur to the original pretexts of quarrel. The _pretence_ of the Emperor of Russia was that his influence in behalf of the Greek Church in Turkey, as sanctioned by treaty and confirmed by long usage, had been treated with neglect. His _demand_ was that concessions should be made to him such as could only be made as the fruit of a successful war.

E. _Sir James Graham to Lord John Russell. December 11._

It is clear that his (Lord Palmerston’s) part is taken; and that he hopes by raising the war-cry to drown the demand for an extension of the suffrage. This is the game which has been played before, and as you wisely foresee, is about to be played again.

F. _Lord John Russell’s own account of the sleeping Cabinet._

Mr. Kinglake has detailed, and has preserved in his fifth edition, a story regarding the dinner of the Cabinet at Pembroke Lodge, which, although accurate in the immediate purport of his relation, would give a very false impression of the real deliberations of the Cabinet. Some days before that dinner, a Cabinet meeting was held in the day-time, at which the whole question of sending an expedition to the Crimea ... was very carefully and very maturely discussed. Lord Palmerston for some months had been bent on sending an expedition to the Crimea, and I had only withheld my assent till the siege of Silistria should have been proved to be a failure.... Some days afterwards I gave a Cabinet dinner at Pembroke Lodge, and as the members of the Cabinet, with the exception of the Chancellor, had been present at the previous deliberation, they cared little for criticising after dinner the exact form of the sentences in which the number of the troops and the disposition of the fleet were minutely specified. It is no doubt true that several members of the Cabinet went to sleep during this discussion.

THE QUAKER DEPUTATION TO THE TSAR (1854).

=Source.=—_Memoirs of Joseph Sturge_, by Henry Richard,
p. 476. (London: 1864.)

At the appointed hour we repaired to the palace, and were received by the Emperor at a private interview, no one else being present excepting Baron Nicolay, who acted as interpreter, the Emperor speaking in French. After the address had been read by Joseph Sturge, and presented to the Emperor, the latter asked us to be seated on a sofa, while he took a chair, and entered into free conversation, kindly giving us a full opportunity for making any verbal statement that we might wish to offer. Joseph Sturge then proceeded to give expression to what had rested on his mind, not entering into the political matters involved in the dispute, but confining himself to the moral and religious aspects of the question. In the course of his observations he contrasted the Mohammedan religion (professed by the Turks), which avowedly justifies the employment of the sword, with the religion of Him whose reign was to be emphatically one of _peace_. He also remarked that among the multitude who would be the victims in the event of a European war, the greatest sufferers would probably be, not those who had caused the war, but innocent men, with their wives and children. On our thanking the Emperor for the kind reception he had given us, J. Sturge said, with much feeling, that although we should probably never see him again on this side of eternity, we wished him to know that there were those in England who desired his temporal and spiritual welfare as sincerely as his own subjects—when the Emperor shook hands with each of us very cordially, and, with eyes moistened with emotion, turned hastily away (apparently to conceal his feelings), saying, “My wife also wishes to see you.” We were accordingly ushered into the Empress’s apartment, where we spent a short time in conversation with her and her daughter, the Grand Duchess Olga, both of whom spoke English pretty well. The Empress said to us, “I have just seen the Emperor; the tears were in his eyes....”

The following is the substance of what the Emperor said in reply to the address. It was taken down immediately afterwards, and submitted to the revision of Baron Nicolay, who testified to its accuracy:

“I wish to offer some explanation of the circumstances which led to the present unhappy dispute. We received the blessings of Christianity from the Greek Empire, and this has established, and maintained ever since, a link of connection both moral and religious between Russia and that Power. The ties that have thus united the two countries have subsisted for 900 years, and were not severed by the conquest of Russia by the Tartars; and when, at a later period, our country succeeded in shaking off that yoke, and the Greek Empire, in its turn, fell under the sway of the Turks, we still continued to take a lively interest in the welfare of our co-religionists there: and when Russia became powerful enough to resist the Turks, and to dictate the terms of peace, we paid particular attention to the well-being of the Greek Church, and procured the insertion, in successive treaties, of most important articles in her favour. I have myself acted as my predecessors had done, and the Treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, was as explicit as the former were in this respect. Turkey, on her part, recognised this right of religious interference, and fulfilled her engagements until the last year or two, when, for the first time, she gave me reason to complain. I will not now advert to the parties who were her principal instigators on that occasion; suffice it to say that it became my duty to interfere, and to claim from Turkey the fulfilment of her engagements. My representations were pressing, but friendly, and I have every reason to believe that matters would soon have been settled if Turkey had not been induced by other parties to believe that I had ulterior objects in view; that I was aiming at conquest, aggrandisement, and the ruin of Turkey. I have solemnly disclaimed, and do now as solemnly disclaim, every such motive. I do not desire war; I abhor it as sincerely as you do, and am ready to forget the past, if only the opportunity be afforded me....”

[The deputation was asked by the Emperor to postpone
its departure, and was told by Baron Nicolay that
the Emperor intended to send a formal reply to the
address. Meanwhile the Duchess of Leuchtenberg, the
widowed daughter of the Emperor, expressed a wish
to see the deputation.]

“We called,” said Mr. Charleton, “at the palace of the Grand Duchess as proposed. But here our reception was very different from what it had been a few days before at the Imperial Palace. Instead of the earnest and cordial manner of the Emperor and Empress, the Grand Duchess received us with merely formal politeness. Her sorrowful air, and the depressed look of the gentleman in waiting, made it evident to us that a great change had come over the whole aspect of affairs. Nor were we at a loss to account for this change. _The mail from England had arrived_, with newspapers giving an account of the opening of Parliament and of the intensely warlike speeches in the House of Commons....”

But the respect shown to the deputation personally remained unabated.... The Emperor also sent a Government courier to accompany them on their return, with orders that everything should be done to contribute to the rapidity and comfort of their journey.

HORRORS OF THE CRIMEAN HOSPITALS (1854).

=Source.=—_The Times._

VARNA, _August 20_.

It appears that, notwithstanding the exquisite beauty of the country around Aladyn, it is a hotbed of fever and dysentery. The same is true of Devno, which is called by the Turks “The Valley of Death”; and had we consulted the natives before we pitched our camps, we should assuredly never have gone either to Aladyn or Devno, notwithstanding the charms of their position or the temptations offered by the abundant supply of water, and by the adjacent woods. These meadows nurture the fever, the ague, dysentery and pestilence in their bosom—the lake and the stream exhale death, and at night fat unctuous vapours rise up fold after fold from the valleys, and creep up in the dark, and steal into the tent of the sleeper, and wrap him in their deadly embrace. So completely exhausted on last Thursday were the Brigade of Guards, these three thousand of the flower of England, that they had to make two marches in order to get over the distance from Aladyn to Varna, which is not more than ten miles. But that is not all. Their packs were carried for them. The ambulance corps has been completely crippled by the death of the drivers and men belonging to it.... Walking by the beach one sees some straw sticking up through the sand, and, scraping it away with his stick, he is horrified at bringing to light the face of a corpse, which has been deposited there with wisps of straw around it, a prey to dogs and vultures. Dead bodies rise up from the bottom of the harbour, and bob grimly round in the water, or float in from sea, and drift past the sickened gazers on board the ships—all buoyant, bolt upright, and hideous, in the sun.

SCUTARI, _October 9_.

Cholera and fever certainly have made great ravages since the departure from Varna, and the crowded state of the transports has prevented the men receiving the benefit which usually attends a sea voyage. Numbers arrived sickly and weak on the beach of Kalamita Bay, and the dreadful night of the 14th, during which the whole army stood knee-deep in mire, beneath a pouring rain, had an immediate effect on many who were comparatively healthy.... There is one experiment which has been a perfect failure. At the commencement of the war a plan was invented, and carried out, by which a number of Chelsea pensioners were sent out as an ambulance corps to attend on the sick. Whether it was a scheme for saving money by utilising the poor old men, or shortening the duration of their lives and pensions, it is difficult to say; but they have been found in practice rather to require nursing than to be able to nurse others.

SCUTARI, _October 12_.

It is with feelings of surprise and anger that the public will learn that no sufficient preparations have been made for the proper care of the wounded. Not only are there not sufficient surgeons—that, it might be urged, was unavoidable—not only are there no dressers or nurses—that might be a defect of system, for which no one is to blame; but what will be said when it is known that there is not even linen to make bandages for the wounded? After the troops have been six months in the country, there is no preparation for the commonest surgical operation. Not only are the men kept, in some cases, for a week without the hand of a medical man coming near their wounds—not only are they left to expire in agony, unheeded, and shaken off, though catching desperately at the surgeon whenever he makes his rounds through the fœtid ship, but now, when they are placed in the spacious building, it is found that the commonest appliances of a workhouse sick-ward are wanting.

_October 18._

The manner in which the sick and wounded have been treated is worthy only of the savages of Dahomey. In one ship were four surgeons to 300 wounded and 170 cholera patients. Numbers arrived at Scutari without having been treated by a surgeon since they fell pierced by Russian bullets on the slopes of the Alma. The _Colombo_ left the Crimea on a morning four days after the battle. She carried 27 wounded officers, 422 wounded soldiers, and 124 Russian prisoners, in all 573 souls. About half the wounded had received surgical assistance before they were put on board. To supply the wants of this mass of misery were four medical men, one of whom was the surgeon of the ship and sufficiently employed in looking after the crew. The upper deck became a mass of putridity; the neglected gun-shot wounds bred maggots, which infected the food on board; the officers were nearly overcome, and the captain made ill by the stench. Blankets to the number of 1,500 were spoilt and thrown overboard. Forty-six men were needlessly left on board two days after the arrival of the ship.

HEIGHTS OF THE ALMA, _October 20_.

When I was looking at the wounded men going off to-day, I could not see an English ambulance. Our men were sent to the sea, three miles distant, in jolting arabas or tedious litters. The French—I am tired of this disgraceful antithesis—had well-appointed covered hospital vans, to hold ten or twelve men, drawn by five mules.

THE CRISIS AT THE ALMA (1854).

=Source.=—_The Times_, October 10.