Chapter VIII (2)

First Lord of the Treasury Viscount Palmerston
Lord Chancellor Lord Cranworth
Lord President Earl Granville
Lord Privy Seal Duke of Argyll
Home Secretary Sir George Grey
Foreign Secretary Earl of Clarendon
Colonial Secretary Right Hon. Sidney Herbert (and, on
his resignation, Lord John
Russell)
Secretary at War Lord Panmure
Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. Gladstone (and, on his
resignation, Sir G. Cornewal
Lewis)
Board of Control Sir Charles Wood
First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Graham (and, on his
resignation, Sir Charles Wood,
who was replaced at the Board of
Control by Mr. Vernon Smith)
Board of Trade Right Hon. E. Cardwell (and, on
his resignation, Lord Stanley of
Alderley)
Postmaster General Viscount Canning
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Earl of Carlisle
Woods and Forests Sir Benjamin Hall.]

_February 8th._--Now that all is settled there is a momentary lull, and people are considering what sort of an arrangement it is, and how it is likely to succeed. Many of those who know better what Palmerston really is than the ignorant mob who shout at his heels, and who have humbugged themselves with the delusion that he is another Chatham, entertain grave apprehensions that the thing will prove a failure, and that Palmerston's real capacity will be exposed and his _prestige_ destroyed. Some wish for a dissolution while his popularity is still undiminished, fancying it will give him a sure majority and will protect him against any change of opinion; but, unless the Derbyites give him an opportunity by some vexatious opposition, he can hardly dissolve, and if he did, though he would gain by it for a time, any change of opinion that might take place would be found no less in the House of Commons than in the country.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S MISSION TO VIENNA.

_February 13th._--The political wheel turns rapidly round, and strange events occur, none more remarkable than John Russell's career during the last month, and the unexpected positions in which he successively appears. A few weeks ago breaking up his own Government, deeply offending colleagues and friends, and making himself generally odious, then trying to form a Government and finding nobody willing to act with him; he appeared to be in the most painful position of isolation, and everybody expected that his anomalous and unsatisfactory state would render him mischievous, and soon conduct him into a troublesome opposition to the Government. Very differently have matters turned out. He began by evincing a good and friendly spirit, and scarcely is the Government formed, when Clarendon proposes to him to go to Vienna as Plenipotentiary to treat for peace, and John at once accepts the offer, and yesterday morning his mission was publicly announced. It was a happy stroke of Clarendon's in all ways, and it was wise in Lord John to accept it, for it has all the appearance of a patriotic and unselfish act, will cause his recent misdeeds to be forgotten, and replace him in the high situation from which he was fallen. It is a very good thing for him to be thus withdrawn from Parliament for a time. There he is always in danger of saying and doing something foolish or rash, and it will leave his followers in a condition to attach themselves to the Government without abandoning their allegiance to him, which will relieve all parties from embarrassment.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Conference of the Great Powers which was to open at Vienna, to which Lord John Russell was sent as British Plenipotentiary, had been convoked for the purpose of negotiating on the basis of the four points which contained the demands of the belligerent Allies and had been accepted as a basis of negotiation by the Emperor of Russia. These points were as follows:--

1. That Russia should abandon all control over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia.

2. That Russia should relinquish her claims to control the mouths of the Danube.

3. That all Treaties calculated to give Russia a preponderance in the Black Sea should be abrogated.

4. That Russia should renounce the claim she made to an exclusive right to protect the Christians in the Ottoman Dominions.

It was on the third of these points that the principal difficulty of the negotiation arose, and that the Conference failed to conclude a peace.]

_February 17th._--Palmerston presented himself to the House of Commons last night for the first time as Minister, and not apparently with a very brilliant prospect of success. He made a tolerable speech, giving a rather meagre account of the formation of his Government, with the usual promises of vigour. The great point he had to handle was the disposal of Roebuck's Committee, which he is determined, if he can, to get rid of. The success of this, his first great operation, seems very doubtful. One man after another got up and declared he should vote for its going on. Roebuck insists on it; and Disraeli announced his determined opposition to any attempt to quash it. If Palmerston fights the battle and is beaten, he must try what a dissolution will do for him; and I think the success of it would be very doubtful, for, in spite of all the clamour that was raised by his name, and his apparently vast popularity in the country, it looks as if it was of a very shadowy, unsubstantial kind, and would very likely be found wanting at a general election. The temper of the House seems to be anything but good, and unless we are very soon cheered and encouraged by much better accounts from the Crimea, this Government will not fare much better than the last. The 'Times' is going into furious opposition, and Palmerston will soon find the whole press against him except his own paper, the 'Morning Post,' and the 'Morning Chronicle,' neither of which have any circulation or any influence in the country. The whole conduct of the 'Times' is a source of great vexation to me, for I am to the last degree shocked and disgusted at its conduct and the enormous mischief that it is endeavouring to do; and I have for many years had intimate personal relations with its editor, which I do not well know how to let drop, and I am at the same time not satisfied that their unbroken maintenance is consistent with the feelings I entertain, and which ought to be entertained, towards the paper.

ROEBUCK'S COMMITTEE ACCEPTED.

_February 19th._--The Government have determined to knock under about Roebuck's Committee, and they would have done much better to have done so at first. What they are now doing will not strengthen them or avert future attacks; but the state of the House of Commons is such that nothing but some very unexpected turn can enable them to go on long. Palmerston has no authority there, the House is in complete confusion and disorganisation, and, except the Derbyites, who are still numerous and act together in opposition, in hopes of getting into power, nobody owns any allegiance or even any party ties, or seems to care for any person or any thing. There seems a general feeling of distrust and dissatisfaction, and, except the scattered Radicals and Revolutionists, who wish to upset everything, nobody seems to know what he would be at, or what object he wishes to attain. For the first time in my life I am really and seriously alarmed at the aspect of affairs, and think we are approaching a period of real difficulty and danger. The press, with the 'Times' at its head, is striving to throw everything into confusion, and running a muck against the aristocratic element of society and of the Constitution. The intolerable nonsense and the abominable falsehoods it flings out day after day are none the less dangerous because they are nonsense and falsehoods, and, backed up as they are by all the regular Radical press, they diffuse through the country a mass of inflammatory matter, the effect of which may be more serious and arrive more quickly than anybody imagines. Nothing short of some loud explosion will make the mass of people believe that any serious danger can threaten a Constitution like our's, which has passed through so many trials and given so many proofs of strength and cohesion. But we have never seen such symptoms as are now visible, such a thorough confusion and political chaos, or the public mind so completely disturbed and dissatisfied and so puzzled how to arrive at any just conclusions as to the past, the present, or the future. People are furious at the untoward events in the Crimea, and cannot make out the real causes thereof, nor who is to blame, and they are provoked that they cannot find victims to wreak their resentment on. The dismissal of Aberdeen and Newcastle seems an inadequate expiation, and they want more vengeance yet, hence the cry for Roebuck's absurd Committee. Then, after clamouring for Palmerston from a vague idea of his vigour, and that he would do some wonderful things, which was founded on nothing but the recollection of his former bullying despatches and blustering speeches, they are beginning to suspect him; and the whole press, as well as the malignants in the House of Commons, tell them that they have gained very little, if anything, by the change, and they are told that it is not this or that Minister who can restore our affairs, but a change in the whole system of government, and the substitution of plebeians and new men for the leaders of parties and members of aristocratic families, of whom all Governments have been for the most part composed. What effect these revolutionary doctrines may have on the opinions of the people at large remains to be seen; but it is evident that the 'Times,' their great propagator, thinks them popular and generally acceptable, or they would not have plunged into that course.

I sat next to Charles Wood at dinner yesterday and had much talk with him on the state of affairs, and found that he takes just the same view that I do, and for the first time he is alarmed also, and so, he told me, is Sir George Grey. He talked much about Raglan, and said that the Government had been placed in the most unfair position possible, it being impossible to throw the blame of anything that had occurred on him, or even to tell the truth, which was that, so far from his making any exertions to repair the evils so loudly complained of, and sending away inefficient men, he never admitted there were any evils at all, or that any of his people were inefficient, or anything but perfect; and he said that Raglan had never asked for anything the want of which had not been anticipated by the Government here, and in no instance was anything required by him which had not been supplied a month or more before the requisition came. Palmerston, too, said to me that nothing could exceed the helplessness of the military authorities there; that they seemed unable to devise anything for their own assistance, and they exhibited the most striking contrast to the navy, who, on all emergencies, set to work and managed to find resources of all sorts to supply their necessities or extricate themselves from danger.

THE PEELITES RESIGN.

_February 20th._--Nothing certainly could be more mortifying than the reception Palmerston met from the House of Commons on the first night when he presented himself as Minister, nothing more ungracious or more disheartening. His entreaty to _postpone_ the Committee was received with a sort of scorn and manifestation of hostility and distrust. His position was at once rendered to the last degree painful and difficult. He cannot avert the Committee, he cannot submit to it without deep humiliation; many of his colleagues are supposed to shrink from the disgrace of such a submission and to prefer any alternative to it. Already there is a general impression that this Government cannot last long; nobody thinks they would gain anything by a dissolution, the result of one would be uncertain; but the probability seems to be that the Conservatives would gain and the Radicals likewise, while the Whigs would lose, and Peelites and Moderates would be scattered to the winds. We should most likely see a Parliament still more ungovernable than this, unless a widespread alarm in the country should rally the whole Conservative and anti-revolutionary element to Derby and his party, which would bring them all into office for a time. Palmerston spoke much better last night than the first night, and with a good deal of spirit and force; but he has a very uphill game to play, and must already be aware how fleeting his popularity was, and on what weak foundations it was built.

_February 23rd._--Graham, Gladstone, and Sidney Herbert have resigned, greatly to the disgust and indignation of their colleagues, to the surprise of the world at large, and the uproarious delight of the Whigs and Brooks's Club, to whom the Peelites have always been odious. These stupid Whigs were very sorry Palmerston did not leave them out when he formed his Government, and take whomever he could get instead of them; and they are entirely indifferent to the consideration that the greater part of the brains of the Cabinet is gone out with these three, that it is exceedingly difficult to fill their places, and that we exhibit a sad spectacle to all Europe, with our Ministerial dissensions and difficulties and the apparent impossibility of forming anything like a stable Government. The first thing done was to send off for John Russell at Paris, and ask him if he would come back and join the Government. Cardwell was offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which he refused. It is much to be regretted that these Peelites do not now dissolve themselves as _a party_ and make up their minds to act independently and according to their several opinions and circumstances. Aberdeen much disapproves of the exodus of the three, and was very anxious Cardwell should accept; but he does not choose to separate himself from the rest.

_February 24th._--Never was I more surprised than when I heard that John Russell had accepted the Colonial Office and joins the Government, still continuing in the House of Commons, and of course acting under Palmerston. When we think of all he has been doing for the last two years, his discontent at being in a subordinate capacity though still leader of the House of Commons, and the various pranks he has played in consequence thereof, it is inconceivable that he should consent not only to take office under Palmerston, but to serve under him in the House of Commons. But it is impossible not to give him credit for patriotic motives in making such a sacrifice of personal pride and vanity. What his conduct may be if the Government lasts long enough to allow him to come home and take his place in it, may be considered doubtful. Last night the retiring Ministers gave their explanations--Graham in a very good speech; Gladstone was too diffuse, and Sidney Herbert feeble, but coming after Graham they had nothing new to say. There is much to be said for and much against their conduct. If they had accepted office under Palmerston with the condition that he should try and get rid of the Committee and that they should retire in case he failed, there would have been nothing to say, because without doubt they ought not to hold high offices while a Committee of the House of Commons is sitting in judgement on their conduct; but the whole course of proceeding is so anomalous, and the exigencies of the time are so great and peculiar, that on the whole I think they ought to have stayed in. Palmerston speaks almost every night, and his speeches do not read amiss; but everybody says they are feeble and flat, and nothing at present indicates anything like stability or a long existence to the present Government. The tone of the House of Commons last night was on the whole rather pacific than not. Bright made an admirable speech, the peroration of which was very eloquent.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

_February 25th._--This morning George Lewis came to me very early and told me Palmerston had proposed to him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; he set forth very fairly all the reasons for and against accepting. We discussed the whole subject, and I asked him whether he felt sufficient confidence in himself to undertake an office of such vast importance, whether he had sufficiently turned his attention to financial matters and had mastered the principles and details of finance. He said he thought he was sufficiently versed therein to undertake it, having given much attention to taxation and its principles, and to political economy generally, though he did not know much about the Funds, but supposed sufficient knowledge about them was easily attainable. Finally I advised him to accept, and he said he should make up his mind to do so. So the Admiralty, Colonial Office, and Exchequer are settled. There is much difficulty and much discussion and difference of opinion about some of the other places. They are very wisely going to take in Laing, but very unwisely will not give a place to Lowe, who, if left out, will contrive to do them some damage. Granville has moved Heaven and earth to get Lowe an office, but Palmerston and others set their faces against him. Lansdowne has most unreasonably and unwisely insisted on Vernon Smith being taken in, and it is at present intended to make him President of the Board of Control. He is very unpopular and totally useless, and just the man they ought not to take in; while Lowe is just the man they ought, to meet the prevailing sentiment about old connexions and new men.

DEATH OF THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

_March 2nd._--News just arrived that the Emperor of Russia is dead. John Russell had telegraphed from Berlin that he was given over. This great and unexpected event must have the most important consequences whether for peace or for war. A disputed succession is not impossible, as it has long been reported that the Grand Duke Constantine was disposed to contest the succession with the Cesarewitch, but this will probably turn out to be a fable. It is supposed that the new Emperor has been all along inclined to peace, and that he was in disgrace with his father on that account. If this be true, it renders it still more probable that he will be anxious to put an end to this destructive and dangerous war, and the Allied Powers may be less exacting with him than they were disposed to be with the late Emperor. On the other hand, should the war unhappily continue, the death of Nicholas is likely to damp the ardour of the Russians and to relax their exertions, so that we can hardly fail to profit by it. Clarendon is gone over to Boulogne to confer with the Emperor Napoleon.

There seems something like a lull here for the moment, and less of excitement and violence than there was. Palmerston has not been in office a fortnight, and already he is enormously _baissé_; his speeches night after night are miserable. The truth is, he never had any power as a debater, and he is out of his element as leader in the House of Commons, where he has to answer everybody, to speak on every subject, and to be continually debating more or less. He has made a few great speeches, prepared, and on his own subject of foreign affairs, and every now and then a smart chaffing retort which excited the hilarity of the House, and that has been all he could do. Then he seems supine and undecided; he does not fill up the vacant places or seemingly endeavour to do so, and he does not put good men in the places he does fill up, all of which does him harm in general estimation. Clarendon has told Lady Palmerston very frankly that he will soon ruin himself in public opinion if he goes on in this way. Few things are more extraordinary than the notion that was abroad of Palmerston's fitness and efficacy. Never was there a greater delusion, and never one that is so rapidly being dissipated.

_March 10th._--It is remarkable that, though seven days have elapsed since the news of the death of the Emperor of Russia reached us, and that we heard of it by electric telegraph the very day it happened, we are still without authentic and detailed information of what has since occurred at St. Petersburg; and of the manifesto of the new Emperor, which is looked for with so much curiosity, we have only a partial extract or imperfect summary, so that we have still no means of judging whether the chances of peace are improved by the accession of Alexander II.

Palmerston's Government does not seem to take root or gain much strength; every day seems to prove the more clearly that he is unfit for the task he has taken on himself. He inspires neither respect nor confidence, and is totally unable to manage the House of Commons; his speeches are feeble and bad, and he is not always prudent and conciliatory, but, on the contrary, pettish and almost offensive. He finds great difficulty in filling the vacant offices, and he evinces much want of tact and good management in his endeavours to do so, offering and retracting his offers in a very loose way. For example, he offered Sir Robert Peel the Clerkship of the Ordnance, which he accepted; and then he found Monsell did not mean to resign it, so he had to withdraw the offer. Then he told him he should be Colonial Under-Secretary if John Russell would consent. John Russell would not consent, and then he offered him a seat at the Admiralty. Sir Robert in some dudgeon demurred, and Palmerston, inferring from his ill humour that he would not take this place, offered it to Henry Brand, who accepted, desired his writ might be moved for, and went to the railway station to go down to the place he represented. Just as he was starting, a messenger arrived with a letter from Palmerston saying Sir Robert Peel had taken the Admiralty, so he could not have it, and the gentleman had to return home without any office at all. This is a sad way of doing business, and will not make him more popular. Grenville Berkeley (whipper-in) told me he thought Palmerston was doing rather better latterly and that there was a better disposition in the House of Commons; but Jonathan Peel, who is a shrewd, dispassionate observer, and tolerably impartial, though with no good will to the present Government, told me a different story. He says the Government is as weak as possible, Palmerston wretched, and the House of Commons ill disposed and unruly, and he thinks it absolutely impossible that this concern can last many weeks. The Derbyites are quite confident of forcing their way to office, and quite determined to do so; but it is their game to damage the present Government as much as possible, and they will do everything in opposition but what may recoil upon themselves after they have got into office, and no other consideration will restrain them. I regard with the utmost dislike the prospect of their return, because I think their conduct so monstrously unprincipled. I hear Gladstone is very much out of humour, and expect soon to see him and his small band in overt opposition to the Government. Many fancy that it will end in his joining Derby, but so do not I. I am not sure that he would be indisposed if a proper occasion presented itself, but I do not believe any consideration or any circumstances whatever would induce the Derbyites to admit him again into their party. Their indignation--that is, of a great many of them--was unbounded at Derby having offered him office the other day, and at the great meeting at Eglinton's such manifestations of resentment were made on that account as to make it nearly impossible (for in these days nothing is quite impossible) for any future attempt at reconciliation and reunion to be made.

_March 11th._--A fresh shuffling of the cards is being arranged by which Frederick Peel is to go to the Treasury, _vice_ Wilson, Vice President of the Board of Trade; Sir Robert to the War Department, _vice_ his brother; and Henry Brand to the Admiralty. Palmerston seemed to consider all the blunders he made about these offices rather a good joke than a mischievous _gaucherie_. 'Ha, ha!' he said, 'a Comedy of Errors.' George Lewis told me this morning he thinks the temper of the House of Commons more favourable, and, if he can succeed in producing a palateable Budget, that they may get on; he told me the revenue was extremely flourishing and the country very rich, but the expenses are enormous. He means to meet them by a loan, but the question is of what amount, and how much of the additional expense shall be provided by it. He will want ninety millions to cover the whole.

LORD CLARENDON AND THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

Clarendon was much pleased with his visit to the Emperor, who talked to him very frankly and unreservedly about everything. They lit their cigars and sat and talked with the greatest ease. He said the Emperor spoke to him about the English press, and all he said was sensible and true; that he was aware that a free press was a necessity in England, and as indispensable as the Constitution itself, and that he had hitherto believed that the editors of the principal newspapers had the good of their country at heart, and always acted from conscientious motives; but that he could no longer entertain that opinion. The press during the past months, and the 'Times' particularly, had done an incalculable amount of mischief to England and to the alliance between us. The effect produced by their language in Germany was most injurious, and of service only to Russia. When the English papers talked of their own country in the way they did, of its degradation and disgrace, its maladministration, the ruin of its military power, and the loss of all that makes a nation great and powerful, though he (the Emperor) knew what all this meant, and how much or how little of truth there was in such exaggerated statements, yet in France they were generally believed, and it became very difficult for him to reconcile the nation to an alliance for which he was reproached with making sacrifices and shaping his policy in accordance with our's, when it was evident from our own showing that our alliance was not worth having, and our impotence was so exposed that, whenever peace should put an end to the necessity of the alliance, we should be entirely at their mercy; and while such was the feeling in France, in Germany it was still stronger, and there the 'Times' had succeeded in creating a universal conviction that we are in the lowest condition of weakness and inefficiency: at all of which he expressed the greatest regret. I was surprised to hear Clarendon say that he did not believe the resources of Russia to carry on the contest to be in any sensible degree exhausted, that her commerce had not suffered at all, and as to her finances she could go on for a good while with her paper money and the gold which, in a certain quantity, she drew from the Ural Mountains.[1]

[Footnote 1: In justice to the conductors of the 'Times' it must be said that although the language of the paper was violent and extremely annoying to the Government and its Allies, yet it was by the power and enterprise of the press that the deplorable state of the army was brought to the knowledge of the public and even of Ministers themselves; and it was by the 'Times' that the first steps were taken to supply the deficiencies of the Administration. The fund raised by voluntary contributions for this purpose amounted to 25,000_l._ and competent persons were sent out to apply it to the most pressing wants of the army.]