TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
The Third Part of The Greville Memoirs contains two volumes, of which this is the second. The first volume is available from Proj Gutenberg at [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40680]
All spellings are as they appeared in the original text save for those that were obviously printer's errors.
All phrases that are in languages other than English have been italicised for consistency.
There are two styles of footnotes used in this work. Footnotes enclosed in square brackets [ ] are by the editor. Footnotes not enclosed in square brackets are by the author.
1 [This note is by the editor.]
2 This note is by the author.
THE
GREVILLE MEMOIRS
(THIRD PART)
Vol. II.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
The Greville Memoirs
(THIRD PART)
A JOURNAL OF THE REIGN
OF
QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1852 TO 1860
BY THE LATE
CHARLES C. F. GREVILLE, Esq.
CLERK OF THE COUNCIL
IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. II.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1887
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
France and Prussia—The Emperor's Speech—Faint Hopes of Peace—Favourable View of the Policy of Russia—Progress of the Negotiations—Russia accepts the Terms of Peace—The Acceptance explained—- Popular Feeling in Favour of the War—Lord Stratford and General Williams—Mr. Disraeli's Prospects—Meeting of Parliament—Baron Parke's Life Peerage—The Debate on the Address—Debate on Life Peerages—Report on the Sufferings of the Army—Strained Relations with France—Lord Clarendon goes to the Congress at Paris—Opening of the Conference—Sabbatarianism—Progress of the Negotiations—Kars—Nicolaieff—The Life Peerage Question—Blunders and Weakness of the Government—A Visit to Paris—Count Orloff's View of the War—Lord Cowley on the Negotiations—Princess Lieven on the War—An Evening at the Tuileries—Opening of the Legislative Chamber—Lord Cowley's Desponding Views—The Austrian Proposals—Bitterness in French Society—Necessity of Peace to France—Conversation with M. Thiers—A Stag Hunt at St. Germains—The Emperor yields to the Russians—Birth of the Prince Imperial page 1
Lord Clarendon's favourable View of the Peace—General Evans' Proposal to embark after the Battle of Inkerman—Sir E. Lyons defends Lord Raglan—Peace concluded—Sir J. Graham's gloomy View of Affairs—Edward Ellice's Plan—Favourable Reception of the Peace—A Lull in Politics—A Sabbatarian Question—The Trial of Palmer for Murder—Defeat of the Opposition—Danger of War with the United States—Ristori as an Actress—Defeat of the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill—Return of the Guards—Baron Parke on the Life Peerage—Close of the SessionO'Donnell and Espartero in Spain—Chances of War—Coronation of the Czar—Apathy of the Nation—Expense of the Coronation at Moscow—Interference at Naples—Foreign Relations—Progress of Democracy in England—Russia, France, England, and Naples—Russian Intrigues with France—The Bolgrad Question—The Quarrel with Naples—The Formation of Lord Palmerston's Government in 1855—Death of Sir John Jervis—Sir Alexander Cockburn's Appointment—James Wortley Solicitor-General—Conference on the Treaty of Paris—Low Church Bishops—Leadership of the Opposition—Coolness in Paris—Dictatorial Policy to Brazil page 35
State of England after the War—Prussia and Neufch�tel—Sir Robert Peel's Account of the Russian Coronation—An Historical Puzzle—The Death of Princess Lieven—Mr. Spurgeon's Preaching—Mr. Gladstone in Opposition—Tit for Tat—Difficult Relations with France—Lord John in Opposition—The Liddell v. Westerton Case—Death of Lord Ellesmere—Violent Opposition to the Government on the China Question—Languid Defence of the Government—Impending Dissolution—Popularity of Lord Palmerston—Despotism of Ministers—Parliament dissolved—Judgement on Liddell v. Westerton—Lord Palmerston's Address—The Elections—Defeat of the Manchester Leaders—Fear of Radical Tendencies—The Country approves the Chinese Policy—Death of Lady Keith page 72
Results of the Elections—Defeat of Cobden and Bright—The War with China—Death of Lady Ashburton—Lord Palmerston's Success—The Handel Concerts—M. Fould in London—The Queen and Lord Palmerston—The Indian Mutiny—The Prince Consort—Death of General Anson—The State of India—Royal Guests—The Government of India—Temper of the House of Commons—Debates on India—Royal Visits—The Divorce Bill—The Divorce Bill in the House of Lords—Close of the Session—A Dukedom offered to Lord Lansdowne—Death of Mr. Croker—History of the Life Peerages—The Indian Mutiny and the Russian War—The Struggle in India—Reinforcements for India—The Queen's Attention to Public Business—Attacks on Lord Canning—Big Ships and Big Bells—Lord Canning defended—Courteous Behaviour of Foreign Nations—The Capture of Delhi and Lucknow—Difficulties in India—Depression in the City—Speculations on the Contingency of a Change of Government—The East India Company and the Government—Exaggerated Reports from India—A Queen's Speech—The Bank Charter Act page 104
Opening of the Session—Prevailing Distress—Lord John reconciled—Ministerial Speculations—Contemplated Transfer of India to the Crown—Military Position in India—Conversation with Mr. Disraeli—Bill for the Dissolution of the East India Company—Difficulties of Parliamentary Reform—The Relief of Lucknow—Lord Normanby's 'Year of Revolution'—Brougham's Jealousy of Lord Cockburn—Refutation of Lord Normanby's Book—The Crown Jewels of Hanover—Labour in the French Colonies—The Death of General Havelock—Gloomy Prospects in India—Inadequate Measures for the Relief of India—Lord John Russell hostile to Government—Death of the Duke of Devonshire—Mr. Disraeli suggests a Fusion of Parties—Marriage of the Princess Royal—Weakness of the Government—Excitement in France against this Country—Petition of the East India Company—Drowsiness of Ministers—Decline of Lord Palmerston's Popularity—Effect of the Orsini Attempt on the Emperor Napoleon—Opposition to the Conspiracy Bill—Review of the Crisis—Lord Derby sent for by the Queen—Refusal of the Peelites—The Catastrophe unexpected—The Defeat might have been avoided—Mismanagement of the Affair—Ministers determined to resign page 139
The Second Derby Administration—Lord Derby's first Speech—Lord Clanricarde defends himself—The New Ministry—Coincidences—Lord Derby's favourable Position—Opinion of the Speaker—Lord Derby's Liberal Declarations—Dinner to Mr. Buckle—Instability of the Government—Mr. Disraeli's sanguine Views—India—Prospects of the new Government—A Visit to the Due d'Aumale—Delicate Relations with France—Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston—Irritation of the Whigs—Marshal P�lissier Ambassador in London—The Peelites and the Whigs—Failure of the India Bill—An Overture from Lord John Russell—Dissensions of the Whigs—Lord Derby resolves to remain in Office—Lord John Russell proposes to deal with the India Bill by Resolutions—Mistake of the Whigs in resigning on the Conspiracy Bill—Withdrawal of the India Bill—Policy of the Whigs in Opposition—Lord Cowley on the Relations of France and England—Strong Opposition to the Government—Lord Derby on the State of Affairs—Disunion of the Whigs—Lord Canning's Proclamation—Littlecote House—Vehemence of the Opposition—Lord Lyndhurst displeased—Debates on the Indian Proclamation—Collapse of the Debates—Triumph of the Ministry—Disraeli's violent Speech at Slough—Lord Palmerston's Discomfiture—Prospects of a Fusion—Success of the Government—Concessions to the Radicals—The Queen's Visit to Birmingham—Progress of the India Bill—The Jew Bill—The Jew Bill passed—Disturbed State of India—Baron Brunnow on the Russian War page 171
Lord John Russell and Lord Stanley—Lord Palmerston's Leadership—Dissensions in the Liberal Party—The Queen and her Ministers—Lord Stanley at the India Office—The Queen's Letter to the Prince of Wales—Reform Speeches and Projects—Lord Palmerston's Confidence—Prosecution of Count Montalembert in France—Lord Clarendon's Visit to Compi�gne—The Emperor's Designs on Italy—The Emperor and the Pope—Approach of War—Lord Palmerston's Prudent Language—Lord Palmerston's Italian Sympathies—The Electric Telegraph—Opposition in France to the War—The Emperor's Prevarication—Opening of Parliament—Debates on Foreign Affairs—Lord Cowley's Mission to Vienna—General Opposition to the War—A Reform Bill—Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resign—Duplicity of the Emperor—Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill—The Emperor denies his Warlike Preparations—The Whigs oppose the Reform Bill—Anxiety to defeat the Government—Lord Cowley returns from Vienna—War impending—Dishonest Conduct of both Parties—Lord Cowley's Account of Cavour's Policy—His Mission to Vienna—A Congress proposed—Indifference to Reform—Debates on the Reform Bill—Defeat of the Reform Bill—An Emissary from Cavour page 208
The Government determine to dissolve the Parliament—Apathy of the Country—Hopes and Fears as to the War—The Congress a Trick—Disraeli on the approaching Elections—War declared—Mr. Greville resigns the Clerkship of the Council—Result of the Elections—Mistakes of the Austrian Government—Policy of the Opposition—Reconciliation of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell—The Reconciliation doubtful—Meeting of the Liberal Party—Resolution of the Meeting—Debate on the Resolution of Want of Confidence—Defeat of Ministers—Lord Derby resigns—Lord Granville sent for by the Queen—Lord Granville does not form a Government—Lord Palmerston sent for—Lord Palmerston's Second Administration—The Queen confers the Garter on Lord Derby—Successful Progress of the French in Italy—Causes of Lord Granville's Failure—Lord John claims the Foreign Office—Lord Clarendon declines to take Office—Lord Clarendon's Interview with the Queen—Mr. Cobden declines to take Office—The Armistice of Villafranca—Peace concluded—The Terms of Peace—Position of the Pope—Disappointment of Italy—Conference of the Emperors—Alleged Sensitiveness of the Emperor Napoleon—Details of the War—A Visit to Ireland—Irish National Education—Dublin—Howth Castle—Waterford—Killarney—Return from Ireland—Numerous Cabinets—A Dispute with China—Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell—Lord Clarendon at Osborne—Spain and Morocco—The Duc d'Aumale—Perplexity of the Emperor Napoleon—The Emperor Napoleon and the 'Times' page 240
Prospects of the Government and of the Opposition—Mr. Disraeli's commanding Position—Preparation of a Reform Bill—A Congress—Death of Macaulay—The Affairs of Italy—Policy of the Emperor Napoleon—The Commercial Treaty with France—M. de Cavour resumes Office—Opening of Parliament—Negotiation of the Commercial Treaty—The Emperor a Free Trader—Perplexity of Italian Affairs—Moderation of Lord Derby—Opposition to the Commercial Treaty—The Reform Bill of 1860—Tory Opposition to Reform—Mr. Gladstone's great Budget Speech—Opposition to the Treaty and the Budget—Triumph of Mr. Gladstone—The Italian Correspondence—Democratic Opinions of Mr. Gladstone—Introduction of the Reform Bill—The Annexation of Savoy and Nice—Annexation of Tuscany to Piedmont—The D�nouement of the Plot—Complete Apathy of the Country as to Reform—Lord Derby declines to interfere—Lord John's adverse Declaration to France—Consequences of Lord John's Speech against France—Our Position in Europe—Anecdote of the Crimean War—Designs of the Emperor Napoleon in 1858—Lord Palmerston's Distrust of Napoleon III.—Lord John's Indifference to his own Reform Bill—Mr. Gladstone's Ascendency—Designs of the Emperor and Cavour—Unpopularity of the Reform Bill—Correspondence of Lord Grey and Lord John Russell—Reaction against Mr. Gladstone's Measures—Opposition to the Repeal of the Paper Duties—Coolness with France—Garibaldi's Expedition—Lord Palmerston attacks the Neapolitan Minister—The Paper Duties Bill rejected by the Lords—The Reform Bill withdrawn—Lord Palmerston adjusts the Difference between the two Houses—Mr. Gladstone supported by the Radicals—Mr. Senior's Conversations in Paris—A Letter from the Speaker—Mr. Cobden's Faith in the Emperor Napoleon—Conclusion of these Journals page 275
[INDEX.] page 317
A JOURNAL
OF THE
REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1852 TO 1860.
[CHAPTER XI.]
France and Prussia—The Emperor's Speech—Faint Hopes of Peace—Favourable View of the Policy of Russia—Progress of the Negotiations—Russia accepts the Terms of Peace—The Acceptance explained—Popular Feeling in Favour of the War—Lord Stratford and General Williams—Mr. Disraeli's Prospects—Meeting of Parliament—Baron Parke's Life Peerage—The Debate on the Address—Debate on Life Peerages—Report on the Sufferings of the Army—Strained Relations with France—Lord Clarendon goes to the Congress at Paris—Opening of the Conference—Sabbatarianism—Progress of the Negotiations—Kars—Nicolaieff—The Life Peerage Question—Blunders and Weakness of the Government—A Visit to Paris—Count Orloff's View of the War—Lord Cowley on the Negotiations—Princess Lieven on the War—An Evening at the Tuileries—Opening of the Legislative Chamber—Lord Cowley's Desponding Views—The Austrian Proposals—Bitterness in French Society—Necessity of Peace to France—Conversation with M. Thiers—A Stag Hunt at St. Germains—The Emperor yields to the Russians—Birth of the Prince Imperial.
January 1st, 1856.—Intelligence arrived yesterday that Esterhazy had presented the Austrian proposal to Nesselrode on the 28th, who had received it in profound silence. Yesterday morning the 'Morning Post,' in communicating this fact, put forth an article indecently violent and menacing against Prussia; and as it contained a statement of what the Emperor Napoleon had said to Baron Seebach, which was exactly what Persigny had told Clarendon, this alone would prove, if any proof were required, that the article was inserted either by Palmerston or by Persigny. The 'Morning Post' derives its only importance from being the Gazette of Palmerston and of the French Government, and it is not very easy to determine which of the two is guilty of this article. These are the sort of manifestos which make us so odious all over the world.
MISCHIEVOUS RESULTS OF THE WAR.
Hatchford, January 2nd.—The speech which Louis Napoleon addressed to the Imperial Guard the day before yesterday when they marched into Paris in triumph, gives reason for suspecting that the manifesto against Prussia in the 'Morning Post' was French, for there is no small correspondence between the speech and the article. In the article Prussia is openly threatened and told, if she will not join the allies in making war on Russia, the allies will make war upon her; in the speech the Guards are told to hold themselves in readiness and that a great French army will be wanted. Nothing is more within the bounds of probability than that the Emperor may determine, if he is obliged to make war, to make it for a French object, and on some enemy from whom a good spoil may be taken, a war which will gratify French vanity and cupidity, and which will therefore not be unpopular. He may think, and most probably not erroneously, that in the present temper of this country the people would be quite willing to let him do what he pleases with Prussia, Belgium, or any other part of the continent, if he will only concur with us in making fierce war against Russia. But though this I believe to be the feeling of the masses, and that their resentment against Prussia is so strong that they would rejoice at seeing another Jena followed by similar results, the minority who are elevated enough in life to reason and reflect will by no means like to see France beginning to run riot again, and while we have been making such an uproar about the temporary occupation of the Principalities and the crossing of the Pruth by Russia, that we should quietly consent to, nay, become accomplices in the passage of the Rhine and an aggression on Germany by France. The very possibility of this shows the necessity of putting an end to a war which cannot continue without so many and such perilous contingencies. Nothing in fact can exceed the complications in which we can hardly help being plunged, and the various antagonistic interests which will be brought into collision, creating perplexities and difficulties which it would require the genius of a Richelieu to unravel and compose. The earth under our feet may be mined with plots; we know not what any of the Great Powers are really designing; the only certainty for us is that we are going on blindly and obstinately spending our wealth and our blood in a war in which we have no interest, and in keeping Europe in a state of ferment and uncertainty the ultimate consequences of which it is appalling to contemplate. Clarendon showed me a letter from Francis Baring from Paris the other day, which told him that the Emperor wished to make peace, because he knew that France, with all her outward signs of prosperity, was unable to go on with the war without extreme danger, that she is in fact 'using herself up,' has been going on at a rate she cannot afford.
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE.
Hatchford, January 4th.—I was in London yesterday, where I saw George Lewis, who was very low, sees no chance of peace, and everybody thinks it hopeless since the Russian Circular has appeared. It is difficult to understand the motive of the Russians in publishing such a proposal, when they must know it would not and could not be accepted, and were also aware of the terms the Western Powers were going to offer to her. Lewis says our financial prospect is very bad, a declining revenue, rising prices, a large loan wanted which will be got on bad terms, and more money to be lent to Sardinia and Turkey. He thinks, if the Russians propose to negotiate, that Palmerston will never consent; but though he will no doubt resist, if France presses it I have no doubt he will give way and that the majority of the Cabinet will be for doing so. Everything looks as black as possible, and the Emperor Napoleon's speech to the Imperial Guard following Persigny's article in the 'Morning Post' wears a very menacing aspect. It is possible indeed that he may have held this language in order to frighten us into a more pacific disposition, but so far from being alarming or unpalatable to the majority here, they will hail with satisfaction any intimation of his resolution to make war on Prussia; and if Louis Napoleon will only go on fighting against Russia, they will be quite willing that he should take whatever he pleases from any other power which will not join us in our present crusade. I often wonder what the Duke of Wellington would have said and thought if he could have lived to see this day, and the madness of this nation.
London, January 9th.—I came to town on Monday and found when I arrived that there was a fresh glimmering of peace. Austria had sent word she was inclined to believe that Russia intended to accept the terms. I went to Lewis, who told me this was true, but he did not know on what ground their opinion rested more than that ten days had elapsed during which no symptoms of a flat refusal had appeared, and Lewis himself thought there was no doubt they were considering whether they should accept or what reply they should make. Colloredo called on Clarendon the other day, and, after some unimportant talk, asked him if he had ever heard, or had reason to believe, that Russia had made a communication to France to the effect that if France had a mind to take the Rhenish Provinces and make peace with her, she should not oppose such a design. Clarendon replied that he knew nothing of it, but thought it not at all improbable.
Bernstorff had a conversation with Reeve the other day in which he told him that he was much put out at the isolated condition of Prussia, and gave him to understand that he should like the King to join the alliance, but he did not think anything would induce him to do so. It might perhaps be prudent, but it would be enormously base if Prussia were to come au secours des vainqueurs, and, now that Russia is in exceeding distress, to join England and France, to whom she certainly is under no obligations, in crushing her. But then it would only be prudent for the moment and to remove an immediate and impending danger, for in the more comprehensive view of the balance of power and with referance to general policy, it would be far wiser to leave the power of Russia undiminished. Germany has nothing to fear from Russia, for the notion of her being eternally animated with designs of conquest in every direction is a mere chim�ra which the people who propagate it do not themselves believe. The part she has played for many years past has been that of a pacificator, and her only intervention has been to appease quarrels, and resist the progress of democracy and revolution. In 1848 it was the authority of the Emperor Nicholas which prevented a great war between Austria and Prussia which would have made all Germany a scene of havoc and bloodshed. Our Government now evidently expect a proposal from Russia to negotiate, and are living in hopes that it may be rejected in limine by Esterhazy, and that they shall be able to prevail on the Emperor Napoleon not to consent to any overture that may be made to him through any other channel.
January 15th.—I came to town yesterday morning and found on my arrival the Russian answer, which was pretty much what I expected. I suspect our Government will have been disappointed that so much was conceded as to make a peremptory rejection so monstrous as to be hardly safe. However, Esterhazy has been ordered to withdraw on the 18th, unless everything else is conceded. Granville fancies they are not unlikely to do this, but I am persuaded they will not. It remains to be seen what the French will do, for all depends on them. I asked Granville what he thought would be the end of it; he said on the whole he was rather disposed to expect it would lead to peace; he said Austria did not mean to go to war with Russia in any case, he thought she had played her cards with considerable dexterity, and made herself a sort of arbitress, and, what she most desired, had got a decided lead of Prussia, the object of her hatred. I asked him if Prussia was terrified at the menaces contained in the Emperor's speech and other things against her, and he said he thought she was irritated but not frightened, and he inveighed against the folly of such, speeches, and especially such articles as Persigny, if it was he, had put into the 'Morning Post.'
January 16th.—So far as I can as yet discover of public opinion, it is in favour of accepting, or at all events of negotiating on, the Russian proposals. The 'Times' has an ambiguous article on the subject. Nobody will approve of the continuation of the war merely to obtain an Austrian object, which the cession of Bessarabia is, and the article about Bomarsund, which has nothing to do with the avowed object of the war. I have not the least doubt one half of the Cabinet, at least, are in their hearts of this opinion, but I am afraid they will not have the courage to stand forth, avow, and act upon it.
TERMS OF PEACE ACCEPTED BY RUSSIA.
January 17th.—I saw Lewis yesterday and for the first time saw something approaching to a certainty of peace. His information was curious: the 'Morning Post,' in the statement inserted by Persigny, said that the Russians had rejected the conditions about Bessarabia, and about Bomarsund and had accepted the rest. In the counter proposition of Russia there was no mention of Bomarsund, and for this very good reason, that no such proposal was made to them. When the terms of Austria and France were sent here our Government objected to that article which said the allies reserved to themselves to make other conditions, or some such words. They said it was not fair, and that they should at once say what they wanted, and all they wanted, and the additions they proposed were that Bomarsund should not be restored, that Consuls should be admitted to the Black Sea ports, and that 'something' should be done about Georgia and Circassia. This was their answer, and our allies agreed to these additions, but for what reason has not as yet appeared. They sent the terms to St. Petersburg in their original shape and without our articles, so that in fact no condition about Bomarsund was made to them. The Cabinet met yesterday to determine what answer should be sent to Paris, the French having notified that they would make no reply to the counter proposal till they were apprised of our sentiments thereupon. Lewis said he had no doubt that both governments would be willing to enter upon negotiation on these terms, France and Austria being anxious for peace and our Government not averse, for they begin to perceive that there is a rapidly increasing disposition to put an end to the war, and particularly that nobody will desire to continue it merely to obtain an exclusively Austrian object, which the cession of part of Bessarabia would be, especially as Austria has no thought of going to war. The Russian Government have written in a very conciliatory tone to Paris, which is known, though the letter has not yet arrived. The King of Prussia had written a private, but very pressing letter to the Emperor of Russia entreating him to make peace. Though very private, the French Government contrived to get a copy of it, and Cowley sent this copy home. It is said to be a very able letter written in a most confidential style. Such being the state of affairs and all parties apparently being agreed in a disposition to put an end to the war, it seemed to me quite certain that the negotiations would be established, and that they would lead to peace. In the evening I asked Granville if he did not think we should now certainly have peace, and he said 'I think so, but there are still a great many complications,' and he said Cowley and Walewski were on such bad terms that they hardly spoke. The fact is that Cowley is a gentleman and a man of honour and veracity, but he is sensitive and prone to take offence; the other is an adventurer, a needy speculator, without honour, conscience, or truth, and utterly unfit both as to his character and his capacity for such an office as he holds. Then it must be owned that it must be intolerably provoking to Walewski or any man in his situation to see Cowley established in such strange relations with the Emperor, being at least for certain purposes more his Minister for Foreign Affairs than Walewski himself.
12 o'clock.—Payne has just rushed in here, to say that a telegraphic message, dated Vienna, ten o'clock last night, announces that 'Russia accepts unconditionally the proposals of the allies.' The consequence of this astounding intelligence was such a state of confusion and excitement on the Stock Exchange as was hardly ever seen before. The newspapers had one and all gone on predicting that the negotiations would lead to nothing, and that the war would go on, so that innumerable people continued to be 'bears,' and they were all rushing to get out as fast as they could. It remains yet to be seen whether it is really true; if it is, the Russians will be prodigiously provoked when they find that this concession was superfluous, and that the allies would have accepted their terms.
January 18th.—Though the account in the 'Times' was not exactly correct, it proved substantially so. The right message came from Seymour soon after. There was such a scene in the Stock Exchange as was hardly ever witnessed; the funds rose three per cent., making five in the last two days. The Rothschilds, and all the French who were in the secret with Walewski, must have made untold sums. I have been endeavouring to account for what appears the extraordinary conduct of Russia in accepting the Austrian terms purely and simply, and this strikes me to be the solution of it, and if my idea is correct it will account for the exceedingly bad terms which Cowley and Walewski are on. The conditions offered to Russia contained none of the points insisted on by our Government. I believe that the French and Austrians believed, very likely were certain, that if they had been sent Russia would have refused them, and, being bent on peace, they resolved to leave them out, and excuse themselves to England as they best could; they therefore simply presented their proposal as it originally stood. Russia replied with a qualified acceptance, and then Esterhazy was obliged by the compact to say that he could only take yes or no; then, finding them not inclined to give any other answer, that he or somebody else told them the true state of the case, viz., that he had kept back the conditions we had demanded, and that unless they accepted his proposition, it must of necessity fall to the ground, and that nothing would then prevent the English points being brought forward and made absolute conditions of any fresh preliminaries. This was very likely to determine them to accept the proposals as put before them, for although by so doing they accepted the fifth condition, which exposes them to further and not specified demands, the especial points on which we insist can only be brought forward as points for negotiation, and will not form part of those conditions to which by their acceptance they stand completely and irrevocably pledged.
POPULAR FEELING FOR WAR.
London, January 22nd.—I went to Trentham on Friday, and returned yesterday. Granville is very confident of peace, fancying that Russia will make no difficulties, and will agree to our additional demands, which may be so, but seems to me far from certain. The intelligence of peace being at hand, or probable, gives no satisfaction here, and the whole press is violent against it, and thunders away against Russia and Austria, warns the people not to expect peace, and incites them to go on with the war. There seems little occasion for this, for the press has succeeded in inoculating the public with such an eager desire for war that there appears a general regret at the notion of making peace. When I was at Trentham, I asked Mr. Fleming, the gardener, a very intelligent man, what the general feeling was in that part of the world, and he said the general inclination was to go on with the war till we had made Russia, besides other concessions, pay all its expenses. It appears to me impossible the entente cordiale with France can go on long if the war goes on, when the people here are passionate for war, and in France they are equally passionate for peace. If the Emperor goes on with the war he will be very popular here, which does not signify much to him, but give deep offence to his own countrymen, which will be of vital importance to him, and no wonder, for their disgust will be intense at being compelled to carry on a war at a ruinous expense, merely because it is the pleasure of the English to do so. This seems so obvious that I do not believe, after having gone so far, and excited such strong hopes of peace, that he will dare to disappoint the expectations of the country. What the people of England would really like would be to engage France to continue, and to issue a joint declaration of war against Austria and Prussia.
January 23rd.—Telegraphic news yesterday that Austria positively refuses to send our supplementary conditions to St. Petersburg. France backed us up, or at least pretended to do so, for it is quite impossible to know what she really does. Baudin is come over here, supposed to be for the purpose of explaining and apologising for Walewski's not having sent the conditions originally. I do not know what excuse he makes. Lewis thinks as I do, that the real reason was his fear lest they should endanger the acceptance by Russia of the conditions. Our Government believe, or at least pretend to do so, that the Emperor was innocent of this ruse and that Walewski is alone guilty; but I doubt it, for I cannot believe Walewski would dare to do such a thing without his master's knowledge and consent, and should not be surprised if the whole thing was the Emperor's doing.
There is a tremendous clamour got up by the press against Lord Stratford on account of his neglect of General Williams at Kars and leaving his appeals for aid unattended to. Stratford has sent home a defence of himself, and, I hear, a skilful one. I do not think they will remove him, because they say he is now acting bon� fide according to his instructions, and exerting all his influence to smooth any difficulties that may arise at Constantinople in adjusting the terms of peace. But it is likely that the Turks are now very anxious for peace, as they are exceedingly sick of their protectors, by whom their dignity and independence are quite as much compromised as by their enemies, while the process of exhaustion is going on at a constantly increasing ratio.
LORD DERBY AND MR. DISRAELI.
January 26th.—Yesterday morning Disraeli called on me, and after we had discussed some private affairs, he began talking politics. He is very triumphant at his pacific views and expectations having turned out so true, and at the 'Press' newspaper having proved to be right. He said, he had never stood so well with the best men of his party as he did now, that he is to have forty-five men, the cream of the Conservatives, to dine with him on Wednesday next. He then talked of Derby and the blunders he had made in spite of all the advice he had given and the remonstrances he had made to him, that he had written to him and told him what he knew from undoubted authority must and would happen about peace, and implored him not to commit himself to the continuance of the war, but that Derby with all his great talents had no discretion, and suffered himself to be led and influenced by some of the weakest and least capable men of his party. So instead of listening to what Disraeli said to him, he writes a long, reasoned reply to his arguments in the same way he would have replied to a speech in the House of Lords, and when he went to Scotland he had the folly to go to some meeting got up for the purpose, and then to make a violent war speech. I asked him how Derby and Stanley got on together, and he said that they were so much attached to each other, and Stanley had so profound a filial veneration for his father, that personal feelings silenced all political differences, and nothing would induce Stanley to take any public part adverse to his father's policy and opinions. It was evident that there is little political cordiality between Derby and Disraeli, and a considerable split in the party. If Disraeli is to be believed, the best of the Conservatives are disposed to go with him rather than with Derby, but I own I much doubt this. However, it will soon be seen what the state of that party is.
No further advance has been made towards the arrangements, but it is clear peace will be made. George Grey told me so yesterday, and intimated as much as that small difficulties must and would be got over. France, Austria, and Russia are resolved on peace, and England cannot alone make herself an obstacle. I suppose it will end in some compromise upon the points remaining in dispute.
Macaulay has retired from Parliament, where he had done nothing since his last election; he hardly ever attended and never spoke, or certainly not more than once. It is to be hoped his life will be spared to bring down his history to the end of Queen Anne's reign, which is all that can possibly be expected.
January 31st.—Parliament meets to-day. Who would have thought a few weeks ago that the Queen's Speech would announce the preliminaries of peace? Who would ever have thought that tidings of peace would produce a general sentiment of disappointment and dissatisfaction in this nation? There are, however, sundry symptoms of an approaching change in the public mind. The press is much perplexed; the newspapers do not know what to say. They confidently predicted that there would be no peace, and urged the people to go on clamouring for war as long as they could; but since they have seen that their noise is ineffectual, and that peace is inevitable, they have nearly left off inveighing against it, because doing so without any result only exhibits their own impotence, which is just what they most wish to avoid. They therefore now confine themselves to a sort of undergrowl, muttering abuse against Russia and Austria, calling out for more stringent terms, and still indulging in a desperate hope that some unexpected difficulty may occur to break off the negotiations and plunge us into war again. The Opposition are as much perplexed as the press, and do not know what course to take, or what is the most vulnerable part of the Government, and they are not agreed among themselves.
So in the meantime they seem disposed to vent themselves in a fierce attack on Baron Parke's Life Peerage. This peerage has excited great wrath even in many who are friendly to the Government, and probably in all who are unfriendly. Amongst those who most vehemently resent it are Lord Campbell, Lord Lyndhurst, and, as I am told, Brougham. There is much to be said about it either way, and it will probably give rise to some good debates and not uninteresting.
As one of many other proofs of the difficulty of getting at truth, and therefore of having history correctly written, I must record a fact not very important in itself. Lewis distinctly told me that it was France (i.e. Walewski) who kept back our conditions when the Austrian propositions were returned to Vienna; now Granville tells me it was not France, but Austria, who is responsible for their not having been sent to St. Petersburg, and that Walewski did send them to Vienna. The truth probably is that he gave notice to Buol that we wanted these things, but did not incorporate them with the propositions, and that Buol, though apprised of them, did not choose to insert what France had not chosen to insert herself. It is quite impossible to believe that they can make any serious difficulty; it is time to make peace with Russia when our relations with America are assuming a very unpleasant aspect.
MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
February 3rd.—Parliament opened very quietly, and there was no disposition evinced to find fault with the Government, or to throw obstacles in the way of making peace. A great change has certainly come over the country within the last fortnight or three weeks, not that people are not still sorry to see the end of the war, and rather inclined to view the peace with suspicion as well as dislike, but they have no grounds for complaint, they see that it is inevitable, and they are disposed to acquiesce.
Derby came down full of opposition but rather puzzled how to vent it, so he criticised the Speech, which was a very poor and bald composition, made a great stir about Kars, and announced a fierce attack on Baron Parke's Life Peerage.
In the House of Commons everything was very piano, and Disraeli quite moderate. The Government are much puzzled about this unlucky Life Peerage. The thing is done, and now they find themselves condemned by a large majority which includes all the Law Peers. If any vote can be taken on it in the House of Lords, they will be beaten.
The Conferences will begin in about three weeks, and probably be very soon over, for it is the object of all parties to put an end to the enormous expense which, every day that the war lasts, is increased, and no doubt is entertained by the well-informed that Russia is in earnest, and will go through with it firmly and sincerely. The most unpleasant incident is the difference with America, which has a bad aspect, but when they learn that we are going to make peace with Russia we flatter ourselves the Americans will become reasonable.[1] If a war should ensue it would be still more insane than the Russian war, for we should be fighting absolutely for no object whatever, and merely from the collision of the proud and angry feelings of the two nations. Neither would gain anything if the other were to give way and concede all that is in dispute as to the Central American question.
[1] [Differences had arisen between the British and the American Governments in consequence of the enlistment of American citizens in the British army during the war, and also with reference to the British possessions in Central America.]
February 7th.—Nothing can be more extraordinary than the lull here, after so much sound and fury, while the negotiations and question of peace or war are pending. There is evidently a complete acquiescence in the coming peace, though if the terms are not as stringent as people expect, there will be a great deal of grumbling and abuse of the Government.
The case with America looks bad, but nobody can seriously believe that war between the two countries can possibly arise out of such questions as those now pending. It will probably end in the return of Crampton, and the return of Buchanan, suspension of diplomatic relations for a time, then fresh negotiations and a reconciliation, but no war.
THE LIFE PEERAGE QUESTION.
February 9th.—The debate in the House of Lords on the Wensleydale Peerage was interesting but inconclusive. Lyndhurst made, as usual, a wonderful speech for his age. He contrived with much dexterity to avoid the question of legality, which he evidently thought he could not disprove; Campbell and St. Leonards boldly pronounced it illegal; Brougham admitted the legality; all the lawyers but the Chancellor are dead against the Life Peerage. Out of the House, Lushington is clear for it; Pemberton Leigh against; both of them have been offered and have refused peerages. The result appears to be that the patent is not illegal, but that there was no sufficient cause, and therefore that it was a great folly to deviate from the usual course in Parke's case. It is awkward, and both the Opposition and the Government seem very much puzzled what to do. The best course on the whole seems to be (and it probably will so end) to confer on the Baron an hereditary peerage, and let the question of life peers stand over for the present, to be better considered and discussed hereafter when circumstances may require such a measure.
Palmerston made a very good speech last night on the American questions, judicious and becoming, and it was very well received. According to present appearances the Government is in no danger of being turned out, and if they make a peace which satisfies, and bring in and pass some good measures, they may actually become strong.
February 15th.—While the world is waiting with tolerable patience for the opening of the negotiations, it has got two subjects to occupy and interest it, and to give rise to plenty of discussion and dispute. The first is the Life Peerage question, which is become very embarrassing to its opponents and its advocates. There is a great majority of the lawyers against it, but more on the score of its being improper and inexpedient, perhaps unconstitutional, than that it is absolutely illegal. The highest authority in favour of it seems to be Dr. Lushington, who refused to be made a peer when a peerage was pressed upon him. The Government are determined to fight it out, and on no account to give way. Nobody knows with whom the project originated, but there is a very general idea that it was with the Prince. General Grey, however, told his brother, the Earl, that the Prince had nothing to do with it, and that His Royal Highness knew nothing of the matter till after it had been settled. I cannot see how it can be illegal, and neither the danger nor the inexpediency of making Life Peers is quite apparent to me; but I think it has been a blunder, and that so great a novelty ought not to have been suddenly sprung upon the world without any attempt to ascertain how it would be regarded, and Derby's argument it is very difficult to meet. He says that when a certain prerogative has not been exercised for 400 years, such long disuse of it, if it does not amount to an abrogation of it, at all events throws such a doubt upon it as to make the exercise of it now exceedingly questionable, and it appears by the precedents that in every case of a Life Peerage it was done consensu procerum, or consensu procerum et communitatis, that is, by consent of the Lords, or by Act of Parliament. The whole question is so obscure and uncertain, that it is impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion drawn from precedents and usage. In spite of the resolution of the Government, I doubt whether they will not be compelled to give way in some manner, for the Opposition appear to be equally resolved not to let Baron Parke take his seat.
The other subject is Sir John McNeill's report,[1] which has already elicited violent articles in the papers, and will occasion hot debates in the House of Commons, perhaps in both Houses. The report furnishes a strong prim� facie case against Airey and Gordon, Q.M. and A.Q.M. Generals, and par ricochet against Hardinge himself, also against Lucan and Cardigan. The accused parties vehemently complain, and insist upon being allowed to vindicate themselves. Probably in the course of the discussions a good deal of the truth, but not all, will come out. It may be doubted whether there is any part of our military administration, as well as of our military operations during this war, on which it is possible to reveal and explain everything without showing up the French, and this has been the reason why all investigations and explanations have had such imperfect and unsatisfactory results. If the charges of McNeill are true, it seems to me that the man most to blame was Raglan, who was supreme, omnipotent, and responsible, and who ought not to have allowed the evils, which were notorious, to go on accumulating, without applying those effectual remedies which, according to the report, were abundantly at his disposal; but of course everybody will shrink from casting the blame posthumously upon him. The 'Times' has now found that the losses and sufferings of the army were erroneously and wrongfully attributed to the Government at home. McNeill has brought back with him notes of conversations with Raglan, in which Raglan told him that most if not all of the things he had been so bitterly reproached for were all owing to the opposition and contradiction he met with from the French, Canrobert especially.
[1] [Sir John McNeill had been sent to the Crimea and Constantinople to investigate the causes of the sufferings of the troops in the winter 1854-55.]
Cowley, who called on me the day before yesterday, said he should be very glad to have peace concluded, in order that our intimate connexion and dependence on each other might be at an end, for the difficulties arising therefrom, and the impossibility of placing any reliance on the French Ministers, were a perpetual source of annoyance. He thinks the Emperor honest and true, but that he is surrounded by a parcel of men every one of whom is dishonest and false. The Emperor knows this, and knows what is thought of his ministers, but he says 'What am I to do? and where can I find better men who will enter my service?'
THE CONFERENCE IN PARIS.
Clarendon came here to-day to take leave of me on going to the Conference in Paris. He talks despondingly, but less about making peace than about making one that will be acceptable here. He augurs well from the choice of Russian Plenipotentiaries who are both personally agreeable to him, for he knows Orloff very intimately. When he took leave of Brunnow three years ago he said to him, 'If ever you see a good chance of peace, let me know,' and now Brunnow has sent him a message reminding him of what he had said, and telling him he now saw it. It was Clarendon who fixed on Paris for the Conference, everybody else being against it, especially the Emperor Napoleon and Palmerston, but Clarendon thought the advantage of having personal communication with the Emperor himself outweighed every other consideration, and he is right. Louis Napoleon will be the arbiter, and the struggle will be between England and Russia to get possession of him. Brunnow arrived at Paris to-day, the first arrival of the Plenipotentiaries, and he was received with great acclamations and manifestations of joy. Clarendon is dissatisfied at Brunnow's having got there first as if to steal a march on him, but this is unreasonable, as no particular day was fixed for their coming at once, and Clarendon might have been the first if he had chosen it, and Cavour is to be there to-day or to-morrow.
February 21st.—A week has passed since most of the Plenipotentiaries arrived at Paris, and we hear nothing of what has been going on amongst them; at least I hear nothing except that Clarendon writes word he is quite satisfied with the Emperor—the Hollands, that all sorts of intrigues are rife, Brunnow, Morny, and Madame de Lieven closeted together for hours, and Madame de Lieven writes to me in melancholy mood, saying she anticipates many difficulties, and complaining of the exigeances which she hears of as probable, and how ungenerous as well as impolitic it is to make no allowance for the difficulty of the Emperor's position vis � vis of his own people, and to bear so hard upon him. From all this I infer that the Russians have been informed that the Emperor Napoleon has engaged to back us up in our exigeances, the principal of which is probably the dismantling of Nicolaieff; this may be inferred from what has appeared in the French press. The 'Journal des D�bats' published an article saying we had no right to demand this, to which the 'Si�cle' replied asserting we had a right, and the article in the 'Si�cle' was copied into the 'Moniteur,' which was tantamount to a recognition and approval of it. There are rumours afloat here that matters are not going on satisfactorily at Paris, and, taking all these things together, it looks as if the horizon was a little overcast, but as Orloff was only to arrive at Paris last night nothing essential can as yet have passed. Meanwhile this country remains in the same passive and expectant state, so far behaving very well that there is not the least stir or any attempt to make peace more difficult, not a word said in Parliament, no meetings or petitions, the 'Times' nearly silent, and only an undergrowl from time to time from the Radical or malignant journals. But all who have had any opportunity of testing the state of public feeling agree that the peace, be it what it may, will be taken with regret, and that if Clarendon were to return having broken off the negotiations, and to announce that the war would go on, he would be hailed with the greatest enthusiasm, and the ardour for war would break out with redoubled force.
While this lull has been going on upon the great question, the world has been less passionately moved and interested by the affair of the Wensleydale Peerage, and nobody has talked of anything else for the last ten days but this and the Crimean Report. The general feeling amongst the lawyers and in society is against the Life Peerage, but the Government are very reluctant to give way and to own themselves beaten upon it. To-night is the great, and, it may be hoped, final struggle in the House of Lords upon it, when nobody doubts that the Government will be beaten.
Last night the Evangelical and Sabbatarian interest had a great victory in the House of Commons, routing those who endeavoured to effect the opening of the National Gallery and British Museum on Sunday. The only man of importance who sustained this unequal and imprudent contest was Lord Stanley. At this moment cant and Puritanism are in the ascendant, and so far from effecting any anti-sabbatarian reform, it will be very well if we escape some of the more stringent measures against Sunday occupations and amusements with which Exeter Hall and the prevailing spirit threaten us.
LORD CLARENDON IN PARIS.
February 24th.—A letter from Lady Clarendon, who says 'the report about things going ill is false, and as yet things have hardly begun. The Emperor in feelings and opinions is everything that Clarendon could desire.' Madame de Lieven received Clarendon � bras ouverts, but said very little to him. This morning I called on George Lewis, and had a long talk about the prospects of peace. He said Palmerston, according to his ancient custom, was doing all he could to extort as much as possible from Russia, writing to Clarendon in this strain constantly and urging him to insist on more and more concessions; but Lewis thinks notwithstanding this that Palmerston has quite made up his mind for peace, and that he makes demands very often with the expectation of being refused, and the intention of not insisting on them if he finds a very determined resistance. One point of difference is Kars; the Russians not unfairly wish to have some equivalent for surrendering it, and Palmerston insists that they are not entitled to any. In the preliminaries it was settled that we were to restore all our conquests, and they were in return to give up part of Bessarabia. At that time Kars was not taken, and now they say the relative positions of the parties are altered, and 'if we are to restore Kars, that ought to be set against the restoration of Kinburn, the part of the Crimea you occupy, &c., and having got an equivalent in Kars, you ought to relax your demand for Bessarabia.' To this Palmerston replies that the Russians are to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish dominions, of which Kars is a part, and therefore their restoration of it is a matter of course for which no equivalent is necessary. This argument is not logical, and no arbitrator would admit it. It is a good point to wrangle upon, and if the Russians knock under it will be because they are resolved to submit to any terms rather than not have peace.
It is much the same thing about Nicolaieff, as to which the Emperor appears at present disposed to back us up. Lewis disapproves of our exigeances and Palmerston's tone. He thinks on both points the Russians have good cases, and that Palmerston and Clarendon are only fighting for them in order to have a more plausible and showy peace to set before the country. He says we never thought of demanding the destruction of the docks of Nicolaieff at first, and that our demanding it now is a mere afterthought, and in pursuance of the plan of starting as many demands as we can to take the chance of what we can get. Lewis disapproves of this course, and urged me to encourage Clarendon not to lend himself to exigencies unjust in themselves, but to do what he really thinks right and necessary without fear of the consequences.
DEBATE ON LIFE PEERAGES.
When we had done talking of this matter he said he wanted to speak to me about the Peerage question, which had assumed a shape which he thought menaced great embarrassment, if not danger. The Government, he said, would not give way, and he was himself opposed to their doing so; but what was to be done? I said I did not see what the Government could do, nor why they should not give way when they had resolved to fight and had been fairly beaten; but he thought they should stultify themselves by acknowledging they had been wrong, and that such a course would oblige the Chancellor to resign. I controverted these propositions and said they would stultify themselves much more, if from motives of vanity and pride they chose to let the House of Lords remain without that assistance to obtain which was the pretext for Parke's creation. On the whole, Lewis seemed to think the least objectionable course would be to pass a bill enabling the Crown to make a certain number of Life Peers, but he overlooked the fact that this would be as much a confession of error, and an acknowledgement that the Queen had no such prerogative, as to make Lord Wensleydale an hereditary Peer. My advice was to make him an hereditary Viscount. I was obliged to go away and had not time to talk it out. In the afternoon, I spoke to Campbell and Lyndhurst about it, and asked what they proposed, and how the difficulty was to be got over. They naturally want the Government to knock under and give up the hereditary peerage; they both scouted the idea of Parke coming down to the House of Lords and insisting on being admitted and making a scene. Lyndhurst to-night is to give notice of motion for a Committee to consider the Appellate Jurisdiction.
February 27th.—The debate in the Lords on Monday night affords a prospect of an amicable termination of the Peerage case, but the Government still have a lingering hope that by some management and contrivance they may avoid the necessity of submitting to their defeat and acting accordingly. There is to be a Committee on the Appellate Jurisdiction, and they think they may obtain some report which may enable them to get out of their scrape, but the only way I can make out by which they think of doing this is to lay the foundation of a bill to enable the Crown to make a limited number of Life Peers. This would, however, be a more formal acknowledgement of error, and that the Queen does not possess the prerogative, than any other course. I expect they will at last be driven to adopt the course I recommended, that of making Parke a Viscount, hereditary of course.
Last night, Disraeli made a bitter attack on the Government, to which Labouchere replied with a spirit for which nobody gave him credit. The Opposition displayed great warmth, and a disposition to show serious fight on any occasion they could find. Certainly the Government cuts a very poor figure, and it is difficult not to think that as soon as the all absorbing question of peace or war is decided, they will be much put to it to defend themselves, unless they conduct affairs much better for the future than they have done up to the present time. Hitherto they have presented a series of blunders, failures, and exposures. First of all the Peerage question; then, much worse, in the House of Commons, Lowe's Bill on Shipping Dues, which Palmerston was obliged to withdraw last night, not at all creditably, and the failure of which was in a great measure attributable to Lowe's very injudicious speech, which, as he is the organ of the Board of Trade in the House of Commons, was in itself a great evil and misfortune. George Grey's Bill on County Police meets with such opposition that though it is a very good measure he will probably not be able to carry it. But still worse than these are the case of the Crimean Report with all its incidents, one blunder after another, and the wretched exhibition of Monsell in moving the Ordnance Estimates, amounting to a complete break-down. All these things, one after another, place the Government in a very weak and contemptible position, and show that in spite of Palmerston's having recovered a good deal of his personal popularity in the House of Commons, his Government has no strength, and his being able to go on at all is only owing to the peculiar circumstances in which the country is placed, and the extreme difficulty of any other Government being formed which would be palateable to the country, more efficient, and therefore stronger and more durable than the present.
To-morrow I purpose going to Paris to see and hear what is going on at this interesting moment.
A VISIT TO PARIS.
Paris, March 1st, 1856.—I left London on Thursday with M. de Flahault and my brother. We slept at Boulogne, and after a prosperous journey in all its stages, found myself in my old quarters at the Embassy yesterday evening at seven o'clock. I had hardly arrived before a card came from Morny, who gave a great evening party with two petites pi�ces and music. I went there with Lady Cowley. The crowd was so great that I saw nothing whatever of the spectacle, but was pretty well amused, for I met some old acquaintance, made some new ones, and was presented to some of the celebrities of the day. I was much struck with the ugliness of the women, and the extreme recherche of their costumes. Nature has done nothing for them, their modistes all that is possible. The old friends I met were La Marre and Bourqueney, whom I have not seen since he was Secretary of Embassy to Guizot, when we had so much to do together about the affairs of the East. I made acquaintance with Fleury, the Empress's Grand �cuyer, renewed it with Bacciochi, and I was presented to Cavour and the Grand Vizier, as little like the beau id�al of a Grand Vizier as can well be imagined, but by all accounts a Turk comme il y en a peu. He is a very little, dark, spare, mild-looking man, speaks French perfectly, and exceedingly clever, well-informed, enlightened, and honourable. He was Grand Vizier once before, and owes his present elevation to his great personal merit. He accepted the post with reluctance, feeling sure Stratford would torment him to death and get him turned out again, but it seems as if his high qualities, and the general respect with which he is regarded, would enable him to maintain himself against all intrigues, and even against Stratford's predominance. I met Clarendon, but had hardly any opportunity of talking to him, as he was every moment interrupted by people come up to do civilities to him. He had just time to tell me that matters are going on very slowly, and that he sees no reason why he should not be kept here for the next six months. Orloff had met him � bras ouverts and renewed their old Petersburg friendship. Brunnow he is disgusted with, and says he has made a bad impression here. He told me he had said to Brunnow: 'You were in England long enough to know what a special pleader is; well, if all other trades should fail you, take to that.'
Orloff spoke very frankly about the war, and the conduct of the late Emperor, which he had always regarded as insane in sending Menschikoff to Constantinople. If he had sent him, Orloff, instead, he would answer for it, there would have been no war. Then marching into the Principalities, and finally not accepting the modifications of the Vienna Note. After this, Orloff said, he had declined to have anything more to do with those affairs, and had retired in disgust. He thought Nicholas's mind had undergone a change after he had reached sixty years of age.
Clarendon said he was delighted with the Emperor and liked him better and better every time he saw him. I met Walewski, who said he wanted to talk to me, when he expressed great anxiety to know the state of opinion in England, and talked of the chances of peace, and particularly wished to know if I thought Palmerston really and sincerely desired peace. I told him the exact truth as to opinion in England, and said I believed Palmerston was now sincere in wishing to make peace, but that it was in his nature to be exigeant, and he thought it necessary to be so now because it was of great moment to him to present to the country a peace with as many concessions as possible from Russia. I said it depended on France after all, and then I found that while they thought Bomarsund ought to be an indispensable condition, Nicolaieff ought not; and so we parted, and I promised to dine with him on Monday.
LORD COWLEY ON THE NEGOTIATIONS.
This morning after breakfast I had a long conversation with Cowley. He did not speak despondingly of the peace, but he dilated on the difficulty of coming to satisfactory terms, and such as Clarendon could consent to, which he attributes principally to the French, who, having gained all the glory they want for the satisfaction of their national vanity, have no longer any desire to go on with the war, and we are placed by them in a fix. 'If,' he said, 'our army was in Asia Minor he should not care, because then we might say to them, do just what you please, make peace if it suits you, we shall not resent it or have any quarrel with you, but we will carry on the war on our own account. As it is, if we insist on renewing the war, the French cannot, and would not abandon us, and leave us to be attacked by superior Russian armies; they would therefore very reluctantly go on with the war, but it would be well known that we were dragging them on with us, and the exasperation against us would be great and general, and, say what we might, a quarrel between France and England would infallibly ensue.' He said all the objections he had entertained against Paris being the place of conference had been more than realised, and that the thing to have done would have been to have it in some dull German town, where there would have been no amusements and occupations, and no intrigues, and where they would have applied themselves vigorously to their work in order to get it done as quickly as possible. I have not, however, as yet made out what intrigues there are, but there is of course a vast deal of comm�rage going on.
The conferences take place every other day, beginning at one, and they generally last about four hours. Walewski presides, and, they say, does it pretty well; M. Benedetti, the Chef de D�partement in the Foreign Office, is the Protocollist and R�dacteur; the manner of it is conversational, but they occasionally make speeches, Walewski told me. I asked Clarendon in the evening how they were going on, and he said he thought they were making a little progress, but that the French did all they could to render it impossible.
I called on Madame de Lieven in the morning, who did not seem to know much beyond what lies on the surface. She is craving for news and eager for peace. Orloff has kept aloof from her, to her great mortification, and rather to the malicious satisfaction of her enemies, but he went to see her at last the day before yesterday, and, I suppose, accounted for the delay, for she spoke of him as if they were friends, though of course she would take care not to say a word of complaint or to have it supposed, if she could help it, that he had neglected her. She complained that in our exigeance we did not make allowance enough for the difficulties of the Emperor of Russia's position, for, however necessary peace might be to Russia, there is a very great party there who from pride and obstinacy would carry on the war at all risks and hazards. She talked much of the enormous faults that had been committed throughout the whole of the Eastern Question, and of the severe retribution the pride of the late Emperor had drawn down on his country, and remarked, which is quite true, that this would be the first time in the history of Russia in which she had made a disadvantageous peace; for even in her wars against Napoleon, when she had suffered defeat after defeat, she had still concluded peace with a gain of territory. I saw the Hollands, Guizot at Madame de Lieven's door, called on Lady Clarendon, and then went to ride with Lady Cowley in the Bois, and so the evening and the morning were the first day. The weather is cold and gloomy, and I don't think I shall stay here long.
March 3rd.—Went about visiting yesterday, and at night to the Tuileries, an evening party and play, two small pieces; the Emperor was very civil to me as usual, came up to me and shook hands; he talked to Orloff and to Clarendon, then the Grande Ma�tresse told him the Empress was ready, when he went out and came back with her on his arm, Mathilde, Princess Murat, and Plon Plon following. As the Emperor passed before me, he stopped and presented me to the Empress. I was introduced to Orloff, and in the course of the evening had a long talk with Brunnow, who said they had made all the advances and concessions they could, and it was for us to move towards peace, and not to advance one step and then retreat two.
This morning I went to see the opening of the legislative bodies, and hear the Emperor's Speech. It was a gay and pretty sight, so full of splendour and various colours, but rather theatrical. He read his speech very well and the substance of it gave satisfaction; it was not easy to compose it, but he did it exceedingly well, and steered clear of the ticklish points with great adroitness and tact. It sounded odd to English ears to hear a Royal Speech applauded at the end of each paragraph, and the shouts of 'Vive l'Empereur' from the Senators and Deputies.
After Cowley came home he began talking over the state of affairs, and the peace we are going to make, about which his grief and disappointment are overflowing. He says the Emperor had the best intentions, but has been beset with men who were determined on peace for their own ends, and whom he could not resist. What he blames him for is not having at once said that he would go so far with us and no further, and not have allowed us to delude ourselves with expectations of support from him that were not to be realised. He says it is now all over, the matter decided, it will proceed rapidly, and all be finished by Easter.
A DINNER AT COUNT WALEWSKI'S.
At night.—I have been dining with Walewski, a very handsome dinner to the Sardinians, and a party afterwards. Knowing none of the people, it was a bore; I found nobody to converse with but Cavour and Flahault; talked over the state of affairs with the latter and our discontents. He said the Emperor could not refuse, and when Clarendon came over and found His Majesty's conversation so satisfactory, he was misled by it and fancied he should obtain his support to all our demands; he owned that it would have been better if the Emperor had been more explicit. When I got home I found Cowley, who was engaged in drawing up a statement of the comparative state of Russia, as to her aggressive power against Turkey before the war and now, after peace has been made. He is doing this for Clarendon and to assist him in making his case good in Parliament when the peace is attacked, as he says it is quite certain it will be. I asked him what were the points on which the Russians made the most difficulty. He said on all except Bomarsund. He is quite convinced that Walewski has played false, and that he has made known to Orloff exactly what he must give up, and when he may be stout.
March 5th.—Little to record; Cowley continues talking to me of the state of affairs as it is and as it might have been, and is excessively dejected and disgusted at the idea of the peace he is about to sign; he thinks it neither creditable nor likely to be durable, but we start from such different points of view that it is impossible for us to agree. He harps upon the evil done by having the Conference here, and certainly the advantage Clarendon promised himself from having it here has proved null, for the Emperor does not send for him, having no mind to talk to him, and he will not ask an audience of the Emperor, though Cowley urges him very much to do it. He acknowledges, however, that it would be now too late, and that nothing more can be done; he thinks Clarendon will bring himself with great reluctance to sign such a Treaty; but he must swallow the pill, however bitter. The bitterness proceeds from having had such vast pretensions and having encouraged, if not held, such lofty language.
It is no wonder that this Government want to get their army home when typhus is raging there, and they have by their own account 22,000 men in hospital, while ours is quite healthy. We took all sorts of precautions, and strongly advised the French to do the same, and to adopt a sanitary plan we imparted to them; they held it cheap, did nothing, and here are the consequences. It is said that while those who have been in the Crimea and have distinguished themselves are eager for peace, those who have not yet earned medals are averse to peace, and that there will be a good deal of jealousy between the regiments.
March 6th.—We talked yesterday morning about the origin of the Austrian proposals, and Cowley said he had never been able exactly to make out whether the scheme had originated at Vienna or here, but he was inclined to believe that the first hint was given by Austria, and that Walewski then put the thing on paper, which was sent to Vienna and returned thence in the shape of a proposal. Bourqueney first brought it from Vienna, Buol having obtained his Emperor's consent to it. Cowley told me Buol had been all along willing to join us in the war, but the Emperor never would consent to it. Cowley's notions are that we never ought to have listened to any intervention, nor to any proposals for peace but from Russia herself, that we should have made her sue for peace. He would have had our demands from the first stated distinctly, and have allowed of nothing but acceptance or refusal; he would never have agreed to the article for the cession of Bessarabia, nor have asked for territory at all. If it could have been managed he would have preferred giving the Principalities to Austria, who should for them give up Lombardy to Sardinia. Not a bad idea. By the by, it is much noticed that in the Emperor's Speech he calls the King of Sardinia the King of Piedmont, probably without any particular meaning or intention, but they say he never does anything without a meaning. I rode to the new racecourse yesterday, near the Bois de Boulogne, and went to the Opera last night to see a beautiful new ballet, 'Le Corsaire.' Went to Passy to see the Delesserts, who were out.
BITTERNESS IN FRENCH SOCIETY.
In this head quarter of gossip every trifle makes a noise, a little scene in society excites interest and shows the continued violence of party feeling. A party dined at Lord Holland's and more came in the evening, mostly, as it happened, Orleanists, for the Hollands live with all parties indiscriminately. There were Mesdames de R�musat, d'Haussonville, and several others of that colour, when the door opened and MM. de Flahault and Morny were announced, on which the women all jumped up like a covey of partridges and walked out of the room, without taking any notice of the men. It is said that the Orleanist party entertain a peculiar rancour against M. de Flahault for having seen behind a door or a curtain the arrest of General Changarnier on the 2nd of December, which he afterwards had the folly to avow.
At night.—Just before dinner came an invitation to go to the Tuileries to-night, which with much reluctance I was forced to do. Two petites pi�ces as on Sunday. I did not attempt to get into the gallery, and sat in the next room, first with Brunnow, then with the Grand Vizier, who is become a great friend of mine. The Emperor did nothing but take off one Plenipotentiary after another: first Clarendon, next Buol, then Orloff, and lastly Walewski, and probably more was done there than at the Conference in the morning. Brunnow and Walewski both told me the affair was progressing, and Cowley seemed very low coming home. His dejection is extreme, and he said this morning that he could not recover from his extreme disappointment at the conduct of the Emperor, that he had always had a bad opinion of Walewski, and no reliance on him or any of the ministers, but he would have staked his life on the Emperor's remaining true to us, that he had always assured our Government that they might depend implicitly on him, and it was a bitter mortification to him to have been deceived himself and to deceive them. I asked him how Clarendon felt all this, and he said Clarendon had never spoken to him about it, and preserved a calmness which astonished him. 'What,' I asked, 'did the Cabinet at home say?' He said, 'They seemed to place entire confidence in Clarendon, and to leave all power and responsibility to him.'
March 8th.—Called on M. de Greffuhle yesterday, whom I had not seen for years. He is eighty, enormously rich, full of activity and intelligence, Orleanist by social habits, but well affected towards this Government and not hostile to the Emperor, though despising his Government. He said that he was compelled to make peace, and that it would cost him his Crown if he did not; that something would happen and then he would be upset, so great would be the consequences of his running counter to the universal desire for peace here; that the finances are in a very difficult state and there must be another loan, but it would not be contracted like the last, which was a piece of absurd charlatanerie.
I went in the afternoon to see the Imperial stables, a wonderful establishment; and then the stallions, near Passy. In the evening to Madame Baudon's, where I was presented to General Cavaignac, but had no conversation with him. He is a tall, gentlemanlike man with a very military air. I was surprised to see him there in the midst of the Legitimists, he, a republican, but it seems he was once near marrying Madame Baudon, who was sous-gouvernante des Enfants de France when Madame de Gontaut was Gouvernante.
March 9th.—Went about visiting as usual. Called on Achille Fould, who introduced me to Magne, Minister of Finance, said to be a great rogue. Everything here is intrigue and jobbery, and I am told there is a sort of gang, of which Morny is the chief, who all combine for their own purpose and advantage: Morny, Tould, Magne, and Rouher, Minister of Commerce. They now want to get out Billault, Minister of the Interior, whom they cannot entirely manage, and that ministry is necessary to them, on account of the railroads, which are under his management. Fould was full of civilities and offers of services, and he told me the Emperor has a mind to talk to me; whether anything will come of it I know not. I went thence to Madame de Galliera's, where I met Thiers and made a rendez-vous with him for to-day; then to Madame de Lieven who had had Orloff with her; lastly to Madame de Girardin and renewed our old acquaintance, dined with Delmar, and came home to a great party here.
CONVERSATION WITH M. THIERS.
March 10th.—I called on Thiers yesterday, and had a long talk with him; he declared he was happier unemployed and quite free than he had ever been; he had been all for the war, and was now as much for peace—like every other Frenchman he considered it a necessity; anxious as ever for the English alliance, and ridiculed the idea that we had not accomplished everything that our honour and glory required; bitter against this Government, and maintained that the Emperor might very safely relax the severity of it without giving up anything; indignant with the peculation and corruption that prevailed, and the abominable acts of injustice committed, one of which he mentioned towards his own family. Very pleasant as usual.
The news of the day was the dangerous illness of King Jerome, whose life hangs on a thread. This morning I went to St. Germains to see a stag hunt in the forest—a curious sight, with the old-fashioned meute; the officers, and those privileged to wear the uniform, in embroidered coats, jackboots, and cocked hats; piqueurs on horseback and foot with vast horns wound round their bodies; the costume and the sport exactly as in the time of Louis XIV., rather tiresome after a time. The old chateau is a melancholy d�labr� building, sad as the finishing career of its last Royal inhabitant. These recollections come thick upon one—Anne of Austria and the Fronde, Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Valli�re—for here their lives began. When the Queen was here she insisted on being taken up to see Mademoiselle de la Valli�re's apartment, to mark which some slight ornaments remain. Here too James II. held his dismal Court and came to his unhappy and bigoted end. After it ceased to be a palace, it became successively a prison, a school, and a barrack, and now the Emperor has a fancy to restore it. I went at night to a great concert at Walewski's, where I fell in with Clarendon, and found he was quite prepared to make peace even on such terms as he can get, in which I encouraged him, and to my surprise he said he did not think it would be a bad peace, though it was not so good as we might have got if the generals had done all they might, or if we had had another campaign. He asked me how I thought people would look on it in England, and I told him from all I heard I thought now the wish was for peace, and that the peace would be well enough taken. This he now thinks himself, and he said peace would certainly be concluded before the end of the month.
March 15th.—From Cowley's account the Conferences appear to be drawing to an end, as a committee has been formed to draw up the Treaty. It consists of Cowley, Bourqueney, Brunnow, Cavour, Buol, and the Grand Vizier. Cowley is still bemoaning the insufficiency of the terms, and while he admits the necessity of peace here, maintains that if the Emperor would only have joined us in insisting upon the terms we wished to impose, it is certain the Russians would have consented to everything, for he says they now know from unquestionable information that the Russians expected much harder terms. The Emperor was, however, so beset by his entourage, and so afraid of running the slightest risk of the Russians breaking off the negotiations, that he would not insist on anything which he was not certain the Russians would agree to, and Cowley says he thinks Clarendon was not so firm as he might have been, and if he had pressed the Emperor more strongly, that the latter would have yielded and told Orloff that, though anxious to make peace, he was still more anxious to continue on good terms with us, and that if the Russian Government wanted peace, they would only have it on such and such terms. All this may be true, and I am myself inclined to think the Russians would have agreed to our terms, if those terms had been heartily backed up by the Emperor; but except to give something more of a triumph to the English public, I am not of opinion that the difference between what we required and what we shall get is worth much. When the d�nouement is before the world, it will appear how insane it was to plunge into such a war, and that the confusion and unsettled state of affairs which will be the result of it are more dangerous to the stability of the Turkish Empire than the ambitious designs of Russia ever were. Whether the Emperor Nicholas was premature or not in his idea of 'the sick man,' it will soon appear how sick the man will be left by the doctors who have stepped in to save him, and I believe the bouleversement of the old Turkish dominion will have been greatly accelerated by the war and the consequences which will flow from the successes of the allies.
THE CIRCASSIANS.
What Cowley particularly laments over is having failed to dismantle Nicolaieff and to stop the outlet from the Bug to the Black Sea, and having got no satisfactory arrangement with regard to the Circassian coast and the contiguous provinces which were ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Adrianople. We wanted that Russia should acknowledge the independence of these provinces or of some part of them; but I cannot see of what use this would have been, and it would have been a matter of the greatest difficulty how to secure their independence and under what Government. There is a sort of sympathy with the Circassians in England, which would have made some stipulations with regard to them popular; but the independence would be illusory, Russia would soon reassert her authority, and our stipulations would become a dead letter, or we should be involved in endless disputes without any satisfactory results. As to forming another coalition for the sake of semi-barbarous nationalities on the coasts of the Caspian, nothing would be more impossible. England herself, who will soon recover from her madness, would not hear of it, and France still less. The war was founded in delusion and error, and carried on by a factitious and ignorant enthusiasm, and we richly deserve to reap nothing but mortification and disappointment in return for all the blood and treasure we have spent.
March 16th.—We passed the day in momentary expectation of hearing of the Empress's confinement. No news arrived, but at six in the morning we were awakened from our beds by the sound of the cannon of the Invalides, which gave notice of a son. Will his fortune be more prosperous than that of the other Royal and Imperial heirs to the throne whom similar salvoes have proclaimed? It is a remarkable coincidence that the confinement was as difficult and dangerous as that of Marie Louise, with the same symptoms and circumstances, and that the doctor accoucheur (Dubois) in this instance was the son of the Dubois who attended the other Empress. From all I hear the event was received here with good will, but without the least enthusiasm, though with some curiosity, and the Tuileries Gardens were crowded. People were invited by the police to illuminate.
[CHAPTER XII.]
Lord Clarendon's favourable View of the Peace—General Evans' Proposal to embark after the Battle of Inkerman—Sir E. Lyons defends Lord Raglan—Peace concluded—Sir J. Graham's gloomy View of Affairs—Edward Ellice's Plan—Favourable Reception of the Peace—A Lull in Politics—A Sabbatarian Question—The Trial of Palmer for Murder—Defeat of the Opposition—Danger of War with the United States—Ristori as an Actress—Defeat of the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill—Return of the Guards—Baron Parke on the Life Peerage—Close of the Session—O'Donnell and Espartero in Spain—Chances of War—Coronation of the Czar—Apathy of the Nation—Expense of the Coronation at Moscow—Interference at Naples—Foreign Relations—Progress of Democracy in England—Russia, France, England, and Naples—Russian Intrigues with France—The Bolgrad Question—The Quarrel with Naples—The Formation of Lord Palmerston's Government in 1855—Death of Sir John Jervis—Sir Alexander Cockburn's Appointment—James Wortley Solicitor-General—Conference on the Treaty of Paris—Low Church Bishops—Leadership of the Opposition—Coolness in Paris—Dictatorial Policy to Brazil.
RETURN TO ENGLAND.
London, March 21st, Good Friday.—I left Paris on Wednesday morning with Mr. and Mrs. Reeve, dined at Boulogne, crossed over in the evening, and arrived in London yesterday morning at eleven o'clock. When near Folkestone we were caught in a fog, lost our way, and were very near having to anchor and pass the night at sea. After a vast deal of whistling and bellowing, stopping and going on, the fog cleared a little, lights became visible, and we entered the harbour with no other inconvenience than having made a long d�tour, and being an hour later than our proper time. I regretted leaving Paris, where I was treated with so much affection and hospitality, and on the whole very well amused. On Monday, I dined with the Duchesse de Mouchy; on Tuesday night Clarendon came after dinner to see me before my departure, and we had some talk about the peace and the terms. He spoke very cheerfully about it and seems not at all dissatisfied, nor to feel any alarm about its reception. As it is, without at all acknowledging that he has made any sacrifices, he considers that the influence he has acquired for England, particularly with Austria and Turkey, is far more valuable than any items of concession from Russia would have been. Buol told him that he was now quite convinced that England was the Power to which Austria must really look with confidence and reliance on her honour and friendship, and the Turk was still more warm and vehement in assurances of the same kind. This was elicited from the Austrians by the fact of England having supported the condition of the Bessarabian cession, while France took part with Russia and threw Austria over. Moreover, Clarendon does not, like Cowley, complain of the Emperor Napoleon, but speaks with great satisfaction of His Majesty's conduct to him, and the renewed cordiality with which he has recently expressed himself towards England, and for the maintenance of his alliance with us. In short, he evidently thinks, and not without reason, that he will return, having obtained a sufficiently good peace, and having placed England in a very fine position. He said that he had been able to accomplish his task by being ready to incur responsibility at home, and by being able to act unfettered, and taking on himself to disregard any instructions or recommendations from home that he did not approve of. Yesterday I saw George Lewis and had a talk with him and his wife about Clarendon and the peace. He said he thought the peace quite sufficient, and he did not understand what it was Cowley found fault with, nor why he is dissatisfied. He denies that we have given up anything that it would have been just and reasonable to stand out upon, and will not hear of taking an apologetic tone, but that Clarendon should defend the peace on its own merits. He thinks it will be well enough received in the House of Commons and by the country, and he is in good spirits about the Government. He says Palmerston has been moderate and reasonable, and that he is not aware of Clarendon's having been harassed with any instructions, but left entirely to his own discretion. They all think he has done exceedingly well.
SIR EDMUND LYONS' NARRATIVE.
March 29th.—I went to Hatchford on Saturday last; on Wednesday to Althorp. I met Sir Edmund Lyons at Hatchford, who talked incessantly about the incidents of the war and the conduct of the people concerned in it, and very interesting his talk was, for besides having been one of the most conspicuous and important actors in it, he was completely in the confidence of the Commanders-in-Chief, and consulted by them on every occasion and with regard to all operations. He told us what had passed between Evans and Raglan and between Evans and himself on a most important occasion, to this effect: Evans went to Raglan immediately after the battle of Inkerman, and proposed to him to embark the army immediately, leaving their guns, and (Lyons says he is almost certain) their sick and wounded to the enemy. Raglan said, 'But you forget the French: would you have us abandon them to their fate?' He replied, 'You are Commander-in-Chief of the English army, and it is your business to provide for its safety....' Raglan would not hear of the proposal. Almost immediately after Evans met Sir Edmund Lyons and told him what had passed with Raglan, and urged him to suggest the same course. Lyons made the same observation about the French that Raglan had done, and said one of two things would happen: either the French would take Sebastopol alone, when we should be covered with shame and dishonour; or they would fail and probably suffer some great disaster. The expression of 'perfide Albion' had long been current in France, and then indeed it would be well deserved and would become a perpetual term of reproach against us. These rebuffs did not prevent Evans going on board ship and there giving out that the army would in a few days be obliged to embark, and Captain Dacres came to Lyons and told him he heard this was going to happen. Lyons asked him where he had heard this, and he said Evans had announced it, and talked of it unreservedly as certain to happen. Lyons said, 'It is false; the army will not go away, and Sebastopol will be taken. It is very mischievous that such reports should circulate, and I order you not to allow such a thing to be said by anybody on board your ship, and to contradict it in the most positive manner.'
Everything that Lyons said, and it may be added all one hears in every way, tends to the honour and the credit of Raglan, and I am glad to record this because I have always had an impression that much of the difficulty and distress of the army in 1854 was owing to his want of energy and management. He was not a Wellington certainly, and probably he might have done more and better than he did, but he was unquestionably, on the whole, the first man in the army, and if he had not been continually thwarted by the French, would have done more. While many here were crying out for placing our army under the command of French generals, and recalling Raglan (and I must confess I had myself a considerable leaning that way), he was struggling against the shortcomings or the inactivity of Canrobert and P�lissier. Canrobert acknowledged that he had not nerves sufficient for the duties of his station, and he never could be got to agree to adopt the bold offensive movements which Raglan was continually urging upon him, especially after the battle of Inkerman, when Raglan entreated him to follow up the discomfited Russians, his whole army being ready and not above 1,500 of them having been engaged. With P�lissier, Raglan had very little to do, for his death occurred soon after P�lissier took the command.
LYONS DEFENDS LORD RAGLAN.
Lyons gave us an interesting account of Raglan's last illness. He seemed to have no idea that he was in serious danger, nor had the people about him. At last, when he was so rapidly sinking that the doctors saw his end was approaching, and it was deemed necessary to apprise him thereof, he would not believe it, and he insisted to his aide-de-camp who told him of his state that he was better, and he fell into a state of insensibility without ever having been conscious of his dying condition. One of the best authenticated charges against Raglan was that of his not showing himself to his soldiers, and it was said many believed that he had quitted the camp; at last this idea became so prevalent that his own staff felt the necessity of something being said to him about it, but none dared, for it seems they were all exceedingly afraid of him. At last they asked Lyons if he would speak to him and tell him what was said. Lyons said he had no scruple or difficulty in so doing, and told him plainly the truth. Raglan not only took it in good part, but thanked him very much, and said his reason for not riding round all the divisions was that he could not prevent the soldiers turning out to salute him, and he could not bear to see this ceremony done by the men who had been all night in the trenches or otherwise exposed to fatigue, and that this was the sole reason why he had abstained, but henceforward he would make a point of riding round every day, and so he ever after did; so that the main fact as reported by 'correspondents' was not devoid of truth. I wish I could recollect all the various anecdotes Lyons told us, but I neglected to put them down at the time, and now they have faded from my memory. He discussed the qualities of the English generals with reference to the command of the army after Raglan's death. He never had well understood why it was that Colin Campbell was always considered out of the question, and his own opinion seemed to be that he was the fittest man. The French thought so, and one of the alleged reasons against him, viz., that he could not speak French, was certainly not true. Simpson was very reluctant to take the command at first, and wrote home to say so, but after he had received certain flattering encouragements his opposition waxed fainter, and by the time it was taken from him he became anxious to retain it. Raglan was not at all annoyed at Simpson's being sent there, and did what he pleased with him. Simpson never attempted to interfere with him or to control him in any way, but on the contrary was entirely subservient to Raglan.
April 1st.—News of peace reached London on Sunday evening, and was received joyfully by the populace, not from any desire to see an end of the war, but merely because it is a great event to make a noise about. The newspapers have been reasonable enough, except the 'Sun,' which appeared in deep mourning and with a violent tirade against peace.
SIR JAMES GRAHAM ON THE STATE OF PARTIES.
April 3rd.—Yesterday I met Graham at the Council Office, where he had come to attend a committee. Since the formation of Aberdeen's Government three years ago I have hardly ever seen him, and have never had any conversation with him. Yesterday he sat down and began talking over the state of affairs generally, and the prospects of the country, which he considers very gloomy and full of danger, more particularly from the outrageous license of the press, which has now arrived at a pitch perfectly intolerable, but which it is impossible to check or control. Then the total destruction of parties and of party ties and connexions, to say nothing of the antipathies and disagreements of such public men as these are. He says there is not one man in the House of Commons who has ten followers, neither Gladstone, nor Disraeli, nor Palmerston. The Government goes on because there is no organized opposition prepared and able to take its place, and the Government receives a sufficiency of independent support, because all feel that the business of the country must be carried on, and hitherto Palmerston has been supported as a War Minister, and the best man to carry on the war; but Graham is very doubtful what will happen when the discussions on the peace and all matters relating to the war are over, and other questions (principally of domestic policy) come into play. Palmerston, always sanguine, fancies he can stand, but it is very doubtful, for he is not backed by a party constituting a majority; the Treasury Bench is very weak, and Palmerston himself a poor and inefficient conductor of the Government in the House. John Russell has taken up the question of education, which he hopes to render popular, and through it means again to recover his former influence and authority. He said that John Russell is (in spite of all that happened last year) more looked up to by the Whig party than Palmerston, and that they would rather have him for their leader, as, notwithstanding the faults he has committed, he is by far the ablest man, has a much greater grasp of intellect, more foresight, and is much more of a statesman, and has fixed principles. Palmerston (Graham thinks) has a passionate love of office and power, and will cling to it with tenacity to the last, and never resign it but on compulsion, not caring with whom he acts, nor on what principles. This, I think, is partly true and partly false. I do not think he cares whom he acts with, but I do not believe he is quite indifferent as to the principles. He says Lewis has done well, and is liked in the House of Commons, and Gladstone likes him and gives him a cordial support; that Baines is a good man, and those two are the most respected and considered of all the men on the Treasury Bench, the House accepting their sterling qualities in place of greater brilliancy such as Gladstone can command; that Gladstone is certainly the ablest man there, though it is still doubtful whether his talents are equal to such an emergency as the present to master public opinion, enlist it on his side, and to administer the Government on certain principles of administrative reform, which Graham himself considers necessary. His religious opinions, in which he is zealous and sincere, enter so largely into his political conduct as to form a very serious obstacle to his success, for they are abhorrent to the majority of this Protestant country, and (I was rather surprised to hear him say) Graham thinks approach very nearly to Rome. Gladstone would have nothing to do with any Government unless he were leader in the House of Commons, and when that Government is formed, there should be previously a clear and distinct understanding on what principles it was founded and what their course of action should be. His tone is now that of disclaiming party connexions, and being ready to join with any men who are able and willing to combine in carrying out such measures as are indispensably necessary for the good government of the country, such a system as he briefly shadowed out in his speech at the Mansion House the other day. Graham's idea is, that in the event of this Government breaking down, the best chance of another being formed would be by Clarendon undertaking it, whom on the whole he regards as the man best fitted by his experience and ability to be at the head of affairs; that he and Gladstone might be brought together, but would Lord John consent to go to the Lords, and to serve under Clarendon as President of the Council and Head of the Education Department? This opens questions full of doubt and difficulty. Derby, he thinks, has no desire to form another Government, and would prefer to go on as he is now, leader of a large party of Peers who are willing to follow him and to make the House of Lords one of the scenes and instruments of his amusements as usual, provided it supplies him with occupation and excitement, indifferent to the consequences and to the mischief he may do. Disraeli appears to be endeavouring to approach Gladstone, and a confederacy between those two and young Stanley by no means an improbability. What Stanley is disposed to do and capable of doing is still an enigma, and although his speeches are not devoid of matter, they are without a particle of the spirit and stirring eloquence of his father.
The change which has taken place in the country presents to Graham a most alarming prospect. Hitherto it has been governed by parties, and patronage has been the great instrument of keeping parties together; whereas Sir Robert Peel has destroyed party, which had now entirely ceased to exist; and between the press, the public opinion which the press had made, and the views of certain people in Parliament, of whom Gladstone is the most eminent and strenuous, patronage was either destroyed or going rapidly to destruction. The only hope of escaping from great perils was in that broad stratum of good sense and firmness which still existed in the country, and of which manifestations had been recently given. He admires the resolute and unflinching spirit with which the war had been entered into, carried on, and the country was quite willing to persist in; and not less the sensible and reasonable manner in which the peace, by which they were mortified and disappointed, had been acquiesced in, for he says that it is beyond all question that there is throughout the country a strong feeling of mortification and regret that we have not played a more brilliant part, and that our share of glory has been less than that of our ally, and there would have been a general feeling of exultation and satisfaction if we had fought another campaign in order to end the war with greater �clat. But this sentiment has been sufficiently mastered by prudent considerations and a just appreciation of the circumstances of Europe generally, and of our relations with other Powers, to check all ebullitions of mortified pride, and to induce a prudent reserve and acquiesce in the management of the Government, and in a spirit like this there appears some hope for the future. We had a very long talk about these and other matters, the substance of which I record as it recurs to my mind.
EDWARD ELLICE ON THE STATE OF PARTIES.
A day or two before I met Ellice at Hillingdon, where we interchanged our thoughts, and a good deal that he said was much in Graham's sense: that this Government could not stand but by being remodelled, and his notion is that half of it should be got rid of, the Peelites taken in, and Lord John to go to the House of Lords as President of the Council, Granville taking Cowley's place as ambassador at Paris, and Cowley replacing Stratford Canning at Constantinople. � propos of Stratford Canning, Graham thinks the Opposition will attack the Government and not the ambassador on the case of Kars, and that it is not impossible they may carry a vote of censure against them, which I told him I did not believe was possible, or that they could be able to carry any resolution affecting the Government so much as to compel their resignation, and I suggested to him how fatal this would be to his scheme of reorganizing a Government under Clarendon, as such censure would more especially touch him, and this would make it impossible for the Queen to entrust the formation of another Government to his hands.
April 7th.—Since my conversation with Graham, I have learnt from the Duke of Bedford that Lord John is not very much disinclined to go to the House of Lords, particularly as his position in reference to his seat for the City is so embarrassing. The Dissenters, always unreasonable and ungrateful, will not forgive his speech upon Church Rates the other night, and his general popularity is gone. Then it is probably a consideration with him to secure to his family the settlement his brother will make on him if he takes the peerage.
London, May 4th.—For nearly a month I have let this journal fall into arrear, during which period the most interesting occurrences have been the return of Clarendon, the publication of the conditions of peace with the accompanying protocols, and the debate upon Kars. With regard to the peace, Clarendon comes very well out of his mission, and no fault is found with the peace. The Kars debate was a great error on the part of the Opposition, and ended with a great triumph for the Government. Just before it, Palmerston called a meeting of his supporters, where he harangued them with great success, and managed to rally them round him with more of zeal and cordiality than they have hitherto shown. His position is certainly improved, and according to present appearances he will get through the session without much difficulty. All agree that he has been doing well in the House of Commons; his assiduity, his punctual attendance, and his popular manners make him agreeable to the House, and he has exhibited greater facility and resource in dealing with all sorts of miscellaneous subjects than anybody gave him credit for. There is not the smallest danger of the peace proving dangerous to him, and it is evident that the House of Commons, however independent and undisciplined it may be, will not allow him to be placed in any danger, and is determined not to have any change of Government at present. The Peelites and John Russell supported him and had nothing else to do, for they are neither of them in a condition to attempt to play a game of their own.
May 14th.—Every day my disinclination to continue this work (which is neither a journal nor anything else) increases, but I have at the same time a reluctance to discontinue entirely an occupation which has engaged me for forty years, and in which I may still find from time to time something to record which may hereafter be deemed worth reading, and so at long intervals, and for short periods, I resume my reluctant pen.
We are now in the Whitsuntide holidays, in a profound political and parliamentary calm, the Government perfectly secure, Palmerston very popular, the Opposition disheartened and disunited, and having managed their matters as awkwardly and stupidly as possible, attacking the Government on questions and points on which the assailants were sure to be beaten, and strengthening instead of weakening it by their abortive attempts. There was great difference of opinion amongst them about fighting battles, on Kars, and on the peace; Lyndhurst and Derby were against, Disraeli was for. Roebuck, whom I fell in with on Sunday in a railway train, told me that if they had laid hold of the one point of the protocol in the Belgian press, and worked this well, they might have put the Government in a minority, but they missed this obvious opportunity.[1] I called on Lyndhurst yesterday, who said they had unaccountably overlooked this plausible topic. He is going to make a speech on Italy when Parliament meets, and we agreed entirely that either too much or too little was done at Paris on this question, and that either it ought not to have been entertained and discussed at all, or some more decided measures ought to have been adopted with regard to it. To stir up such delicate questions, and leave them in their present unhappy condition, is an egregious error.
[1] [An attempt had been made at the Congress of Paris by Count Walewski to bring forward some measure or resolution reflecting on the independence of the press in Belgium. It led to nothing, but Lord Clarendon was accused of not having protested against it with sufficient energy.]
A SABBATARIAN QUESTION.
The questions of war and of peace having now ceased to interest and excite the public mind, a religious question has sprung up to take their place for the moment, which though not at present of much importance, will in all probability lead to more serious consequences hereafter. Sir Benjamin Hall having bethought himself of providing innocent amusement for the Londoners on Sunday, established a Sunday playing of military bands in Kensington Gardens and in the other parks and gardens about the metropolis, which has been carried on, with the sanction of the Government, with great success for several Sundays. Some murmurs were heard from the puritanical and Sabbatarian party, but Palmerston having declared himself favourable to the practice in the House of Commons, the opposition appeared to cease. The puritans, however, continued to agitate against it in meetings and in the press, though the best part of the latter was favourable to the bands, and at last, when a motion in Parliament was threatened to insist on the discontinuance of the music, the Cabinet thought it necessary to reconsider the subject. They were informed that if the Government resisted the motion they would be beaten, and moreover that no man could support them in opposition to it without great danger of losing his seat at the next election. It is stated that the Sabbatarians are so united and numerous, and their organisation so complete, that all over the country they would be able to influence and probably carry any election, and that this influence would be brought to bear against every man who maintained by his vote this 'desecration of the Sabbath.' Accordingly it was resolved by the Cabinet to give way, and the only question was how to do so with anything like consistency and dignity. The Archbishop of Canterbury was made the 'Deus ex machin�' to effect this object. He was made to write a letter to the Premier representing the feelings of the people and begging the bands might be silenced. To this Palmerston wrote a reply in which he repeated his own opinion in favour of the music, but that in deference to the public sentiment he would put an end to their playing. All this has excited a good deal of interest and discussion. For the present, the only question is whether the angry public will not vent its indignation and resentment to-morrow in acts of uproar and violence; but though these acts will not be serious or lasting if they do take place, it may be expected that the Sabbatarians will not rest satisfied with their triumph, but will endeavour to make fresh encroachments on our free will and our habits and pursuits, and that fresh and more serious contests will arise out of this beginning.
May 28th (day of the Derby).—Yesterday on Epsom racecourse arrived the news of Palmer's being found guilty of the murder of Cook. This case and the trial have excited an interest almost unprecedented, unlike anything since the case of Thurtell about twenty years ago or more. People who never heard of either of the men took the deepest interest in it, the women particularly, though there was nothing peculiar in it or of a nature to excite them particularly. The trial lasted a fortnight, all the details of it were read with the greatest avidity, half the town went one day or other to hear it, and the anxiety that the man should be convicted was passionate. Cockburn gained great applause by the manner in which he conducted the prosecution.
DEFEAT OF THE OPPOSITION.
This trial has proved more attractive and interesting than anything in the political world, though there has been a pitched battle in the Lords on the question of Maritime Law and Right of Search given up in the recent Treaty. Derby made a violent onslaught on the Government, and was at first very confident of a majority. He soon found these hopes were fallacious, when he got angry and was more violent than he has ever been before this session. The Government got a majority of above fifty, which puts an end to any further contest there. The Government have now nothing to fear, the Opposition are routed and dispirited, and one can see nothing to alter the present state of affairs. The minor questions which have occupied attention are settling quietly. The Chelsea Commission is over, and the result will be harmless, on the whole rather good than bad, because it will prove that the violent attacks on the military authorities during the war have been exaggerated and in many cases unfounded. A sort of compromise has been made about the Wensleydale peerage, not a very happy one, and it remains to be seen whether the House of Commons is sufficiently acquiescent as to sanction it by agreeing to the 12,000l. a year to be paid to two new judges and peers for life. The Government have virtually abandoned the principle they contended for, and have yielded to the adverse vote and Committee. When they appeal to Parliament and limit the number of life peerages, they abandon the prerogative of the Crown.
June 1st.—The state of affairs with America becomes more and more alarming.[1] Grey told me the other night that he had had a long conversation with Dallas, whose tone was anything but reassuring as to the prospect of peace; and yesterday I met Thackeray, who is just returned from the United States. He thinks there is every probability of the quarrel leading to war, for there is a very hostile spirit, constantly increasing, throughout the States, and an evident desire to quarrel with us. He says he has never met with a single man who is not persuaded that they are entirely in the right and we in the wrong, and they are equally persuaded if war ensues that they will give us a great thrashing; they don't care for the consequences, their riches are immense, and 200,000 men would appear in arms at a moment's notice. Here, however, though there is a great deal of anxiety, there is still a very general belief that war cannot take place on grounds so trifling between two countries which have so great and so equal an interest in remaining at peace with each other. But in a country where the statesmen, if there are any, have so little influence, and where the national policy is subject to the passions and caprices of an ignorant and unreasoning mob, there is no security that good sense and moderation will prevail. Many imagine that matters will proceed to the length of a diplomatic rupture, that Crampton will be sent away and Dallas retire in consequence, and that then by degrees the present heat will cool down, and matters be amicably arranged without a shot being fired. I feel no such confidence, for if diplomatic intercourse ceases numerous causes of complaint will arise, and as there will be no means left for mutual and friendly explanation and adjustment, such causes will be constantly exaggerated and inflamed into an irreconcileable quarrel. Matters cannot long go on as they now are without the public here becoming excited and angry, and the press on both sides insolent, violent, and provoking, and at last, going on from one step to another, we shall find ourselves drifted into this odious and on both parts suicidal contest, for there is not a blow we can strike at America and her interests that will not recoil on us and our own. It has often been remarked that civil wars are of all wars the most furious, and a war between America and England would have all the characteristics of a civil and an international contest; nor, though I have no doubt that America is in the wrong, can I persuade myself that we are entirely in the right on either of the principal points in dispute. We have reason to congratulate ourselves that the Russian war is over, for if it had gone on and all our ships had been in the Baltic, and all our soldiers in the Crimea, nothing would have prevented the Americans from seizing the opportunity of our hands being full to bring their dispute with us to a crisis.
[1] [In consequence of the dispute with the American Government on the subject of Foreign Enlistment, Mr. Crampton, the British Minister, was ordered to leave Washington on May 28th. He arrived in England on June 15th; but Lord Palmerston stated in the House of Commons that the dismissal of Mr. Crampton did not break off diplomatic relations with the United States, as Mr. Dallas remained in this country. It is remarkable that within a few months or even weeks two British Ministers received their passports from foreign governments and were sent away—a very uncommon occurrence!]
MADAME RISTORI.
June 7th.—I went last night to see the celebrated Ristori in a very bad play called 'Medea,' being a translation into Italian from a French tragedy by a M. Legouv�. This play was written for Madame Rachel, who refused to act the part, which refusal led to a lawsuit, in which the actress was (I think) defeated. Ristori is certainly a fine actress, but she did not appear to me equal to Pasta in the same part, or to other great actresses I have seen. However, my inability to hear well and want of familiarity with Italian acting and imperfect knowledge of the language disqualify me from being a competent judge.
The American horizon is rather less dark. Nothing is yet known as to Crampton's dismissal, and Dallas does not believe it. The Danish Minister at Washington writes over here that he thinks the clouds will disperse and there will be no serious quarrel.
London, July 12th.—After the lapse of a month and more, during which I could not bring myself to record anything, or to comment upon passing events, I am at last roused from my apathy, and am induced to take up my pen and say a word upon the defeat of the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill in the House of Commons the other night, which gave me the greatest satisfaction, because I regard it as a just punishment for the stupid obstinacy with which the Government have blundered on from one fault to another throughout this whole business. It has been a complete comedy of errors, and every one who has taken a part in it has been in the wrong. I told Granville how it would be in the first instance, and urged him, after the House of Lords had refused to let in Parke as a life peer, to accept the defeat quietly by making him an hereditary peer and thus give the go-by to the main question. This nothing would induce them to do, and they fancied that they could avoid the mortification of appearing to knock under, and save their own consistency, by the contrivance of this bill. Every mischief that it was possible to do they have managed to accomplish, and the leaders of the opposite parties, who all felt themselves in a scrape, came to a sort of compromise in the Lords' Committee, the result of which was this unpopular bill. Amongst them they have assailed the prerogative of the Crown, they have damaged the judicial authority of the House of Lords, they have deeply offended many of their own friends by tendering to them such a measure, and they have behaved most unkindly and unhandsomely to Baron Parke, who thinks he has great reason to complain.
I have been at Knowsley for the last three days, and so missed the march of the Guards into London on Wednesday. Lord Hardinge was struck down by paralysis as he was speaking to the Queen at Aldershot on Tuesday last. It is supposed that the Duke of Cambridge will succeed him, and that Jim Macdonald will be his Military Secretary. The American question is still undecided, but everybody appears to be very easy about it.
BARON PARKE ON THE LIFE PEERAGE.
July 20th.—I met Baron Parke the other day, who talked over his affair, complained of the treatment he had received from the Government, but said he gathered from what the Chancellor had said to him that they meant now to make him an hereditary peer, declared there was not a shadow of doubt about the legality, and that Campbell had as little doubt as he himself had, but finding the measure was unpopular with certain lawyers, he had suddenly turned against his own recorded opinion and opposed it. The Baron said the Government were greatly to blame for not having ventilated the question, and ascertained whether they could carry it or not, and if he had had an idea of all the bother it had made, he never would have had anything to do with it. George Lewis told me that the life peerage had never been brought before the Cabinet, and he knew nothing of it till he saw it in the Gazette, nor did Clarendon; in fact it was confined to the Chancellor, Granville, and Palmerston. They none of them, however, know with whom it originated. Now that the measure turns out to be so unpopular and is so scouted, and the transaction has been attended with so many blunders and defeats, no one is willing to accept the responsibility of it, or to acknowledge having had anything to do with it. It is strange that Palmerston should ever have consented to it, but he knew nothing and cared nothing about it; he was probably assured it would go down without any difficulty, and in this poco curante way he suffered himself to be committed to it, not seeing the storm it would cause. He allowed Granville to manage it all his own way, and at last he had the good luck to be beaten upon it in the House of Commons, for the scrape would have been more serious if he had earned it there. These last days of the session have been as usual marked by the withdrawal and abandonment of various bills that were for the most part introduced at the beginning of it, and which were found to be quite worthless, especially the Law Reform Bill.
London, July 27th.—Parliament has finished its debates, and will be prorogued on Tuesday. Dizzy wound up by a 'review of the session,' a species of entertainment which used to be given annually some years ago by Lord Lyndhurst with great skill and effect, but which on the present occasion, and in Disraeli's hands, was singularly inopportune and ineffective. Lord Wensleydale has at last taken his seat as an hereditary Peer; the Government, after various abortive attempts to wriggle out of their absurd position, having done at last what they ought to have done at first—knocked under and endured what could not be cured. The Government go into summer and winter quarters in a very healthy and prosperous state, with nothing apparently to apprehend, and with every probability of meeting Parliament next year in the same condition, and, barring accidents, going through next session as successfully as they have gone through this.
August 4th.—I was at Goodwood all last week; the Prince of Prussia came there. Not a word of news; the Queen still engaged in reviewing the troops, and complimentary f�tes are still going on to Sir W. Williams of Kars, and Charles Wyndham 'the hero of the Redan.' The disturbances in Spain seem to be over, and O'Donnell remains victorious. My first impression was (the common one) that Espartero had been ousted by an intrigue, and that it was a reactionary coup d'�tat, but I now hear that it is no such thing, and that we ought to desire the success of the present Government. Espartero and O'Donnell could not agree, as was not unlikely in a coalition Government the two chiefs of which were men of such different opinions and antecedents. After many abortive attempts to reconcile their differences, it was agreed that a Council of Ministers should be held which the Queen herself should preside over, and when a final attempt should be made. A long discussion took place, and the Queen did all she could to reconcile the two generals, and to enable the Government to go on unchanged. Finding it impossible to effect this, she ended by saying, 'Well, gentlemen, since I cannot prevail on you to go on together, I must needs choose between you, and as I think Marshal O'Donnell will be the best able to carry on the Government, I appoint him.' Then the National Guards began an insurrection which was put down, but no violent measures seem to have been adopted, and O'Donnell has declared that Spain can only be successfully governed on constitutional principles, and that he means to retain the Cortes in its integrity. How far his acts will correspond with his professions remains to be seen. Narvaez was recommended to go to France, and Queen Christina appears not to have been allowed to return to Spain, which are good signs. It is a good thing for Spain that Espartero should have retired, for though probably the honestest Spaniard, he is at the same time the weakest and the most wanting in moral courage and decision.
CHANCES OF WAR.
History is full of examples of the slight and accidental causes on which the greatest events turn, and of such examples the last war seems very full. Charles Wyndham told me that nothing but a very thick fog which happened on the morning of Inkerman prevented the English army being swept from their position and totally discomfited. The Russians could see nothing, lost their own way, and mistook the position of the British troops. Had the weather been clear so that they had been able to execute their plans, we could not have resisted them; a defeat instead of the victory we gained would have changed the destiny of the world, and have produced effects which it is impossible to contemplate or calculate.
On the other hand, nothing but miscalculation and bad management prevented the capture of Sebastopol immediately after Alma. My nephew is just returned from a voyage with Lord Lyons to the Crimea, where he went all over the scenes of the late contest, all the positions, and the ruins of Sebastopol as well as the northern forts. He was well treated by the Russians, who showed him everything, and talked over the events of the war with great frankness. They told him that if the allies had marched at once after the battle on the north side, no resistance could have been made, and the other side must have fallen. We had long known that the north side would have fallen if we had attacked it at once. Frank asked the Russian officer whether there was any bad feeling on the part of the Russian army towards the French or English, and he said none whatever, but a great deal towards the Austrians, and that they desired nothing more than an opportunity of fighting them. He also said that they had been misled by our newspapers, from which they obtained all their information, and thinking that the announcements there of an intended invasion of the Crimea were made for the purpose of deceiving them, they had withdrawn a great many troops from the Crimea, so that while Sebastopol had been emptied of the garrison to increase the army of Menschikoff, the Russians had not more than 30,000 or 35,000 men at the Alma.
Hillingdon, August 17th.—It is impossible to find anything of the least interest to write about, and my journal is in danger of dying of starvation or of atrophy. The causes of discontent we have had with Russia are disappearing, and the Emperor's coronation will not be clouded by fresh dol�ances on our part. Bulwer is just gone to the Principalities, where the commissioners are to endeavour to ascertain what are the wishes of the people as to the union. France and England are in favour of it, Turkey and Austria against it, while Russia professes to be indifferent and neutral. Spain is settling down into submission to the Government of O'Donnell. Naples is relieved from her fears of English intervention, and there seems some chance that she may relax the rigour of her Government now that she may do so salvo honore and not under compulsion. This country is profoundly tranquil and generally prosperous; everybody seems satisfied with Palmerston and his administration. I myself, who for so many years regarded him politically with the greatest aversion and distrust, have come to think him the best minister we can have, and to wish him well.
THE CORONATION AT MOSCOW.
September 15th.—Another month has passed away, and still I have had nothing to record. The coronation at Moscow appears to have gone off with great �clat, and to have been a spectacle of extraordinary magnificence, the prodigious cost of which betrays no sign of exhaustion or impoverishment by the late war.[1] We were probably mistaken, as we were in so many other things, in fancying that the power and resources of Russia were very greatly impaired, butduring the war, whatever we wished we were ready to believe.
[1] [The Emperor Alexander II. of Russia was crowned with great pomp in Moscow on September 7; the ceremony was attended by special ambassadors from all the great Powers; Lord Granville, accompanied by Lady Granville and a brilliant suite, was the representative of Great Britain on this occasion.]
The state of affairs at home and abroad is curious: abroad there is uneasiness and uncertainty as to the future, the elements of future disturbances being in a sort of abeyance; at home the fever and excitement which prevailed during the war having been succeeded by a torpor and an apathy such as I never remember to have seen before. All party politics seem to be extinct, the country cares about nobody, desires no changes, and only wishes to go on and prosper. There is not a public man to whom public opinion turns, and no great questions are afloat to agitate and divide the country, or around the standards of which different opinions, principles, or passions can flock. Palmerston may remain minister as long as he lives, if he does not commit any gross faults either of commission or of omission, or unless something may occur, which nobody can foresee or imagine, to rouse the nation from its apathy.
September 21st.—The old Crimean correspondent of the 'Times' has despatched a very interesting and graphic account of the coronation at Moscow, and Granville writes word that whereas he had estimated the cost of it at a million sterling, he was now led to believe it would be not much less than three. The coronation of George IV. cost 240,000l., which was considered an enormous sum and a monstrous extravagance. Our two last coronations cost from 30,000l. to 50,000l.
The quarrel with the King of Naples appears to be coming to a crisis, and though it will not produce any serious consequences now, the precedent of interference we are establishing may have very important ones at some future time, and though philanthropy may make us rejoice at some coercion being applied to put an end to such a cruel and oppressive government as that of King Bomba (as they call Ferdinand), it may be doubted whether it would not be sounder policy to abstain from interference with what only indirectly and remotely concerns us, and from enforcing a better and more humane system of government in a country where the people do not seem to care much about its tyranny and inhumanity. And then there is the great objection of dictating to and interfering with weak governments while we do not venture to deal in the same way with the equally flagrant abominations of stronger ones, to say nothing of a host of difficulties and objections which suggest themselves as possible, if not probable, results of our interference. It will afford to other Powers an excuse if not a right to interfere in like manner, whenever they require a pretext, and they consider it their interest to do so; and if such cases occur, the peace of the world will be largely endangered. As it is, I strongly suspect (for I know nothing) that the agreement on the Neapolitan question between France and ourselves is by no means cordial and complete. Mrs. Craven writes me word she has been in a house in the country with Walewski, who talked very openly (and no doubt imprudently) to her, telling her that Palmerston was very difficult to go on with. I know not what Palmerston has been doing, nor what his present policy may be, but I thought he had either abandoned or greatly modified that old policy of meddling and bullying to which he used to be so addicted, and at all events that while the foreign policy of England is directed by Clarendon, we should abstain from anything very arbitrary and violent. It is, however, whispered that Walewski is no longer in the good graces of the Emperor, and what I heard long ago about Her Majesty's opinion of him renders it not unlikely.
September 23rd.—All the little I hear tends to confirm the notion that there is an antagonism growing up between French and English policy, and that France and Russia are becoming more and more intimate every day. The points of the Treaty on which there are still some differences, and on which we appear to be making a great fuss, the French seem to care very little about, perhaps being rather disposed to side with Russia. These differences are very inconsiderable in themselves, but if they lead to coolness and estrangement between us and the French, and to an alliance between France and Russia, they may hereafter be very important.
Nothing can be more perplexed and unintelligible (at least to those who are not behind the curtain) than the international relations of the Great Powers and of their dispositions towards the smaller ones, and in such a chaos no little tact, discretion, and firmness are required to shape our foreign policy.
M. GUIZOT ON DEMOCRACY IN ENGLAND.
September 25th.—The void which the march of events fails to fill up cannot be better occupied than by the following extract from Guizot's notice on Sir Robert Peel in the 'Revue des Deux-Mondes' (1856). He is speaking of democracy in England:—'M. de Talleyrand disait dans la Chambre des Pairs, il y a quelqu'un qui a plus d'esprit que Napol�on ou que Voltaire, c'est tout le monde. On peut dire aujourd'hui m�me � propos de L'Angleterre il y a quelqu'un qui a plus de pouvoir que la couronne, plus de pouvoir que l'aristocratie, c'est tout le monde, et tout le monde c'est la d�mocratie. O� commence-t-elle? o� finit-elle? � quels signes visibles se distingue-t-elle des autres �l�ments de la soci�t�? Personne ne pourrait le dire, mais peu importe: pour �tre difficile � d�finir, le fait n'en est ni moins certain, ni moins puissant, les �l�ments les plus divers entrent dans la composition de la d�mocratie moderne, des classes riches et des classes pauvres, des classes savantes et des classes ignorantes, des ma�tres et des ouvriers, des conservateurs et des novateurs, des amis du pouvoir et des enthousiastes de libert�, bien des aristocrates m�mes, d�tach�s de leur origine par leurs mœurs, par leur aversion des g�nes et des devoirs que l'aristocratie impose. Et la position de la d�mocratie anglaise n'est pas moins chang�e que sa composition; elle ne se borne pas comme jadis � d�fendre au besoin ses libert�s, elle regarde les affaires publiques comme les siennes, surveille assid�ment ceux qui les font, et si elle ne gouverne pas l'�tat, elle domine le gouvernement.' All this seems to me perfectly true, and the best definition of the English democracy, its nature, and its position that could possibly be given, and that the nature of things admits of. Guizot evidently saw clearly a truth which might be elaborated into a very interesting essay, and which has often suggested itself to me, namely, that without any violence or ostensible disturbances or any change in external forms, this country has undergone as great a revolution as France itself, or any of the continental nations which have been torn to pieces by civil discords and contests. If we compare the condition of England at any two not very distant periods, and the manner in which power and influence have been distributed at one and at the other, this will be very apparent, and nobody can doubt that this process is still going on. We are, as Guizot says, 'dans une �poque de transition ... sous l'empire des principes et des sentiments encore confus, perplexes et obscurs, mais essentiellement d�mocratiques, qui fermentent en Europe depuis quinze si�cles et y remportent de nos jours des victoires dont personne ne saurait dire encore quel sera le vrai et dernier r�sultat.'
THE QUARREL WITH NAPLES.
October 3rd.—There appears to be a general feeling of uneasiness, almost of alarm, as if something was impending to disturb the peace of the world and interrupt the prosperity of nations, though nobody can very well tell what it is they dread. The apprehension is vague, but it is general. The only political question of any consequence in which we are concerned is that of Naples, and some fancy that the Russian manifesto prognosticates a renewal of the contest with that Empire. I have no such idea, but I am quite unable to comprehend what it is the different Powers are about; there is a general impression, probably not unfounded, that France and Russia are meditating a close alliance, and if this be the truth, it is not likely that Russia should have put forth a State paper offensive to France. It is by no means impossible that Gortschakoff may have ascertained that the declaration of his Emperor's opinion would not be distasteful to the Emperor Napoleon, who probably does not enter con amore into this contest with Naples and merely does it to please us.[1]
[1] [The British and French Governments had on more than one occasion remonstrated with the King of Naples on the cruel and arbitrary policy of his Government, which led eventually to his own destruction; but the King received these remonstrances very ill, and on October 28 the differences between these Courts had become so serious that the British and French Ministers were withdrawn from Naples, and a naval squadron appeared off the city. The Russian Government at this time issued a circular despatch complaining of these proceedings of the Western Powers, and denying their right to interfere for the purpose of extorting concessions from the King of Naples to his own subjects.]
When Baudin took leave of him at Paris the other day on his going to Russia, he said to him, 'Is it your Majesty's wish that I should cultivate the most friendly relations with the English Ministers at Moscow and Petersburg?' to which the Emperor replied 'Certainly,' and 'L'Angleterre avant tout.' In this there can be little doubt of his personal sincerity, but probably his personal disposition and the policy of his Government and the sentiments of the French people do not altogether coincide, and this places him in a somewhat false position, and will most likely lead to apparent vacillation and inconsistency in his conduct.
Madame de Lieven writes to me that the Neapolitan Minister at Paris affirms that his King will not give way at the dictation of the allied Powers. We do not, however, as yet know what it is that is required of him. If it be true that he should govern his people more mildly and liberally, nothing can be more vague, and our greatest difficulties would begin when we had extorted from him promises and engagements to act according to our notions of justice and humanity. He would be more than mortal if he was disposed honestly to act up to engagements and promises extorted from him by fear, and it would be impossible for us to superintend and secure their due performance without taking upon ourselves virtually the government of his kingdom and superseding the King's authority. We never should get France to concur in this, and on the whole it appears more probable that differences will arise in the course of this joint action between us and France than that we should succeed in ameliorating the condition of Naples. I fear the rage for interfering in the internal affairs of other countries will never be extinguished here. I see in the papers to-day an address to Clarendon from the Protestant Society, requesting he will interpose with the Spanish Government in favour of some Spanish subject who has got into trouble in consequence of having turned Protestant, and being engaged in diffusing the Scriptures, and trying to convert others to Protestantism, which is an offence against the laws of Spain.
October 7th.—I have seen Clarendon and asked him about the affair of Naples. He was not very communicative, and I suspect he is not very easy about the course we are pursuing and the part he has to play. He first said that it was impossible for us to tolerate the conduct of the King to us, and the impertinence of his note. I asked what it was he said; Clarendon replied it amounted to this, 'Mind your own business.' Then he alluded to the atrocities of the Government, which ought not to be endured; that no man was safe for a minute, or could tell when he went to bed at night that he might not be arrested in the morning, all which was done by the King's personal orders; that there was continual danger of an outbreak or insurrection, particularly of a Muratist revolution. I told him my opinion of the very questionable policy of interference, either as a matter of right or of expediency, and nothing could be more lame than the case he made out. He said the ships were not to act any hostile part, or to coerce the King, which makes the case worse in my opinion. It is doing neither one thing nor the other, violating a sound principle, and incurring great future risks without any present object, or effecting any good, or benefiting the people in whom we take an interest. He says the Emperor Napoleon has a great horror of a Muratist movement, the Prince Murat, his cousin, being a most worthless blackguard; but his son, who married Berthier's granddaughter and heiress, is a young man full of merit of every sort.
RUSSIAN INTRIGUE WITH FRANCE.
London, October 10th.—I met Clarendon again at the Travellers', and had some conversation with him, but was interrupted by Azeglio, or I might probably have learnt more about the present state of affairs. He told me that we had been squabbling with the French Government, and that the persevering attempts of Russia to disturb the harmony between us and them had not been unsuccessful. Nothing in the way of cajolery had been omitted at Moscow to captivate the French, while on one occasion the Emperor had been so uncivil that Granville felt himself obliged to go to Gortschakoff and make a formal complaint, which was met by all sorts of assurances and protestations in order to mollify him, and after this everything went on smoothly. It is a curious state of things, for as far as I can make it out, the policy of the French Government appears to be to become intimate with Russia and to be cool with us; but all the time the Emperor (who is the Government) shrinks from anything like a breach with England, and clings to the intimacy established between the two Courts, and has a profound respect for the Queen and value for her good opinion. I asked him how he reconciled the offensive Circular of Gortschakoff with the anxiety of Russia to please France, when he said that he had no doubt they had told the French that it was aimed exclusively at us, and had come to an understanding with Morny about it, so that France was not to take offence at it. We are now, he said, on the best terms with Austria, and Austria on the worst with Russia. Russia knows that the article of the treaty compelling her to surrender a part of Bessarabia was the work of Austria, and this was an injury and an insult (for she had never before disgorged territory) which she never would forgive. The Russian Circular would have the effect of complicating the Neapolitan question, as it made the King more resolved not to yield to the demands of the two Powers. He told me that Palmerston had resolved to take up in earnest the question of Law Reform next year, and that he (Clarendon) had strongly urged him to do so as the best way of procuring both strength and credit for his Government; that Palmerston had readily come into it, and was resolved to carry out those measures which have so long been under discussion, and which for various reasons have hitherto failed of their accomplishment.
November 10th.—I went to The Grove on Saturday and had a good deal of comfortable talk with Clarendon about foreign affairs, especially the Bolgrad question and Naples. He described the former very clearly, and satisfied me that we are entirely in the right. It was settled, he said, at Paris mainly between him and Orloff. He drew the line on the map as the boundary had been agreed upon, and as he was doing so, Orloff said, 'I wish you would draw it a little more to the south; it will make no sort of difference to you, and by this means it includes within our line a strip of territory which the Emperor wishes to retain because it forms a part of a military colony which he is anxious to keep intact;' and Clarendon agreed to draw the line accordingly and to accomplish the Emperor's wishes. They have since attempted to quibble about another Bolgrad which was not even marked at all on their map, and it turns out that the story of the military colony was a mere pretence, as they have themselves given that up without making any difficulty. The state of the case and the difference which has since arisen with Russia and with France is this: the Emperor Napoleon, who is very indolent and abhors the trouble of examining details, and consequently remains often ignorant of what it behoves him to know, suffered himself to be bamboozled by Brunnow and misled by Walewski into giving his assent to the Russian interpretation of the boundary line, and to giving a promise of his support in the controversy. Recently at Compi�gne Cowley, in a long audience, went through the whole question with him and minutely explained the case against Russia. The Emperor said he had never really understood it before, acknowledged that our case was good, regretted that he had committed himself, but said that having pledged his word he did not know how to break that pledge and to withdraw the support he had promised to give to Russia in the dispute, and this is the fix in which the question now is. While the foolish and ignorant newspapers here (except the 'Times') are endeavouring to separate the Emperor from his ministers, and to make out that he is one with our Government, and that the difficulties and obstructions proceed from other parties, the truth is that they now proceed entirely from himself, worked upon and deceived certainly by Russian agents and pro-Russian ministers; but if he really was in the disposition which our press attributes to him, he might break through such obligations as he suffered himself to be entangled in and settle the question at once; nor is it very easy to see why he does not, for there is good reason to believe he is sincerely desirous of remaining on good terms with us. I asked Clarendon why the question could not be again referred to a Conference of the Powers parties to the Treaty, and he said we could not consent to this, because we should be in a minority, for Sardinia, partly cajoled by Russia and partly from antipathy to Austria, would go against us.
DISMISSAL OF NEAPOLITAN MINISTER.
I asked him about Naples, of which affair he could give but a very unsatisfactory account and a lame story. He said France had acted with us very steadily, but that it was she who had started this hare, and he had engaged in it in the belief that the Emperor would never have mooted the question unless he had been assured that the King of Naples would yield to the remonstrances of the two Courts, and but for that conviction he would never have meddled in it, which he now very much regretted. He had given Carini notice to quit, and at their parting interview he had entreated him to persuade the King if possible to change his system, and, now that he was relieved from all interference, menace, or coercion, and his dignity could not suffer, to give satisfaction to all Europe by putting an end to the inhuman and impolitic system, which had occasioned our interference and had drawn upon him remonstrances and advice from every Sovereign in Europe. Very good advice, and I hope it may be followed, but it is a lame and impotent conclusion to the menacing demonstrations with which we began to quarrel. Clarendon talked of the various atrocities of the King of Naples, but with an evident consciousness that the fact, even if it be true, and not, as is probable, exaggerated, affords no excuse for our policy in the matter. As the subject could not be agreeable I did not press it, and abstained from telling him how general the opinion is that he has committed a great blunder. He will probably hear enough of it before the chapter is closed; even Granville, who never says much, said to me yesterday that 'it was a very foolish affair.'
Clarendon talked to me of Palmerston, and told me (what I think I had heard, and have very likely noted before) that on Aberdeen's fall Palmerston was quite ready to join Derby when Derby tried to form a Government, and that it was Clarendon's refusal which frustrated that attempt. Palmerston endeavoured to persuade Clarendon to join, but when Clarendon put to him all the reasons why they had both of them better refuse, Palmerston saw them all very clearly, and rather imprudently said on leaving him, 'We are both agreed that it will not do to have anything to do with Derby and his Government.' When Clarendon went to the Queen and explained his own conduct to her, and she expressed to him the embarrassment which she felt, and asked him what she could do, he at once said, 'Send for Lord Palmerston, who is the only man, in the present temper of the people and state of affairs, who can form a Government that has a chance of standing. Send for him at once, place yourself entirely in his hands, give him your entire confidence, and I will answer for his conduct being all that you can desire.' The Queen took the advice, and has had no reason to repent of it, and Clarendon told me he had done everything in his power, and seized every available opportunity to reconcile them to each other, to promote a good feeling and understanding, and to soften any little asperities which might have made their intercourse less smooth, and the consequence is that Palmerston gets on with her very well, and his good sense as well as Clarendon's exhortations make him see of what importance it is to him for the easy working of his Government and his own ease to be on good and cordial terms with the Queen. It is therefore really to Clarendon that Palmerston is indebted in great measure, if not entirely, for being in his present position, but Clarendon has too much tact ever to remind him of it, or of what he was himself inclined to do in 1855.
LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.
November 19th.—The death of Jervis made the office of Chief Justice of Common Pleas vacant.[1] According to established (but as I think bad) usage, the Attorney-General, Cockburn, had a right to take the place, and for the last fortnight nothing occupied public attention more than the question whether he would take it or not. He was much averse to take it, but everybody pressed him to accept it, and after much hesitation and consultation he agreed to be Chief Justice, and now it is said he regrets his determination and thinks he has made a mistake. He gives up Parliament, for which he is well adapted, where he acts a conspicuous part, being a capital speaker, and which he likes, and feels that it is his element. He gives up the highest place at the bar, where he is a successful advocate, and makes 15,000l. or 16,000l. a year, and he sees that he shall be obliged to give up in great measure his loose habits and assume more decorous behaviour, which will be a great sacrifice to him, and he becomes a judge with 6,000l. a year for life, not being a good lawyer, and conscious that he will be inferior to his colleagues and to the Puisne Judge in his own court. As soon as he had consented to the promotion a fresh difficulty presented itself as to the office of Solicitor-General, for such is the penury of legal ability at this time that Westminster Hall cannot furnish any men of unquestionable fitness for the office, and the difficulty is increased by the choice being necessarily restricted to men holding the opinions of the present Government, and being able to command a seat in Parliament. They have offered the place to the Recorder, James Wortley, but up to this moment I know not if it has been accepted.[2]
[1] [Right Hon. Sir John Jervis, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, died on November 1, 1856, at the age of fifty-four.]
[2] [Right Hon. James Stuart Wortley, a younger son of Lord Wharncliffe, who then filled the office of Recorder of London, which he surrendered for that of Solicitor-General.]
November 23rd.—After long delay and apparently much hesitation James Wortley has accepted the Solicitor-Generalship. He consulted Gladstone and Sidney Herbert, neither of them very eligible advisers on such a question. Gladstone is said to have replied that he would run a great risk as to his pecuniary interests, but if he could support the foreign policy of the Government, there was no reason why he should not accept. He retains his rank of Privy Councillor, of which I doubt the fitness, as it places him at all events in a very anomalous position, for the law officers are the official advisers of the Privy Council and are often called upon to sit there as assessors. However, the Judges are said to have pronounced an opinion that there is no reason why he should not plead in any of the courts. It is said, and I believe truly, that now Cockburn has taken the irretrievable step he is very sorry for it, and is more struck by the necessary consequences of his promotion than he was at first. He has all his life been a very debauched fellow, but he is clever, good-natured, and of a liberal disposition and much liked by his friends. A story is told of him that he was in the habit of going down on Sundays to Richmond or elsewhere with a woman, and generally with a different one, and the landlady of the inn he went to remembered that Sir A. Cockburn always brought Lady Cockburn with him, but that she never saw any woman who looked so different on different days, and this gave rise to another story. When Lord Campbell went to some such place with Lady Stratheden (who had been raised to the peerage before her husband), the mistress of the house said that Sir A. Cockburn always brought Lady Cockburn with him, but that the Chief Justice brought another lady and not Lady Campbell.
While we have meetings perpetually held and innumerable writings put forth to promote education and raise the moral standard of the people, we are horrified and alarmed day after day by accounts of the most frightful murders, colossal frauds, and crimes of every description. War has ceased, though the Temple of Janus seems only to be ajar; but the world is still in commotion, in alarm, and visited by every sort of calamity, moral and material, in the midst of which it is difficult to discover any signs of the improvement of the human race, even of those portions of it which are supposed to be the most civilised and the most progressive.
A DIPLOMATIC IMBROGLIO.
December 7th.—At Wrotham and at Ossington last week. The news of the day is that we are to have another 'Conference' at Paris, to settle the Bolgrad affair, our Government having given way to what Clarendon told me he certainly would not consent; but we had managed to get matters into such a fix, and it was so necessary to extricate all the several parties from the embarrassed positions in which they were placed by their own or by each other's faults, that no alternative remained. This arrangement, which is not very consistent with Palmerston's recent declarations at Manchester and in London, is proclaimed by the Government papers, and generally understood to be a means of enabling Russia to concede our demands with as little loss of dignity and credit as possible, and to terminate the difference between us and France by our making an apparent concession to France, while she makes a real one to us. Everything has evidently been carefully arranged for the playing out of this diplomatic farce, and Cowley, who is to be our sole representative, is to be accommodating and not quarrelsome; but reste � savoir whether the manœuvres of some of the others may not provoke his temper and bring about angry collisions. Between this matter and the b�vue we have made of our Neapolitan interference, never was there such a deplorable exhibition as our foreign policy displays; but nobody seems to care much about it, and though there will in all probability be a good deal of sparring, and taunts and sneers in Parliament, Palmerston's Government will incur no danger of any adverse vote, for everybody is conscious that in the actual state of parties and the dearth of parliamentary leaders, every man of sufficient ability being disqualified for one reason or another, no man but Palmerston can conduct a Government or command a majority in Parliament; nor does there appear in the distance any man likely to be able to fill his place in the event of his death or his breaking down, events which must be contemplated as not very remote when he is seventy-three years old, although his wonderful constitution and superhuman vigour of mind and body make everybody forget his age and regard the possibility of his demise with the sort of incredulity which made the courtier of Louis XIV. exclaim on the death of that monarch, 'Apr�s la mort du Roi on peut tout croire.'
Great astonishment has been excited by the appointment of a Mr. Bickersteth as Bishop of Ripon, against whom nothing can be said, nor anything for him, except that he is a very Low Churchman. All the vacant sees have now been filled with clergymen of this colour, which is not very fair or prudent, as it will exasperate the moderate High Churchmen and set them strongly against a Government which appears determined to shut the door of ecclesiastical preferment against all but the Lowest Churchmen, and such a policy will most likely have the effect of encouraging the advocates of those extreme measures of an anti-Catholic or a puritanical character which always give so much trouble and embarrassment when they are brought forward in Parliament.
December 12th.—The Conference to which Clarendon told me he would not agree is going to take place after all, but everybody is ridiculing what is notoriously a got-up comedy with a foregone conclusion, devised to solve the difficulty into which all the great actors had got themselves, but it is not yet quite clear what the modus operandi is to be. From what I have picked up here and there I gather that Sardinia is to be induced to give a casting vote against Russia, leaving France still at liberty to fulfil her original engagement and vote with her, while we obtain the object for which we have stood out, and by such a dodge to bring the dispute to an end. When Parliament meets there will be plenty to be said about this affair and about Naples, and no doubt the Opposition or the malcontents will be able to bombard the Government and vent their spleen, but that will be all, for Palmerston is perfectly invulnerable and may commit any blunders with impunity.
LEADERSHIP OF THE OPPOSITION.
A report has been lately current that Gladstone will become the leader of the Opposition vice Disraeli, a report I thought quite wild and improbable, but I heard the other day something which looks as if it was not so much out of the question as I had imagined. George Byng told me he had met Sir William Jolliffe, who is the Derbyite whipper-in, at Wrotham, and having asked him whether there was any foundation for the above report, he replied that it certainly was not true at present, that he could not say what might or might not happen hereafter, but that he could not at once be accepted as leader, and must in any case first serve in the ranks. I do not know what may be the value of Jolliffe's opinions, or what he knows of the intentions of his chief, but he may probably be more or less acquainted with the sentiments of his party, and may be aware that their necessities have modified their extreme repugnance to Gladstone, and that they may now be willing to accept him as leader (eventually), though two years ago they so peremptorily insisted on his entire exclusion from their political society. Meanwhile there is no combination amongst them. Derby is at Knowsley amusing himself, and Disraeli at Paris, doing nobody knows what.
There is talk of Lord Granville's resigning the lead and his office and going to Ireland instead of Carlisle, or to Paris instead of Cowley, but he has never intimated the least intention of doing either. Ireland he certainly will not go to; Paris is not so impossible. There seems some doubt whether his health will admit of his going on in the House of Lords, and if they knew how to get Cowley away from Paris without doing him an injustice or an unkindness, I think they would not be sorry, for his position there is unsatisfactory. It is a serious inconvenience to be on such terms with Walewski that they never converse at all except when business obliges them to meet, and the consequence of their relations is that all affairs between the two countries are carried on between Clarendon and Persigny in London, and as little as possible at Paris, because the Emperor now fights rather shy of Cowley, and is by no means on the same terms with him as heretofore, though always very civil and cordial enough when they meet; and His Majesty will not part with Walewski, who, although of a moderate capacity, is clever enough to know how to deal with his master, and make himself agreeable to him, and the Emperor knows that if he were to change his Minister for Foreign Affairs, it would be attributed to the influence of England and be on that account unpopular. The English press has rendered Walewski the incalculable service of making him popular in France, and rendering it impossible for the Emperor to dismiss him, even if he had a mind to do so, which he has not.
DICTATORIAL POLICY TO BRAZIL.
December 17th.—There was an article in the 'Times' the day before yesterday commenting in severe terms upon a transaction of our Foreign Office, as set forth in a Blue Book, in relation to Brazil. It was the old subject of the slave trade, and the old method of arrogant overbearing meddling and dictation, a case as odious and unjust as any one of those by which Palmerston's foreign administration has ever been disgraced. I really no longer recognise my old friend Clarendon, in whose good sense and moderation I used to place implicit confidence, and believed that he would inaugurate a system at the Foreign Office very different from that of Palmerston, and which would tend to relieve us from the excessive odium and universal unpopularity which Palmerston had drawn upon us. It appears that I was mistaken. I told Granville yesterday morning what I thought of this case, and asked him if it was correctly stated. He said he regarded it just as I did, and that it was quite true, every word of it. I then expressed my astonishment that Clarendon should have acted in this way, and he replied, 'The fault of Clarendon is that he is always thinking of the effect to be produced by Blue Books, and he looks after popularity, and is influenced by those he acts with. Under Aberdeen he was very moderate, but he saw that the moderation of Aberdeen made him unpopular, while Palmerston's popularity in great measure arose from his very different manner towards other Powers, so when Palmerston became Prime Minister instead of Aberdeen, he fell readily into the Palmerstonian method.' I dare say this is the truth, and besides the contagion of Palmerston himself, he is surrounded by men at the Foreign Office who are prodigious admirers of Palmerston and of his slashing ways, and who no doubt constantly urge Clarendon to adopt a similar style. All this is to me matter of great regret personally, and it is revolting as to good taste, and, as I believe, to our national interests. It is, however, a consolation to see that the most powerful and influential of our journals has the courage, independence, and good sense to protest publicly against such violent and unjustifiable proceedings.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
State of England after the War—Prussia and Neufch�tel—Sir Robert Peel's Account of the Russian Coronation—An Historical Puzzle—The Death of Princess Lieven—Mr. Spurgeon's Preaching—Mr. Gladstone in Opposition—Tit for Tat—Difficult Relations with France—Lord John in Opposition—The Liddell v. Westerton Case—Death of Lord Ellesmere—Violent Opposition to the Government on the China Question—Languid Defence of the Government—Impending Dissolution—Popularity of Lord Palmerston—Despotism of Ministers—Parliament dissolved—Judgement on Liddell v. Westerton—Lord Palmerston's Address—The Elections—Defeat of the Manchester Leaders—Fear of Radical Tendencies—The Country approves the Chinese Policy—Death of Lady Keith.
January 9th, 1857.—The old year ended and the new year began strangely. After three years of expensive war the balance-sheet exhibited such a state of wealth and prosperity as may well make us 'the envy of surrounding nations;' but while we have recovered the great blessing of peace, we have to look back upon a year stained beyond all precedent with frightful crimes of every sort and kind: horrible murders, enormous frauds, and scandalous robberies and defalcations. The whole attention of the country is now drawn to the social questions which press upon us with appalling urgency, and the next session of Parliament, which is rapidly advancing, must be principally engaged in the endeavour to find remedies for the evils and dangers incident to our corrupted population, and our erroneous and inadequate penal system, the evils and dangers of which threaten to become greater and more difficult to remedy every day. From this question it is impossible to dissever that of education, for at least we ought to make the experiment whether the diffusion of education will or will not be conducive to the diminution of crime, and we shall see whether the sectarian prejudices, the strength and obstinacy of which have hitherto erected impassable barriers to the progress of educating the people, will retain all their obstinacy in the face of the existing evil, or whether the bodily fear and the universal persuasion of the magnitude and imminence of the danger will not operate upon bigotry itself and render the masses more reasonable. Besides these important questions the new year opens with a most unpleasant prospect abroad, where everything seems to go wrong and our foreign relations, be the cause what, or the fault whose it may, to be in a very unhappy state.
PRUSSIA AND NEUFCHATEL.
The quarrel between Prussia and Switzerland[1] is one in which we appear to have no immediate interest, except that it is always our interest to prevent any infraction of the general peace, but of course we could not think of not interfering in some way or other in the matter. The King of Prussia has behaved as ill and as foolishly as possible, and our Government entirely disapprove of his conduct and have given the Swiss to understand that all our sympathies are with them, and that we think they have right on their side. If France and England were now on really good terms, and would act together with cordiality and authority, nothing would be so easy as to put a prompt extinguisher on the Swiss affair; but as we cannot agree upon a common course of action, there is danger of the dispute drifting into a war, though it is evidently so much the interest and the desire of the Emperor Napoleon to allow no shots to be fired, that I still expect, even at this almost the eleventh hour, to be in a complete fix. The Swiss will not release the prisoners unless the King will at the same time abandon his claims on Neufch�tel, or unless England and France will guarantee that he will do so. The King will do nothing and agree to nothing unless the Swiss will previously and unconditionally release the prisoners, and moreover he repudiates our intervention, as he thinks us unfairly disposed to himself. The simplest course would be for England and France to declare that a Prussian invasion of Switzerland should be a casus belli, and I think we should have no objection to this, but France won't go along with us. Then if the Swiss should deliver over the prisoners to France, and she would accept the dep�t, all might be settled. As it is, we have backed up Switzerland to resist, and if war ensues we shall leave her to her fate—a very inglorious course to pursue; and although I have a horror of war, and am alive to the policy of keeping well with France, I am inclined to think that having encouraged the Swiss to a certain point it would better become us to take our own independent line and to threaten Prussia with war if she does not leave Switzerland alone, than to sit tamely by and see her, unimpeded, execute her threats. The Government are evidently much embarrassed by this question, which is still further complicated by the matrimonial engagement between the two Royal families.
[1] [The Prussian Crown retained, by the Treaty of Vienna, rights of sovereignty over the Swiss Canton of Neufch�tel, and appointed a Governor there. In other respects the Neufch�telese enjoyed all the rights and liberties of Swiss citizens. This anomalous state of things naturally gave rise to friction. The King of Prussia derived no sort of advantage from his nominal sovereignty; but as a matter of dignity he declined to renounce it, and even threatened a military occupation of the Canton, which the Swiss Confederation would have resisted.]
January 13th.—The Swiss affair seems settled, so far at least that there will be no war. The prisoners will be released, but I dare say the King of Prussia will chicaner about the abdication of his rights over Neufch�tel. All the world is occupied with Sir Robert Peel's speech, or lecture as he terms it, at Birmingham, where he gave an account, meant to be witty, of his s�jour in Russia and its incidents. It was received with shouts of applause by a congenial Brummagem audience, and by deep disapprobation in every decent society and by all reasonable people.
January 14th.—I met Clarendon last night, who told me the Swiss question was still in doubt, for the King was shuffling and would probably play them a trick, and though he knew the prisoners were going to be liberated, he would not engage positively to give up his claim. The Emperor Napoleon has behaved very ill and ungratefully to the Swiss, who in consequence were more irritated against him than against the King of Prussia himself. Nothing could equal the fawning flattery and servility of the King to the Emperor, who was at the same time tickled by it and disgusted.
LORD ABERDEEN AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL.
January 20th.—At Woburn for two days. I found the Duke entirely occupied with a question (on which he had of course a various correspondence), whether when Aberdeen's Government was formed, Aberdeen had at the time imparted to John Russell his wish and intention to retire as soon as possible, so that John might take his place as Premier. To ascertain this fact, he had applied to Lord John and Aberdeen, to Lansdowne and to Clarendon, all of whom he invited to send him their recollections and impressions, which they did. The matter now is not of much importance, but is worth noticing from the evidence it affords of the difficulty of arriving at truth, and therefore of the fallibility of all history. Though this circumstance is so recent, and at the time was so important, not one of the parties, neither Lord John nor Aberdeen nor the other two, can recollect what did pass, but as they all concur in their impressions that no such engagement was given when the Government was formed, it may safely be concluded that this is the truth. I know I heard all that passed, and certainly I never heard of any such intention, though I did hear some time afterwards that such had been Aberdeen's expressed wish and Lord John's expectation. I read Aberdeen's letters, in which he entered into other matters connected with his Government, and I must say more creditable, gentlemanlike, and amiable letters I never read.
January 28th.—At Stoke from Saturday to Monday. On returning to town, we heard that the Persian war was over, Palmerston's usual luck bringing a settlement of the only question that could be embarrassing on the eve of the meeting of Parliament. But the news only comes telegraphically, so unless confirmed must be doubtful, and cannot be named in the Speech.[1]
[1] [Differences had arisen in the spring of 1856 between Great Britain and the Court of Persia, in consequence of which the British Minister was withdrawn from Teheran. In October 1856 Herat was attacked and taken by the Persians, which led to war. A detachment of British troops under General Outram landed at Bushire on January 27, 1857, and the Persians were defeated at Kooshab on February 8. Peace was signed in Paris between Her Majesty and the Shah on March 4, the Persians engaging to abstain from all interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, and to respect the independence of Herat. If these dates are correct, as given in Irving's Annals of our Time, the intelligence of the peace cannot have reached London so soon as Mr. Greville supposed, and rumour anticipated the event.]
DEATH OF PRINCESS LIEVEN.
Two remarkable deaths have occurred, one of which touches me nearly, that of Madame de Lieven; the other is that of the Duke of Rutland. Madame de Lieven died, after a short illness, of a severe attack of bronchitis, the Duke having lingered for many months. Very different characters. Madame de Lieven came to this country at the end of 1812 or beginning of 1813 on the war breaking out between Russia and France. Pozzo di Borgo had preceded the Lievens to renew diplomatic relations and make arrangements with us. She was at that time young, at least in the prime of life, and though without any pretensions to beauty, and indeed with some personal defects, she had so fine an air and manner, and a countenance so pretty and so full of intelligence, as to be on the whole a very striking and attractive person, quite enough so to have lovers, several of whom she engaged in succession without seriously attaching herself to any. Those who were most notoriously her slaves at different times were the present Lord Willoughby, the Duke of Sutherland (then Lord Gower), the Duke of Cannizzaro (then Count St. Antonio), and the Duke of Palmella, who was particularly clever and agreeable. Madame de Lieven was a tr�s grande dame, with abilities of a very fine order, great tact and finesse, and taking a boundless pleasure in the society of the great world and in political affairs of every sort. People here were not slow to acknowledge her merits and social excellence, and she almost immediately took her place in the cream of the cream of English society, forming close intimacies with the most conspicuous women in it, and assiduously cultivating relations with the most remarkable men of all parties. These personal liaisons sometimes led her into political partisanship not always prudent and rather inconsistent with her position, character, and functions here. But I do not believe she was ever mixed up in any intrigues, nor even, at a later period, that she was justly obnoxious to the charge of caballing and mischief-making which has been so lavishly cast upon her. She had an insatiable curiosity for political information, and a not unnatural desire to make herself useful and agreeable to her own Court by imparting to her Imperial masters and mistresses all the information she acquired and the anecdotes she picked up. Accordingly while she was in England, which, was from 1812 to 1834, she devoted herself to society, not without selection, but without exclusion, except that she sought and habitually confined herself to the highest and best. The Regent, afterwards George IV., delighted in her company, and she was a frequent guest at the Pavilion, and on very intimate terms with Lady Conyngham, for although Madame de Lieven was not very tolerant of mediocrity, and social and colloquial superiority was necessary to her existence, she always made great allowances for Royalty and those immediately connected with it. She used to be a great deal at Oatlands, and was one of the few intimate friends of the Duchess of York, herself very intelligent, and who therefore had in the eyes of Madame de Lieven the double charm of her position and her agreeableness. It was her duty as well as her inclination to cultivate the members of all the successive Cabinets which passed before her, and she became the friend of Lord Castlereagh, of Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Palmerston, John Russell, Aberdeen, and many others of inferior note, and she was likewise one of the habitu�s of Holland House, which was always more or less neutral ground, even when Lord Holland was himself a member of the government. When Talleyrand came over here as Ambassador, there was for some time a sort of antagonism between the two embassies, and particularly between the ladies of each, but Madame de Dino (now Duchesse de Sagan) was so clever, and old Talleyrand himself so remarkable and so agreeable, that Madame de Lieven was irresistibly drawn towards them, and for the last year or two of their being in England they became extremely intimate; but her greatest friend in England was Lady Cowper, afterwards Lady Palmerston, and through her she was also the friend of Palmerston, who was also well affected towards Russia, till his jealous and suspicious mind was inflamed by his absurd notion of her intention to attack us in India, a crotchet which led us into the folly and disaster of the Afghan war. In 1834 the Lievens were recalled, and she was established at St. Petersburg in high favour about the Empress, but her s�jour there was odious to her, and she was inconsolable at leaving England, where after a residence of above twenty years she had become rooted in habits and affections, although she never really and completely understood the country. She remained at St. Petersburg for several months, until her two youngest children were taken ill, and died almost at the same time. This dreadful blow, and the danger of the severe climate to her own health, gave her a valid excuse for desiring leave of absence, and she left Russia never to return. She went to Italy, where M. de Lieven died about the year 1836 or 1837, after which she established herself in Paris, where her salon became the rendezvous of the best society, and particularly the neutral ground on which eminent men and politicians of all colours could meet, and where her tact and adroitness made them congregate in a sort of social truce.
I do not know at what exact period it was that she made the acquaintance of M. Guizot, but their intimacy no doubt was established after he had begun to play a great political part, for his literary and philosophical celebrity would not alone have had much charm for her. They were, however, already great friends at the time of his embassy to England, and she took that opportunity of coming here to pay a visit to her old friends. The fall of Thiers' Government and Guizot's becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs of course drew Madame de Lieven still more closely to him, and during the whole of his administration their alliance continued to be of the closest and most intimate character. It was an immense object to her to possess the entire confidence of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, who kept her au courant of all that was going on in the political world, while it is not surprising that he should be irresistibly attracted by a woman immensely superior to any other of his acquaintance, who was fully able to comprehend and willing to interest herself about all the grand and important subjects which he had to handle and manage, and who associated herself with a complete sympathy in all his political interests. Their liaison, which some people consider mysterious, but which I believe to have been entirely social and political, grew constantly more close, and every moment that Guizot could snatch from the Foreign Office and the Chamber he devoted to Madame de Lieven. He used to go there regularly three times a day on his way to and his way from the Chamber, when it was sitting, and in the evening; but while he was by far her first object, she cultivated the society of all the most conspicuous and remarkable people whom she could collect about her, and she was at one time very intimate with Thiers, though his rivalry with Guizot and their intense hatred of each other eventually produced a complete estrangement between her and Thiers.
CHARACTER OF PRINCESS LIEVEN.
The revolution of 1848 dispersed her friends, broke up her salon, and terrified her into making a rather ludicrous, but as it turned out wholly unnecessary, escape. She came to England, where she remained till affairs appeared to be settled in France and all danger of disturbance at an end. She then returned to Paris, where she remained, not without fear and trembling, during the period of peril and vicissitude which at length ended, much to her satisfaction, with the coup d'�tat and the Empire. Guizot had returned to Paris, but constantly refused to take any part in political affairs, either under the Republic or with the new government of Louis Napoleon. This, however, did not prevent Madame de Lieven (though their friendship continued the same) from showing her sympathy and goodwill to the Imperial r�gime, and her salon, which had been decimated by previous events, was soon replenished by some of the ministers or adherents of the Empire, who, though they did not amalgamate very well with her old habitu�s, supplied her with interesting information, and subsequently, when the war broke out, rendered her very essential service. When the rupture took place all the Russian subjects were ordered to quit Paris. She was advised by some of her friends to disobey the order, for as she was equally precluded from going to England, the circumstances in which this order placed her were indescribably painful and even dangerous, but she said that however great the sacrifice, and though she was entirely independent, she was under so many obligations and felt so much attachment to the Imperial family that, cost her what it might, she would obey the order, and accordingly she repaired to Brussels, where for a year and a half or two years she took up her melancholy and uncomfortable abode. At last this banishment from her home and her friends, with all the privations it entailed, became insupportable, and she endeavoured, through the intervention of some of her Imperialist friends, to obtain leave of the French Government to return to Paris, either with or without (for it is not clear which) the consent of her own Court. The Emperor Napoleon seems to have been easily moved to compassion, and signified his consent to her return. No sooner did this become known to Cowley and the English Government than they resolved to interpose for the purpose of preventing her return to Paris, and Cowley went to Walewski and insisted that the Emperor's permission should be revoked. The entente cordiale was then in full force, nothing could be refused to the English Ambassador, and Madame de Lieven was informed that she must not come back to Paris. She bore this sad disappointment with resignation, made no complaints, and resolved to bide her time. Some months later she caused a representation to be made to the French Government that the state of her health made it impossible for her to pass another winter at Brussels, and that she was going to Nice, but as it was of vital importance to her to consult her medical adviser at Paris, she craved permission to proceed to Nice vi� Paris, where she would only stay long enough for that purpose. The permission was granted. She wrote me word that she was going to Paris to remain there a few days. I replied that I was much mistaken in her if once there she ever quitted it again. She arrived and was told by her doctor that it would be dangerous in her state to continue her journey. She never did proceed further, and never did quit Paris again. The Government winked at her stay, and never molested or interfered with her. She resumed her social habits, but with great caution and reserve, and did all she could to avoid giving umbrage or exciting suspicion. It was a proof of the greatness of her mind, as well as of her prudence and good temper, that she not only testified no resentment at the conduct of Cowley towards her, but did all she could to renew amicable relations with him, and few things annoyed her more than his perseverance in keeping aloof from her. From the time of her last departure from England up to the death of Frederic Lamb (Lord Beauvale and Melbourne) she maintained a constant correspondence with him. After his death she proposed to me to succeed him as her correspondent, and for the last two or three years our epistolary commerce was intimate and unbroken. She knew a vast deal of the world and its history during the half century she had lived and played a part in it, but she was not a woman of much reading, and probably at no time had been very highly or extremely educated, but her excessive cleverness and her finesse d'esprit supplied the want of education, and there was one book with which her mind was perpetually nourished by reading it over and over again. This was the 'Letters of Madame de S�vign�,' and to the constant study of those unrivalled letters she was no doubt considerably indebted for her own epistolary eminence, and for her admirable style of writing, not, however, that her style and Madame de S�vign�'s were at all alike. She had not (in her letters at least) the variety, the abundance, or the abandon of the great Frenchwoman, but she was more terse and epigrammatic, and she had the same graphic power and faculty of conveying much matter in few words.
PRINCESS LIEVEN.
Nothing could exceed the charm of her conversation or her grace, ease, and tact in society. She had a nice and accurate judgement, and an exquisite taste in the choice of her associates and friends; but though taking an ardent pleasure in agreeableness, and peculiarly susceptible of being bored, she was not fastidious, full of politeness and good breeding, and possessed the faculty of turning every one to account, and eliciting something either of entertainment or information from the least important of her acquaintance. It has been the fashion here, and the habit of the vulgar and ignorant press, to stigmatise Madame de Lieven as a mischievous intriguer, who was constantly occupied in schemes and designs hostile to the interests of our country. I firmly believe such charges to be utterly unfounded. She had resided for above twenty years, the happiest of her life, in England, and had imbibed a deep attachment to the country, where she had formed many more intimacies and friendships than she possessed anywhere else, and to the last day of her life she continued to cherish the remembrance of her past connexion, to cultivate the society of English people, and to evince without disguise her predilection for their country. She had never lived much in Russia, her connexion with it had been completely dissolved, and all she retained of it was a respectful attachment to the Imperial family, together with certain sympathies and feelings of loyalty for her native country and her Sovereign which it would have been unnatural and discreditable to disavow. Her well-known correspondence with the Imperial Court was only caused by the natural anxiety of those great persons to be kept au courant of social and political affairs by such an accomplished correspondent, but I do not believe she was ever employed by them in any business or any political design; on the contrary, she was rather distrusted and out of favour with them, on account of her being so denaturalised and for her ardent affection for England and the English. Russia was the country of her birth, France the country of her adopted abode, but England was the country of her predilection. With this cosmopolite character she dreaded everything which might produce hostile collision between any two of these countries. She was greatly annoyed when the question of the Spanish marriages embittered the relations between France and England, but infinitely more so at the Turkish quarrel, and the war which it produced. Those who fulminated against her intrigues were, as I believe, provoked at the efforts she made, so far as she had any power or influence, to bring about the restoration of peace, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of all who were bent on the continuation of the war. She lived to see peace restored, and closed her eyes almost at the moment that the last seal was put to it by the Conference of Paris. Her last illness was sudden and short. Her health had always been delicate, and she was very nervous about herself; an attack of bronchitis brought on fever, which rapidly consumed her strength, and brought her, fully conscious, within sight of death; that consummation, which at a distance she had always dreaded, she saw arrive with perfect calmness and resignation, and all the virtues and qualities for which the smallest credit was given her seem to have shone forth with unexpected lustre on her deathbed. Her faculties were bright and unclouded to the last, her courage and presence of mind were unshaken, she evinced a tender consideration for the feelings of those who were lamenting around her bed, and she complied with the religious obligations prescribed by the Church of which she was a member with a devotion the sincerity of which we have no right to question. She made her son Paul and Guizot leave her room a few hours before she died, that they might be spared the agony of witnessing her actual dissolution, and only three or four hours before the supreme moment, she mustered strength to write a note in pencil to Guizot with these words: 'Merci pour vingt ann�es d'amiti� et de bonheur. Ne m'oubliez pas, adieu, adieu!' It was given to him after her death.
A SERMON BY MR. SPURGEON.
February 8th.—I am just come from hearing the celebrated Mr. Spurgeon preach in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens. It was quite full; he told us from the pulpit that 9,000 people were present. The service was like the Presbyterian: Psalms, prayers, expounding a Psalm, and a sermon. He is certainly very remarkable, and undeniably a very fine character; not remarkable in person, in face rather resembling a smaller Macaulay, a very clear and powerful voice, which was heard through the whole hall; a manner natural, impassioned, and without affectation or extravagance; wonderful fluency and command of language, abounding in illustration, and very often of a very familiar kind, but without anything either ridiculous or irreverent. He gave me an impression of his earnestness and his sincerity; speaking without book or notes, yet his discourse was evidently very carefully prepared. The text was 'Cleanse me from my secret sins,' and he divided it into heads, the misery, the folly, the danger (and a fourth which I have forgotten) of secret sins, on all of which he was very eloquent and impressive. He preached for about three-quarters of an hour, and, to judge of the handkerchiefs and the audible sobs, with great effect.
We have had a week of Parliament, and though nothing important has occurred, the discussions do not seem to have raised the reputation of the Government or to promise them an easy session, though nobody seems to expect that their stability is likely to be shaken. Disraeli and Gladstone seem verging towards each other in opposition, but there is no appearance of a coalition between them; the only striking fact is that the Opposition, of whose disunion we have heard so much, and of the internal repulsion supposed to prevail among them, seems to be as united as ever it has been, and the usual people appeared at Derby's and Disraeli's gatherings. I take it that any appearance of vulnerability of the Government silences all manifestations of their mutual antipathies, and puts them on the qui vive to turn out their opponents.
Gladstone seems bent on leading Sir George Lewis a weary life, but Lewis is just the man to encounter and baffle such an opponent, for he is cold-blooded as a fish, totally devoid of sensibility or nervousness, of an imperturbable temper, calm and resolute, laborious and indefatigable, and exceedingly popular in the House of Commons from his general good humour and civility, and the credit given him for honour, sincerity, plain dealing, and good intentions.
February 11th.—The Duke of Bedford told me yesterday that Clarendon had complained to him bitterly of John Russell's speech the first night of the session, of the hostility it manifested, and particularly of what he said about Naples. On looking at the report of the speech, the Neapolitan part was certainly strong, but it was not stronger than was warranted by the circumstances of the case, and there seems no reason why Lord John should abstain from speaking out his opinions fairly on any important point of foreign policy. His speech, on the whole, was not regarded as hostile or acrimonious. Disraeli has got into a scrape by blurting out an accusation which he has entirely failed in making good, and he has afforded Palmerston an occasion for a triumph over him not a little damaging. I am told the effect in the House was very bad for Disraeli. Palmerston is said to be beginning to show some symptoms of physical weakness, which if it be so, is very serious at the beginning of a long and arduous session. He is rising seventy-three, and at that age, and loaded with the weight of public affairs, it is not wonderful if the beginning of the end should be discernible.
TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND AUSTRIA.
February 14th.—The defeat which Disraeli sustained the other night was turned the night before last into something like a triumph, and Palmerston found himself in a disagreeable position. Disraeli had asserted that a Treaty had been concluded between France and Austria for certain ends and at a certain time. Palmerston flatly contradicted him, and with great insolence of manner, especially insisting that it was nothing but a Convention, and that conditional, which never had been signed. Two nights after Palmerston came down to the House, and in a very jaunty way said he must correct his former statement, and inform the House he had just discovered that the Convention had been signed. Great triumph naturally on the part of Disraeli, who poured forth a rather violent invective. Then Palmerston lost his temper and retorted that Disraeli was trying to cover an ignominious retreat by vapouring. This language, under the circumstances of the case, was very imprudent and very improper, and (unlike what he had ever experienced before) he sat down without a single cheer, his own people even not venturing to challenge the approbation of the House in a matter in which, though Disraeli was not right, Palmerston was so clearly wrong. What business had he to make such a mistake? for he ought to have been perfectly and accurately informed of every detail connected with foreign affairs. He certainly is not qualis erat, and I am disposed to believe that he is about to begin breaking, and that he will not be able to go through a long and arduous session with the same vigour and success which he has hitherto manifested. Every sign and symptom of weakness and failing strength which he may show will raise the hopes and stimulate the exertions of the Opposition, and we may expect to see not a coalition, but such a concurrence between Gladstone, Disraeli, and Lord Stanley as will prevent the possibility of an alternative Government. Gladstone and Disraeli are already on friendly terms, and Gladstone and Stanley seem to be still more intimate. The present Government only exists by Palmerston's personal popularity, and it would not require much to pull that down.
February 17th.—I called on Lyndhurst on Sunday. He was in high force, with the Blue Book before him, getting up the China case, on which he means to have a day in the House of Lords. He told me that Gladstone says the Budget is the worst that was ever produced, and he stakes his credit on proving that it is full of errors from beginning to end, that, instead of a present surplus of nearly a million, there is a present deficit of four millions, and that there will be one of nine millions in 1860. I don't believe he will make his words good.
DIFFICULT RELATIONS WITH FRANCE.
I saw Clarendon yesterday morning, and found him low, worn, and out of sorts; said he wished to Heaven he could be delivered from office; everything went wrong, the labour, anxiety, and responsibility were overwhelming, and the difficult state of our relations with France more than could be endured. He could not depend on the French Government, and never knew from one day to another what the consequences of their conduct might be. He believed the Emperor sincerely desired to keep well with us, but his Government were constantly doing things which rendered our acting together and cordially almost impossible; that his excessive levity and carelessness perpetually made him the dupe of other people, and led him into saying things and committing himself, and then he did not know how to get out of the engagements to which he stood committed. Clarendon added that it was impossible such a state of things should not produce first coolness and then quarrels, and then God knows what consequences, and he was obliged to pick his way through the embarrassments that spring up around him with the utmost care and circumspection. Palmerston, who never saw difficulties, took it with his usual easy way, and said we were not tied to France like Siamese Twins, and why should we care so much what she did, and why might she not take her way, and we ours; but Clarendon feels that it is impossible for him, on whom the responsibility is more immediately thrown, to take a matter fraught with such consequences in so easy a style; that if any serious dispute arose, France and Russia would probably become allied against us, and that America would join them. Russia pays the most unceasing and the most abject court to Louis Napoleon, and not without success. He (Clarendon) said nothing could be worse than the conduct of the French Government about the affair of the Principalities, which was of vital importance to Austria, who threatened (though she would not keep her resolution) to make it a casus belli if it is insisted on. He said Austria had behaved very well about the amnesty in Italy, and was going to do the same thing in Hungary. We were interrupted as usual in our conversation, and I had not time to ask him about many things I wanted to hear of. I told him I thought the China case was a very bad one.
John Russell seems to me to be drifting into hostility to the Government more and more. He made a strong, but very just, speech on Naples the first night, which irritated Clarendon very much. A few nights ago he said something in the House about China, and backed up the Government against Roebuck, at which Clarendon expressed great satisfaction, and evinced a disposition to seize that pretext to put himself on good terms with Lord John, but Lord John showed no readiness to meet the overture, and when the Duke of Bedford wrote to him what Clarendon had said, he replied that Clarendon owed him nothing, for he had said what he thought right and not what he thought would be agreeable to him, and that it was very probable he should say something he would not at all like before long.
Yesterday morning the Judicial Committee finished the case of Liddell and Westerton, after eight days of elaborate argument, and a powerful case was made in appeal against Lushington's judgement, which I expect to see reversed, and I hope it will, for I detest the proceedings of the people who back up Mr. Westerton, who would drag down the Church to a puritanical level, and strip it of its splendour.
DEATH OF LORD ELLESMERE.
February 19th.—Yesterday morning, at half-past twelve o'clock, my brother-in-law Lord Ellesmere, expired at Bridgewater House, after an illness of three months. He was surrounded by all his family, and died most peacefully, and without any suffering, and in possession of his mental powers till within a few hours of his death. Few men have quitted this world more beloved, respected, and lamented than this excellent person. He had just completed the fifty-seventh year of his age, so might naturally have been expected to live many years, and till he was taken ill, little more than three months ago, he appeared to be in his usual state of health and likely to have a long and enjoyable existence before him. It is no exaggeration to say that he was most estimable in every relation of life, and as such he enjoyed universal respect and regard. He never at any time played a conspicuous part in politics, for which he had neither ambition nor the necessary qualifications, but in such part as he was occasionally called upon to take, he acted with propriety and general approbation. But he had no taste for the turmoil of political life, and his temper was too serene and his love of repose too great to allow him to plunge deeply in political warfare. His abilities were not of a very high order, but he had a good understanding, a cultivated mind, and an inquisitive disposition, and though not profound in any branch of literature or science, he loved to wander over the vast fields of knowledge, so that he was stored with much superficial information on a great variety of subjects. His taste was good both in literature and art; he was an elegant poet, and a fair writer of his own tongue; he was naturally kind-hearted and charitable, more particularly to meritorious artists who stood in need of assistance, by whom his loss will be severely felt. All his tastes and pursuits were of the most refined character, and he delighted in the society of all who were remarkable for ability in any walk of life, and from whom he could derive information of any description. In political opinions he was the very type and model of a Liberal Conservative, and the statesman to whom he gave all his allegiance, together with a boundless admiration, was the Duke of Wellington. But he was always much more of a patriot than a political partisan, and he was oftener to be found giving an independent support to different Governments than fighting in the ranks of Opposition. He will, I have no doubt, be regarded as a loss to the country, even a greater loss than if he had been more actively and conspicuously engaged in politics, for he stood nearly alone in the station he occupied, with vast wealth, unblemished character, esteemed by people of all parties, without an enemy in the world, and having no personal objects to pursue; and though never thrusting himself forward, alike fitted for either active or contemplative life, he was at all times ready to exert his best energies in the public service or to promote the benefit and happiness of his fellow creatures. He was sincerely religious, without intolerance and austerity, or the slightest particle of ostentatious or spiritual pride. It was not, however, in the annals of political history or in the modest and unambitious incidents of his public career that his best panegyric is to be found, but in the more placid walk of private life, in the strict and conscientious discharge of his domestic and social duties, which was at the same time congenial to his sense of moral obligation, and to the benevolent impulses of his heart.
CHARACTER OF LORD ELLESMERE.
Lord Francis Leveson Gower, upon the death of his father the late Duke of Sutherland, succeeded to the immense fortune entailed upon him by his great-uncle, the Duke of Bridgewater, in the shape of the Bridgewater Canal, and found himself the possessor of vast wealth, and surrounded by a population sunk in ignorance and vice. From the first moment of his succession he considered himself in the light of a trustee for working out the moral and spiritual improvement of the people who were in a great measure committed to his charge. He accepted the obligation in a spirit of cheerfulness and resolution, and the due discharge of it continued to be the principal object of his interest and care for the remainder of his life. He employed his wealth liberally in promoting the material comfort and raising the moral condition of those by whose labour that wealth was produced. Churches, schools, and reading-rooms rose around Worsley Hall. His benevolent efforts were crowned with success, and he reaped his reward in the blessings of the surrounding multitudes and in the contemplation of their enjoyment of all the good which his active bounty had bestowed upon them. Such qualities as were here displayed, and a life thus devoted to works of duty and beneficence, made Lord Ellesmere an object of general veneration and attachment; but those alone who belonged to his family, or who had familiar access to the sanctuary of his domestic life, could appreciate fully the excellence and the charm of his character, and comprehend the immensity of the loss which those who were nearest and dearest to him have sustained by his death. He regarded with indifference the ordinary objects of worldly ambition; he lived in and for his family, and he was their joy, their delight, and their pride, fulfilling in the most exemplary manner all the duties of his station, political, social, literary, and artistic; unsurpassed as a husband, father, brother, or friend. He cultivated unremittingly the society of the best and wisest of his fellow-creatures, and it may be as truly said of him as it was of certain sages of antiquity, that 'his excellent understanding was adorned by study, ... and his days were spent in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.' The length of these precious days was not permitted by the Divine Will to be extended to the ordinary duration of human life. In the three last months, while death was gradually but surely, and with his full consciousness, advancing, his courage was never shaken and the serenity of his temper was never disturbed; he always seemed to have more consideration for others than himself, and he met his approaching end with the firmness of a philosopher and the resignation of a Christian. To witness such an end free from bodily pain, with the mental faculties remaining unclouded till the last, full of peace and charity and love, was the best consolation that was possible to the family which surrounded his deathbed; to them he has left a memory which will be long reverenced by all who honour virtue and patriotism, and which they will cherish with never-ending sentiments of duty and affection. He has left them an example how to live and how to die, and the world in which he had no enemy will ungrudgingly acknowledge
That to the realms of bliss was ne'er conveyed
A purer spirit or more welcome shade.
February 27th.—The political war is raging furiously, and personal animosities are becoming bitterer than ever. Confusion, disorder, and doubt rage in both the great camps. Derby made a grand onslaught in the beginning of last week on the China question, and there was (an unusual thing in the Lords) an adjourned debate. Granville was very apprehensive of being beaten, but Bessborough, his able whipper-in, made such exertions that they ended by getting a very good majority. All the speaking was on the side of the Opposition, but it is quite curious how afraid people are of seriously shaking the Government. The day the debate in the Lords ended, that in the Commons began on the same question, duce Cobden.[1] The great event of the first night was John Russell's speech and powerful attack on the Government. It was one of his very best efforts and extremely successful with the House, but it was exceedingly bitter and displayed without stint or reason his hostile animus. It did all the mischief he wished to do, and everybody admits that if a division had then taken place Government would have been beaten by a great majority; but they have since adjourned twice, and the debate stands over till Monday, and the aspect of affairs appears to be very much altered. Whether it be that the effect of Lord John's speech has evaporated, that a rally has taken place among the Liberals, or that the aversion of the stiff Tories to the union between Gladstone and their leaders, the approaching consummation of which seems not to be denied, the general opinion has veered round, and now it is expected that Government will have a majority. Here again, as in the Lords, the speaking was all with the Opposition. Palmerston's speech is looked for with interest and curiosity. The remarkable incidents connected with these transactions have been the parliamentary conduct of Gladstone and John Russell and their respective positions. Gladstone seems to have been so inflamed by spite and ill humour that all prudence and discretion forsook him; he appears ready to say and do anything and to act with everybody if he can only contribute to upset the Government, though it is not easy to discover the cause of his bitterness, or what scheme of future conduct he has devised for himself. Lord John came over in a state of ill-humour which at first he appears to have kept under to a certain degree, and to have wished to have the appearance of acting with perfect independence, but still fairly and impartially speaking out what he thought the truth without caring whom he offended or whom he pleased by so doing. Thus he shocked Clarendon by what he said on the affair of Naples, and then pleased him very much by his next speech on foreign affairs. Then on the Budget he came to the aid of Lewis with great effect and bowled over Gladstone and Disraeli, yet even then evincing a certain spirit of hostility about the tea duties; but on the China question he gave way to all the bitter feeling that is in him, and cast all moderation to the winds. It is impossible to conjecture what he promises to himself, and what purpose he has in view by this conduct, for it is quite extraordinary to what absolute nothingness his political power has fallen. Here is a man who has been leader with occasional intervals of Whig Governments and of the Whig party since 1834, and with great and admitted abilities, and yet he is so entirely without following in the House of Commons that three insignificant votes are the most he can command. His speech the other night was very well received because it was a very good one, and because he spoke the opinions of the greater number of his hearers.
[1] [A motion was made by Mr. Cobden condemning the violent measures resorted to by the British authorities in the Canton river in consequence of the seizure of the lorcha 'Arrow' by the Chinese when she had hoisted the British flag. The debate was carried on with great acrimony, and ended by the adoption of Mr. Cobden's motion by 263 to 247, a majority of 16 against the Government.]
DISPUTE WITH CHINA.
There is, in fact, a strong feeling, both in Parliament and the country, against all that has been done at Canton, and this is the more remarkable because the press has, upon the whole, taken the opposite side. I never could understand why Palmerston and Clarendon were in such a hurry to identify themselves with Bowring's proceedings, and to send out without delay a full approbation of all he had done, till Granville told me that both of them had been under the extraordinary delusion that the Canton affair had been very well done and would be received with great applause and satisfaction here; in point of fact, that it was a great hit, from which the Government would derive considerable advantage, he (Granville) himself showing his good sense by taking exactly the opposite view. He tells me that George Lewis does so likewise, and I dare say, if the truth were known, that the majority of the Cabinet coincide with them. It is remarkable that the defence of the Government in the Lords should have fallen on a man who was speaking all the time against his own opinion, and I should think Labouchere, who took up the defence in the House of Commons, was the most unlikely man in the world to approve of such proceedings. Political necessities which compel men to act thus insincerely, and to strive to make the worse appear the better cause, with the full consciousness that they are fighting against truth, appear to me frightfully demoralising, a sad sealing of the political conscience, the spectacle of which is enough to scare honourable minds from entering into an arena where the contest is to be carried on in such a manner.
If the Government should be beaten on the pending question, they will dissolve, at least if the state of their financial affairs will allow them; but at all events they will not resign without an appeal to the country, and this appeal they will make not on this or that question, but on the great one of all, whether the country desires that Palmerston should continue to be its minister, and on this it is impossible to doubt what will be the reply. His popularity is a fact beyond all doubt or cavil, and it is the more decisive, because not only is there no rival popularity, but every one of the other public men who have been, are, or might be his rivals are absolutely unpopular. Nobody cares any longer for John Russell; everybody detests Gladstone; Disraeli has no influence in the country, and a very doubtful position with his own party. He and Derby have made up their minds to coalesce with Gladstone on the first good opportunity, but it seems not unlikely that they will make such a split among their own followers by so doing as to lose more than they will gain by the junction. Palmerston's popularity does not extend to his colleagues, for not one of whom does anybody care a straw. It is purely personal, and I do not think he would strengthen himself by any other alliance he could form. This fact of his popularity just at the end of his strange and chequered career is most remarkable and not a little unaccountable; but innumerable circumstances prove this to be the undoubted truth, and that it is manifested more decidedly out of the House than in it, for in the House of Commons it does not amount to a certainty of his having always a majority. It is curious that a session which not long ago looked like being a very quiet one, in which there would be ample leisure for consideration of legal and other practical reforms, should in the first weeks be a scene of tremendous conflict, in which the very existence of the Government is trembling in the balance.
March 2nd.—Derby has announced to his assembled party that he is ready to join with Gladstone, though he has not done so yet, and that as they are a minority in the House of Commons, they ought to form any junction that would make them strong enough to oust the present Government and form a Conservative one. He finds it, however, a difficult matter to reconcile them all to any alliance with the detested Gladstone. Great exertions have been made to secure a majority to the Government, and John Russell's friends (the Duke of Bedford especially) are bestirring themselves to take away some of the odium that attaches to Lord John by securing his two or three followers for the division.
March 3rd.—Nothing can equal the excitement and curiosity here about the division. All sorts of efforts have been made all ways to influence votes. George Byng and others who meant to vote with John Russell have been obliged to promise to vote with the Government. Palmerston has had a meeting and harangued them cheerily, but in spite of everything Hayter does not think he will have a majority, but everybody expects it to be so near that there are as many opinions as men. Much is expected to depend on Palmerston's speech, and unluckily for him he is ill with both gout and cold. If they are beaten they will dissolve as speedily as possible.
DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.
March 4th.—A majority of 16 against Government, more than any of them expected. A magnificent speech of Gladstone; Palmerston's speech is said to have been very dull in the first part, and very bow-wow in the second; not very judicious, on the whole bad, and it certainly failed to decide any doubtful votes in his favour. I rejoice that the House of Commons has condemned this iniquitous case for the honour of the country. I do not believe it will make any difference as to the Government. When Palmerston appeals to the country it will not be on the merits of the Canton case, but on his own political existence, whether they will have him for minister or no. It is not, however, yet by any means clear what the real opinion of the country is upon the question itself, and whether they will be for the right or for the expedient, or that which the Government thinks to be the expedient.
DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.
Hatchford, March 10th.—The intention of Government to dissolve Parliament was announced on Friday last, and as far as one can judge at present, Palmerston seems likely to have it all his own way. The press generally espouses his cause, and the 'Times' particularly takes up the cudgels for him vehemently, and cries out 'Coalition,' and abuses the majority and all who voted in it. At present, public opinion seems to be running in his favour, and there is every appearance of his having a triumphant election. But the cry of 'coalition and faction' is perfectly absurd, and nothing more than the mere jargon which all parties employ as their battle cry. There has been no coalition whatever, and that those who clamour against it very well know. The only coalition of which there has been any question has been one between Gladstone (with or without the other Peelites) and Disraeli and Derby, but that has hitherto been in posse rather than in esse, and it would have been much more plausible to raise the cry on the Budget than on the Canton question. Nobody can read the list of the division without seeing that the majority comprised the names of people who have never dreamt of any coalition with anybody, and who voted entirely with reference to the merits of the particular case, and though some (including Disraeli and Gladstone) wished to damage the Government, many others were either friendly to them generally, or at least neutral. To say that the majority was made up of a factious coalition of men who sought to turn the Government out and to take their places, is a wilful and deliberate lie, but it suits the Government to raise the cry, and they find plenty of people to re-echo and to believe it. As to the question itself, I am sure that some of the Cabinet, and probably more than I know of, were in their hearts and consciences as much against the question as any of their opponents. Palmerston's popularity, and the manner in which, he is encouraged and supported by the country, and the sympathy he finds are really most extraordinary. It provokes me, because I think his great success unmerited, but I have no wish to see him defeated at the election, because I see no prospect of any better Government being formed. The pretension of the Government and of their noisy supporters to find fault with the House of Commons for expressing its independent opinion upon the conduct of the officials in China is most preposterous and arrogant. Everybody admits that the Government was not morally responsible for what was done, but because they chose, without any necessity, to approve those acts and to accept the political responsibility of them, it is pretended that the House of Commons ought not to have taken the liberty to express any adverse opinion on the matter, and that it was factious to do so. The scrape, if it was one, the Government got themselves into by their precipitate approval of Bowring, and there was nothing in the resolution and the vote which ought to have been considered as implying any general want of confidence on the part of the House of Commons, more particularly when the Government had just before carried their Budget by large majorities, and had not met with any difficulty or rebuff on any point. If, indeed, matters are come to such a pass, and such divinity hedges in the Palmerston Government that the House of Commons is to be precluded from censuring any transaction, wherever and by whomsoever done, which the Government thinks fit to sanction and approve of, and if the fact of many men of very different opinions and opposite parties concurring in such a vote is to expose the majority by which the vote is carried to a charge of faction, coalition, and all sorts of base motives, then indeed, instead of asking the Duke of Wellington's celebrated question, 'How is the King's Government to be carried on?' it will be time to ask whether the Queen's Government is to be considered despotic and infallible, and the functions of the House of Commons reduced to the very humble ones of registering their acts and re-echoing their approbation.
It seems to be entirely forgotten that in times when the Royal and ministerial authority were much stronger than they are supposed to be now, and before the Reform Bill had effected a sort of revolution in favour of the democratic principle, all governments, however powerful or popular, sustained occasional defeats and were obliged to submit to them, it being of course perfectly understood that defeats which conveyed want of confidence and the withdrawal of the general support of the House of Commons were to be deemed fatal and conclusive. Every case of this kind must be determined according to the especial circumstances of it, but it is a mere pretence to treat the Canton question as one of this description, and the truth is that it is a dodge on their part, and a pretext for going to the country and obtaining a majority, as they think they have an opportunity of doing, on false pretences and by means of a vast deal of humbug. The worst is, that after the immediate purpose has been answered, there is certain to be some dangerous reaction, and as the cry of 'Palmerston' will be the only one got up for the occasion, and everybody will be acceptable who will declare for him, whatever crotchets or cries he may join to his partisanship, we shall probably have a House of Commons full of all sorts of mischievous people stirring every variety of mischievous question.
March 14th.—I returned yesterday from Hatchford and find the current still running strong, but some think a reaction in favour of John Russell has already begun. He stands for the City and is in very good spirits, though his chances of success do not look bright; but he is a gallant little fellow, likes to face danger, and comes out well in times of difficulty.
March 24th.—The dissolution took place on Saturday, and all the world is busy about the elections; many places are without candidates, or with very bad ones, and unable to find good ones. The dinner at the Mansion House the other day to the Ministers was a sort of triumph to Palmerston, who was rapturously received and cheered. He made a very bad speech, but which did very well for such an audience. It was full of claptraps and reiterations of the exploded charges of coalitions, &c., which he is not ashamed to harp upon, and in his address to Tiverton he talks of the 'combination only formed last session' to turn him out. I find myself, malgr� moi, thrown back into my old state of antagonism towards Palmerston, and what is very paradoxical, I am so without any hostility to his Government or any desire for its being overthrown, for I cannot descry any chance of a better, or, indeed, any possibility of forming another able to carry on affairs at all; but I am inexpressibly disgusted at the egregious folly of the country at his being made such an idol in this ridiculous way, and at the false and hypocritical pretences upon which this dissolution has been founded, and the enormous and shameful lying with which the country is deluged. I long to write, print, and publish the truth, and to expose this miserable delusion; but I repress the desire, because I cannot do so without exciting bitter personal animosities, probably quarrels, and I can see no reasonable hope of producing any effects which would sufficiently repay me for such consequences.
THE LIDDELL v. WESTERTON CASE.
The day before yesterday Pemberton Leigh gave judgement in the Privy Council in the case of Liddell and Westerton; the Judicial Committee reversed in great measure the judgements in the Courts below of Dr. Lushington and Sir John Dodson, but not entirely. It was a very able judgement, and prepared with great care and research, and so moderately and fairly framed that it was accepted unanimously by the Committee, and even by the Bishops of Canterbury and London, both Low Churchmen. It was drawn up by Pemberton Leigh himself, and its publication will give the world in general some idea of his great ability, with the extent of which few are acquainted. It is a very singular thing that in such times as these, and when there is such a dearth of able men and so great a demand for them, that he should voluntarily condemn himself to a state of comparative obscurity, and refuse to take the station in public life which it would be difficult to find any other man so well qualified to fill.
March 28th.—At Althorp the last two days. Palmerston's address to Tiverton, following his speech, at the Mansion House, has excited great indignation in all who are not thorough Palmerstonians. Both were full of deception and falsehood. John Russell is particularly incensed, and said these two productions were unworthy of a gentleman, and so they were. Malmesbury has addressed to Palmerston a letter in the newspapers on the subject, which though not well written is true, and fully justified by what Palmerston said; but all this signifies very little, the current is too strong to be opposed, and it is provoking to see the Conservatives endeavouring to bolster up their pretensions by saying they would have supported Palmerston on the China question, if they had been in Parliament, or promising to support him if they are elected. Yesterday, which was the first day of returns, does not give much difference; to-day is the polling for the City, and nobody has an idea how the election will go, whether Lord John will come in, and if he does which of the four will go to the wall. He was enthusiastically received yesterday, and the show of hands was unanimous in his favour, but this proves very little, and his organisation is miserably defective; had it been better and begun earlier, it is probable that his success would have been certain; he is the favourite as it is. Palmerston's speech at Tiverton yesterday was less objectionable than his address and speech at the Mansion House, and he left himself entirely unfettered on the subject of Reform, and rightly. The Parliament promises to be a Radical one, and I fully expect that the result of all this great commotion will be to give a stimulus to organize Reform; nor will it surprise me if Palmerston should find it conducive to his interest as minister to appear in the character of a Reformer, if he were to fling overboard all his old opinions, and to pay this price for a renewed lease of his own power. Wilkes used to say he had never been a Wilkite, but Palmerston has never been anything but a Palmerstonian, and I firmly believe that at seventy-three years of age his single thought is how to secure for himself power for his life, and that he will not scruple to accept measures which, so far as he thinks about it, he believes to be constitutionally dangerous and mischievous if by so doing he can maintain himself on the Treasury Bench.
RESULTS OF THE ELECTION.
March 29th.—Great excitement yesterday in the town, particularly at Brooks's. The most interesting event was the City election, and the return, which under the circumstances may be called triumphant, of John Russell, which was made more agreeable to himself and his friends by the defeat of Raikes Currie, who came from Northampton on purpose to turn him out. Up to the last hour John Russell continued to lead at the head of the poll, after which he fell off and only ended third, but still he had 7,000 votes after having been assured by his old adherents (J. Abel Smith in particular) that his success was hopeless, that he would be beaten 'disgracefully,' and probably would have hardly any votes at all.
After this the most interesting events were the defeats of the Manchester men, and generally, though not universally, of the voters for Cobden's motion, Bright and Milner Gibson, Cobden, Ricardo, Layard, all defeated. It seems that Manchester and the other great towns had got tired of their leaders, who had made themselves unpopular by their opposition to the war. I am sorry for the loss of Bright and Cobden, because such able men ought not to be ousted and replaced by mediocrities.
Palmerston's speech at Tiverton was in the same style, but far less offensive and objectionable than his address and his Mansion House harangue. The most remarkable part of it was the total silence which he observed as to his intention upon reforms and domestic questions generally, or rather his positive refusal to say a word on the subject or to pledge himself in any way; he evidently means to meet his Parliament free to take any course his interests may dictate. There was one remarkable speech yesterday, considering what the man is who uttered it. Vernon Smith at Northampton spoke as follows: 'Mr. Disraeli said Lord Palmerston was the Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet. I do not admit the description as regards Lord Palmerston, but I accept the designation as to the Cabinet of which I am a member. A great statesman once said that parties were like fishes (it was snakes, I believe), and their heads were propelled by their tails, and it will very likely be found that the head of the Government will in like manner be propelled by his tail.' The words are not exact, but the meaning is, and it must be owned a remarkable declaration for a Cabinet Minister to make as to his chief, and such a chief. I believe that it will turn out to be the truth. The returns so far as they have gone are frightful, and a deluge of Radicalism and violence will burst out in the House of Commons. There will be a Radical majority prepared to support Lord Palmerston and to keep him in power, but on the condition of his doing their bidding, and consenting to their demands, nor will he be able to help himself. He will no doubt try to do as little as possible, but there will be no strong Conservative party to which he can appeal from and against his own Radical supporters; the Conservatives will be too weak to help him, and probably will not be inclined to help him out of his difficulty if they could. At his age his only object will be to grasp power while he lives. Apr�s moi le d�luge will be his motto, and my expectation is that he will never consent to sacrifice power from scruples or upon principles, and will consent to anything that may be necessary rather than allow himself to be outbid and to see power torn from his hands. The prospect seems to me tremendous. The cry of Palmerston, and nothing but Palmerston, has done very well to go to the hustings on, but having accomplished its purpose, other cries much more serious will soon take its place, and we shall see, as the Prince said, Constitutional Government on its trial with a vengeance.
March 31st.—The elections continue to be unfavourable to the Conservatives, but the people at Brooks's, and the Government generally, are too sanguine when they call everything gain to them where a Conservative is replaced by a Liberal, for in many cases the so-called Liberal is a violent Radical, very likely to give much more trouble to the Government than the Conservative who was turned out. The gains to Government up to this time (and the borough elections are all over) are calculated at 20, making a difference of 40 votes; but the Conservatives do not admit this, and will make other calculations with different results.
TRIUMPH OF LORD PALMERSTON.
There is no denying the fact, however, that a strong sense has been evinced of partiality for Palmerston and resentment against the China vote. The news of the Emperor of China having ordered Yeo to make peace on any terms comes very opportunely, but nothing can be so absurd as the pretence that by so doing the Emperor himself condemns his Viceroy and justifies our conduct at Canton. It only proves that His Majesty is very much alarmed, and wishes to heal the breach as quickly as possible, and on any terms he can. I am bound to say that many people, not extravagant either, maintain that this promises to be a very good Parliament, and by no means so dangerous as my fears have pictured it to myself; still I cannot look upon it as a safe and innocent Parliament. Cardwell's defeat at Oxford proves how low the Peelites are. Frederic Peel's loss of his seat is a great inconvenience to the Government, and one does not see how it is to be repaired, for it is almost impossible in these days to treat any place (if one can be found) as a nomination borough, turn the sitting member out, and put him in instead. The serious part of it is that he has to move the Army Estimates, and nobody else can do it now.
Old Lady Keith is dead, at some prodigious age. She was the 'Queeny' of Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Hale's daughter, and was the last surviving link between those times and our own, and probably the only person surviving who could remember Johnson himself and his remarkable contemporaries, or who had lived in intimacy with them.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
Results of the Elections—Defeat of Cobden and Bright—The War with China—Death of Lady Ashburton—Lord Palmerston's Success—The Handel Concerts—M. Fould in London—The Queen and Lord Palmerston—The Indian Mutiny—The Prince Consort—Death of General Anson—The State of India—Royal Guests—The Government of India—Temper of the House of Commons—Debates on India—Royal Visits—The Divorce Bill—The Divorce Bill in the House of Lords—Close of the Session—A Dukedom offered to Lord Lansdowne—Death of Mr. Croker—History of the Life Peerages—The Indian Mutiny and the Russian War—The Struggle in India—Reinforcements for India—The Queen's Attention to Public Business—Attacks on Lord Canning—Big Ships and Big Bells—Lord Canning defended—Courteous Behaviour of Foreign Nations—The Capture of Delhi and Lucknow—Difficulties in India—Depression in the City—Speculations on the Contingency of a Change of Government—The East India Company and the Government—Exaggerated Reports from India—A Queen's Speech—The Bank Charter Act.
April 4th, 1857.—The elections are drawing to a close. It is strange that what ought to be a matter of fact is made matter of opinion, for while the Whigs of Brooks's and the Liberals generally claim an immense gain, the Conservatives and the Carlton Club and their organs only admit an inconsiderable loss. There can be no doubt, however, that a great many Conservatives have lost their seats, and a great many Radicals and Palmerstonians have been elected. At Brooks's they insist that it will be a very good Parliament, and they are throwing their caps up at the Government successes; but it seems to me that they are reckoning somewhat rashly, and counting as gains to the Government many men who will be found more troublesome and unmanageable than the moderate men over whose defeats they are exulting. But as to gains and losses, and all calculations, I agree with the late Speaker, Lord Eversley, who said to me the other day that nothing could be so fallacious as all such calculations, and that it is impossible to know the result till Parliament meets, and it is seen how the new members group themselves. The most striking and remarkable feature of this election is the complete rout of the Peelites and of the Manchester men, the Old Leaguers. For a long time past it has been absurd to talk of the Peelites as a Party. There were not a dozen men in the House of Commons who could by any possibility be so designated, and in fact only a few formerly members of Sir Robert Peel's Government or of Lord Aberdeen's, who still kept together, and were called Peelites, because they would not be either Whigs or Tories or Radicals. Now the designation must fall to the ground. Half these men have lost their seats; of the rest, some repudiate the association and announce their independence; some join, or are ready to join, Derby and the Tories; others openly declare their adhesion to Palmerston; and thus in one way or another there are no Peelites left.
DEFEAT OF COBDEN AND BRIGHT.
The fate of Bright, Cobden, and Co. exhibits a curious example of the fleeting and worthless nature of popular favour. They who were once the idols of millions, and not without cause, have not only lost all their popularity, but are objects of execration, and can nowhere find a parliamentary resting place. No constituency will hear of them. The great towns of Lancashire prefer any mediocrities to Bright and Cobden. It seems that they had already ceased to be popular, when they made themselves enormously unpopular, and excited great resentment, by their opposition to the Russian War, the rage for which was not less intense in Manchester and all the manufacturing district than in the rest of the kingdom. This great crime, as it appeared in the eyes of their constituents, was never pardoned, and their punishment was probably determined while the war was still going on. As the favour of Cobden fell, so that of Palmerston rose, and his visit to Manchester a few months ago raised the favour to a pitch of enthusiasm. When Cobden therefore originated the China motion, he no doubt gave great offence, and he sealed his own condemnation. Bright has been long abroad, and has done nothing lately that any one could take umbrage at, but his opposition to the war has not been forgotten or forgiven, and when Cobden appeared at Manchester as his representative, and made a very able speech in his behalf, it is highly probable that his advocacy was in itself fatal to his re-election. It seems quite clear that another man, Sir Elkanah Armytage, lost his election at Salford solely because he was strongly supported and recommended by Cobden.
May 1st.—Parliament met yesterday, the last (Irish) election having ended only a few days before. Denison's election as Speaker went off very quietly. The prevailing opinion now seems to be that this will prove a good Parliament, on the whole safe and moderate, and an improvement on the last. All the news we get from China, or in reference to Chinese affairs, only proves the more strongly how foolish and mischievous the conduct of Bowring was, and what a sound and correct judgement the vote of the House of Commons expressed upon it. It is impossible to conjecture what the result of the war now began will be, but is quite certain that we shall have to wade to our ends through all sorts of horrors and atrocities, which it does not become us to inflict, though the Chinese are a savage, stupid, and uninteresting people, who in some degree deserve the sufferings that will be inflicted on them, though perhaps not at our hands.
George Anson[1] writes to me from India that there is a strange feeling of discontent pervading the Indian Army from religious causes, and a suspicion that we are going to employ our irresistible power in forcing Christianity upon them. It is not true, but the natives will never be quite convinced that it is not, as long as Exeter Hall and the missionaries are permitted to have carte blanche and work their will as they please in those regions.
[1] [General Anson was at this time Commander-in-Chief in India. He died there shortly after the outbreak of the great military revolt, of which the letter mentioned in the text was the first premonitory indication.]
DEATH OF LADY ASHBURTON.
May 10th.—I passed the last week at Wynnstay for Chester races; a very fine place. The events that have occurred in the course of the last ten days are the opening of the Manchester Exhibition, very successfully; the first proceedings of the new Parliament, which promise a quiet session and a peaceful reign to Palmerston, who has put the House in good humour by promising a Reform Bill next year; the death of the Duchess of Gloster, and, what interests the world still more, the death of Lady Ashburton.[1] Milnes has written a short, but very fair and appropriate notice of her for the 'Times' newspaper, which of course was intended as a eulogy, and not as a character, with the bad as well as the good that could be said of her. Lady Ashburton was perhaps, on the whole, the most conspicuous woman in the society of the present day. She was undoubtedly very intelligent, with much quickness and vivacity in conversation, and by dint of a good deal of desultory reading and social intercourse with men more or less distinguished, she had improved her mind, and made herself a very agreeable woman, and had acquired no small reputation for ability and wit. It is never difficult for a woman in a great position and with some talent for conversation to attract a large society around her, and to have a number of admirers and devoted habitu�s. Lady Ashburton laid herself out for this, and while she exercised hospitality on a great scale, she was more of a pr�cieuse than any woman I have known. She was, or affected to be, extremely intimate with many men whose literary celebrity or talents constituted their only attraction, and while they were gratified by the attentions of the great lady, her vanity was flattered by the homage of such men, of whom Carlyle was the principal. It is only justice to her to say that she treated her literary friends with constant kindness and the most unselfish attentions. They, their wives and children (when they had any), were received at her house in the country, and entertained there for weeks without any airs of patronage, and with a spirit of genuine benevolence as well as hospitality. She was in her youth tall and commanding in person, but without any pretension to good looks; still she was not altogether destitute of sentiment and coquetry, or incapable of both feeling and inspiring a certain amount of passion. The only man with whom she was ever what could be called in love was Clarendon, and that feeling was never entirely extinct, and the recollection of it kept up a sort of undefined relation between them to the end of her life. Two men were certainly in love with her, both distinguished in different ways. One was John Mill, who was sentimentally attached to her, and for a long time was devoted to her society. She was pleased and flattered by his devotion, but as she did not in the slightest degree return his passion, though she admired his abilities, he at last came to resent her indifference, and ended by estranging himself from her entirely, and proved the strength of his feeling by his obstinate refusal to continue even his acquaintance with her. Her other admirer was Charles Buller, with whom she was extremely intimate, but without ever reciprocating his love. Curiously enough, they were very like each other in person, as well as in their mental accomplishments. They had both the same spirits and cleverness in conversation, and the same quickness and drollery in repartee. I remember Allen well describing them, when he said that their talk was like that in the polite conversation between Never Out and Miss Notable. Her faults appeared to be caprice and a disposition to quarrels and tracasseries about nothing, which, however common amongst ordinary women, were unworthy of her superior understanding. But during her last illness all that was bad and hard in her nature seemed to be improved and softened, and she became full of charity, good-will, and the milk of human kindness. Her brother and her sister-in-law, who, forgetting former estrangements, hastened to her sickbed, were received by her with overflowing tenderness, and all selfish and unamiable feelings seemed to be entirely subdued within her. Had she recovered she would probably have lived a better and a happier woman, and as it is she has died in charity with all the world, and has left behind her corresponding sentiments of affection and regret for her memory. I was once very intimate with her, but for a long time past our intimacy had dwindled into ordinary acquaintance.
[1] [Harriet Mary, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Sandwich, was married in 1828 to William Bingham Baring, afterwards second Baron Ashburton. One son, the only issue of this marriage, died in infancy. Lady Ashburton was distinguished for her wit, her social qualities, and her hospitality, which made Bath House and the Grange the centres of a brilliant literary society, well known by the records of it in the Life of Mr. Carlyle and the Autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor.]
June 3rd.—There is really nothing to write about, but it is evident that the session is going to pass away in the most quiet and uneventful manner. Never had Minister such a peaceful and undisturbed reign as Palmerston's. There is something almost alarming in his prodigious felicity and success. Everything prospers with him. In the House of Commons there is scarcely a semblance of opposition to anything he proposes; a speech or two here and there from Roebuck, or some stray Radical, against some part of the Princess Royal's dowry, but hardly any attempt at divisions; and when there have been any, the minorities have been so ridiculously small as to show the hopelessness of opposition. The only men who might be formidable or troublesome seem to have adopted the prudent course of not kicking against the pricks. John Russell evinces no hostility, and accepts Hayter's letters. Gladstone hardly ever goes near the House of Commons, and never opens his lips. There seems to be a disposition in both Houses to work and bring legislative reforms to a conclusion. The House of Lords has been very busy with the Divorce Bill, and there has been a good deal of vigorous debating, particularly among Lyndhurst, the Bishops of Oxford and London, and Campbell and Wensleydale, who hate each other, and have interchanged blows.
THE HANDEL CONCERTS.
June 20th.—All this past week the world has been occupied with the Handel Concerts at the Crystal Palace, which went off with the greatest success and �clat. I went to the first ('Messiah'), and the last ('Israel in Egypt'); they were amazingly grand, and the beauty of the locale, with the vast crowds assembled in it, made an imposing spectacle. The arrangements were perfect, and nothing could be easier than the access and egress, or more comfortable than the accommodation. But the wonderful assembly of 2,000 vocal and 500 instrumental performers did not produce musical effect so agreeable and so perfect as the smaller number in the smaller space of Exeter Hall. The volume of sound was dispersed and lost in the prodigious space, and fine as it undoubtedly was, I much prefer the concerts of the Harmonic Society.
Fould[1] came over from Paris the other day for the purpose of going to see the Manchester Exhibition. He was received with great distinction. The Queen invited him to Windsor for Ascot, and Granville gave him a breakfast here to meet the financial notabilities whom he wanted to talk to. We had the Chancellor of the Exchequer and an ex-Chancellor (C. Wood), the Governor of the Bank, and the ex-Governor of the Bank, cum multis aliis. He said that their financial affairs in France were in a very healthy state, which is contrary to the general impression here.