Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century

by James Richard Joy

IX

LORD PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

[HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, Viscount Palmerston, born October 20, 1784, near Romsey, Hampshire; died October 18, 1865, Brocket Hall; succeeded to the title and the Irish peerage in 1802; educated at Harrow and Cambridge; Member of Parliament, 1807; at once made a Junior Lord of the Admiralty; 1809-1828, Secretary at War; about 1830 joined Whig party; 1830-41,1846-51, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; 1852-55, Home Secretary; 1855-58, 1859-65, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. Buried in Westminster Abbey.]

The Peace is the accepted name for the condition which succeeded in England the generation which had been spent in the wars with France and the first Napoleon. For forty years after the Battle of Waterloo (1815), this condition was unruffled by actual hostilities between England and any European power, unless that "untoward event" the Battle of Navarino (1827) and the bombardment of Antwerp (1832) should be so considered. Petty wars with the native princes of India and on the Afghan frontier occurred from time to time, it is true, and the infamous Opium War was waged against China (1839-42), but until the Crimean Campaigns (1853-56) and the Indian Mutiny (1857) the war spirit of the nation was never stirred to its depths. Continental Europe during these years passed through many convulsions. Bloody revolutions shook many states, and Prussia, Austria, Denmark, Turkey, and Italy were involved in wars. The hand that piloted England among the rocks of the tortuous channel of foreign politics for nearly a generation was that of Lord Palmerston, for nearly twenty years Foreign Secretary and twice Prime Minister of the Queen's government.

Henry John Temple was the descendant of an historic English family, and was born on the Temple estates at Broadlands in Hampshire, October 20, 1784. He was, therefore, four years older than Sir Robert Peel, whom he long survived, and twelve years the senior of his sometime colleague, Lord John Russell. From Harrow, where he was reckoned the jolliest boy in the school, and the pluckiest fighter, he was sent to Edinburgh in charge of Dugald Stewart, one of the great Scottish teachers of the time, and thence, after three years under exceptional educative influences, to Cambridge. His father's death had given him the title of Viscount Palmerston in the Irish peerage, and before receiving his degree, his ambition led him to offer himself to the university as its candidate for the House of Commons. Though rejected there, a pocket borough was provided for him, and in 1807, at the age of twenty-three, he took his seat as a member for Newtown, a borough in which he had never set foot. An office was soon found for him in the Perceval government as Secretary at War, a post which was charged with the supervision and control of military expenditure and accounts—no small responsibility at this juncture. During his score of years in this capacity the young Palmerston gave evidence of superior abilities as a bureau chief, while on the floor of the House his speeches marked him as a stanch asserter of the power of England, and a dangerous man to trifle with—so quick and powerful was his gift of repartee. During the brief ministries of Canning and Goderich he received flattering offers of advancement, leaving the cabinet in May, 1828, with Canning's followers, who opposed the government of Wellington.

The young aristocrat who had impressed some of his school-fellows as having no ambitions higher than to be a courtier, had forsaken "pigtail Toryism," as he called it, and was developing along liberal lines. He had been a consistent advocate of Catholic emancipation, an admirer of Canning's broad views, and hospitable to moderate propositions for the reform of Parliament. When Lord Grey's government was formed, in 1830, he naturally accepted office under it, becoming what he had long wished to be, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Except for a few months he was the spokesman of England in the world's councils until the downfall of the Whigs, in 1841.

For the duties of his office Palmerston had many qualifications. His long training in public business; his familiarity not only with the languages of western Europe, but with foreign public men, and the national customs and peculiar modes of thought and feeling; his social faculty which gave him ready access to the minds of others; and his unfailing confidence in his country and in himself, brought him well off from a hundred diplomatic battles. As time went on the nation recognized in him some of its own most striking characteristics, and his popularity at last transcended party lines. In Lord Palmerston "John Bull" recognized himself.

Of the governing principles of his foreign policy Palmerston's own statement, made in 1848, is as good as can be given. It was not based upon any permanent alliance with other states, but provided for such freedom of action as should secure the "balance of power" in Europe, lest any single state should become a menace, like France in the Napoleonic era. Palmerston's statement was, "As long as England sympathizes with right and justice she will never find herself alone. She is sure to find some other state of sufficient power, influence, and weight to support and aid her in the course she may think fit to pursue. Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is marked out as the perpetual ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. And if I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle which I think ought to guide an English minister, I would adopt the expression of Canning, and say that with every British ministry the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of policy."

The achievement of Belgian independence was the first and almost greatest success of the new Foreign Secretary. When the powers at Vienna, in 1815, were rearranging the map of Europe they had joined Belgium with Holland as the kingdom of the Netherlands, with the idea of forestalling any further advance of France in that quarter. The union was unnatural. Race, language, and religion were opposed to it, and in 1830, the Belgians revolted. A congress of the powers met in London to labor for a peaceful solution. Between the claims of Holland and the aggressive policy of France, a rupture was with difficulty avoided. But eventually, by tact and firmness, Palmerston had his way, and Belgium became an independent state, without precipitating a general European war.

The formation of the Quadruple Alliance was the next incident in this vigorous foreign policy. Portugal and Spain were plunged in civil wars, the pretenders, Don Miguel and Don Carlos, attempting to wrest the scepter from the hands of the constitutional queens. Austria, preparing to interfere in behalf of despotism, was met, in 1834, by the announcement that a treaty of alliance had been signed by the four powers— England, France, Spain, and Portugal. Though it remained in force but a short time it served its purpose.

The Eastern Question next took on threatening form. Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, rose against the Turkish Sultan, and his son, Ibrahim, invaded Syria and threatened Constantinople itself. The Turkish empire seemed about to break in two, France supporting the Pasha, and so gaining a foothold in Egypt, and Russia befriending the Porte, and advancing her frontier to the Bosphorus. Such a consummation would have interposed two hostile powers between England and her Indian empire. In July, 1840, Palmerston completed the Quadrilateral Alliance, by which England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia agreed to restore peace in the Porte's dominions. This bold stroke, backed by England's warlike attitude, and Palmerston's characteristic threat that "Mehemet Ali will just be chucked into the Nile" took the spirit out of the French government. Mehemet Ali was left to make the best terms he could with the Quadrilateral, and the crisis was at an end. This was in July, 1841. The next month the Whig ministry fell, and Sir Robert Peel returned to power. Palmerston went out of office with flying colors. "He had created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from Absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the highway to India from France." It is true that the picture had another side, and that the very brilliancy of his moves, the cleverness with which he played the game of diplomacy, and his recklessness of the interests of foreign courts left feelings of bitterness and defeat in the hearts of many European and American statesmen. His enemies called him a bully, and denounced his methods as "high handed," but his countrymen were satisfied.

From 1841 to 1846, as a member of the opposition, the ex- Minister exercised his functions as a critic of the spiritless foreign policy of Lord Aberdeen, for which he could find no better name than "antiquated imbecility." Upon Peel's overthrow, after the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846), he resumed the foreign portfolio in the Cabinet of Lord John Russell.

At once the question of the "Spanish marriages" became acute. King Louis Philippe of France, and his Minister, Guizot, had been plotting to marry the child-queen, Isabella of Spain, to her worthless cousin, Don Francisco, and her sister, the Infanta, to the Duc de Montpensier, Louis Philippe's brother, with results most promising to the King and to France, but most distasteful to England, as Palmerston was prompt to declare, "Such an objection on our part may seem uncourteous and may be displeasing, but the friendships of states and governments must be founded on natural interests and not upon personal likings." Yet despite these protests, the marriages were celebrated. France seemed to have outwitted Palmerston for once. But vengeance was not long delayed. The "Citizen King" had few friends among the monarchical states of the Continent, and in forfeiting the friendship of England he kicked away one of the props of his own throne. Within two years came the Revolution of 1848, which cost him his crown.

Eighteen hundred and forty-eight was a year of revolutions. Throughout western Europe the popular aspirations were struggling for expression. Constitutional government was clamorously demanded, and the despotism which had ground the Italian states under the heel of Hapsburg and Bourbon was for the moment shaken. Through her outspoken Foreign Secretary England let her liberal sympathies be known, but even Palmerston was careful to keep within the bounds of peaceful protest, avoiding all provocation to war.

In April, 1847, at Athens, the house of Don Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew born on British soil at Gibraltar, was destroyed by a mob of Jew-baiters. As a British citizen he put in a claim for damages and asked the foreign office to collect it. Palmerston had other scores to settle with Greece, and when his demands met with slow response, he sent a British fleet to the Piraeus to lay hands on Greek shipping. Greece appealed to France and Russia for protection. The trouble grew to such proportions that the British Parliament took it up. The Lords censured the government for its harsh and unjust treatment of a friendly state. In the Commons a vote of confidence in the foreign policy was moved, and on this question Lord Palmerston delivered the greatest speech of his life. It was an exposition and defense of his entire official career, and no argument could break the force with Englishmen of the triumphant sentence in which it culminated. "I fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give on the question before it; whether the principles on which the foreign policy of this country has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow- subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged with the government of England, and whether as the Roman in the days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say 'Civis Romanus sum,' so also a British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect him against injustice and wrong!"

This "Civis Romanus" speech raised the orator to the highest pitch of popular regard. But the premier had found him a very troublesome colleague on account of his confirmed practice of committing the government on important matters without consulting with his chief. He was warned by the Queen's personal memorandum that this habit must cease, but an unpardonable case occurred in 1851. Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, president of the French republic, executed his coup d'etat and overthrew the constitutional government. Without consulting Queen or Premier, and contrary to their express desire, Palmerston, in conversation with the French ambassador, approved the bold stroke of the Prince-President. For this indiscretion Lord Russell summarily dismissed him.

When Lord Palmerston again took a portfolio, it was to be Home Secretary in the coalition cabinet of Lord Aberdeen (1852-55). He had become the warm friend and admirer of Lord Shaftesbury, whose mother-in-law, Lady Cowper, was now Lady Palmerston, the most gracious and skilful helpmeet that any statesman could wish to have. His inclination and his position enabled him to put through much legislation suggested by the philanthropic peer for the welfare of the working- classes. His knowledge of foreign affairs was at the service of the government, and came into active play when the Czar's claim to a protectorate over all Greek Christians in the Turkish empire brought the Eastern Question again to a fever heat, in 1853. The Czar Nicholas had said in a conversation with the British Minister concerning the political weakness of Turkey, "We have on our hands a sick man- -a very sick man; it will be a great mistake if one of these days he should slip away from us before the necessary arrangements have been made." His idea of "arrangements" was that Turkey in Europe should fall under Russian protection, leaving England free to control her direct route to India by way of Cyprus and Egypt. English diplomacy encouraged the Sultan to reject the Russian claim to the uttermost. The result was war. Turkey first declared it against the Russians, who had already invaded her Danubian principalities. Palmerston held that it was the duty of Europe to preserve the balance of power by preventing Russia from aggrandizing herself at the expense of Turkey, and when the Czar refused to withdraw from the principalities England joined with France in declaring the war, which, from the scene of its chief operations against Russia, has since been called the Crimean. Forty years had passed since Waterloo and war was an exciting novelty for British youth. England plunged into it with enthusiasm, but the feeble and incompetent prosecution of the campaign against Sebastopol, with the mismanagement of commissary and hospitals, evoked a storm of opposition, before which the Aberdeen ministry collapsed. Lord Palmerston was the natural choice of Queen and nation to succeed him. He became Prime Minister in February, 1855, and though past his seventieth year, his energy put a new face on the military situation, and his diplomacy gained a substantial advantage over Russia in the Treaty of Paris (March, 1856), which closed the inglorious conflict, and postponed for twenty years her advance toward the Bosphorus. The Queen, who had many reasons to dislike the personality of her chief minister, honored him with the Garter, in recognition of his services to the state.

Palmerston's government held together until early in 1858, handling with vigor the various problems of Eastern policy which grew out of the Crimean War, waging the brief expeditionary wars with China and Persia, and dealing with characteristic decision and pluck with the great Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857. To Palmerston belongs the credit of selecting the right person in Sir Colin Campbell to restore the British power in the revolted provinces, and his ready optimism helped to nerve the nation in this year of trial. John Bull felt a new pride in "Old Pam" when, in his Mansion House speech, in this time of national foreboding, he served notice on any foreign nation whom it might concern that "it would not be a safe game to play to take advantage of that which is erroneously imagined to be the moment of our weakness."

Palmerston's willingness to alter the English conspiracy laws for the sake of the Emperor of the French, whose life had been attempted by the assassin Orsini, cost him his official head in February, 1858. The second Derby administration which ensued lasted but fifteen months, giving way, in June of the following year, to Palmerston's second and last government, with a brilliant array of advisers; Earl Russell as Foreign Secretary, and Mr. William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The lifelong determination to spare nothing which might be required for the defense of his country was still strong within him, as is shown by his strenuous advocacy of increased armaments, better coast defenses, and more and more powerful ships. "He never ceased for a single moment to keep before the nation the great lesson that empires are kept as they are gained, by courage and self-reliance."

The Civil War in America afforded one of the latest opportunities for the display of his characteristics in dealing with foreign affairs. The sentiment of the ruling class in England, the class to which Lord Palmerston was allied by birth, interest, and lifelong political association, openly showed its sympathy with the Southern side. Moreover, the English cotton-mills were shut down for lack of the raw staple, and English merchants looked longingly at the blockaded markets of the Confederacy. The Prime Minister, true to his guiding principle, made "the interests of England" the watchword of his policy. He was prompt to recognize the "belligerent rights" of the revolted states against an angry protest from the Union side; he was strenuous in his demand for apology and restitution in the case of the Confederate envoys whom Captain Wilkes, U.S.N., seized on board the British steamer "Trent"; and he taxed the endurance of Mr. Lincoln's government to the uttermost by allowing the "Alabama" and other Confederate commerce-destroyers to be built and outfitted in British ports. Not even the heavy bill of damages which his country had to pay at Geneva for this breach of neutrality has softened the bitterness of feeling which his action at that time engendered in the United States. If Lord Palmerston was the embodiment of "John Bull," he here exhibited the national character at its worst.

The "evergreen" premier, vigorous almost to the last, died at Brocket in October, 1865. He had outlived many of the traits which had laid him open to attack and criticism in his younger days, and had gained in weight and dignity. The knowledge of what he had done for England, how he had stood for her interests in the Commons, and won victories for her in foreign courts, and had penetrated and frustrated the designs of her enemies, gave him a splendid position in the esteem of English patriots. They even looked kindly upon his foibles, his foppish attire, his fondness for the turf, and his frivolous gayety, which shone undaunted when the national gloom was blackest. When he died there was a general belief that England had lost a son who had spared nothing in laboring for her aggrandizement, and he went to his last resting-place in Westminster Abbey as one who had earned a place among her most useful servants.