Lord Palmerston

by Anthony Trollope

IN looking for material on which to base this short memoir of Lord Palmerston I have of course taken, as my guide to his general life, the biography of Mr. Evelyn Ashley.[A] I have also referred to the unfinished volumes by Lord Dalling, which Mr. Ashley adopted as far as they went, and by his later edition has rendered unnecessary to the general reader. Beyond this I have had recourse to the Edinburgh, the Quarterly, the Times newspaper, and various periodicals of the period; and I have read many of his speeches and others. In dealing with the Crimean War I have had recourse to Mr. Kinglake’s work; and in various portions of my little book I have referred to other authors, whom it may perhaps be unnecessary that I should name here. Having lived through a great portion of Lord Palmerston’s career, I have trusted in some things to my recollection, when I have been able to confirm my memory. But I must add to this short list “The Life of the Prince Consort,” by Sir Theodore Martin, in which the name of Lord Palmerston has been brought under much discussion.

Sir Theodore Martin, in that work, has performed a most difficult task with a devotion and loyalty beyond praise. There was a special merit in selecting a man who has united so true a spirit with a patience so exemplary and literary merit of such high character. And the subject of his eulogy was certainly beyond all praise. To have found genius and conscience and industry, with assured moral convictions and a tender loving heart, to fill such a place as that occupied by the Prince Consort, has been the good fortune of England. Let men consider what might have been the condition of the country with a Consort less gifted in any of these details than was the Prince. But with the verdict of the Prince, declared in regard to Lord Palmerston as Foreign Minister, I am compelled to differ. It is nothing that I and another do not agree with it, but I think that I shall be able to show that England has disagreed with his Royal Highness, and that England has been right.

It is better perhaps to say what must be said on this subject here, in the first pages. It has to be said, or such a memoir as this would lack every element of completeness. No man could thoughtfully undertake such a task without feeling that he would have to express an opinion that the Prince was right or wrong. The Prince has been so plain-spoken, and Sir Theodore Martin has been bound to publish what the Prince has said in language so resonant, that no one now dealing with Lord Palmerston’s life can pass it over in silence.

That the Prince was conscientious, high-minded, modest in listening to the advice of others, bold in declaring his opinion when he had formed it, and patriotic in declaring it when formed, no thinking man can doubt. Fault was found with him at first, by men who did not think; but that has passed by. It did not now need his “Life” to make his memory sweet to all Englishmen. He came among us and gave us his best, and lived as though we were his own. In pursuance of a theory of government which it was natural that he should adopt, he found fault with the Minister who, at that time, had especially dealt between us and other nations for a period of nearly twenty years. In this he followed the political teaching which he had received from Baron Stockmar, a German possessed of great abilities and gifted with a clear, conscientious mind. He had been left to the Prince as a legacy by his uncle, King Leopold. It can hardly be necessary to speak more in detail of Baron Stockmar after the life of the Prince Consort by Sir Theodore Martin. Lord Palmerston had gone to the Foreign Office in November, 1830, and was dismissed in December, 1851. He had been out of office during six years of that time, and, as we all understand in regard to politicians in opposition, had then watched as closely as he had worked in office. He knew the ways of the Foreign Office. He knew the ways of the Crown. He knew the ways of the people on whose behalf he was employed, and doubtless had a tendency to lessen the power of the Crown rather than to increase it, and to think more of the House of Commons year by year as years ran on. It was only natural that with the Prince the tendencies should be on the other side.

Writing on 19th of December, 1851, Lord John Russell, who was then Prime Minister, said to Lord Palmerston:—“No other course is open to me than to submit the correspondence to the Queen, and to ask her Majesty to appoint a successor to you in the Foreign Office.” Thus did Lord John Russell dismiss Lord Palmerston. The Prince, in writing to Lord John, declared that the influence of England in calming down the dangerous feelings on the Continent had been destroyed by Lord Palmerston: “This influence has been rendered null by Lord Palmerston’s personal manner of conducting the foreign affairs, and by the universal hatred which he has excited on the Continent. That you could hope to control him has long been doubted by us, and its impossibility is clearly proved by the last proceedings.”[B]

No doubt Lord Palmerston had been rough. A man who will not be bullied will sometimes bully. The passage is only quoted here to show the disapproval of Lord Palmerston which existed in the mind of the Prince, and to show also how impossible it will be, in dealing with the life of Palmerston, altogether to ignore the disapproval of the Prince Consort.

The two charges brought against Lord Palmerston were, that by his personal manner of conducting foreign affairs he had “rendered null the influence” of England abroad, and that he had disobeyed the orders received by him from the Court, through the Prime Minister. These orders required that time should be allowed for the reading of despatches prepared by him to be sent to Foreign Courts, and for the making of such alterations as might seem good to the Prime Minister or to the Court. That Lord Palmerston had “rendered null” the influence of England abroad will hardly now be conceived. It will be for me to assert, as Mr. Ashley has well shown, that no Minister has ever more thoroughly supported English interests and English influence abroad. As to a certain amount of disobedience, the disobedience of which complaint is made—I think that it must be admitted. “There,” said the head of a Government office one day, when he had just completed the writing of a set of minute instructions to his subordinates—“if they can do all that, I’ll eat them.” The subordinates by no means intended to be eaten; nor did Lord Palmerston. In all ranks of life there are instructions which a man must not say that he will not obey, but will know that he cannot. So it was with Lord Palmerston. He did not, we suppose, intend to obey those instructions to the letter. He had instructions also from his other master, which made it impossible. He did intend to act as Foreign Minister to the best of his loyalty, and to the best of his patriotism.

For the truth of what is here said, I must refer the reader to the records of the man’s life, as about to be given;—as, indeed, they have been given to the same effect, but at much greater length, by Mr. Ashley. Lord Palmerston proved the unassailable strength of his position by the rapidity with which he vanquished his old friend, Lord John, who had dismissed him. How far this dismissal had been carried out by Lord John himself, and how far he had been urged on by the Prince and the Prince’s foreign adviser, it is not necessary that I should say. The blow had come from the hands of Lord John, and Lord Palmerston at once hit back at him. On the 19th of December, 1851, he was told to go. On the 24th of February, 1852, he thus wrote to his brother: “I have had my tit for tat with John Russell, and I turned him out on Friday last.”

Two months had done it. And how had it been done? Lord Palmerston had found himself called upon to fight the Prime Minister,—and the Ministers who remained in the Cabinet from which he had been dismissed,—backed by all the powers of the Crown. And certainly he could depend in no degree on the House of Lords. It was by the House of Commons,—by his own influence there as opposed to that of Lord John Russell so supported,—that he won his victory. Having won it, he (Lord John) was at once deposed. This, at any rate, showed what was the opinion of those to whom England had confided the political power of the country. The mode of the battle and the cause which created it, must be told further on. It soon became evident that Lord Palmerston had not been “smashed,” as had been declared during those months. “There was a Palmerston,” had been said by a witty statesman of the opposite party. But it came to pass very soon that Lord Palmerston stood higher than ever in the councils of his country. The war, of which many men said that it would annihilate us, had come upon us; and in four years’ time the various Prime Ministers of the day,—Lord Aberdeen and Lord John and Lord Derby,—were calling for help to the “Palmerston that was.” Indeed, he had been one of the Cabinet again since December, 1852; and then in February, 1855, himself became Prime Minister, as being the only man in England to whom England could trust the awful responsibility of that period. That was the man on whose dismissal from his councils the Prince had congratulated the then Prime Minister, telling him that England’s influence was rendered null by the hatred abroad which the dismissed one had created. This, I think, is strong proof that England did not agree with him. Nor was the Sovereign slow to express her approval of the man who had been so lately dismissed. “It would give her particular satisfaction if Lord Palmerston would join in this formation,”[C]—the formation of a new Cabinet. Then he was called on himself to form a Cabinet, and we are told, in a page or two further on, that “Lord Palmerston had good reason to appreciate the generosity with which his old chief had interposed to remove this formidable impediment to his success. Nor was her Majesty less grateful.” So was he welcomed back to the highest seat. Nor was the Prince slow to show himself alive to the fact that the country was best served by him whom the country had selected for its servant. But he must surely then have acknowledged to himself that the dismissal of a Minister of whom England thoroughly approves, though it may be effected for a few months, can hardly be maintained.

This, I think,—his dismissal from the Foreign Office which he loved so well,—was the hardest trial to which Lord Palmerston was subjected during his long official life. In the previous year an attack had been made upon him in regard to Don Pacifico. It had been commenced in the House of Lords, and was carried on through a memorable debate in the House of Commons. During that period the Prince Consort had then written to Lord John:[D] “Both the Queen and myself are exceedingly sorry at the news your letter contained. We are not surprised, however, that Lord Palmerston’s mode of doing business should not be borne by the susceptible French Government with the same good-humour and forbearance as by his colleagues.” But in that affair Lord Palmerston had so managed that he had come out of it, not dismissed, but triumphant. In that, as will be seen, there was no grief to him, though much trouble. But it had all been a part of the same conscientious but, to the feeling of many, unconstitutional operation. It was written on Lord Palmerston’s mind that he was England’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, acting, no doubt, in conjunction with his colleagues, but subject to no immediate control. But it was not so written on the mind of the Prince Consort. Which idea was written on the minds of the people; and which theory was it possible that either should carry out in accordance with the practice of the country? Subsequently, when Lord Clarendon was Foreign Minister with his entire approval, if not by his nomination, Palmerston must surely have felt more interested in the Foreign Office than any other Englishman. He was greatly successful afterwards as Premier, but his years spent at the Foreign Office were those of his best activity. It is as Foreign Minister that his memory will chiefly live.