In the course of the last three weeks, and since I last wrote, a mighty change has taken place; we have had the capture of St. Jean d’Acre and the debate in the French Chambers.[13] Palmerston is triumphant; everything has turned out well for him. He is justified by the success of his operations and by the revelations in the speeches of Thiers and Rémusat. So, at least, the world will consider it, which does not examine deeply and compare curiously in order to form its judgements; and it must be acknowledged that he has a fair right to plume himself on DEBATE IN THE FRENCH CHAMBER. his success. His colleagues have nothing more to say; and as Guizot makes a sort of common cause with him in the Chamber, and Thiers makes out a case for himself by declaring objects and designs which justify Palmerston’s policy and acts, and as the Pasha is now reduced to the necessity of submission, the contest is at an end. Guizot continued up to the eve of the discussion to press us to do or say something to assist him; but when he found we could or would do nothing, he took the only line that was left him, and the best after all, and threw himself on the sense and reason of the country. He told the truth, and justified himself by vindicating us. He has done very well, and shown himself a good debater; but the discussion has been disgracefully personal, and with all the talent displayed they have not an idea how a deliberating assembly ought to conduct its debates, and the disclosures and revelations of official secrecy and confidence have been monstrous. Thiers has all along been playing a false, shuffling, tricky part, and at last he got so entangled in the meshes of his own policy, and so confused by the consequences of his double dealing, that he evidently did not know what to do; and the King had no difficulty in getting him out of a Government that he could no longer conduct. He says now that he meant to make war by and by; but though these menaces and the reasons he gives afford Palmerston his best justification, and are appealed to triumphantly by him and his friends, my own conviction is that Thiers would gladly have closed the account by a transaction, and that at last he would have come into the Treaty—if Palmerston would have let him in—upon terms much worse for the Pasha than those to which he would not have consented before July. Nothing that has occurred shakes my conviction that Palmerston was very wrong not to endeavour to bring France into the Treaty and to offer the status quo, though it is very possible France would have refused it. If the French Government were on the one hand resolved to agree to nothing, and under no circumstances to join in coercing the Pasha, Palmerston on the other was as obstinately determined to settle the business his own way, and not to make any proposal to France which she would or could accept. They both stood aloof, and both were immensely to blame. Palmerston has taken his success without any appearance of triumph or a desire to boast over those who doubted or opposed him; whatever may be said or thought of his policy, it is impossible not to do justice to the vigour of his execution. Mr. Pitt (Chatham) could not have manifested more decision and resource. He would not hear of delays and difficulties, sent out peremptory orders to attack Acre, and he provided in his instructions with great care and foresight for every contingency. There can be no doubt that it was the capture of Acre which decided the campaign; and the success is much more attributable to Palmerston than to our naval and military commanders, and probably solely to him.
[13] [The bombardment and capture of St. Jean d’Acre by the allied fleet took place on the 3rd November, whilst these diplomatic troubles were going on in London and Paris. The French Chambers opened on the 6th November.]
Yesterday I saw the Baron Mounier, who is come over here, on a sort of mission, to talk about possible arrangements, from Guizot. He still pertinaciously urges our doing or saying something demonstrative of a disposition to be reconciled with France, and that, in the ultimate settlement of the Eastern Question, we wish to show her some deference. He wants (Syria being gone) that we should make out that it is from consideration for France that Egypt is left to the Pasha. I told him the only difficulty appeared to be that, as we had already announced we had no intention to strip him of Egypt, and had signified long ago that we had advised the Sultan to restore him to that Government, I did not see how we could now make any such declaration available, and that it would go for nothing. But he said he thought by a not difficult employment of diplomatic phraseology much might be done; and he suggested that there must be some definite settlement of the whole question, including stipulations and guarantees for the Syrian population (of the mountains, I presume), and to this France might be invited to accede. In short, nothing will satisfy her but having a finger in the pie upon any terms. What Guizot now wants is to renew the English alliance. So he said when he went away; but it may well be doubted whether LORD MELBOURNE IN HIGH SPIRITS. the French are not too sulky with us and too deeply mortified not to make this an unpopular attempt just now. Mounier is the son of Mounier the Constitutionalist, entirely in Guizot’s confidence, a talkative man not seemingly brilliant, but he is well versed in affairs, an active member of the Chamber of Peers, and considered indispensable there as a rédacteur and transactor of Parliamentary business.
December 13th, 1840
For the last week at Norman Court, during which little or nothing has happened; but I heard one or two things before I left town. Guizot had made a direct application to Palmerston for his permission to attribute the leaving of Egypt to Mehemet Ali, to the influence of France, and to a desire to gratify her. This Palmerston (through Lord Granville) refused; but Guizot had not waited for the answer, and in his speech he said so, and it was not without its use. But while everything was on the point of being settled, Metternich (who is always in hot or cold fits of courage or cowardice) sends over a proposal that Egypt shall only be granted to Mehemet Ali for his own and his son’s lives, and not hereditary. For what possible reason this absurd proposition was made, unless to create embarrassment and rekindle animosities, nobody can conceive; though probably the real solution is that Metternich is in his dotage, has no policy in his brain, and acts from foolish impulses. I have heard no more of it; and though Palmerston would not be at all averse to the proposal as a matter of inclination, I do not suspect him of the folly of listening to it, and, if he did, his colleagues would not.
December 29th, 1840
Went on Thursday last to the Grange, and returned yesterday. Just before I went, the Duke of Bedford called on me; he was just come from Woburn, where he had had a great party—Melbourne, like a boy escaped from school, in roaring spirits. They anticipate an easy session, and all Melbourne’s alarm and despondency are quickly succeeded by joy at having got out of a scrape, and confidence that all difficulties are surmounted and all opposition will be silenced. But it now comes out that of all who were opposed to Palmerston’s policy, not one—not even Lord Holland—was in his heart so averse to, and so afraid of it, as Melbourne himself; and, nevertheless, he would say nothing and do nothing to impede or alter it. Palmerston is now doing his best to flatter Lord John out of any remains of sourness or soreness that their recent disputes may have left in his mind; and (passing over all that subsequently occurred) he writes to him to invite him to Broadlands, and says that while their recent successes have far exceeded the most sanguine expectations, he never shall forget how much of them is owing to the powerful support which he (Lord John) gave to him (Palmerston) in the Treaty. There is, it must be owned, astuteness in this; for Lord John’s original support of the Treaty, and Palmerston’s success in the operations, bind them indissolubly together, and it is very wise to put this prominently forward and cancel the recollection of all the rest.
But while public opinion appears to be universally pronounced in Palmerston’s favour, and the concurrent applause of all the Tory papers indicates the satisfaction of that party, some circumstances lead me to believe that their approbation of the Treaty of July, and of all Palmerston’s proceedings under it, is by no means so certain as the Government believe. At the Grange I found Lord Ashburton loud in his condemnation of the whole thing, talking exactly as we have all been talking and writing for many weeks past; and what surprised me much more was, that, in a conversation which I had with Granville Somerset yesterday, he expressed precisely the same opinions; and when I expressed my surprise at his language, and said that I had fancied all the Tories were enraptured with Palmerston, he replied that he had no reason to believe any such thing; that he had not met (among the many with whom he had conversed) with any such general and unqualified approbation; and he believed both the Duke and Peel had carefully abstained from pronouncing any opinion whatever on the subject, leaving themselves entire liberty to deal with the whole question as they might think fit. The notion is, that the Tories are charmed with a transaction which separates us TORY OPINION OF LORD PALMERSTON’S POLICY. from France, but Lord Ashburton and Granville Somerset—a bigoted Tory, if ever there was one—inveighed against the Treaty precisely because it had produced that consequence. It is the approbation expressed by Aberdeen, both before and since our successes, which has led to the general belief that the Tories are with the Government on this matter, for Aberdeen is regarded as their mouthpiece upon all questions of foreign policy. I had another conversation with Mounier just before he went. He had been to Strathfieldsaye, and was delighted with his reception by the Duke, and with the tone and tenor of his talk, anxious for a reconciliation with France, and entering into the whole history of our mutual relations from the Restoration to the present day, as he said, with the greatest clearness, precision, and solidity. He admitted that Guizot’s was a very difficult situation, and the restoration of amicable feelings between the two countries very difficult also, but a thing earnestly to be desired.
December 31st, 1840
The end of the year is a point from which, as from a sort of eminence, one looks back over the past, happy if the prospect is not gloomy, and if the retrospect carries with it no feelings of regret and self-reproach. The past year has been full (as what year is not?) of events, of which that which has made the deepest impression on society is the death of Lord Holland. I doubt, from all I see, whether anybody (except his own family, including Allen) had really a very warm affection for Lord Holland, and the reason probably is that he had none for anybody. He was a man with an inexhaustible good humour, and an ever-flowing nature, but not of strong feelings; and there are men whose society is always enjoyed but who never inspire deep and strong attachment. I remember to have heard good observers say that Lady Holland had more feeling than Lord Holland—would regret with livelier grief the loss of a friend than this equable philosopher was capable of feeling. The truth is social qualities—merely social and intellectual—are not those which inspire affection. A man may be steeped in faults and vices, nay, in odious qualities, and yet be the object of passionate attachment, if he is only what the Italians term ‘simpatico.’