Yesterday morning Dedel, who was pretty accurately acquainted with all that has lately passed, called on me. His account confirmed my notions. The other Ministers of the Conference had told Bourqueney what he was to expect at his conference with Palmerston. When, therefore, the latter tendered him the draft of the Convention, he said, ‘This is very well, but have you nothing else to give me?’ ‘No,’ said Palmerston; ‘what do you mean? I know of nothing else.’ ‘Have you not also a Protocol, announcing the clôture to propose to me?’ ‘Oh no; that is impossible. There has been a question of such a Protocol, but great difficulties have arisen. Chekib says he cannot agree to such a Protocol without previous application to his Court and receiving a specific authority.’ On this, Bourqueney very indignantly said, ‘he must know it was quite useless to offer him the one without the other, as the formal termination of the alliance of July was an indispensable preliminary of any convention to which France could be a party.’ A warm conversation followed, in the course of which (as Dedel says), Bourqueney saying, ‘Nous ne sommes pas pressés,’ Palmerston replied in his most insolent tone, ‘Et nous ne sommes pas pressés non plus; si vous ne craignez pas les bâtiments anglais, vous sentez bien que nous ne craignons pas les bâtiments français....’[10]
[10] [This was untrue, as appears by the next entry.]
March 5th, 1841
At the Cabinet dinner the day before yesterday, Palmerston announced that ‘everything was going on well, everybody satisfied,’ and as this rose-coloured aspect of affairs was so inconsistent with the gloom and discontent of Bourqueney and Bülow, and the account given me by Dedel, I resolved to call on Bourqueney, and find out from him in what position the affair stood. I did so, and the result proved with what caution one ought to listen to the reports of persons the best informed, and who relate what they have heard with the most veracious intentions. Instead of correcting or expunging what I have said above, I shall put down the substance of what Bourqueney said to me, which agrees with much of Dedel’s account, but differs in some very important particulars. I told him that I had (as he would be sure) no desire to fourrer myself into his affairs, but that I thought a little conversation between us might be useful in promoting the object we had in common—that of restoring amicable relations between the two countries; and having seen how annoyed he was on Sunday last, and knowing what had passed, I wished to know if he was not now better satisfied than he was then; and that as I, and those with whom I communicated, only knew what passed between him and Palmerston, or at the conferences, from Palmerston’s own reports, when he told his colleagues just what he pleased and no more, and as I had heard from other quarters an account of his interview on Sunday with Palmerston, I wished to know what had really passed. He had, he said, been extremely annoyed and disappointed, after being told that he was to have the Protocol (by Bülow and Esterhazy, of course), when Palmerston told him this was out of the question, as Chekib refused to sign it without orders. He then gave me the conversation between himself and Palmerston, which does not appear to have been acrimonious, and instead of Palmerston’s having made that insolent speech which was put in his mouth when Bourqueney said, ‘Mais nous ne sommes pas pressés,’ he only said, ‘Ni nous non plus, c’est l’Autriche et la Prusse qui sont pressées;’ so that all the offensive part was a fabricated addition, and I have no doubt of this by Bourqueney’s way of speaking of it. He said, moreover, ‘Il faut rendre justice à Lord Palmerston, son ton a été excellent, et jamais il n’a prononcé le mot de désarmement;’ that if he had, or had attempted to impose any condition, he should at once have rejected all overtures; but nothing of the kind had been attempted, and he admitted that every respect had been shown to France, and a sincere desire evinced to renew relations with her. He said, ‘Enfin vous êtes triomphants, et nous sommes humiliés,’ and you can well afford to treat us ‘avec des égards;’ but he seemed to think that in point PROTOCOL AND CONVENTION SIGNED. of fact the Conference was already practically dissolved, for both Bülow and Esterhazy had declared (in their anxiety for the clôture, as an indispensable preliminary to the Convention, for which their eagerness is intense), that, happen what might, they would take no farther part in Eastern affairs. On the whole, the prospect is good, and it is but just to Palmerston to say that he does not seem to have acted unfairly or insolently, or to be obnoxious to any reproach in his relations with Bourqueney.
March 12th, 1841
The Protocols were duly signed and the Convention sent to Paris. They were well received by Guizot, who returned them for some verbal alterations which have been agreed to, and if no new difficulties arise in the East to prevent a settlement, our relations with France will be restored. But within these few days a whole budget of bad news has poured in—from China, where the admiral has resigned on the plea of ill-health, having done nothing but lose half the troops he took out, and leaving affairs in a very uncertain and unsatisfactory state. I had a letter from Emily Eden[11] yesterday, in great disgust at the waste of time, money, and life, and the failure hitherto of all the objects we had in view. The Chinese have bamboozled and baffled us, that is the plain truth.
[11] [Miss Emily Eden had accompanied her brother, Lord Auckland, to India, where he was Governor-General. This impression of the state of our relations with China appears to have been erroneous. On February 1st, Captain Elliot annexed the island of Hong Kong, which has been permanently united to the British Empire, and on April 18th Her Majesty’s forces occupied Canton.]
Then the violence and bad spirit displayed in America have produced no small consternation here, though everybody goes on saying that a war between the two countries, and for so little cause, is impossible.[12] It does seem impossible, and the manifest interest of both nations is opposed to it; but when a country is so mob-governed as America, and the Executive is so destitute of power, there must be great danger. However, the general conviction is, that the present exhibition of violence is attributable to the malignity of the outgoing party, which is desirous of embarrassing their successors, and casting on them the perils of a war or the odium of a reconciliation with this country, and strong hopes are entertained that the new Government will be too wise to fall into the snare that is laid for them, and strong enough to check and master the bad spirit which is rife in the Northern States. The real difficulty arises from the conviction here, that in the case of M’Leod we are in the right, and the equally strong conviction there, that we are not, and the actual doubt on which side the truth lies. Senior, whom I met the other day, expressed great uncertainty, and he proposes, and has written to Government on the subject, that the question of International Law shall be submitted to the decision of a German University—that of Berlin, he thinks, would be the best. This idea he submitted to Stevenson, who approved of it, but the great difficulty would be to agree upon a statement of facts. Yesterday Lord Lyndhurst was at the Council Office, talking over the matter with Sir Herbert Jenner and Justice Littledale, and he said it was very questionable if the Americans had not right on their side; and that he thought, in a similar case here, we should be obliged to try the man, and if convicted, nothing but a pardon could save him. These opinions casting such serious doubts on the question of right, are at least enough to restrain indignation and beget caution.
[12] [This refers to the case of one M’Leod, who had been engaged as a member of the Colonial forces in repelling the attack made upon Canada from United States territory, and who had consequently acted as an agent of the British Government. But M’Leod was arrested at New York in 1841 upon a charge of the murder of one Durfee, who was killed during the capture of the ‘Caroline.’ The American authorities refused to give him up on the demand of the British Minister, who alleged that M’Leod’s deed was a legitimate act, done in obedience to his superior officers. He was tried, and fortunately acquitted; but Mr. Webster, the American Secretary of State, subsequently admitted that individuals concerned in a public transaction under the orders of their Government could not be held responsible to the ordinary tribunals of law for their participation in it. See Halleck’s International Law, vol. i., p. 430; and Hale’s International Law, p. 261.]
Besides China and America, two days ago appeared the Sultan’s firman restoring the Pasha, but on terms which he was certain not to accept. This document, which arrives BAD EFFECT OF THE HATTI-SHERIF. just as we are renewing our relations with France, and which carries on the face of it the strongest marks of Lord Ponsonby’s interference and influence, is well calculated to obstruct the arrangement, and so it appeared to Clarendon, to Lord Lansdowne, to Melbourne, and to John Russell. Clarendon immediately appealed to Lord John, who, however, took it very quietly, and was averse to saying or doing anything; and when he spoke to Melbourne, the latter said Palmerston had shown him Ponsonby’s private letter, in which he said that he had nothing to do with it, that it was all Stürmer’s[13] doing, and that for some time past he had not been able to make Redschid Pasha mind a word he said. On the other hand, Lord John also spoke to Palmerston, when Palmerston said not a word of Ponsonby’s letter, but told him it was the best possible arrangement; that Mehemet Ali had not understood it at first, but that he would in the end be quite satisfied with it, and that it was the only way of preventing confusion. Of course Melbourne and Lord John were quite content, and fully partake of Palmerston’s entire satisfaction. Yesterday morning, however, I found that Francis Egerton was full of indignation at this fresh outrage, as he considered it, of Ponsonby’s, and had taken a resolution to bring the matter forward in the House of Commons, but previously to speak to the Duke and Peel. Nothing was done last night, and this morning he came and told me that they both agreed with him, but that the Duke urged the necessity of extreme caution, and of previously ascertaining the sentiments of the other Allies, as we must not do or say anything which might disturb our harmony with them. This caution, and not any indisposition to take the matter up, was the reason no notice was taken in the House of Commons last night, and they are now waiting for further information to determine what course to take.