In the morning I went to Claremont for a Council, where the principal Ministers met; and after the Council they held a Cabinet in Melbourne’s bed-room. It was not, however, till this morning that I knew the subject of their discussion. On arriving in town, indeed, I heard that Beyrout had been bombarded and taken by the English fleet, and a body of Turkish troops been landed; but this was not known at Claremont, and not believed in London. Before I was dressed, however, this morning, Guizot arrived at my house in a great state of excitement, said it was useless our attempting to manage matters in the sense of peace here while Ponsonby was driving them to extremities at Constantinople, and causing the Treaty to be executed à l’outrance. He then produced his whole budget of intelligence, being the bombardment of Beyrout, the landing of 12,000 Turks, and the deposition of Mehemet Ali and appointment of Izzar Pasha to succeed him. He also showed me a letter from Thiers in which he told him of all this, said he would not answer for what might come of it, that he had had one meeting of the Cabinet and should have another; but Guizot said he thought he would very likely end by convoking the Chambers.

I went immediately to John Russell and told him what a state Guizot was in, and showed him the papers. He said they were aware yesterday of the Constantinople news; that on receiving the propositions of the Pasha by Rifat Bey, the Conference, considering them as a refusal, had immediately proposed to Redschid Pasha to pronounce his deposition;[5] he agreed, and proposed to name a successor; they objected to this, but ultimately consented to the appointment of a provisional successor in the person of the Seraskier commanding the Turkish troops in Syria; that it was not intended really to deprive Mehemet Ali of Egypt, and the sentence of deposition was only fulminated as a means of intimidation, and to further the object of the treaty; Palmerston wrote to Lord Granville, and desired him to make LORD HOLLAND’S VIEW OF THE CASE. an immediate communication to Thiers to this effect. Lord John admitted that it was all very bad, but seemed to think he could do nothing more, and that nothing was left but to wait and to preach patience. I went from him to Guizot, and told him what had passed; but he said, with truth, that this resolution to drive matters to extremity, and to go even beyond the Treaty, made it very difficult to do any good here, and that the public would not be able to draw those fine diplomatic lines and comprehend the difference between a provisional and an actual successor to Mehemet Ali. He was going to Palmerston, and I told him Palmerston would no doubt tell him what had been conveyed to Lord Granville.

[5] [The Conference of the Ambassadors of the Four Powers at Constantinople, in which Lord Ponsonby played the most prominent part, and laboured to drive matters to the last extremity.]

I then went to Holland House, found Lord Holland alone, and he entered fully, and without reserve, into the whole question. From him I learned that Metternich has expressed his strong disapprobation of the violent steps that have been taken, and that he wrote as much to Stürmer. Holland seemed to think that there had been a great difference of opinion among the Ministers of the Conference at Constantinople, but that Ponsonby had ultimately prevailed in persuading them to depose the Pasha; that he had concealed the fact of the division of opinion which had been revealed here by Lord Beauvale’s letter from Vienna. Lord Holland went over the whole case, and told me everything that had occurred in great detail, the whole, or certainly the greatest part, of which I was already apprised of. Just now I saw Dedel, who told me again that Neumann had said to him, ‘Plût à Dieu que le Sultan acceptât les dernières propositions de Mehemet Ali, car cela nous tirerait d’un grand embarras.’ Neumann is a time-serving dog, for he holds quite different language to the Palmerstons, and to them complains of Holland House, and talks of firmness, resolution, &c.

October 7th, 1840

Dined at Holland House on Sunday. Palmerstons, John Russell, and Morpeth, all very merry, with sundry jokes about Beyrout, and what not. At night Lady Holland was plaintive to Palmerston about an article in the ‘Examiner,’ in which Fonblanque had said something about Holland House taking a part against the foreign policy, and they talked together amicably enough. Lady Palmerston and I had another colloquy, much the same as before. I told her what Neumann had said, but nothing would make her believe it. They have a marvellous facility in believing anything they wish, and disbelieving whatever they don’t like. In fact, Lord John evidently has completely knocked under; he is unprepared to do anything more, and so ready now to go on that he had himself proposed to Palmerston that Stopford should be ordered to attack Acre. Of course, Palmerston desired no better; and it seems to have been agreed that conditional orders shall be sent to him—that is, he is to attack if he is strong enough, and the season is not too far advanced.

I dined again to-day at Holland House, and in the evening Guizot came. He told me that nothing could be more unsatisfactory than his interview with Palmerston; very civil to himself personally as he always was, but ‘de Ministre à Ministre’ as bad as possible. He had told him of the communication Lord Granville was desired to make to Thiers, but had not said one syllable of the disposition of the Cabinet to make an overture, nor held out the slightest expectation of the possibility of any modification. Guizot repeated how much he is alarmed, and talked of the probability of war. It is now quite clear that Palmerston has completely gained his point. The peace party in the Cabinet are silenced, their efforts paralysed. In fact, Palmerston has triumphed, and Lord John succumbed. The Cabinet are again dispersed, Palmerston reigns without let or hindrance at the Foreign Office. No attempt is made to conciliate France; the war on the coast of Syria will go on with redoubled vigour; Ponsonby will urge matters to the last extremities at Constantinople; and there is no longer a possibility of saying or doing any one thing, for the whole question of reconciliation has been suffered to rest upon the result of a communication which Brunnow undertook to make to his Court, to which no LORD PALMERSTON TRIUMPHS. answer can be received for several weeks, and none definite will probably ever be received at all. Palmerston’s policy, therefore, will receive a complete trial, and its full and unimpeded development, and even those of his colleagues who are most opposed to it, and who are destitute of all confidence in him, are compelled to go along with him his whole length, share all his responsibility, and will, after all, very likely be obliged to combat in Parliament the very same arguments that they have employed in the Cabinet, and vice versâ.

Lord John has disappointed me; and when I contrast the vigour of his original resolutions with the feebleness of his subsequent efforts, the tameness with which he has submitted to be overruled and thwarted, and to endure the treachery, and almost the insult of Palmerston’s newspaper tricks, I am bound to acknowledge that he is not the man I took him for. The fact is, that his position has been one of the greatest embarrassment—but of embarrassment of his own making. He consented to the Treaty of July, without due consideration of the consequences it was almost sure to entail. When those consequences burst upon him in a very dangerous and alarming shape, he seems suddenly to have awakened from his dream of security, and to have bestirred himself to avert the impending evils; but while the magnitude of the peril pressed him on one side, on the other he was hampered by the consciousness of his own inconsistency, and that he could not do anything without giving Palmerston a good case against him. And when at last he did resolve to take a decisive step, he never calculated upon the means at his disposal to bring about the change of policy which he advocated. He moved, accordingly, like a man in chains. He distrusted Palmerston, and did not dare tell him so; Melbourne would not help him; he dreaded a breach partly official, partly domestic, with Palmerston, and only thought of keeping the rickety machine of Government together as long as possible, by any means he could, and was content to leave the issues of peace or war to the chapter of accidents. The rest of the Cabinet seem to have been pretty evenly balanced, feeling (as was very natural) that they had no good case for opposing Palmerston, conscious that Lord John’s alarms were not without foundation, and that his position gave him a right to take a decisive lead in the Cabinet; still they were not inclined to act cordially and decisively with him, and hence vacillation and uncertainty in their councils. Palmerston alone was resolute; entrenched in a strong position, with unity and determination of purpose, quite unscrupulous, very artful, and in possession of the Foreign Office, and therefore able to communicate in whatever manner and with whomsoever he pleased, and to give exactly the turn he chose to any negotiation or communication, without the possibility of being controlled by any of his colleagues. From the beginning, Lord John seems never to have seen his way clearly, or to have been able to make up his mind how to act. My own opinion is, that if there had been a will, there might have been found a way, to do something; but Palmerston had no such will. On the contrary, he was resolved to defeat the intentions of his colleagues, and he has effectually done so.

October 8th, 1840

Lord John Russell called on me yesterday morning, more to talk the matter over than for any particular purpose. He was, as usual, very calm about it all. I told him all I thought, and asked him why Guizot’s offer had not been made use of; when he said that it had been considered, but for three reasons, which he gave me, it had been judged impossible to make it the foundation of a communication, and that Metternich’s paper had been taken instead. Two of the reasons were, 1st. That the Viceroy’s offers would probably have been already rejected at Constantinople; 2ndly. That the insurrection in Syria would have been organised, and it might entail consequences on the Syrians that it would be unjust to expose them to; 3rdly. The necessity of the previous concurrence of the Allies. They all seemed to me very bad reasons.