THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA IN LONDON.
June 10th.—For the last week this town has been kept in a fever by the brief and unexpected visit of the Emperor of Russia. Brunnow told me he was at Petersburg, and had given up all idea of coming here, and the very next day the telegraph announced that he was at the Hague, and would arrive in London in twenty-four hours. Nobody knows now what was the cause of this sudden and rapid expedition, for he travelled without stopping, and with extraordinary rapidity, from Petersburg, with the exception of twenty-four hours at Berlin, and forty-eight hours at the Hague. He alighted at the Palace, embraced the Queen, and after his interview went to establish himself at Brunnow's. He immediately visited all the Royal Family, and the Duke of Wellington. The Duke attired himself in the costume of a Russian Field-Marshal to receive the Emperor. On Monday he went to Windsor, Tuesday to Ascot, Wednesday they gave him a Review, which went off very badly, owing to mistakes and bad arrangement, but with which he expressed himself very well satisfied. The sight was pretty, glorious weather, 3,000 or 4,000 Guards, Horse, Foot, and Artillery in the Park, the Queen en calèche with a brilliant suite. It was striking when the Duke went and put himself at the head of his regiment, marched past, and saluted the Queen and Emperor. The air resounded with acclamations as the old warrior passed, and the Emperor rode up to him and shook him by the hand. He did the same by the Prince and Duke of Cambridge as they respectively marched by at the head of their regiments, but neither of them was so cheered as the Duke. There was a blunder about the artillery. The Queen cannot endure firing, and the Duke had ordered that the guns should not be fired till she left the ground. By some mistake contrary orders were given, and they advanced and fired not far from Her Majesty. The Duke was furious, and would not be pacified, though Emperor, Queen, and Prince did their best to appease him; he blew up, and swore lustily, and ordered the luckless artillery into the rear. It was a mighty small concern for the Emperor, who reviews 100,000 men, and sees 15,000 mount guard every day; but he expressed his satisfaction, and when the Queen said her troops were few in number, he told her that she must consider his troops at her disposal exactly the same as her own.
On Thursday they went to Ascot again, where they were received very well by a dense multitude; on Friday to London, where they gave him a party at the Palace, omitting to ask half the remarkable people, especially of the Opposition. On Saturday a breakfast at Chiswick, a beautiful fête, and perfectly successful. Everything that was distinguished in London was collected to see and be seen by the Emperor. All the statesmen, fine ladies, poets, artists, beauties, were collected in the midst of a display of luxury and magnificence, set off by the most delicious weather. The Emperor lunched in a room fitted up with his arms and ensigns, and afterwards held a sort of circle on the grass, where people were presented to him, and he went round talking to one after another. His appearance on the whole disappointed me. He is not so tall as I had heard he was—about 6 feet 2, I should guess; and he has no remains of the beauty for which he was once so celebrated, and which at his age, forty-eight, need not have so entirely faded away; but the cares of such an Empire may well have ravaged that head on which they sit not lightly. He is become bald and bulky, but nevertheless is still a very fine and grand-looking personage. He accepts his age and its consequences, and does not try to avert them by any artificial appliances, and looks all the better for so doing. Though he has a very imposing air, I have seen much nobler men; he does not bear the highest aristocratic stamp; his general appearance is inferior to that of Lord Anglesey or Lord Granville (both twenty-five years older), and to others. He gives me more the idea of a Thracian peasant raised to Empire, than of the descendant of a line of kings; still his head, and especially his profile, is very fine, and his manners are admirable, affable without familiarity, cordial yet dignified, and particularly full of deference and gallantry to women. As he moved round the circle all smiling and urbane, I felt a sensation of awe mixed with that of curiosity at reflecting that I saw before me a potentate so mighty and despotic, on whose will and pleasure or caprice depended the fortune, the happiness, and the lives of millions of creatures; and when the condition of these subject millions and the frequent exercise of such unbounded power flitted over my mind, I felt a pleasant consciousness that I was beyond the sphere of its influence, free as the birds in the air, at least from him, and I enjoyed that involuntary comparison of my freedom with the slavery of his subjects, which is in itself happiness, or something like it.
THE EMPEROR AT ASCOT.
The Emperor seems to have a keen eye for beauty, and most of the good-looking women were presented to him. He was very civil to M. de St. Aulaire (and so he had been to Van de Weyer the night before), and very civil to Lord Harrowby, Lord Granville, Lord Lansdowne, to Clarendon, whom he had known in Russia, and to Palmerston. Lord John Russell was not presented to him, which was very wrong and ill-managed. Of all men he ought to have made acquaintance with the remarkable leader of the Whig party; but the Queen had not asked him to her party the night before, so that he never approached the Emperor at all. His Majesty thanked Lord Melbourne for having come to the breakfast, and afforded him the opportunity of making his acquaintance. He went away early, and the departure was pretty; the Royal equipages, the escort of Lancers with their pennons glancing in the sun, the steps and balcony clustered over with women to speed the parting guest; and as he bade the Duke of Devonshire a kind farewell, and mounted his carriage, while the Russian Hymn struck up, and he took his departure for ever from the gay scene and brilliant assemblage, proceeding on the march of his high and hard destiny, while we all turned to our humble, obscure, peaceful, and uneventful occupations, it was an exhibition to stir the imagination and excite busy thoughts.
DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.
June 21st.—While we were still gossiping about the Emperor's visit and discussing in great tranquillity all its incidents, we were roused by a rumour, which, as it swelled into importance, soon consigned his Imperial Majesty to oblivion. On Friday night the Government were defeated on the Sugar duties by a majority of 20.[80] A meeting had taken place previously at Peel's, at which some strong language was held by Sir John Rae Reid and some of the West Indians; and many of the Government people expected they should be beaten, without apparently attaching much consequence to their defeat, if it occurred. On Saturday afternoon vague rumours were afloat of resignation, to which nobody paid any attention. In the course of Sunday these rumours acquired consistency and importance, and it became known that there really was something in it. The town became curious, busy, and bustling; the clubs were full; and little knots of anxious politicians were to be found at the corner of every street. There had been a Cabinet on Saturday, the Queen came to town, and there was another Cabinet on Monday; still on Sunday night nobody believed Peel would really seriously meditate resigning. The Tories went about saying it was settled and made up; and the Whigs, who were anything but prepared to take office, cried out against the notion of resignation quite as lustily as the Tories themselves. On Monday it gradually came out that matters were in a very critical and alarming state. Peel, long dissatisfied with his party, had been exceedingly incensed at the language held at the meeting, and the adverse vote made him resolve to stand it no longer. He accordingly convened a Cabinet on Monday, and then they agreed, with the full concurrence of Graham and Stanley, who, Wharncliffe told me, were quite as decided as Peel himself to adhere to their measure, to signify their resolution to the House of Commons, and, if beaten again, to resign. Peel went down and made a speech which appeared to everybody very injudicious. It was long and dull. It put forth pretensions which men of all parties said were not to be tolerated, for they construed what he said into an intimation that if the House of Commons did not do all he chose to insist upon, he would throw the government up; and with much bad taste and without any necessity, he lugged in the House of Lords also, in reference to the Bangor Bishopric Bill. His speech was determined enough, but it was very offensive and dictatorial, and people of all parties were exasperated and disgusted with it. For some time the fall of the Government was considered inevitable; nobody saw any prospect of their getting a majority, and it was thought that many people would be so shocked and offended at his speech that they would vote against him, for no other reason than to mark their opinion of it. The dissatisfaction was universal; however, he got a majority of twenty-two, and the storm blew over. Many who had not voted at all on Friday came and voted with him now; some went away, and the Leaguers remained firm and voted with Government again. But it was their doing so that saved him, and a capital speech of Stanley's is supposed to have done a great deal of good; but Peel's own moderate friends severely blamed both his conduct and language—men, for example, like Sandon and Francis Egerton—and the multitude were still more bitter and angry than before. It is generally admitted that the Government has been excessively weakened by this transaction, and that it will be very difficult for them to go on at all when such mutual feelings of estrangement and aversion are entertained by the leader of the party. Peel's personal reputation has suffered severely. He is thought to have been injudicious and unjust, and to have been influenced by personal motives and a morbid sensitiveness unworthy of a great man and of one who took on himself to govern the country. Those who admit that he has received great provocation, and that his party have been insulting in their tone and lukewarm or hostile in their conduct, still maintain that his party have equal reason to complain of him. They complain that he is unsocial and reserved, that he never consults their wishes and opinions, and that their feelings towards him are in a great measure attributable to himself. There are, no doubt, grave faults on both sides, and it is not improbable that fresh subjects of disagreement will occur, and that some fresh crisis will bring his Government to an end. On the other hand, there is so much reluctance to see any change, and such a dread of a general election, that it is just possible this breeze may have alarmed the Tory malcontents, and that the necessity for a better understanding may tend to produce it. Peel is at the head of a weak, discontented party, and both Lords and Commons are animated towards him with an unfriendly spirit, and merely look upon him as a necessary evil. One striking circumstance is his forgetfulness of the Queen's condition, so near her confinement, and his not shrinking from exposing her to the difficulty and embarrassment into which his resignation must have thrown her. This indicates a predominance of selfish feeling, and a want of gallantry. He ought to have made every personal sacrifice, not absolutely incompatible with his public duty, rather than do anything to annoy her at such a moment, and nobody accepts the excuse he makes as a sufficient apology for the course which he adopted.
June 22nd.—Peel found an opportunity of making a sort of apology to his party in the House of Commons two nights ago. Tom Duncombe attacked him and them in one of his buffoon speeches, and Peel took advantage of it especially to disclaim the arrogant pretension of insisting on his party adopting every measure he thought fit to propose. The ground on which he took the decided part he did last week was the coalition between his people and the Opposition. He said he should not have minded the adverse vote; this might have been got over; but it was the agreement by which it had been brought about which so deeply offended him. This, together with the personal conduct and language of many, indicated such a want of confidence in him, and proved to him that he was in such danger, and must be thrown into such difficulty, by the possibility of future coalitions of a similar kind, that he was resolved not to put up with it. It is now made up; but nothing can repair the mischief that has been done; nothing can restore that mutual confidence and goodwill which are so necessary between a Government (especially the leader) and the party which supports them; nothing can recover for Peel the estimation which he has forfeited. The dislike of many of his supporters to him will not be less, their distrust will be greater, and he has now lost their respect in great measure. His conduct has not been that of a great man, nor even that of a prudent and judicious man.
LETTERS OPENED AT THE POST OFFICE.
July 5th.—Since I last wrote the political atmosphere has been getting clearer, and Peel and his party seem to have made it up pretty well. It is likely enough that he will take more pains to keep them in good-humour, and that they will be afraid of provoking him again. However, this affair had hardly subsided before another storm was raised about opening letters at the Post Office. Tom Duncombe, indefatigable for mischief, and the grand jobman of miscellaneous grievances, brought forward the case of M. Mazzini, whose letters had been opened by Sir James Graham's warrant. This matter, in itself most ridiculous, inasmuch as Graham had done no more than what every other Secretary of State did before him, soon acquired a great and undue importance. The press took it up; the Whig press as a good ground of attack on the Government, and especially Graham; and the 'Times,' merely from personal hatred of Graham, whom they are resolved to write down if they can on account of his honest support of the Poor Law. No man ever distinguished himself more than Graham has done during this session, and none ever was so fiercely and unscrupulously assailed and bitterly vilified on all sides. The question was brought before the House of Commons, and bruited abroad in such a manner, and with such comments, that it lit up a flame throughout the country. Every foolish person who spoils paper and pens fancied his nonsense was read at the Home Office. The Opposition took it up, and supported Duncombe. Graham did not deal with the matter very judiciously. He might have said more or less than he did; he might have said something more for the necessary irresponsibility of the power, and something less as to the manner in which it had actually been exercised. But whatever he said, it was very wrong and very unfair of John Russell not to make common cause with him, not to vindicate the law and its exercise, and to say manfully at once that he had done the same thing when he was in office; instead of this, he both spoke and voted against Graham, and I am positively assured that no Secretary of State ever was less scrupulous in the exercise of this power than himself. Palmerston was more prudent, for he said nothing at all on the subject. It seems Lord Lichfield left all the warrants which he had received in the office, and they can be produced. When Graham found himself thus attacked and reviled, he resolved to cast off all the official reserve in which he had at first wrapped the question, and to vindicate himself by showing that he had merely followed the example of his predecessors; and I conclude he found that he should lose nothing by a comparison of his proceedings with theirs, so he moved for a Secret Committee, who are to take evidence and make a report. He has composed it of five Whigs and four Tories, excluding all who are or have been in office, and Tom Duncombe the accuser. This concession by no means disarmed his opponents, and the 'Times' particularly has continued to attack him with the utmost virulence, but so coarsely and unfairly as quite to overshoot the mark.