Madame de Flahault told me an anecdote about the new French Ambassador, Admiral Cécille, creditable to all the parties concerned. When the Embassy here was offered him, he told the President that he had always been attached to Louis Philippe, and if he was to be made the instrument of saying or doing anything disagreeable to him or his family, he could not accept it. The President said he might be perfectly easy on that score, and that he might go and pay his respects at Claremont as soon as he arrived if he pleased. Accordingly the Admiral sent to the King to offer to wait on him, but Louis Philippe very sensibly said it would only place him in a position of embarrassment, and that he had better not come. I met Duchâtel at dinner on Thursday at Lansdowne House. He spoke highly of the French Ministry and of the President, and he evidently thinks the Monarchy or Empire is more likely to be revived in his person than in that of any other candidate.
THE CEYLON COMMITTEE.
February 15th.—The Government got good divisions the other night on their Irish questions. Graham told me (the morning of the discussion) that he would strongly advise them to make a declaration of their intention to revise local taxation, and connect that question with the Poor Laws. I wrote Charles Wood word what he said, and John Russell acted on the advice. Lord Lansdowne did not conceal from me his disgust at the resolution to which the Cabinet had come of proposing a sort of rate which is to embrace under certain restrictions all Ireland.
February 24th.—Last Tuesday was as disastrous a night as any Government ever suffered, for it was injurious and humiliating. Baillie[86] had given notice of a motion for a Committee of Enquiry into the administration of Ceylon, British Guiana, and Mauritius, with a view to their better government. He afterwards withdrew Mauritius, and the Government resolved to give the Committee about the other two; and they did this, though they knew that what was really meant was an attack on Lord Torrington[87] about Ceylon, and on Lord Grey on both scores. Ellice and I told Grey, whom we met at dinner the day before, that they ought not to give the Committee; but he seemed to be all for it, whether nolens or volens I know not. On Tuesday night this motion came on, when Baillie made the most bitter and abusive speech that could be uttered. He said that he meant it as a vote of censure, and he accused Lord Grey (who was sitting under the gallery all the time) of the most disgraceful and dishonourable conduct, especially in reference to the celebrated Jamaica Memorial in the House of Commons last year. The House went with Baillie, and against Grey and Torrington. The Government met the case in a very poor, blundering, low way; a sort of dodge was attempted and totally failed in the shape of an amendment proposed by Ricardo. Peel said a few damaging words, and John Russell made a very poor speech, which had all the air of throwing Grey over. The motion for a Committee was carried without any division or resistance, and with scarcely any alteration. The effect was as bad as it could possibly be. The Government and their people were mortified and dejected, Grey immensely disgusted, and the Opposition, especially Protectionists, insolent and elated. It is generally believed that if they had divided, they would have been beaten, for all the scattered sections of the Opposition and some of their own friends would have voted against them, and this has revealed the disagreeable truth that they have in fact no hold in the House of Commons, no certain majority, and that whenever all the other parties can find a common ground to meet upon, the Government are sure to be beaten.
Graham called on me on Thursday to talk over this debate. He thought it very damaging and very bad; John Russell wretched; he thought after Baillie's speech he ought to have refused the Committee and abided by the consequences, standing up and manfully defending both his colleague and his employé. He said he had observed that Peel had latterly been more ill-natured to the Government, and that he still bitterly resented Lord John's speech reviving the old dispute on the Appropriation Clause. Lord Aberdeen says the same thing, adding that Peel had never liked Lord John, and that he thought his conduct in attacking him, after the support he had given him, was very bad, and he resented it accordingly, and this was not the last proof he would give of his resentment.
A BREACH OF NEUTRALITY.
March 2nd.—A day or two ago Bankes asked a question in the House of Commons about the stores furnished to the revolutionary Sicilian Government, to which Palmerston made a reply, and the matter dropped. It is very singular that none of the Opposition leaders got hold of it, for there never was a stronger case coupled with all the rest of Palmerston's Sicilian doings. They have so entirely mismanaged their case, and contrived to give him so great a triumph, and to establish such a prestige of his success and dexterity, that it is now difficult, if not impossible, to take the field against him afresh with any prospect of success. But the Sicilian case is so strong and so bad, that even now, when the papers are published, they may make a good deal of it, and do Palmerston some damage if they manage the case well. His case for the maritime interference after the capture of Messina has been thrown over completely by the speech of General Filangieri in the Neapolitan Parliament, which bears every mark of truth; and I have since heard how he got up the story of atrocities supposed to be committed, which he put into the mouth of the Queen in her speech in Parliament, and which he repeated himself with so much effrontery in the House of Commons, and made Lord Lansdowne so innocently repeat in the House of Lords. Long after, I believe two months after the intervention, he wrote to Lord Napier, and desired him to instruct the British Consul at Messina to collect details of the Neapolitan atrocities, and to send them to him, and this was the evidence on which he made the statements which so materially assisted in carrying him through the debate the first night of the session. The mention in the Queen's Speech of the 'King of Naples,' instead of the King of the Two Sicilies, is now said to have been a mere inadvertence, but I have no doubt it was overlooked by his colleagues, but put in by him intentionally and with a significant purpose. It is his whole antecedent conduct from first to last which confers such importance on the case of the stores. Sicilian agents came over here and applied to the Government contractor to supply them, with stores. He said he had none ready, having just supplied all he had to Government, but that if Government would let him have them back, he would supply them to the agents, and replace the Government stores in a short time. The Sicilians had no time to lose, and by their desire the contractor applied to the Ordnance, stating the object of his application. If the matter had been merely treated commercially, and the contractor, without stating his object, had asked the Government to oblige him as a convenience to himself, it would have been quite harmless; but the object having been stated, it became a political matter. So the Ordnance considered it, and they referred the request to Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, who gave his sanction to the transaction. This made the whole thing a political affair, and a direct assistance rendered by Government to the Sicilian insurgents. The Neapolitan Minister heard of it, and an apology to his Government became necessary. All the Ministers saw the gravity of this matter, but by the extraordinary good fortune which never deserts Palmerston, nobody found it out, and not a word was said about it the first night, to the great joy and surprise of the Ministers, who were trembling lest this delicate point should be touched upon.[88]
BATTLE OF CHILLIANWALLAH.
The rate in aid for Ireland is making a great stir and very bad blood in Ireland. The evidence before both Committees is very much against it. Labouchere told me yesterday that the Commons Committee had been much shaken by the evidence of one of the Poor Law Commissioners examined before them yesterday, and the same effect has been produced in the House of Lords. Lord Lansdowne cannot endure it, and, though it is a Government measure, the Cabinet are anything but unanimous about it. Clarendon does not like it either, but he must have money, quocunque modo rem.
In the midst of more important affairs the exposure that has just been made of Hudson's railway delinquency[89] has excited a great sensation, and no small satisfaction. In the City all seem glad of his fall, and most people rejoice at the degradation of a purse-proud, vulgar upstart, who had nothing to recommend him but his ill-gotten wealth. But the people who ought to feel most degraded are those who were foolish or mean enough to subscribe to the 'Hudson Testimonial,' and all the greedy, needy, fine people, who paid abject court to him in order to obtain slices of his good things.