December 24th.—To my unspeakable astonishment Granville informed me yesterday that Clarendon had refused the Foreign Office, and that he had accepted it. Lord John must have given notice to Clarendon the day before the Cabinet that he was going to propose him, or they could not have heard yesterday. Clarendon declined, and advised Lord John to offer it to Granville, which he instantly did, and the thing was settled at once. I have not yet heard from Clarendon, and am curious to know his motives for refusing an appointment which I should have thought would be not only peculiarly agreeable to him, but which would have enabled him to quit Ireland in so honourable a manner. In no other way could he have left his present post, just after the recent trial of Birch v. Somerville, and this trial with its disclosures must render it particularly irksome to him to stay there. Granville, albeit conscious of the greatness of the weight, accepted the office without a moment's hesitation.
Brocket, Christmas Day.—I received a letter from Clarendon yesterday afternoon with his reasons for declining. They are very poor ones, and amount to little more than his being afraid of Palmerston, first of his suspecting it was an intrigue to get rid of him, and secondly, of the difficulties Palmerston would throw in his way at the Foreign Office. He had advised Lord John to take Granville, but he said if it was absolutely necessary, he would accept. I can't help thinking he will be mortified at his advice being so immediately taken. His conduct has been to my mind very pusillanimous and unworthy of him.
LORD PALMERSTON'S VERSION.
Beauvale has had a long letter from Lady Palmerston with her version of the whole affair, which is true in the main, but as favourably coloured towards Pam as the case will admit of. She is in a high state of indignation and resentment, and bitter against Lord John and the colleagues who did not support Palmerston. They evidently expected when the Cabinet met the other day, that the colleagues would have pronounced Lord John's ground of quarrel insufficient, and protested against his dismissal, and they are extremely mortified that nothing of the kind was done. She complained that Palmerston's best friends were absent. Not one person at the Cabinet said a word for him or made an effort to keep him, but this she does not know. Her account is as follows. On December 3rd Palmerston told Walewski in conversation that he thought the President was fully justified in his coup d'état, as plots were hatching against him. He says that he expressed his approbation in this conditional form. Walewski wrote to Turgot what Palmerston had said, and at the same time Palmerston wrote a very strong letter to Normanby, finding fault with his conduct, and advising him to hold language calculated to satisfy the President that he was not unfriendly to him, as he had reason to believe that the President did regard him as so inimical, that he was meditating an application to the British Government to recall him. Whatever Palmerston really did say to Walewski, we may safely assume that Walewski made the most of it to Turgot, and that he did convey to him the unqualified approbation of the English Government, and Turgot probably communicated Walewski's despatch to Normanby. Normanby was exceedingly annoyed at this communication, and wrote to John Russell, conveying to him what had passed, and complaining of the ill-usage he had received. Lord John shortly after wrote to Palmerston, sent him a Minute of the Queen's, in which Her Majesty expressed her displeasure at Palmerston's having committed her Government by an unqualified approbation of the President's measures, and he added from himself that he agreed with her, and thought Palmerston had acted with great indiscretion, that he was tired of these repeated difficulties and disputes, and he had to inform him that it was the wish of the Queen to transfer the Foreign Office to other hands. Palmerston wrote a reply, stating his readiness to give up the seals whenever his successor should be appointed. He defended his own conduct, denied that he had committed the Government, and said he had only expressed his own individual opinion, and that a qualified one, and then set forth the inconvenience there would be if a Minister could not hold friendly communication with an Ambassador in his own person, without being supposed to commit the whole Cabinet, in mere conversation. It did not appear to me that the excuses he made, according to Lady Palmerston's own account of them, were very good ones, and they were not likely to produce any effect upon Lord John, who had evidently already determined to get rid of him. What more passed I do not know, but from her letter they clearly entertained some hopes that Palmerston's position was still retrievable; that when the Cabinet met, his colleagues would make an effort to retain him; and that in spite of what Lord John had written to him he would have kept his post if he could. It seems incredible that any man of high spirit and with a spark of pride should consent to stay in office after being told by the Prime Minister that he had been indiscreet, that the Prime Minister was tired of his repeated misconduct, and that the Queen wished to get rid of him. But it seems by what Lady Palmerston says, that he would have swallowed all this if he could have made it up. She writes in a spirit of great bitterness and resentment, and intimates her belief that the ground taken by Lord John was merely a pretext, and not the real cause of what had been done. In this she was quite right. The case is cumulative, though the Paris communication is made the pretext of Lord John's coup d'état. Beauvale thinks the last and ostensible cause is insufficient, and that Lord John would have done better to act at once on the matter of the Islington deputations. I am inclined to think it is sufficient, though far less strong than the other, and it would have been more straightforward as well as bold to have acted on the first occasion, and I believe it would have been quite as safe. Labouchere, a very honourable man, told me, when all was known, he thought Lord John's conduct would come out in a very favourable light. So probably there are circumstances which Lady Palmerston suppresses, which would not improve Palmerston's case. The most striking circumstance in all this affair is the conduct of John Russell. He took it up, and without imparting what he was about to any of his colleagues, leaving them all completely in the dark, he and the Queen settled the whole thing between them. For nearly three weeks a correspondence was going on between the Queen, Lord John, and Palmerston, of which not one word transpired, and which was known to nobody but the Duke of Bedford. None of the Ministers had the least idea why they were summoned. Lord Grey and Lord Lansdowne and Sir Francis Baring all came up together from the Grange, asking each other what it was about; nor was it till they were all assembled in the Cabinet room in Downing Street that they were apprised of the astounding fact that Palmerston had ceased to be their colleague. The secret was as well kept as Louis Napoleon's, and the coup d'état nearly as important and extraordinary.
LORD GRANVILLE FOREIGN SECRETARY.
London, December 27th.—A Council at Windsor. Palmerston did not come, but desired Lord Eddisbury to send the seals to Lord John. Nevertheless he was expected, and the Queen would wait for him above an hour. It now turns out that the Foreign Office was not offered to Clarendon at all. In his letter to me he says, It cannot be said that I refused what was never offered me. Lord John wrote him word on Sunday that it would be offered him; but the offer, which Granville told me on Monday afternoon was gone, never did go. All along the Queen and Lord John wished to have Granville instead of Clarendon. He tells me that when I know all that has passed between John Russell and himself, I shall see he could not possibly accept it. Lord Lansdowne was evidently put out by what he heard yesterday. He said to me, 'You know it was offered to Clarendon.' I said, 'He does not so consider it.' 'Oh! it certainly was. It was clearly so understood in the Cabinet, when I left it on Monday, and I wrote to him myself.' I said he had better enquire, and he would find no offer was sent. He then talked to John Russell and Grey, and I asked him afterwards, when he shrugged his shoulders and said I was right; but he did not understand it. The truth is oozing out by degrees. Grey and I had some talk about it, when I told him that I thought the former ground, the reception of the deputations, the stronger of the two, and I should have turned him out then, and he said he agreed with me. Madame de Lieven writes in transports of joy, and on the whole the satisfaction seems very general. Granville is very popular at Manchester and with the Free Traders, which is a great thing; and as he is more of a Reformer than Palmerston, he will not be attacked in that quarter. Brooks's and the ultra Whigs and Radicals are sulky, but don't quite know what to make of it. It seems Lord John struck the blow at last with great reluctance; but having made up his mind, he did it boldly.
Bunsen told Reeve a version of the story, which he got from Stockmar, and which came direct from the Court. Normanby wrote home for instructions. At a Cabinet (on the 8th) it was determined that he should be instructed to abstain from expressing any opinion, but to act with perfect civility and every expression of international amity towards the President, but with reserve. Lord John went down to Osborne on the 9th, and informed the Queen of the resolution of the Cabinet. If, as Lady Palmerston says, the conversation with Walewski had taken place before this, Palmerston did not tell the Cabinet what he had said to the Ambassador; but, be this as it may, they say he did not act in the spirit of the Cabinet resolution, but in that of his own communication, which was very different. I expect that it will not be easy to make a good case out of this, especially as the Queen's name must not be brought in. Palmerston, who is so adroit and unscrupulous, will deny half he said, and find plausible excuses for the other half, and will probably make it appear that the ostensible casus querelæ was not the real one. However, in matters of this sort, Lord John is tolerably dexterous too, and he may have better materials than I am aware of to employ.
LORD PALMERSTON AND HIS SUCCESSOR.
M. de Flahault arrived last night, and came here this morning to talk to Granville. He said that Palmerston's dismissal and the cause of it, as hinted at in the newspapers, had produced a disagreeable impression at the Elysée, especially after all the violence of the press. He said he had told the President that what he had done could not fail to shock English feelings and prejudices, and the press was sure to hold such language. He received from Granville assurances as pacific as he could desire, and he will probably have little difficulty in satisfying the President and his Government that they will lose nothing by the change. I have seen to-day an admirable letter of Guizot's, full of a melancholy resignation to a state of things he abhors, commiserating and ashamed of the condition of his country. He says if he was disposed to triumph over his enemies il a bien de quoi. Where, he asks, is Thiers, where is the Republic, where is Palmerston? France is now so frightened at Socialism, and so bent on averting the peril of anarchy, that she will submit to anything. But this panic will one day pass away, and the Government cannot be carried on for ever by soldiers and peasants, and in spite of all the intellect and all the elevated classes in the country.
Yesterday Granville was with Palmerston for three hours. He received him with the greatest cordiality and good humour. 'Ah, how are you, Granville? Well, you have got a very interesting office, but you will find it very laborious; seven or eight hours' work every day will be necessary for the current business, besides the extraordinary and Parliamentary, and with less than that you will fall into arrears.' He then entered into a complete history of our diplomacy, gave him every sort of information, and even advice; spoke of the Court without bitterness, and in strong terms of the Queen's 'sagacity;' ended by desiring Granville would apply to him when he pleased for any information or assistance he could give him. This is very creditable, and, whatever may come after it, very wise, gentlemanlike, becoming, and dignified.