London, January 2nd, 1852.—Though I have given the story of the late rupture in scraps, and have not made many mistakes, I can now state the case in a more clear and connected manner, and though this entails repetition I am going to do it. It is best to go back to the first Kossuth affair. I need only say as to this, that when Lord John brought it before the Cabinet he was supported against Palmerston by every member of it except one, and that was Lord Lansdowne. It is clear enough why he took Palmerston's part. He had already committed himself by receiving Pulsky at Bowood, two years ago. This made some noise at the time, but it passed off. But he no doubt thought it would be inconsistent to find fault with Palmerston for doing what he had already done with regard to a refugee less celebrated, but not less obnoxious than Kossuth. Then came the Islington deputations and the speeches. Upon this, though very indignant, more than I was aware of, Lord John did not think it safe and therefore expedient to quarrel with him, but he had a correspondence with him, in which he expressed his opinion; and at the end of it he (in the language of the Duke of Bedford) 'drew a moral, which Palmerston accepted, as the rule for his future conduct.' That is, he gave him to understand that if he continued his separate and independent action without the knowledge, and often against the opinions, of his colleagues, it was impossible to go on. I do not know the words he employed, but am confident this was the sense. Palmerston acquiesced in his reply, and said what Lord John considered to be tantamount to a promise or engagement that the like should not happen again. It was about a week after, on December 3, that Walewski went to Palmerston and asked for an expression of his opinion upon the President's coup d'état.[143] Palmerston gave his unqualified approbation, which, of course, Walewski instantly wrote off to Turgot. Very soon after, if not before, Normanby wrote home for instructions as to his conduct in the new state of things. The Cabinet met on the 8th, and there it was agreed that he should be instructed to adopt a friendly but reserved tone, and abstain from any expression of opinion one way or another on the acts of the President. On receipt of this he went to Turgot, and when he spoke to him in the prescribed tone the French Minister said he was already acquainted with the sentiments of the British Government, and he produced Walewski's despatch informing him of Lord Palmerston's unqualified approval of all that had been done. Of course Normanby was thunderstruck at this communication, which revealed a complete difference between Palmerston's assurance to Walewski and his instructions to himself. Indignant at this, and smarting under Palmerston's rebukes, he wrote to John Russell and told him what had occurred. When the Queen learned what had passed, she was disposed to insist upon Lord John's taking this occasion to get rid of him; but Stockmar very wisely advised her to do nothing, and told her that the case was so flagrant, Lord John was almost sure to propose it to her, which was much better than her proposing it to him. She took this advice, and accordingly Lord John did come to her, and said this could not be endured, for it was besides a breach of faith, and he himself proposed to the Queen that Palmerston should be dismissed from the Foreign Office. About the same time, too (on the 12th), the Notes of the three Powers about the refugees had been presented to Palmerston, and he had never said a word about them. Then ensued the second correspondence, in which there seems to have been great asperity on both sides. Probably Palmerston never dreamt of any danger from his conversation with Walewski, and his surprise was, therefore, as great as his indignation. He defended himself, as I have already stated, and he refused somewhat scornfully the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. He said that John Russell knew very well there were reasons why he could not accept it, and he endeavoured to turn the offer itself against Lord John, by saying that it was in itself a sufficient answer to his charge of indiscretion.
LORD PALMERSTON ON THE COUP D'ÉTAT.
January 8th.—Graham came to me last night (as I am laid up with the gout) at a quarter past nine, and went away at twenty minutes after one. In the course of these four hours we discussed every subject of interest that now engages attention and, as may be imagined, pretty fully. The Palmerston catastrophe, its circumstances, merits, bearings and probable results, Disraeli, the 'Life of George Bentinck,' in the course of which he mentioned a great many things about Peel, and, lastly, the political circumstances of the Government, its condition and prospects, together with his own and those of the party with which he is connected, or rather some of the leading men of it. It would be impossible, even were I so disposed, to give even an outline of our long conversation. It will be sufficient to preserve its general features, and his views on the present state of things. I have never known him so confidential and unreserved, nor has he ever before in his previous communications with me spoken out so entirely. I gathered from him some things I only imperfectly knew before of John Russell's proceedings with a view to strengthen himself. What he has done has been with the Duke of Newcastle, first through the Duke of Bedford, and then by direct communication with himself. Newcastle came to Graham as soon as he arrived in town and told him all that had passed. Lord John had invited him to take office, which Newcastle declined, and he asked him to find out what Sidney Herbert's disposition was. With regard to Gladstone (whom Newcastle had alluded to), he had said that he was fully aware of his great abilities, and should be glad if it was in his power to offer him office, but he did not see how it could be done, intimating, with expressions of respect, his disinclination to any connexion in that quarter. With Cardwell it was different. He asked the Duke to make a communication to Cardwell, but he would only consent to convey to Cardwell that he might expect at some indefinite time an offer to be made to him. This communication, together with what was intended, seems rather strange; it was to this effect, that Lord Panmure would probably very soon die being very old and very ill, and when he died and Fox Maule must in consequence quit the War Office, Lord John would offer Cardwell that place and a seat in the Cabinet. Graham remarked that this was a strange proposal, considering that the life of Panmure (who has been continually dying and recovering for years past) is a better one than the life of the Government, the latter being the more sick of the two.
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEELITES.
Then as to himself. The Duke said John Russell had asked him to find out what his (Graham's) disposition was. He could not say to 'sound him,' for he had made no use of such a term, though he would do so for shortness. To this Graham replied that the best answer he could make was to tell him what had passed in September last, and to show him the memorandum of Lord John to him, and his in return, which he had never mentioned before but to Lord Aberdeen and one other person, and that the sentiments he had then expressed he still retained. As the Duke of Newcastle went to Windsor yesterday, where he was to meet Lord John and Lord Lansdowne, he will no doubt have told them what passed, and to-day at the Cabinet Lord John will have to announce that his attempts to strengthen himself have failed.
Graham's opinions on the whole matter are pretty much the same as those which Ellice has been circulating amongst his friends. He thinks the present Government will not get through the next Session; that weak and unpopular as they are, and still further weakened by the loss of Palmerston, and surrounded by dangers and enemies on all sides, they must fall; and he does not think that his joining them, or some of the other Peelites doing so, with or without himself, would save them. It will not do to try and patch up the old garment. This Government must be broken up completely, there must be a tabula rasa, and then an attempt made to construct another on a wider and more comprehensive plan. John Russell ought to go to the Queen and tell her he cannot go on, and then she ought to send for Aberdeen and Russell together, and desire them to set about the formation of a Government. I suggested it would never do to send for Aberdeen in this way; it would be taken as an insult to Palmerston, and exasperate one half of the Whigs and render them unmanageable. The Queen might indeed send for Aberdeen alone, and he might decline everything for himself, refuse to take office, as no doubt he would, but advise her to send for Lord John and Graham, and bid them to form a Government. He agreed to my amendment; acknowledged the antagonism of Palmerston and Aberdeen would make a difficulty; but contended that they should be empowered to make a Government of men of Liberal-Conservative principles, of which John Russell must himself be the head; that it should be understood that they had carte blanche. Nobody was to have pretensions or quasi right to office on account of previous tenure, but that they were to make the best and strongest Administration they could, taking in any efficient men who might be ready to unite with them on the principles above mentioned. He thought the best thing for the country would be that this break up should happen now, before Parliament met, and the attempt at reconstruction made, while people were still free and uncommitted; but he owned that it would be very difficult for John Russell, after what had recently passed, to take such a course. He would not do so himself in his place, and could not expect him to do so. He might indeed have consistently given the thing up when he quarrelled with Palmerston, because he had always said, and repeated it a hundred times, that without Palmerston he could not go on. But after the Cabinet had agreed to go on, and to support him in what he had done, it was very difficult for him without any fresh incident to turn round on them, say he had changed his mind, and break up the Government. I suggested this last view, which he concurred in. The end of it was, he said, that Lord John would be obliged to meet Parliament, fight his battle as best he could, and he would die in the open field with harness on his back. This result, sooner or later, he considers certain. As to himself, besides his general objections to join the Government, he is deeply impressed with the difficulty of the new Reform Bill. He could not, he says, be a party to advising the Queen to announce in her Speech that the present system is all wrong, and must be amended, which he assumes must and will be done. He recurs again and again to the folly of having moved this matter, 'set a stone rolling' which they have no power to stop. I differed from him considerably in what seemed to me the exaggerated view he takes of this question, and said I did not see why any such announcement need be made in the Queen's Speech. But he is evidently afraid to encounter and be mixed up with this matter, on which he feels deep displeasure, dislike, and much apprehension. He spoke amicably of John Russell, but was not pleased with his sending George Lewis down to him, and could not believe he ever seriously expected him to accept an invitation at that time, and, he contemptuously added, to such an office; and he rather complained of the formality and stiffness of Lord John's Memorandum on that occasion. But he appears to have been still more nettled at having been 'sounded' by Newcastle on the part of Lord John. 'Why,' he says, 'did not Lord John ask him to come to Chesham Place, and talk the whole matter over with him frankly?' They have had so many and such confidential and friendly communications at different times, that this would have been a most natural and becoming course, or Lord John might have spoken to me about it; but to get the Duke of Newcastle, with whom he was on no terms of intimacy or confidence, to 'sound him,' was not the way he might expect to be dealt with. I think this is a pretty faithful summary of the essential part of what passed between us on this the most important head. If other things occur to me of any interest, I will subjoin them.
PROJECTS FOR A COALITION.
January 11th.—Graham came to me again last night. He was more gloomy in his expectations, and saw nothing but dangers ahead. He had seen George Lewis and told him all he had said to me. George Lewis had seen John Russell, and of course repeated it all to him, and the result was at all events amicable, for he told me that Lord John had sent him a message by George Lewis to say if he would come to town a day or two before Parliament met he would tell him what he was going to do. He now thinks that if this Government is defeated and resigns, Lord John will refuse to have anything to do with the formation of another, and this might again bring about a fresh Protectionist attempt. He wavers between his apprehension of Palmerston joining the Protectionists, and his doubts of the possibility of such an alliance in the teeth too of the Queen's antipathy to Palmerston; but he is not at all sure the next election may not make the Protectionists numerically strong enough to undertake the task they failed in accomplishing last year. It is not worth while to record a conversation which was to a certain degree a repetition of the last, and without any novel matter. He shakes his head at the prospect of explanations, and thinks John Russell will have a good deal of difficulty in making out his case.
Then he is moved by the letters written by Lansdowne, Grey, and Charles Wood to Palmerston expressive of regret at parting with him. It is pretty evident, that however plausible may be the scheme of a comprehensive administration, the personal predilections and antipathies will create enormous difficulties. The Whigs generally hate the Peelites, and Graham especially. The Peelites hate the Whigs. Mutual dislike exists between Graham on one side, and Newcastle, Gladstone, and Sidney Herbert on the other. The three latter are High Churchmen of a deep colour, which makes it difficult to mix them up with any other party, so that the Peelite leaders are extremely divided, and the party is so scattered that it can hardly be called a party. The Whigs, who really are a party, and, though in a state of great insubordination, do generally consider themselves one army and under one chief, do not at all like the idea of treating with the Peelites on anything like equal terms. If ever the time comes I fully expect they will all resist any such basis of arrangement, and that John Russell will not be disposed to agree to a Government being formed by himself and anybody else. These difficulties and causes of future bickering looming in the distance present themselves to me. I only hope they may prove visionary.
THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA AND LOUIS NAPOLEON.