February 2nd.—The Queen herself decided to send at once to Derby, and the result proves how wise her decision was, for she is relieved from the annoyance of having him, and he is placed in such a position that he cannot embarrass her new Government when it is formed. Derby went to Palmerston, invited him to join and to bring Gladstone and Sidney Herbert with him. On their declining he gave it up, and Her Majesty then sent for Lord Lansdowne.
Last night the Duke of Newcastle defended himself in the House of Lords against John Russell, and replied to his statements in the House of Commons, and did it very successfully, carrying the House with him. The whole affair, as it is gradually evolved, places John Russell in a disgraceful and odious light, and ought to demolish him as a public man, for he has shown himself to be actuated by motives of pique, personal ambition, and mortified vanity, and to have been insincere, vacillating, uncandid, and untruthful. The Duke's statement was crushing, and appears to me not to admit of a rejoinder. It ought to cover him and his wretched clique with confusion; but they will probably attempt to brazen it out, and doggedly to insist that John was justified in all he did. The discussion last night was very characteristic of Derby. If ever there was an occasion in which seriousness and gravity seemed to be required of a man in his position, it would seem to be that of last night; but his speech was nothing but jeering at the late Cabinet and chaffing Newcastle; it was really indecent, but very smart and funny, if it had not been so unbefitting the occasion.
February 4th.—No one can remember such a state as the town has been in for the last two days. No Government, difficulties apparently insurmountable, such confusion, such excitement, such curiosity, everybody moving about craving for news, and rumour with her hundred tongues scattering every variety of statement and conjecture. At last the crisis seems to be drawing to a conclusion. The Queen has behaved with admirable sense of her constitutional obligations. When Aberdeen took down his resignation, she told him she had made up her mind what to do, that she had looked at the list of the division, and found that the majority which had turned out her Government was composed principally of Lord Derby's adherents, and she should therefore send for him. Aberdeen said a few words rather discouraging her; but she said, though Lord Palmerston was evidently the popular man, she thought, according to constitutional practice, Lord Derby was the man she ought to send for. It has been seen how Derby failed; then she sent for Lord Lansdowne, whom she desired to consult different people and see what their opinions and inclinations were, and report them to her. This was on Friday. He did so and made his report, after which, on the same principle which had decided her to send for Derby, she resolved to send for John Russell, his followers having been the next strongest element of the victorious majority. Accordingly, on Friday night or early yesterday morning, she placed the formation of a Government in his hands. He accepted it, and began by applying to Palmerston, offering him any office he chose to take. Palmerston did not refuse, but his acquiescence seems to have been of a hesitating and reluctant kind, and nothing was definitely settled between them. Gladstone and Sidney Herbert, and afterwards Graham, decidedly refused; Clarendon desired to have some hours to consider of it. However, the result of his applications was so unfavourable that last night he considered his attempt virtually at an end, though he had not actually given it up this morning, and some further communication was taking place between him and Clarendon, which was to be decisive. As soon as this is over, the Queen will play her last card, and have recourse to the man of the people!—to Palmerston, whom they are crying out for, and who, they fondly imagine, is to get us out of all our difficulties. From all I hear, I think he will make a Government, because he really wishes and is determined to do it, and many of the most important who would not join John Russell will join him. In the course of to-day I imagine it will all be settled. The impression made by Newcastle's speech against Lord John has been prodigious, far greater and more general than I imagined, and it is confidently affirmed that, if he had taken office and stood again for the City, he would have been beaten. He still shows fight against Newcastle, and intended to have answered him and vindicated himself in the House of Commons yesterday, if he had not been detained so long by the Queen that the hour was up when he got there. He means to return to the charge to-morrow. In the course of all these transactions he urged Lansdowne himself to take the Government, and offered to continue at the Council Office and lead the House of Commons, or to take no office at all, and give him independent support in the House of Commons, or to go to the House of Lords and give him his best assistance there; but Lord Lansdowne declined all these offers.
February 5th.—I have often had occasion to remark on the difficulty of avoiding making false or erroneous statements in affairs like those I am treating of, for the reports which we hear from different people generally vary considerably, and sometimes the same thing repeated by the same person varies also; not that there is any intention to misrepresent or mislead, but circumstances apparently trifling are narrated differently according as the narrator has been impressed by, or remembers them, and thus errors creep in and accumulate, and at last it becomes difficult to reconcile statements that have become conflicting by degrees. However, I can only jot down what I hear, and reconcile the accounts afterwards as well as I can. Yesterday afternoon I saw Clarendon, who confirmed his refusal to join Lord John, but with some slight difference as to the details. He said he had spoken very openly to him, but so gravely and quietly that he could not take offence, and he did not. It was not till he received Clarendon's final refusal that he wrote to the Queen and threw up his commission.
LORD PALMERSTON TAKES OFFICE.
Her Majesty had seen Palmerston the day before, and told him if Lord John failed she should send for him, and accordingly she did so yesterday evening. Palmerston had told Lord John, as soon as he received the commission he should go to him. At present he has only invited Clarendon and Charles Wood (Whigs) to join him. Clarendon of course is ready, but Charles Wood demurs, and insists that unless Lord John will take office in the Government he cannot join, and that the whole thing will be a failure. Lord John is very averse to take office, and the more averse because he must then go to the House of Lords, for of course he cannot remain in the Commons, not leading it. The Duke of Bedford has been here in a grand quandary, seeing all sorts of difficulties, and in fact they spring up on every side. He agrees with Lord John, but was shaken by the arguments of Wood, which are backed up by George Grey and Panmure. I argued vehemently against Wood's view, and strongly advised Lord John's not taking office, and I convinced the Duke, who is gone back to Lord John to talk it all over with him again. On the other hand, the Peelites want the Government to be restored, with Aberdeen again at the head of it, and it is very questionable whether they will join at all, and, if they do, not without much difficulty and negotiation, which will at least consume valuable time. In short, at this moment the formation of a Palmerston Government, which was to be so easy, is a matter of enormous difficulty. The Queen wrote a civil and even kind answer to Lord John's note giving the task up.
February 6th.—Great disappointment and dismay yesterday, the Peelites having refused to form part of Palmerston's Government. Graham, Gladstone, and Sidney Herbert all declined unless Aberdeen formed a part of it. Sidney Herbert was very willing to join, but would not separate himself from Gladstone, who was deaf to all entreaties and remonstrances. It is believed that Graham is the one who has persuaded Gladstone to take this course. Aberdeen is anxious, or pretends to be so, that they should join, and Newcastle certainly is. What Gladstone says is, that unless Aberdeen is in the Cabinet he can have no security that his (Aberdeen's) principles will be acted on, and that he may not be called upon to be a party to measures, relating either to war or peace, of which he disapproves. However, I have only heard second hand what he says in conversation with others. It has been in vain represented to him that there will be an explosion of indignation against them all in the country for refusing their aid at such a crisis, and their conduct will never be forgiven. All this, he says, he is aware of, but his objections stand on too high ground to be shaken. Palmerston means not to be baffled, and, failing the Peelites, to turn to the Whigs and make the best Government he can. His popularity, which is really extraordinary, will carry him through all difficulties for the present. It was supposed that his popularity had been on the wane, but it is evident that, though he no longer stands so high as he did in the House of Commons, and those who know him can easily see he is not the man he was, in the country there is just the same fancy for him and sanguine opinion of him as ever. John Russell made a rejoinder to Newcastle in the House of Commons last night—a plausible speech enough, and it served to set his friends and the Brooks's Whigs crowing again, and saying he had made out a complete case; but I do not see that it made his case a bit better than before. All who are at all behind the scenes are aware of the fallacies and deceptions in which his statements abound, and that they are of a nature that may not be exposed.
THE PALMERSTON ADMINISTRATION.
February 7th.—Yesterday Aberdeen and Newcastle, particularly the latter, renewed their endeavours to prevail on Gladstone to give up his scruples and to join the Government, and at last they succeeded, and in the evening Palmerston was able to announce that he had accomplished his task and the Government was formed. John Russell, on his side, pressed all his Whig friends to unite with Palmerston, and by these means the difficulties were gradually overcome. Lord Lansdowne would not take the Council Office, but agreed to be the organ of the Government in the House of Lords, though he seems afraid this should be thought to have committed him to more trouble and responsibility than he is inclined to take, and it is only a sort of quasi-leadership that he will own to. I find the Queen did propose to him to form a Government, and under certain conditions he was not unwilling to undertake it, but of course he much prefers the present arrangement. It is admitted on all hands that both Aberdeen and Newcastle have behaved very well, and done all in their power to facilitate Palmerston's arrangements. It is, however, much to be regretted that these Peelites have acted in concert and as a party, and I see from the fact a vast deal of embarrassment and opposition to the Government in prospect. Already the Derbyites are sulky and angry to the greatest degree, and the Whigs not a little indignant that so much anxiety has been shown to get Gladstone and his friends, and such a high price paid for them; and the fact of their forming so large and important a part of the Government will secure the fierce hostility of the Derbyites, and make the support of the Whigs very lukewarm. The latter, too, will be influenced by John Russell, who, in spite of his present professions of amity and promises of support, is sure to be very soon a frondeur, and then in open and direct opposition. He told Clarendon 'he meant to give his best support to the Government.' Clarendon said, 'You do; well, at what do you think I value your support?' 'What?' he asked. 'Not one sixpence.' At first Palmerston will meet with no opposition to signify; if he does, he has only to dissolve, and the country will give him a majority. But opposition will gather about him soon enough; extravagant expectations are raised of the good he is to do and the great acts he is to perform, all which will only lead to disappointment and mortification. If the luck which for many years accompanied him should do so still, and some unexpected success crown his administration, he may thus gain a great position; but it is idle to depend on the chapter of accidents and, according to all human probability, he is destined to carry on a disastrous war or to make a peace (the wisest thing he can do) which will be humiliating, because so wholly incommensurate with our extravagant expectations and ridiculous pretensions. However, if any man can make such a peace it is Palmerston, and it is much better that Aberdeen should have no concern with the Government, for it would be much more difficult if he was in the Cabinet, and supposed to have any hand in it.[1]