The cabinet of Lord Palmerston was not destined to remain long unbroken. When the period arrived for appointing a committee of inquiry, in virtue of Mr. Roebuck’s motion, it became evident that the ministry was divided. The Peelites were in favour of an attempt to defeat the appointment of a committee. Lord Palmerston was opposed to its appointment also, but would not risk the overthrow of his power by any attempt to thwart the wishes of the house. The Peelites resigned, and the cabinet had to be reconstructed. On the 22nd of February the secession was publicly announced.
Lord Palmerston obtained Sir Charles Wood—a man of inferior talents, but superior moral weight—in place of Sir G. Graham. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis became chancellor of the exchequer, who was much inferior to Mr. Gladstone in that post, but a man of more direct and reliable opinions. Mr. Vernon Smith was made president of the board of control. Lord John Russell, who was (as before noticed) nominated to the Vienna conference, accepted the colonial-office, which Sir George Grey occupied ad interim, as well as the home-office, which he accepted en permanence. The secession of those men from the cabinet, to whom our military disasters were mainly attributable, was a gain to its moral influence, and saved the premiership of Lord Palmerston from an extinction, probably, as signal as that of his predecessor. In the month of March the ministry was modified in its inferior offices in a way calculated to improve its strength. Generally, throughout the united kingdom, it inspired confidence and received support.
One of the last acts of the Aberdeen ministry was to establish an order of military merit for bravery—the Victoria Cross.
Upon the resignation of the Aberdeen ministry, the court paid signal attention to its members; and the fallen premier received the highest badge of honour the queen could bestow—the Order of the Garter. This excited loud murmurs throughout the country, and impaired public confidence in the vigour of will possessed by the premier, when the will of the court was expressed apart from the great and leading principles of his policy.
The estimates for the service of 1855 were much discussed in the house, and were generally considered far below the exigencies of the country. The estimates for the army were £13,721,158; for the navy, £10,716,388; for the transport service, £5,181,465; for the ordnance, £7,808,042. The whole nearly equalling thirty-seven millions and a half sterling.
With the discussions of March, and the consolidations of the cabinet, ended the parliamentary events, of the year most worthy of note; although various discussions, full of interest and importance, arose from time to time throughout the whole of the session. Those which were most vital to the government arose out of the negotiations of Vienna, where Lord John Russell appeared as the chief representative of England. The sittings of this conference were held in March and April. Both Lord John Russell and the French plenipotentiary agreed to terms which, as they were ultimately rejected by the allied governments, need not be referred to here.
The unsuccessful termination of the Vienna conferences produced a great sensation in England and France, murmurs were heard in both countries that their negotiators had laboured without results; and both the English and French plenipotentiaries were compelled by public opinion to retire from their offices in the cabinets of their respective countries. Count Nesselrode addressed an artful note to the ministers and agents of Russia in various states, the object of which was to represent the allies as resisting all conciliatory offers on the part of Russia. The tone and representations of the note were identical with the arguments of Gortschakoff and Titoff at the conference. The French plenipotentiary and foreign minister resigned his place in the imperial cabinet; the English plenipotentiary and colonial minister retained office until the cause of the French minister’s retirement became known; and his conduct contrasted very favourably in English opinion to that of the English minister. Earl Clarendon and Lord Palmerston held back from the British parliament and public a correct knowledge of the facts, until it transpired, through Parisian gossip, that the French, English, and Austrian ministers were willing to accept peace on the condition of Russia and the allies keeping an equal naval armament in the Black Sea. The way in which Austria had hoodwinked the Western negotiators, and played into the hands of Russia, became at last evident; and Lord John Russell was forced to leave the English ministry. There were other results of the conference, and these rapidly developed themselves. It was no doubt a conviction on the part of the Russian government that its duplicity throughout these negotiations, and its falsehood in accepting as a basis the four points, had deprived it of all moral influence in Europe, that led to the crafty and deceptive circular of Count Nesselrode, already referred to, in which he sought to persuade the world that Russia was—as some of the English peace lecturers frequently represented—a most ill-used nation. If no other result than that of unmasking Russia—even to the Peelites and their supporters—were attendant upon those conferences, it was so much gained for the prospect of a more united public opinion in England. But these negotiations tore the mask from Austria; she was evidently not an ally of the Western powers, but an accomplice of the foe; she dreaded Russia, but she was still more afraid of France.
When the people of the united kingdom and their representatives in the commons had time to review all these things, the outcry against Lord John Russell was as great as it had been before against Lord Aberdeen. The popular voice stopped the pens and silenced the tongues of the diplomatists, and negotiations gave place to fierce and sanguinary war.
England, however, became disgusted with professional and ministerial diplomatists, and denounced all negotiations with Russia until, by sword and lance, rifle and cannon, the foe was humiliated.
There can be no question that the energy and force of the popular sentiment—often right, though sometimes erroneous, and sometimes obstinately and wilfully wrong—have occasionally interfered with the success of negotiations. But this is one of the evils inseparable from a free government. The French court, from the death of Louis XIV., was anxious to pursue a pacific policy, to improve their marine, and to pursue Colbert’s maxim, that a long war was not for the benefit of France. But the democratic party, which had been formed before the death of Louis XV., employed diplomatic agents at every court to upset and overturn the pacific policy of that king’s ambassadors.*