I have, of course, read the volumes with great interest, but have had my suspicions greatly heightened that whatever may have been the case before—say 1841, the confidences Mr. Greville received in the later years of his life were not unfrequently only half-confidences, for the sake of obtaining his opinion on some collateral point, or of flattering or pleasing him by the show of confidence. There are, of course, many matters treated of in these volumes as to which I have no personal or private information, and I have no reason to question what he says about them; but I have some inclination to doubt, even as to these; for I find that as regards almost every transaction of which I do happen to know the whole history, he knows a good deal about it, but not all about it. He was kept specially in the dark about the real history of Lord Palmerston's resignation in 1853 which is all the odder because he very nearly found it out. Hardly anybody does know what lay behind, though the difference about Reform was a very real one, so far as it went, and quite sufficient to justify—at all events, ostensibly—Lord P.'s virtual dismissal. Again, on another occasion, I see Mr. G.'s special friend, Lord Clarendon—I will not say, deliberately deceived him, but, certainly with full knowledge —allowed him to deceive himself on the strength of a half-confidence. [Footnote: A politic reticence, that has been called 'an economy of truth.']
I am more disappointed than I can say to find that M. de Sainte-Aulaire's elaborate Memoirs have been 'used up' for that stupid book of Victor de Nouvion's, [Footnote: Histoire du Règne de Louis Philippe (4 tom 8vo. 1857-61)], if—as I suppose-that is the book you refer to. I thought it had never got beyond the first two volumes, and have never seen any more of it. I am vexed that M. de Sainte-Aulaire's elaborate Memoirs should have been utilised for such a book; generally, because I know M. de Sainte-Aulaire contemplated their publication, and because they deserved to appear in a separate form; and, personally and specially, because, of course, his accounts of his intercourse with my father, and the elaborate study of his character which he had written, are thus lost….
Yours ever faithfully,
A. GORDON.
To Sir Arthur Gordon
C.O., June 13th.—I have just read in the 'Times' of this morning your interesting letter on the formation of Lord Aberdeen's ministry. I have no doubt you are quite right. It was John Russell and the Whigs who were rapacious for office—much more than the Peelites. John Russell, I know, kept Cardwell out of the Cabinet. You observe that Greville only notes what Lord Clarendon told him; and I have no doubt that Clarendon was rather out of humour with arrangements which were personally disagreeable to himself. But that again was John Russell's fault, because he insisted on taking the Foreign Office pro tem. I shall probably publish another complete edition of Greville next year, and I think it would be well to insert in a note the whole of your letter, or at least the greater part of it. [Footnote: See Appendix, post, p. 411.] If you have any other criticisms to make, they would be valuable to me. I have availed myself of those you were so good as to send me on the second series.
You are aware that Mme. de Jarnac is dead. I do not know who has her husband's papers; but the Comte de Paris is here, and as I frequently see him, I will take an early opportunity of asking him whether he can give me any information about Lord Aberdeen's letters. M. Thureau's 'Histoire de la Monarchic de Juillet' is a remarkable book, because he has access to original sources and quotes largely from them, especially from the Memoirs of M. de Sainte-Aulaire which are still in MS. [Footnote: And still so in 1898.] They appear to be extremely interesting.
We are getting on here pretty well. If the Whigs had joined the Government, there might have been a scramble for office, as there was in 1853; for the Whigs are now in the same position as the Peelites were at that time—officers without an army. It is much more to the credit of my friends to give a disinterested support to Lord Salisbury; and this alliance gives a sufficiently Liberal colour to the measures of the administration. There is every appearance that the Unionists will hold together. Mr. Gladstone continues to be in a state of hallucination and excitement which exceeds belief. It is a case of moral and political suicide. The crisis will probably end by the death of Mr. Parnell, the falling [off] of the American subscriptions, and the extinction of Mr. Gladstone; but in the meantime they have totally ruined Ireland.
From Sir Arthur Gordon
August 30th.—Your letter of June 13th must have crossed one from me, in which I explained to you why I had written to the 'Times' about the formation of the Government of 1853 instead of merely sending my observations to you as a note for future use. I need not say that I am much flattered by your proposal to insert the letter—or part of it—in a note to a future edition of Mr. Greville's Memoirs… I am struck very much by what I think I mentioned once before—the frequency with which Mr. Greville's friends gave him what may be called 'a three-quarters knowledge' of pending affairs. They told him a great deal, but frequently not all. In the affairs with which I am really acquainted, there is almost always something—and that an important something—which does not appear in his notes… I have specially noticed this with regard to Lord Palmerston's 'resignation' in 1853, It is the more remarkable, because it is apparent from various passages that he 'burnt'—as they say in a game of hide and seek—but never actually quite caught the true facts. I have never known a secret better guarded than the fact—which, after a lapse of four and thirty years, one may, I think, mention—that Lord P.'s resignation on that occasion was not voluntary, and that he was, in fact, extruded. [Footnote: In a later letter, June 5th, 1888, Sir Arthur Gordon wrote:—'He had given great offence to the Queen; and his colleagues—at least, his most important colleagues—distrusted his action in reference to pending negotiations, Lord Clarendon especially resenting the intrigues he believed he was carrying on. Things being in this state, he announced his hostility to Reform, and it was determined to take advantage of this announcement to remove him; and removed he would have been, but for the two causes I have noted.'] But, to be sure, half the Cabinet did not know this; and it was their ignorance, coupled with Newcastle's and Gladstone's dislike of Lord John, that brought him back again.