What Lord Malmesbury had said amounted to this—that in 1844, when the Russian Emperor Nicholas was in London, 'he, Sir Robert Peel (then prime minister) and Lord Aberdeen (then foreign secretary) drew up and signed a memorandum' to the effect that England 'would support Russia in her legitimate protectorship of the Greek religion and the Holy Shrines, without consulting France. Lord Malmesbury added that the fact of Lord Aberdeen, one of the signers of this paper, being prime minister in 1853, was taken by Nicholas as a ground for believing that England would not join France to restrain the pretensions of Russia, and therefore, by implication, that Lord Aberdeen's being prime minister was a—if not the—principal cause of the war. [Footnote: Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister (1st edit.), i. 402-3.]
The memorandum itself, as printed in the Blue Book, differs essentially, both in matter and form, from Lord Malmesbury's description of it. It is entitled 'Memorandum by Count Nesselrode delivered to Her Majesty's Government and founded on communications received from the Emperor of Russia subsequently to His Imperial Majesty's visit to England in June 1844.' [Footnote: Parliamentary Papers, 1854, lxxi. 863.] It is unsigned, and from the nature of it must be so; it is in no sense an agreement, but a proposal that England should agree to act in concert with Russia and Austria; and nothing whatever is said about the Greek religion, the Holy Places, or the Russian protectorate. It is of course possible that conversations between Nicholas and Lord Aberdeen, which preceded the drawing up of this memorandum, may have encouraged the one and hampered the other; but of this there is no evidence, and Lord Malmesbury could not possibly know anything about it, though he did know something—very inaccurately it appears—about the memorandum. The discrepancies had, in fact, led Reeve to suppose that Malmesbury's statement must refer to another memorandum; and thus Lord Stanmore's letter has a singular historical interest, bearing, as it does, on a point that has been much discussed.
From Sir Arthur Gordon
Queen's House, Colombo, July 30th—I am very sorry that I did not contrive to meet you while in England…. I am almost equally sorry—in fact, am equally sorry—that my laziness and procrastination in sending you my notes prevented their being of any use in the revision of the seventh volume [of the Greville Memoirs]. I am the more sorry because I confess I greatly regret that the mare's-nest of the Russian Memorandum of 1844 should remain unpulled to pieces. You seem half-incredulous as to my explanation, and ask very naturally, If that is all, why should there have been any secrecy about it? The secrecy was due to the form, not the matter. The memorandum was the Emperor's own account of his conversations with the Duke, Sir R. Peel, and Lord Aberdeen, and a copy of it was sent in a private letter from Count Nesselrode to Lord Aberdeen. It was never in the hands of the ordinary diplomatic agents for official communication to the English Government, nor was it ever treated as an official document. But its importance was too great to allow its being treated as an ordinary private letter, and my father personally handed it to Lord Palmerston when replaced at the F. O. by him. Lord Palmerston delivered it in the same way to Lord Granville, Lord Granville to Lord Malmesbury, Lord Malmesbury to Lord John Russell, and Lord John to Lord Clarendon. In 1853 the Emperor made some reference to this paper which was supposed to make it a public document, and it was then printed and laid before Parliament soon after the beginning of the war. This I assure you is the whole history and mystery of the Russian Memorandum, Lord M. notwithstanding. This is not the only instance in which Lord M. has mixed up, in singular fashion, what he himself knew and what was the club gossip at the time.
The Journal here notes:—
August 20th.—Drove over to Lytchet Heath, to stay with the Eustace Cecils.
September 10th.—Joined Mrs. Watney in the 'Palatine' yacht at Bournemouth. Crossed to Trouville in the night. Lay in 'the ditch' for twenty hours. 12th, Cherbourg. Met the French fleet and saw the arsenal. 13th, back to Southampton and to Foxholes. Pleasant trip; good weather.
20th—The Eustace Cecils came: took them to Heron Court. This was the last time Lord Malmesbury saw people there.
From the Duc d'Aumale
Woodnorton, 26 septembre.