CHAPTER III.
ALEXANDRIA. 1840.
Mr. Hay did not long remain without employment. In his Note Book for 1840 he thus describes his entrance on the career of a diplomatist.
Waiting with some anxiety to learn what might turn up and be my fate, I stayed for some months in Town, and in May, as I was walking down St. James’ Street towards the Foreign Office, I met Henry Forster, brother of the late General Forster, then a senior clerk in the Foreign Office, who said, ‘Hay, I have to congratulate you, for you have just been marked with our chief’s initial letter.’
On my asking for an explanation, Forster informed me that my name had been sent up by my kind friend Mr. Hammond (the late Lord Hammond, then Senior Clerk) for the post of attaché at Constantinople, and that Lord Palmerston, as usual when he approved a note or a memorandum, had signed P. Before I received this appointment, Lord Palmerston’s private secretary asked me whether I was a Whig or a Tory, adding that his Lordship had directed him to question me, as he had appointed so many members of Tory families to foreign posts that it was his intention in future before making an appointment to inquire of a candidate to which party he belonged.
I replied that, as I hoped to obtain employment abroad, where it would not be necessary for me to take part in politics as Whig or Tory, my party would always be that which upheld the honour and interests of my own country.
I was told that, when my reply was reported to Lord Palmerston, he said, ‘Mr. Hay may be a Tory, but he will do for diplomacy.’
On my appointment I was directed, before proceeding to my post, to attend for some weeks at the Foreign Office to learn the forms, &c.
Before the present Foreign Office was built there was, at the back of the old buildings, a street, the houses on the opposite side of which were overlooked by the rooms occupied by some of the junior clerks. In a window of one of these houses two elderly ladies used sometimes to be seated, sewing, and a youthful clerk was wont to amuse himself dazzling them by means of a looking-glass. The ladies wrote a note to Lord Palmerston, complaining of this annoyance; upon which his Lordship sent a memorandum to be circulated amongst the clerks:
‘The gentlemen in the office are requested not to cast reflections on ladies. P.’