He concluded by saying he felt it right to reserve his final determination till the last moment at which it would become necessary.
Albert.
Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria.
RESIGNATION OF THE PEELITES
Downing Street, 21st February 1855.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and feels extreme regret in having to state to your Majesty that Sir James Graham, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Sidney Herbert announced at the Cabinet Meeting to-day their determination to retire from the Government in consequence of their inability to consent to the nomination of Mr Roebuck's Committee.38 No other Member of the Government has as yet intimated any intention to retire. Viscount Palmerston will assemble the remaining Members of the Government to-morrow at twelve to take into consideration the steps to be taken for supplying the places of the retiring Members.39
An endeavour has been made to induce Mr Roebuck to postpone the appointment of the Committee till Monday, but he will not consent to delay it beyond to-morrow, and he will insert in the votes to-night, to be printed to-morrow morning (in accordance with the rules of the House), the proposed list of names which have been settled between the Government and Mr Roebuck, and which seem to be unobjectionable, all things considered....
Footnote 38: The retirement of the Peelites in a body from Lord Palmerston's Ministry is a curious instance of the tenacity of Party ties, since the prosecution of the enquiry into the conduct of the war affected the Whig as much as the Peelite section of the Aberdeen Cabinet. In reference to their reason for resignation (viz. that the investigation was a dangerous breach of a great constitutional principle, and that similar enquiries could never thenceforward be refused), see Parker's Sir James Graham, vol. ii. pp. 268-272.
The secession of the Peelites, however, did not make the Ministry a Whig Government. The last Whig Administration was that which left office early in 1852. Had Lord John Russell succeeded in his attempt on the present occasion, the Whig party might have endured co nomine; but Palmerston had, notwithstanding Cobden's distrust, been popular with the Radicals, and henceforward his supporters must be known as the Liberal Party.
Footnote 39: Sir Charles Wood became First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Vernon Smith succeeding him at the Board of Control), Sir George Lewis succeeded Mr Gladstone at the Exchequer, and the Colonial Office was offered to and accepted by Lord John Russell, who was at the moment in Paris on his way to attend the Vienna Conference.