The Press.
London, England, 1856-06-21 00:00:00

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578

Government will ever be truly amicable, or
that the danger of serious misunderstanding
will ever be removed. But it is a policy which
Lord PAT.MERiTON during the whole course of
his political life has opposed, and which we
believe he is totally iucapable of appro.
elating.

THE PRESS.

on his " want of caution." His anonymous
censors have in their attacks upon him
exhibited that fault most egregiously. The
imputations unfairly 031§H. upon Mr. CRAMPTON
are applicable in u tenfold degree to those
high parties whom it is sought to relievs from
condemnation by damaging a gentleman who
must still keep silent under unjust strictures
not founded in fact.
We were much struck by some of the art-
ful attempts at wholesale disparagement of
Mr. CRAMPTON. We allude particularly to a
carefully veiled attack upon him in a leading
organ of last Tuesday, prepared evidently
with as much care as if it were the political
plea of a Ministry demurring to a public in-
dictment. It begins, of course, in the " Mrs.
Candour" vein. "Mr. CRAMPTON has not been
" wholly faultless." That safe assertion, so
applicable to almost every official, may be
passed by without further comment from us
than to mark it as the false key of affected
impartiality. "We do not doubt Mr. CRAMP-
" TON'S zeal and activity, but he appears to
" have wanted caution and dignity." Why,
these were the exact requisites in which
the contrivers of the wretched scheme of a
" Foreign Enlistment Bill" were them-
selves deficient. We do not think that
it is for the abettors and supporters of
that miserable measure to blame subordinates
compelled to follow out indiscreet instruc-
tions If an incompetent general orders an
experienced officer to perform a rash act, the
junior must obey, and his courage and skill
are of little avail while carrying out foolish
commands. If a vacillating Minister presides
over affairs, a movement of instability will be
invariably communicated to his official ser-
vants; and we may rest assured, whenever
Lords PALMERSTON and CLARENDON take
a leading part in high diplomatic affairs, that,
as the past history of their lives shows, there
must be ample reason to apprehend want
of " caution and dignity" on their parts.
Both of those Noble Lords have talents of a
certain kind. But, certainly, a reputation for
" caution and dignity" dues not belong to
either of them.
Some of our readers may require to be re- '
minded that Mr. CRAMPTON is son to the
eminent Surgeon-General of Ireland, Sir
PHILIP CRAMPTON, of European celebrity in
science, and nearly the lust of the old and
brilliant school of Irishmen of past days.
The ridiculous sneers at Mr. CRAMPTON as
" an Irishman" are rather too absurd, when
the circumstance is recollected that at the
time of his appointment as Envoy to Wash-
ington it was specially mentioned that " an
Irishman " would be the best for that mission,
as he would have more facilities for super-
vising the conduct of certain " unexecuted
patriots" of 18-18 Recollecting, also, that
some of the best diplomatists our service ever
boasted were " Irishmen," like Lord MACART-
NEY, the Marquis WELLESLEY, Lord CASTLE
REAGH, the arquis of HASTINGS, Lord
PONSONBY, and also that Lord PALMERSTON
himself is an " Irishman," it shows, indeed,
some want of " dignity " and great absence of
" caution" to exhibit animus against Mr.
Caauvrort by deriding him as " an Irishman."
The sneer, also, about his " conversational"
talents is rather rash, as Lord CLARENDON
takes particular pains to toil in that depart •
ment. A great talker himself, the Noble
Secretary for Foreign Affairs has a positive
weakness - for " conversational " effects.
Amongst all our public men is there one that
can be matched against Lord CLARENDON for
his love of long talking? He has, indeed, a
masterly power of pouring forth torrents of
gossip. "It may," proceeds the attack on
Mr. CRAMPTON, " safely and certainly be said
" that an Ambassador ought not to talk too
" much." We sincerely hope that Lord
CLARENDON may learn that official aphorism,
and reform his loquacity. No other Viceroy
ever talked so much in Ireland, though his
Lordship was certainly no orator. He was
incessant at lecturing in public and private,
and his didactic harangues at dinners and at
the Royal Dublin Society were the themes of
deserved ridicule. His addresses about the
art of growing flax were formidable proofs
that he was matchless in the art of " spinning
yarns." We are then told how a man may be

SATURDAY,

•
" even a sharp fellow in his way," but if he be
not " habitually an:l systematically observant,"
he will (the slang words are not ours) " get
" himself into a mess." all of which is applied
to Mr. CaAmivrox, but which reads as if some
oblique censure Were intended on Lord
CLARENDON, for the faults there hinted at were
fatally shown in Lord CLAwmoN'sViceroyalty.
Could anything possibly be worse in Mr.
CRAMPTON than the conduct of Lord CLAREN-
DON in making an arrangement with Lord
ENNISKILLEN and the Orangemen in 1848, and
afterwards denying it ? Or his Dollybrac's
" mess," when he attacked the Orangemen
officially (after having previously courted.
them), and when his Lordship " tumbled the
" buck of the herd " in depriving the venerable
Lord RODEN of his Commission of the Peace?
Let it not be supposed for a moment that
we wish to make out a to quoque case against
Lord CLARENDON. Our object in referring to
these matters is to show that there is power-
fulscircumstantial evidence for believing that
much of what is charged against Mr. CRAMP-
TON should really be preferred against Lord
CLARENDON. Experienced politicians believe
that Mr. CRAMPTON must have had secret in-
structions (which, of course, cannot now be
produced) ; and it happens, unfortunately for
the reputation of Lord CLARENDON, that no
English statesman ever dealt so much in do-
mestic affairs with " secret instructions." The
mode in which Captain KENNEDY was used
about the Orangemen ; his Lordship's esca-
pades with Messrs Coma. CONNELLANS,
Frrzimox, and "Mr. BIRCH;" the confidential
letter about an intrigue to prevent Lady
JoeitLyx accompanying her Majest) to Ireland,
because her ladyship was daughter-in-law to
Lord RODEN; his Lordship's long transactions
as "man of the world ;" his largesses to " Mr.
BIRCH ;" the series of strange revelations
about his mode of managing the public press—
all these things cannot be forgotten, when we
see Mr. CRAMPTON rebuked for " want of self-
" respect in the kind of persons with whom lea
" connected himself, and the style of proceedinys
" he adopted."
That language can be made to recoil with
fatal effect on the Foreign Secretary himself !
Here, fur instance, are the words used by a
present member of the Judicial Bench in Ire-
land, in talking of the acts of Lord CLARENDON.
In his speech to evidence in the case of
" Birch versus Sir NV. Somerville," Mr. KEooa
stated :
In the columns of the World the Government assailed
its opponents in st.ason and out of season, righteously and
unrighleossitly, creditably and discreditably; and discredit-
ably not one whit more to my client than to the members
of a Government who were supported by all the wealth
and opulence which power can confer, men whose educa-
tion and position ought to have rendered them incapable of
dijiling and degrading the public press by making use
of it
for those base purposes ; and it does not now, I say, lie in
the mouths of these persons to come forward and calum-
niate and defame their agent.

Those words were received with applau
in court ; and Lord CLARENDON'S conduct
was afterwards discussed in Parliament, to the
no small detriment of his Lordship's eputa-
non. We think that those who lecture Mr.
CRAMPTON ought to think more carefuliy be-
fore they proceed to "defame and calum-
niate" that gentleman, who might have had
special and secret instructions worthy of the
Clarendonian school, and which must, as a
matter of course, have been obeyed. Mr.
CRAMPTON is a thorough gentleman, and we
believe him to be a man of untainted honesty.
We must recollect, also, that it was because
Lord CLARENDON was found to be scandalously
insincere, and not to be relied on, that all
parties in Ireland finally joined against lain.
and that he was obliged to leave Ireland pri-
vately, instead of following the routine course
of a public departure. Never was any Irish
Viceroy so remarkable for want of " caution
and dignity " as Lord CLARENDON, and there is
not a charge preferred against Mr. CaANwrox
which cannot be applied with far more force
to our Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
But it is impossible to deny connection
between the Government and Mr. CaotrroN.
Where, for example, did Mr. CRAMPTON get the
money which he gave freely to recruiting
agents, and for what purpose was it intrusted
to him? Lord CLARENDUN must recollect that
a similar question was raised as to the money