The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-19 00:00:00

Castlereagh and Canning on the subject of the Wal-
cheren expedition, the Duke of Portland resigned,
and Perceval was called upon to form a govenment,
Lord Palmerston became Secretary at War. A
number of writers, recording this fact, have
fallen into themistake of confounding the Secretary
at War with the Secretary for War, and thence
inferring that Lord Palmerston at the early age of
five and twenty succeeded Lord Castlereagh as War
Minister, while we were engaged in the gigantic
contest with Napoleon. Castlereagh was Colonial
Secretary, as such was Secretary for War, and in
that double office was succeeded by Lord Liverpool.
Palmerston succeeded Sir James Pulteney as Secre-
tary at War, doubtless a very important post, but
one which by no means implied a seat in the Cabinet.
For some 20 years, amid all sorts of changes, he
held the same appointment. Lord Liverpool suc-
ceeded Perceval as Premier—still Palmerston held
to the War-office. Canning resigned in the room of
Lord Liverpool—still Palmerston was found at the
War-office. Lord Goderich assumed the position of
Canning—still Palmerston remained at the War-
office. The Duke of Wellington displaced Lord
Goderich—still Palmerston and the War-office
seemed to be inseparable. The secret of this devo-
tion
to the one office is partly to be found in the
Secretary's want of ambition, but chiefly in his per-
fect mastery of the business of his office at a time
when it was of peculiar importance to his colleagues
that it should be well represented in the House of
Commons. During the first few years of his ap-
pointment he was the financier of the army, while we
were engaged in the most costly war on which this
country had ever entered, and when it was of the
greatest moment that our resources should be turned
to the best account. When the war came to an end,
the Whigs, who had always been lukewarm in sup-
porting it, joined with the Radicals in their outcry
against standing armies and in their demand for re-
trenchment. As in our time the Manchester school
of politicians required that our military establish-
ments should be reduced to their condition in 1835,
so, on the conclusion of peace, the refrain of many
a debate through many a year of Parliament was
that we should reduce our military establish-
ments to their condition in 1792. It was
in urging this policy of retrenchment that
Joseph Hume first signalised himself ; and it must
be evident that, to meet the attacks of such an oppo-
nent, Lord Palmerston had a still more difficult game
to play than when, backed with all the enthusiasm
of the nation, he regulated the expenses of an army
whose victories continually appealed to the national
pride. He fought the battle of the Government with
consummate skill, and by the accuracy of his infor-
mation, the readiness of his wit, and the abundance
of his good humour, sorely troubled honest Joseph
Hume, who, compelled to take his seat silenced and
discomfited, but neither convinced nor discouraged,
would return to the charge on the following night,
would read out sum upon sum, and would announce
the " tottle of the whole" with all the assurance of
a man born with the multiplication table in his head,
but only to undergo a renewal of the process at the
hands of his adroit adversary. If Lord Palmerston
was thus successful in parrying the thrusts of his
arithmetical opponents, it was in a great measure
because he had a good case to defend, and because,
being, as Hume termed him, " the alpha and the
omega of the War-office," he had imbued that depart-
ment with his own spirit, introducing order where
before there had been only confusion, efficiency where
there had been only stagnation, and economy where
all had been profusion and waste. On one occasion,
in reply to the attack of his indefatigable foe, he had
the satisfaction of announcing a miracle which so
staggered honest Joseph that he refused to believe
it. Ile said that, by a careful supervision of past
accounts and calling-up of arrears, he had for the
two previous years been able to conduct the enor-
mous business of his office without cost or charge to
the country. Poor Hume, who was in those days
very unpopular in the House, could not understand
it, and insisted that the expenses had been increased ;
but it was only to see Lord Palmerston get up, and
hear him, to the enjoyment of his audience, quote
in his airiest style the ancient saying that there
are but two things over which the immortal gods
have no control—past events and arithmetic. Al-
though
Mr.. Hume refused what the immortal gods
are compelled to accept, the announcement of Lord
Palmerston regarding the management of the War- I
office is by no means incredible to any one ac-
quainted with the financial position of the various
public departments during the early years of the
present century. The state of our accounts was
disgraceful. When Lord Henry Petty was Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, in 1806, he brought for-
ward a bill for the better auditing the public ac-
counts, and on that occasion startled the House of
Commons by the assertion that in some of the offices
there had been no audit for more than 20 years, that
in all the offices the accounts were more or less in
arrear and apparently without check, and that,
taking all together, public money had been expended
to the amount of £455,000,000, which had never
been accounted for, a sum at that time larger than
the national debt. The arrear and confusion, the
peculation and the waste which Lord Palmerston
found at the War-office were but a part of this ex-
travagant system. He brought his clear head and
his vigorous habit to bear upon it, and succeeded
in repelling the attacks of Hume not less by the
fact that he had of his own accord effected the most
important reforms in his department than by that
art of fence of which he had the most perfect mas-
tery.

Lord Palmerston in those days, we have said,
rarely opened his mouth in the House of Commons,
unless to propose the army estimates or to answer
some question relating to the army. Whatever he
did in this way was always remarkable for
clearness and brevity, but otherwise his col-
leagues obtained from him very little assistance
in debate. Canning in vain expressed the wish that
he could bring " that three-decker Palmerston into
action." Palmerston held to his post, thought only
of the army, and refrained from general discussion
so entirely that one of the many names which in his
lifetime have been given to him was " the silent
friend." In his first 20 years of office he probably
did not rise to address the House of Commons on
any subject beyond his own department more than
a dozen times ; and, curiously enough, on those rare
occasions, it was not to questions of foreign policy,
in which as a War Minister it might be supposed
that he would be chiefly interested, that his atten-
tion was turned. He spoke of the Catholic
claims, of the law of copyright, of the game
laws, of usury laws, of church extension, of
slavery, of electioneering. Only once did he canvass
our foreign policy, and that was in the first speech
which he delivered in Parliament. The speech was
a defence of the celebrated expedition to Copen-
hagen—an expedition of which the only defence that
could then be offered to the country was that the re-
sult had been most successful, while the information
on the strength of which it had been projected could
not on, any account be divulged. It was a good
speech, terse, clear, forcible ; and we may remark,
as something characteristic of Lord Palmerston's
first Parliamentary effort, that it was not only
devoted to a question of foreign policy : it was also
devoted to a defence of official secrecy, and it was a
following of Canning's lead.
This portion of Lord Palmerston's career may be
dismissed with the record of two more facts. The
first is that on the Bth of April, 1818, as he was
mounting the stairs of the Horse Guards, a pistol
was fired at him by a half-pay
lieutenant named
Davies. He was only slightly hurt, the ball striking
him above the hip and causing nothing more serious
than a contusion. It was said that had he not turned
quickly round when passing the corner of the
baluster the bullet must have taken a fatal dirce
tior.. The would-be assmsin was tried, proved to
be insane, and confined for life in Bedlam, where
he only recently expired. The other fact to
which we have alluded is of higher biographical
importance, although our information with re-
spect to it is rather general than particular. it
is that Lord Palmerston joined with Croker and
Peel in producing that series of satires against
the Parliamentary Opposition which was published
under the title of the New Whig Guide. How
much he contributed to the work, which, after all,
perhaps, did not do the Whigs any great damage,
it is difficult to say ; nor are we well informed as