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

telligence; if it is criminal to express our opinions, it
is the crime of possessing freedom. We cannot help
having our opinions, and we should despise ourselves
were we to conceal them. An English Minister has
no right to dictate to foreign States, but it is very
hard, indeed, if he alone is to be tongue-tied—if he
alone is to see no difference between right and
wrong, if he alone is to express no sympathy with
suffering and no dissatisfaction with wrong. Be-
sides which, it may well be asked whether non-in-
terference, -in the extreme sense of the word, be a
possible thing. We know that silence may be elo-
quent, and that, as the world is constituted a sym-
pathetic world, to hold our peace and to restrain our
sympathies may, to all appearance, be the condona-
tion of tyranny and the casting of our influence into
the scale of the oppressor. In point of fact, Lord
Aberdeen, who carried out the policy of non-inter-
ference in the most determined manner, obtained
thereby the reputation of being partial to the conti-
nental despotisms, and of looking with an evil eye on
the struggling liberties of Europe. Being one of the
most liberal-minded men in England, he by reason
of his liberality—we mean, by reason of his strict
adherence to the principle of non-interference—
gave the whole weight of his influence to the des-
potic Governments of the Continent, and withdrew
his countenance entirely from the popular cause.
In that first great speech on our foreign relations
which Lord Palmerston delivered (June 11, 1829)
in Opposition, and whicl marked him out as the
future Foreign Secretary, he laid down principles
which afford the key to ais subsequent conduct in.
office. " There are two great parties in Europe,"
he said ; " one which enleavours to bear sway by
the force of public opinion, another which en-
deavours to bear sway by the force of physical
control ; and the judgment, almost unanimous, of
Europe assigns the latter as the present connexion
of England. The principle on which the system of
this party is founded is, is my view, fundamentally
erroneous. There is in nature no moving power
but mind; all else is passive and inert. In human

affairs this power is opinion, in political affairs it is
public opinion; and he who can grasp the power with
it will subdue the fleshy am of physical strength and
compel it to work out his purpose." This was the
weapon of weapons ; Lorc Palmerston had faith in
its power ; he believed also in the right of every
man to have this weapon It his side, and to use it
as he could. If any statesman refused to arm him-
self with this power, he h;d but one other weapon
to depend upon—he rangel himself definitely with
those who had but the ont resource of brute power,
the one baptism of blood ald fire.
These are the principles of foreign policy which
were discussed through 2( long years, while Lords
Aberdeen and Palmerstonwere rivals. If interest
will lead us to side more frquently with Lord Aber-
deen, every generous feeliig will incline us to take
the side of Lord Palmerstm ; although in the long
run there is perhaps not ouch difference between
these statesmen. At all ;vents, from the general
statement which we haw thus given, the reader

V •
will be able to determire for himself how far

the floods of eloquence tlat have been exhausted
in endless debates on this question are important
or unimportant ; and we swe ourselves the trouble
of going over the history of Lord Palmerston's
foreign policy in detail. It will be enough if we
state some of the results, and foremost among these
must be mentioned the establishment of Belgium
as an independent kingdom with free institutions.
We who now behold in Belgium a State which
knows how to unite liberty with order, and which
preserves its dignity in spite of limited means,
are apt to forget in the midst of so much pros-
perity and quiet what anxiety the establish-
ment of this little kingdom gave to the Ministers
who had to conduct the negotiations, what intermi-
nable discussions in the Legislative Assemblies, what
hosts of prophecies, what odious taunts, what wag-
gonloads of despatches it called into being. Lord
Palmerston came in for a good share of the abuse.
His " little experimental Monarchy" was a never-
failing subject of jest. 'Through himself and Talley-
rand the negotiations were principally conducted;
and if the caricatures of " H. B." may be taken as
a faithful index of the popular opinion, we should
leap to the conclusion that our Foreign Secretary
was a mere tool in the hands of his wily adversary.
He was pictured as a blind man led by a French
poodle to a precipice ; again, as a blind man carry-
ing a lame one IN ho points the way ; as a fly listen-
ing to the blandishments of the spider ; as a cat
held by a monkey, after the manner of Landseer's
picture, in which the monkey makes use of the
cat's-paw to get the chesnuts out of the fire. The
caricatures were amnzingly clever, and Talley-rand
had such a reputation for cunning and success that
people were ready to believe anything to his glory,
and to the disadvantage of a younger adept who
ventured t 9 cope with him. If. we may judge,
however, by the facts, we do not see how Lord
Palmerston could have acted differently ; and if we
may judge from results, it does not appear that
France has gained anything by the transaction,
while Europe has the advantage of possessing one
more State which presents a favourable example of
Constitutional government. It may be added that
Talleyrand himself gave his opinion of Lord Pal-
merston in the phrase, " C'est un homme qui n'a pas
le talent du raisonnemezt,"—which really means that
he found his opponent proof against all his argu-
ments and not to be deceived by all his talk.
But the establishment of what has been termed
the Quadruple Alliance was still more fiercely can-
vassed. This was a treaty of alliance negotiated by
Lord Palmerston between England, France, Spain,
and Portugal ; and the object of it was the defence
of the existing monarchies in the Peninsula, that of
Donna Isabella in Spain, and that of Donna Maria
in Portugal, against all attempts to displace them.
Don Carlos laid claim to the Spanish throne, and
Dom Miguel to the Portuguese. Their claims were
really false, but, besides the weakness of their titles,
they were obnoxious to the English statesman on
account of their antipathy to Constitutional govern-
ment. The claims of the two Queens to their
respective crowns were asserted by the Liberal
Cabinets at Paris and London, and for the preser-
vation of their rights the Quadruple Alliance
was established. More than this, Lord Palmer-
ston placed certain English forces at the disposal of
the Peninsular Governments, and consequently en-
gaged in armed as well as moral interference in the
affairs of two foreign States. Here was an opening
for the enemy. Lord Aberdeen objected entirely to
the Palmersitonian _ pal:•ey, rApt;,..asitly
how the Foreign Secretary could work out the
Quadruple Treaty, supposing—what was not at all
unlikely—that Don Carlos should make his way to
Madrid, should seize upon the throne, and should
expel his niece from the country? What right had
we to interfere in such a case ? What business was
it of ours to impose a Sovereign upon a foreign
State ? What voice had we in the election of a
Peninsular potentate? The logic of debate evidently
belonged to Lord Aberdeen ; but Lord Palmerston
had the still more convincing logic of success. He
violated the principle of neutrality ; but the prin-
ciple could never be absolute ; the violation was
necessary, and it proved to be beneficial. In defend-
ing his policy long afterwards, in that great speech
which he delivered in the Don Pacifico debate, Lord
Palmerston observed—" As long as England is
England, as long as the Englishpeople are animated
by the feelings, and spirit, and opinions which they
possess, you may knock down twenty Foreign Mi-
nisters one after another, but, depend upon it, none
will keep the place who does not act upon the same
principles."
The most brilliant of Lord Palmerston's exploits,
however, during the first period of his Foreign Sec-
retaryship, was an armed interference to prevent the
dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. It is well
known that Mehemet Ali, from being the mere vassal
of the Grand Seignior, had by his greatability raised
himself as Pasha of Egypt into a position of real,
though not nominal, independence. Not content,
however, with the Pashalic of Egypt, he wished to
add to it Syria, and, with the assistance of his son
Ibrahim, proceeded to carry out his plans. Turkey,
which bad from its weakness been for many years an
object of anxiety to European statesmen, was ap-
parently in a very critical position. It had practically
lost Egypt, and it was now to lose another great
province. The beginning of the cud seemed to have
conic, as more than a dozen years later it seemed to
have come again, when the Emperor Nicholas pro- ;

. posed that the European Powers should dispose of
the sick man's effects. Lord Palmerston determined
to avert this catastrophe if it were possible, and he
made the utmost efforts to draw the Great Powers
into a league for the preservation of the Ottoman
Empire in its integrity. Thiers at that time held the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs in Paris, and, pro-
bably from some lingering sympathy with the
Napoleonic designs on Egypt, kept aloof from
the movement while he continued to play with it.
The results of all M. Thiers's objections and doubts
and despatches, however, was that Mehemet Ali
was gaining time ; he was firmly planting himself
in Syria, and the object for which the league was
started was slipping from their grasp. Lord Pal-
merston saw through this Fabian policy, and set
to work to counteract it. A treaty was sud-
denly signed by England, Austria, and Turkey, on
the strength of which a fleet was sent to the Syrian
coast with orders to co-operate in driving the
Egyptian troops out of the country. The squadron
was principally composed of English ships, and was
under the command of Sir Robert Stopford, with
Sir Charles Napier as second in command. In a
very short time the intruders were driven from
every position which they held in Syria, with the
exception of the fortress of St. Jean d'Acre ; and
the defences of this town were so very strong that
the Admiral declined the responsibility of an attack
upon it. Sir Charles Napier's plan for its reduc-
tion, however, were forwarded to Lord Palmerston,
who, at once accepting the responsibility, took the
usual course of giving orders to Sir Robert Stop-
ford for the attack in accordance with the views of
his second in command. Who does not know the
rest ? The fortress, which had defied Napoleon, was
taken in the most brilliant style, and Mehemet Ali
was finally driven from the country and compelled
to give up his claims.
The rapidity with which the exploit was conceived
and executed, the daring of the attempt, and the
magnitude of the result gave a lustre to the reputa-
tion of Lord Palmerston, and rendered him at once
the most popular statesman in England. The energy
and skill which he displayed on this and other oc-
casions were really marvellous,and we can have little
idea of it unless we remember at the same time the
precarious condition of the Government to which
he belonged. With a straggling party, which barely
contrived to present the appeaarnce of a majority,
Lord Melbourne's Administration was by its weak-
ness forced into inaction and the most miserable
expedients. The dashing Foreign Secretary, how-
ever, so far from acting as the member of a tot-
tering Cabinet, went to work as if he had in-
vincible majorities at his back, and could
boast of being the most formidable Minister in
Europe. He was, perhaps, the most active Minis-
ter then living, and his activity was felt in ways
which but seldom came under the observation of
the public. His exertions for the suppression of
the slave trade, to give a single example, were of
the most effectual, but also of the most unobtrusive,
kind. He worked in that cause with the warmest
zeal ; others might wax cold in their endeavours or
might change their opinions, but he never altered—
his interest in the Legro never flagged, his desire to
suppress the nefarious traffic amounted to a passion,
and those who are fond of showing their own wis-
dom by talking of Lord Palmerston's insincerity in
the cause of constitutional liberty might acquire a
further insight into his character by turning their
attention to his ceaseless but silent efforts in this
sacred cause. To crown all, let it be added that
in the midst of all these labours Lord Palmerston
found time to marry. The most active minister in
the world was the lightest of heart and the freest
from care. He married in 1839 the sister of Lord
Melbourne, and the widow of the fifth Earl Cowper.
There never was a happier union, and Lord Palmer-
ston owed to it not only the comfort of a happy
home, but also much of that public influence which
comes of an extended social intercourse and which in
the end raised him to the Premiership. It was de-
lightful tosee him in public with his wife, and to note
the interest which the pair excited. At the opera a
thousand glasses would be levelled at his box, and
all his little attentions to Lady Palmerston would be
studiously observed and criticised as if he were dif-
ferent from other men. If he differed from other men
iu this respect, it was in being the must devoted and
attentive of husbands, and in asserting his resem-
blance to those conjugal models, the first Lady Pal-
merston and the second Lord Palmerston.

At length the Whigs were driven from office; Peel
I became Premier, and Lord Aberdeen ruled at the
Foreign-office. Sir R. Peel had no sooner attained
the object of his ambition than Lord'Palmerston
made a remarkable prediction, which we must record
in his own words. " The right hon. baronet," he
observed, " has said that he is not prepared to de-
clare that he will never propose a change in the Corn
Laws, but that he certainly shall not do so unless at
the head of a united Cabinet. Why, looking at the
persons who form his Administration, he must wait
something near five years before he can do it." Lord
Palmerston waited something near five years, and,
perhaps, to his own astonishment, beheld the pre-
diction verified. It will be remembered that when
Sir R. Peel proposed to abolish the Corn Laws he
soon felt the necessity of handing that work over to
the Whigs, and of resigning his Premiership, but
the Whigs were unable to form a Government,
through the refusal of Earl Grey to sit in the same
Cabinet with Lord Palmerston. The first Earl Grey
was the only one of the Whigs who stubbornly refused
to coalesce with the Canningites in 1827, and now his
son imitated his example by refusing to become the
colleague of the last of the Canningites, if the direc-
tion of the Foreign-office was to be in his hands.
This was too much for Lord Palmerston, who ex-
pressed his willingness to retire from office altogether,
but insisted on being placed in the Foreign-office
if he was to have a place at all. ln the following
year Lord Grey got over his scruples, and, under
Lord John Russell, a Whig Ministry was formed,
with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary. But,
this preliminary complication seemed to indicate
that even his colleagues began to doubt the policy
of him who was at once the most popular and best
abused statesman in England ; and in the end Lord
John Russell's Cabinet was overturned through its
resistance to Lord Palmerston. Six years of office,
however, is a long lease of power as Cabinets go ;
and in Lord Palmerston's department they were six
very eventful years. The repeal of the Corn Laws
had sweetened the political atmosphere of England,
and had removed all anxiety.from the administra-
thm of oui-clomestit; afairs. Dub unfortundbely
which had brought peace and plenty to England—
that repeal, which had done so much to alter the face
of the country—had, by contrast, been the signal
for revolution and disturbances of every kind
throughout Europe. Lord Palmerston had scarcely
received the seals of the Foreign-office whenhe found
himself in the midst of a Swiss difficulty. A majo-
rity of the Cantons had ordered the Jesuits to retire
from Switzerland ; the Catholic Cantons resisted
the order, and the Catholic States seemed not un-
willing to assist the minority by force of arms. By
very skilful negotiations, and by a promptitude and
decision which distanced every attempt to keep up
with him, Lord Palmerston settled the difficulty,
holding the Catholic States back with a promise of
joint intervention, until the Protestants of Swit-
zerland hed fairly put down their adversaries,
scattered their forces in a single engagement, and
left no question open for the interference of
an European Congress. Then came the affair of
the Spanish marriages, in which Louis Philippe was
supposed to have outwitted the Foreign Secretary.
If in this business Louis Philippe had a triumph, it
was a short-lived one, for in the following February
the dynasty which he thought to strengthen and
make sure for ever was banished from France.
In that tempestuous year 1848 every one of the
Continental Thrones was shaken, the oppressed
nationalities of Europe arose, and there seemed to
be every likelihood of universal Democracy. The
attitude which our Foreign Secretary assumed in
this conjuncture was that of "a judicious bottle-
holder," to use a term which was constantly applied
to him,—in plain English, was that of cautious
sympathy. He was too sympathetic to please those
whose watchword was the law, and who frowned on
constitutional liberty,—he was too cautious, too
much a friend to order, too little disposed for for-
cible interferences, to please those who wished for
subsidies as well as opinions, soldiers as well as
advice, and so, falling between two stools, his con-

duct gave satisfaction to very few on the Continent.
The Germans sang—

"Hat der Teufel einen Bohn,
" So ist er, sicher, Palmerston,"
because he refused to help them. So, also, he gave
his support to Turkey when Austria and Russia with
threats demanded the extradition of Kossuth and
other refugees who had fled to the dominions of the
Sultan, and he ventured to express great sympathy
with the Hungarians ; but, because he would not
consent to go further, and wage war with Austria
in behalf of the Hungarian and Italian nationalities
he was denounced as a traitor. His conduct in the
affair of Pacifico gave still greater offence on the
Continent and not a little offence at home. He sent
a powerful fleet to Athens in order to compel the
Greek Government to pay up the " little bill" of a
certain Jew of the lonian Islands, and of some
others, for losses which they had sustained through
outrages committed by the Greeks. There was
something so amusingly disproportionate in
the spectacle of the British fleet being sent to
bombard Athens in order to force the payment
of a disputed debt—of a British fleet dunning
a Royal city for the recovery of a Jew's pots and
pans and chamber crockery—that nobody can won-
der at the earnestness with which the policy that led
to such a result was assailed in both Houses of Par-
liament. The debates on Lord Palmerston's foreign
policy which arose out of this incident are among
the ablest and most important upon record, and,
although his policy was entirely condemned in the
House of Lords, it received the sanction of the
House of Commons by a considerable majority. It
was in reference to the vote of censure passed in the
Upper House that Lord John Russell made the
memorable statement :—" So long as we continue
the Government of this country, I can answer for
my noble friend that he will not act as Minister of
Austria, or of Russia, or of France, or of any other
country, but as the Minister of England"—a state-
ment which seemed to suggest that the question in
dispute was something much deeper than that of
a petty debt, and infringed on far more important
rights affecting our relative position in the balance
of power. The question was decided by the speech
of Lord Palmerston himself, which was the ablest
oration he ever made ; and a very masterly, as well
as very eloquent exposition of his whole foreign
policy it is. The peroration is particularly effective,
and when he came to that concluding passage in
which he compared the British to the Roman citi-
zen, reminded his audience of the protection which
the Flatter could invoke in the simple phrase—
" Civis Romanus sum"—and asked why the former
should not claim a similar protection in a similar
formula, the enthusiasm of his supporters rose to its
height, he was tumultuously cheered, and for that
night the debate closed with this miracle of a speech,
which, said Sir Robert Peel, " made us proud of the
man who delivered it."

Lord Palmerston gained the day, but the seeds of
distrust were sown in the Cabinet, and soon bore
their fruit. In December, 1851, he was forced to re-
sign, because on his own authority he had pro-
nounced in favour of Louis Napoleon when he as-
sumed the dictatorship of France. It had been
arranged that no important step in our foreign
affairs should be taken without the assent of the
whole Cabinet as well as of the Queen, and Lord
Palmerston had —perhaps without knowing it—
violated this arrangement, which was a restriction
on his powers. Lord John's„- Cabinet, however, did
not long survive the dismissal of the Foreign Secre-
tary, who quickly kicked it over with a Militia Bill.
Lord Derby's Government succeeded, when, strangely
enough, the Premier offered to Lord Palmerston
that very post in the Foreign-office from which he
had been dismissed by Lord John Russell, and for
his conduct in which the House of Lords had, at the
instigation of Lord Derby, passed a vote of censure.
Lord Palmerston declined the offer, chiefly on ac-
count of the equivocal position which the Tory party
maintained on the subject of Free Trade ; and the
consequence was that the. Derby Ministry only held
office until the more Liberal statesmen could com-
pose their differences and make up an alliance. An
alliance was soon formed under the auspices of
Lord Aberdeen, who entered upon office at the head
of the strongest Cabinet which ever controlled the
(lead/lieu of England. Lord Palmerston consented
to serve in the Home-office under his old rival,
while to propitiate the Whigs, Lord Clarendon was
placed in the Foreign-office. The Russian war was
the leading incident of this coalition. It finally
broke down in consequence of those Crimean disas-
ters which introduced an element of strife between
the Conservatives and Liberal sections of the Mini-
stry. In the meantime Lord Palmerston was plod-
ding in the Home-office as if there was no such
thing as foreign politics, and as if smoke nuisances
and sewer nuisances were the only.great themes of
Ministerial anxiety.. He dilated upon manure, and
informed the world that dirt was only " a goodthing
in the wrong place ;" he discussed the subject of the
cholera, and informed the English public that clean-
liness is a more certain preventive than prayer. In
this last piece of administration it was wittily said
that the Foreign Secretary peeped out—he treated
Providence as a foreign power. There were not a
few who in those days wished that he were indeed
Foreign Secretary—that he occupied a post which
would bring more directly under his control the
real work of the Aberdeen Cabinet, either the con-
duct of our negotiations for peace or the conduct of
our military operations ; and when he succeeded
Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister he more than jus-
tified the public expectation by the vigour which he
threw into the war and the tact with which he con-
cluded a peace.

It was certainly a proud day for him when, in
answer to the long series of attacks upon him, he was
elevated to the highest office in the State, as the only
man able and ready to carry out that very policy of
a war with Russia and an affiance with the French
Emperor, which had been the source of misunder-
standings innumerable and recriminations without
end. It showed also immense courage on his part
that he was -willing to undertake this arduous
task with the assistance of a Cabinet which Lord
Brougham is said to have characterised as " a staff
of eleventh-rate men." He was feebly supported
both in administration and in debate ; and the
effects soon became visible in little incidents which
do not come before the public, but which in the
undercurrents of the Legislature tell with great
force on the credit of a Government. The weak-
ness of some of his colleagues compelled them into
oertasional discourtesies, which were nothing more
than the natural refuge of incapacity, but which
left a bad impression on political opponents and
wavering allies ; and the Prime Minister had so
much to do to cover the deficiencies of his Cabinet
that he was known to have given offence to certain
of the Liberals by the assumed airiness of his
manner and the levity of his answers to serious
questions, while, others reported to his discredit
that he, the kind of heart and light of soul—he
who had not one particle of bitterness in his nature
—he who had been notorious for his good humour
under the most trying circumstances—he who had
won the hearts of the country gentlemen by re-
fusing to side with the rest of the Liberal party
in demanding from them a humiliating confession
of the advantages of Free Trade, had on one occasion
lost his temper and spoke angrily. The House of
Commons was slipping from his grasp, and on the
Chinese question he lost his majority. Nor did he
recover it without an 'appial to the country, from
which he received the most enthusiastic support.
He returned to Parliament with an enormous
increase of power, and it seemed that, spite of the
feebleness of his coadjutors, his term of office would
be coincident with his life. Unfortunately, the same
series of causes which deprived him of his majority in
the previous Parliament gradually tended to deprive
him of his majority in that which had been newly
summoned. On a mere question of form the vote
went against him. It is useless to say that there was
anything really offensive to the country in his con-
duct to the French Emperor. The Tories voted in
favour of his policy one day and against it the next.
When they succeeded to power they but carried out
the Palmerstonian policy. There was no real differ-
ence between Lords Derby and Palmerston on this
question. A slight informality in the mode of con-
ducting our foreign correspondence was seized as a fit
opportunity for the annoyance of the Government,
and the annoyance proceeded to the extent of placing
Lord Palmerston in a minority. A minority in a