The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-20 00:00:00

LORD PALMERSTON AT DOVER.

To-day the town DOVER, TUESDAY.
of Dover is en fete, Lord Palmerston
having received one of those popular ovations of which he
is so frequently the subject when relieved from the more
weighty duties devolving on him as the head of her Ma- I
jesty's Government during the parliamentary session. In
his lordship's newly-assumed dignity of Lord Warden of
the Cinque Ports he has received the flattering compliments
of the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of this the most im-
portant of the five ports.
The object of the noble Premier's visit to Dover was to
be present at a ceremony arising out of the presentation of
his lordship's portrait to the town. Already the Maison
Dieu Hall, a spacious building founded by Robert de
Burgh in the reign of King John, and recently restored at
considerable eutlay, contains the portraits of many eminent
men, some of whom have held the post of Warden of the
Cinque Ports. Among the most treasured of these is a
full length one of the late Duke of Wellington, who at the
time of his death held the honourable office of Lord War-
den.

The presentation took place at 3 o'clock in the Maison
Dieu Hall. Lord Palmerstcn, accompanied by Lady Pal-
merston, the Hon. Mr. Cowper, &c., rode over from Wal-
mer. On his lordship descending the Castle-hill a salute of
19 guns was fired from the castle batteries, and at the foot
of the hill his lordship was met by the Ist A Cinque Ports
Artillery Corps, under Captain Wollaston, and the Bth
Cinque Ports Rifles, under Captain Churchward, who
formed a guard of honour.
The following address, engrossed on vellum and bearing
the corporate seal, was read by the recorder of the borough,
Mr. W. H. Bodkin, the passages congratulating the noble
viscount on his undiminished health, and expressing the
hope that his services might be long spared to the country,
being received with cheers :
To the Right Hon. Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmer-
ston, K.G., G.C.8., D.C.L., Constable of her Majesty's
Castle of Dover, Warden, Keeper, and Admiral of her
Majesty's Cinque Ports, two ancient Towns, and
their Members, Master of the Trinity-house, Deptford
Strond, &c.
We, the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the Cinque
Port and borough of Dover, in counsel assembled, beg to
congratulate your lordship on the cessation of the more
urgent of your lordship's labours by the prorogation of Par-
liament, and to express our hearty welcome to your lord-
ship on your return to the Lord Warden's ancient resi•
dente within the liberties of the Cinque Ports, hoping that
the portion of your lordship's leisure which you may be
able to pass amongst us may conduce to the invigoration of
your lordship's health and strength. We shall ever re-
member with grateful feelings the determination of her
most gracious Majesty the Queen to preserve and main-
tain the time-honoured jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports
by the nomination of your lordship to the distinguished
office of Lord Warden. And we think we may with a
laudable pride refer to the evidence of our appreciation
of your lordship's willingness to accede to her Majesty's
wishes, which was so unequivocally expressed and
so universally shared on the occasion of your
_lordship's
recent inauguration. In commemoration of this and other
claims to the respect and gratitude of this corporation and
port, we have been anxious to perpetrate the memory of
our official connection with your lordship by placing your
lordship's portrait, painted by one of our distinguished
fellow-townsmen, in our ancient hall. And we thankfully
acknowledge your lordship's kindness in affording us
the requisite facilities for accomplishing this object; and
in now honouring with your presence the ceremonial
of its presentation to the town. When it is remembered
that the portrait will be associated with those of the
eminent Duke of Dorset, who held the office of Warden
in the reigns of Queen Anne 'and of the Kings George,
11. and 111., and of the Great Duke of Wellington,
who
was removed from his earthly honours whilst at the
Wardens official residence cf Weimer Castle, We trust
that the memorial will be universally recognised as most
appropriate. We earnestly hope that in the fulfilment
of your lordship's high and responsible duties you may
be blessed by Divine Providence with uninterrupted health
and energy, and that our sense of your lordship's public
services as first minister of the crown and a senator of the
realm may by this day's proceeding be recorded by future
generations still revering the honoured jurisdiction of the
Cinque Ports,
Given under our corporate seal in our Council Chamber
at Dover, this fifteenth day of August, in the twenty-sixth
year et her Majesty's reign, in the year of our Lord, 1862.
- _ _

Lord PALMERSTON, in reply, said—Mr. Mayor and gen-
tlemen of the corporation, I can assure you that I feel
deeply the honour you are doing me by this address and
by the occasion upon which it is presented to me. I was
highly flattered when her Majesty was pleased to confer
upon me the high and dignified office of 'Warden of the
Cinque Ports, an office rendered valuable by the recallee•
tion of those who have held it in former times, and, by tte
antiquity to which its history extends. But, gent/el:An, it
has been a source of great satisfaction to tae to find that
the choice which her Majesty was pleased to make of
the individual to fill that office has. been sanctioned by your
approval, and that now, when I return to you, a year after
my first presentation to you, you still evince the kindly feel-
ing and regard of which you made such satisfactory and
pleasing demonstration this time twelvemonth. It will be

a source of great pride to me that you have thought fit to
place a permanent representation of the fleeting individual
who now has the honour of addressing you in this ancient
hall amongst the effigies of those distinguished men who
have formerly held the office I now have the honour to hold.
It must indeed be a source of great gratification to any man
living to find the memory of himself placed in connexion
with the records of that eminent and distinguished man
the Duke of Wellington, of whom it may truly be said
there never was in the history of the world any man who
conferred greater benefits upon the country which produced
him, and I may say, upon the whole face of Europe
itself. (Cheers.) To find one's representation placed
in conjunction !with the memory of so great and dis-
tinguished a man must be a source of the greatest pride
and gratification to any man living. (Hear, hear.) lam
also the more gratified to find that the picture which you
now behold is the work of a most distinguished artist of

your own town, one of your fellow-townsmen, who has
shown by the success with which he has finished this pic-
ture that he is worthy of the town to which his family and
himself belong. Gentlemen, there are occasions upon which
ancient institutions are found to conflict with modern im-
provement, with the improved organisation of the present
time, and when that is the case nobody can regret that
those 'ancient institutions should either be modified or
swept away to make room for the more improved:arrange-
ments which modern times have suggested. But that is
not, I am happy to say, the case with that office which I
now have the honour to hold ; and where ancient institu-

tions are not found to conflict with modern, improved orga-
nisation, it is a wise policy to perpetuate; them, and to con-
nect the tradition of the past and the existence of the pre-
sent with the anticipation of the future. (Applause.) I
trust, therefore, seeing that the office which I hold has
already been adapted to the arrangements of modern times
by the withdrawal from it of some of those singularities
which fitted an ancient period, but which are not so much
in harmony with our present arrangements—l trust that
the office, being now fitted to the time in which we live,
and being connected with the most honourable traditions of
all the districts to which it belongs—I trust that office,
when I in the course of nature shall cease to hold it, will be
conferred on others after me, and that those honourable
recollections which belong to the arrangements of the
Cirque Ports will be kept alive in the memory of their in-
habitants, and will servo as an incentive and an emulation
to induce them to rival the good deeds of those who have
gone before them jor centuries and centuries. (Loud ap•
plause.) Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, I beg again to return
you my most sincere thanks, and to assure you I am deeply
sensible of the honour you have now conferred on me.
(Loud cheers.)

Occasion was taken of his lordship's presence in Dover
to open a new bridge connecting the present iron bridge
(the Wellington) with Strond-street. His lordship, after
passing over the bridge, and cracking a bottle of wine in
the centre, formally declared it opened.