The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-23 00:00:00

ACCUSATIONS AGAIAST LO M)

PALMERSTON.

(From the Morning Post.)
It iv of the first importance that the new mem-
bers of the House of Commons—that the future

men of England, and that statesmen and journalists
on the continent of Europe and America should

know the utter groundlessness—the cJmplete falsity
of the accusations made against Viscount Palmerton.
We make no apology, then, for following the Rus-

Bian diplomatist who has attempted —we need
scarcely say unsuccessfully attempted—in the Nord
to misrepresent and vilify the character of the ablest,
the most experienced, the most courageous, and,
above all, the most thoroughly British of living
statesmen. The Nord says that, in leaving the

Wellington Ministry, Lord Palmerston "speculated
on snecess, and did not then, or at any time, act
from conviction." We have already shown that the
present Premier left the Ministry because he made
common cause with his friend Mr. Huskisson, one
of the ablest, best-informed, and wisest Ministers
this country ever produced—a man whose untimely
death in 1830 was one of the greatest calamities
that could fall on this nation.
It is one of the few reproaches that can be cast on
the memory of the great and good Duke of Wel-
lington, that he treated Mr. Huskisson's attempts
at explanation on this occasion with an abruptness
and a summary sternness savouring far more of the
camp than of the Cabinet. In this his grace com-
mitted a great error; for, in 1828, Mr. Huskisson
stood first in the foremost rank of living statesmen,
and combined in his proper person more sound poli-
tical, commercial, and statistical knowledge, and
greater administrative skill and sagacity, than any
living man. In truth, since the clays of Colbert and
Turgo', there had been no such Minister in Europe
for a knowledge of commercial and economic theo-
ries. Nor was Huskisson a mere theoriser only. To
the highest scientific he allied the greatest practicll
intelligence, and was, in the best sense of the word,
a thorough matter-of-fact and highly.dependable
colleague. With the soundest sense he combined
tae most perfect suavity and a modesty rare at that
epoch, and now, we may say, almost wholly un-x-
-isting among public men. When Mr. HuskissOn

found that his letter to the Duke had been mistaken
and misconceived, whom did he select to confer on
the subj€ct with the great Captain ? None otiser
than his friend the then Secretary at War, the pre-
sent popular First Minister of the Crown.
It is said, in the most off-hand Tartar fashion, by
the Russian diplomatist, who unsuccessfully at-
tempts to depreciate Viscount Palmerston, that
"the Duke of Wellington showed him very little
respect." At what source the Russian acquired this
smattering of information we profess not to know,
or, indeed, to care ; but we may take the opportu-
nity of stating here that the illustrious Duke, of,en
ungracious and brusque to the highest per,onages
in the State, and generally abrupt and decisive in
manner, was uniformly cordial and urbane in his
commerce with the Secretary at War. The con-

versation held with the trusted friend of Mr.
Huskisson in May, 1828, was of considerable
length—much longer, indeed, than that pre-
viously held with Earl Dudley ; for we may,
in passing, remark that the manners of the
noble earl, the then gif ed Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, were quite as abrupt as the Duke's, and
occasionally eccentrical in no *annum degree.
After h%viug seen the Duke of Wellington on. the
part of Mr. Huskissori, Viscount Palmerston ad-
vised his right hon. friend to pursue a certain
course. That course, was pursued, and pursued-
speedily, and the result was that Mr. Huskisson
and h:s three Catiningite friends—namely, Lords
Dudley, Palmerston, and Mr. Charles Grant (now
Lord Glenelg)—went out of office. So instanta-
neous and decided was the course taken by Lord
Palmerston that he waited on the then Sect etaty
(Mr. Peel), and requested that he would postpone
the notice for the Army Estimates, which stood for
the following day, in order that there might be
time to make the necessary arrangements. So much
for the " speculations" of Viscount Palmerston and
" the very little respect," according to the .Nord,
shown to him by the _Duke of Wellington.
We are next told by the Nord that, in retiring lo
the Opposition benches, "Lord Palmerston never
let an expression to escape him to prove that he
had adopted the policy of the Whigs." How little
the writer knows of the facts, or how much he mis-
represents the truth, shall be soon apparent. On
the Ist June, 1829, the late Sir J. Mackintosh, the
leading authority of the Whigs on international
law (and of whom the late Lord Castlereagh ob-
served that the house regarded him as the eminent
vrohissor of that science), brought forward his
motion on the affairs of Portugal. 'Viscount Pal-
merston, in an able speech, expressed his fullest
concurrence in the policy and principles of the
mover, and told the house, amidst applauding
cheers, that the ciselised world rang with execra-
tions upon Miguel, " the destroyer of constitutional
freedom, the reaker of solemn oaths, the faithless
usurper, the enslaver of his country, the trampler
upon public law, the attempter of the life of helps
lets and defenceless women," dec. Few speeches
in our day made a greater impression than this dis-
course. On the same occasion Viscount Palmer-
ston challenged the foreign policy of the Welling-
ton Government in reference to Greece, and de-
monstrated that since ce oker Aberdeen had been
Minister for Foreign Affairs, France, from her en-
lightened liberality, had head the first, and Eng-
land only the second, place in Europe. These sen-
timents thoroughly identified the speaker with the
most liberal section of pol:t:cians, and prepared the
way for the hest understanding between the Can-
niugites and the 'Whigs. E, cry week, nay, almost
every hour, brought these parties nearer together.
Ten days after the period we have been speakiag of
Viscount Palmerston summed up his general objec-
tions to the foreign policy of the Wellington Govern-
ment inas'ill more kableSpeech. He observed
that there were two great parties in Europe, one of
which endeavoured to bearsway by the force of public
opinion—the other by the force of physical con trol.
" There is in nature," he observed, "no moving
power but mind : all else is pa-sive and inert. In
human affairs this power is opinion; in political
affairs it is public opinion." The Statcirnea, like
Canning or Palmerston, who know how to avail
themselves of the passions, the opinions, and the
interests of mankind, art} able to gam an ascend-
ancy and exercise a sway, far out of all proportion,
greater than belong to tue power and resources of
the State over which they preside, while those who
seek to check, to prohibit, and padlock, like the
Aberdeens and Gladstones of a lower generation,
find themselves at fault.
In 1827, when Cantiing directed the foreign policy
of the empire, England was in the first of these
conditions, and exercised an immense influence on
the nations of the earth. In 1829, when Lord
Aberdeen was Minister for Foreign Affairs, by his
maladzoituess, naarowne:s' and uusympathising
character, our prestige was lest. We were spoken
of abroad with contempt and derision ; and, iiistead
of being looked up to as the model of constitutional
freedom, as the refuge from persecution, and as a
shield against oppiession, our name, from the Ta-
gus to the Bosphorus, was coupled with everything
ho-tile to improvement and friendly to despotism.
Against this servile and timorous policy, whether
in Portugal, in Spain, in Greece, or in Turkey,
Lord Palmerston protested, and the Whig party
and the country went enthusiastically along with
him. In fact, three members of the Canning party
in the Lower House, namely, Huskisson, Palmer-
ston, and Grant, exercised at this moment a most
, cenimanding influence, aud there can be little doubt.
. that all three of theta would have entered the Go-
vernment of Lord Grey iu November, 1839, had
not Mr. Huskisson been unhappily killed by au
appalling accident near Manchester about sex weeks
previously to the accession of the Whigs to power.
As it was, however, the three Principal Secretaries
of State were men who formed a portion of the
Ministry of Canning. Viscount Melbourne, Can-
ning's Chief Secretary for Ireland, was made Home
Secretary. Viscount Palmerston, Canning'a Secrs-
tary at War, was made foreign Secret try. And
Viscount Godericb, Canning's Colonial Secretary,
was again placed in the same office. Mr. Grant, a
Canniugite, was at the Board of Trade • and Mr.
Wynne, another Canniugite, was Secretary at War;
whilst Lord Lansdowne, Canning's Home Secre-
tary, was made President of the Council.
It is a remarkable attestation to the ability of
Viscount Palmerston that Earl Grey, who held
aloof from the Canning combination in 1827
indred, who made a violent and vituperative attack
on Mr. Canning—selected, when he had the power,
a pupil of that Statesman as his Principal Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, at a period when Europe
was seized with the desire of change, and charged
with the elements of revolution. The Premier who
made this most fitting selection was an orator of high
pretensions, a politician of '44 years' standing, had
been leader of the House of Commons, F.rst Lord
of the Admiralty, and, above all, had himself suc-
ceeded the all-accomplished Chafes Fox as Prin-
clbiplaeloSfeicurdegtinar: for Foreign Affairs in September,
806. No man was therefore morel indeed so cap-
who was fitted for the office, and the
choice fell on the present Premier. From thatperiod,
as the Nord states, and it is the only fact it states
truly, the scene expanded for Viscount Palmerston,
and for the 27 subsequent years the history of the
man and the Minister is the history of his country.
We have not yet exhausted the manifold misrepre-
sentations of the Russian scribe. It behoves us in
the public interests, and in the interests of justice
and truth, to leave none of his aspersions unre-
moved, none of hu calumnies unrefuted.