These irregularities induced the House of Lords to reverse the
judgment, and its reversal did much to prevent mischief.
O’Connell’s illness, which resulted in his death in 1847, tended
also to establish peace. Sir Robert Peel wisely endeavoured to
stifle agitation by making considerable concessions to Irish
sentiment. He increased the grant which was made to the
Roman Catholic College at Maynooth; he established three
colleges in the north, south and west of Ireland for the undenominational
education of the middle classes; he appointed
a commission—the Devon commission, as it was called, from the
name of the nobleman who presided over it—to investigate the
conditions on which Irish land was held; and, after the report
of the commission, he introduced, though he failed to carry, a
measure for remedying some of the grievances of the Irish
tenants. These wise concessions might possibly have had
Free trade.
some effect in pacifying Ireland, if, in the autumn of
1845, they had not been forgotten in the presence of
a disaster which suddenly fell on that unhappy country. The
potato, which was the sole food of at least half the people of an
overcrowded island, failed, and a famine of unprecedented
proportions was obviously imminent. Sir Robert Peel, whose
original views on protection had been rapidly yielding to the
arguments afforded by the success of his own budgets, concluded
that it was impossible to provide for the necessities of Ireland
without suspending the corn laws; and that, if they were once
suspended, it would be equally impossible to restore them. He
failed, however, to convince two prominent members of his
cabinet—Lord Stanley and the duke of Buccleuch—that protection
must be finally abandoned, and considering it hopeless
to persevere with a disunited cabinet he resigned office. On
Sir Robert’s resignation the queen sent for Lord John Russell,
who had led the Liberal party in the House of Commons with
conspicuous ability for more than ten years, and charged him
with the task of forming a new ministry. Differences, which
it proved impossible to remove, between two prominent Whigs—Lord
Palmerston and Lord Grey—made the task impracticable,
and after an interval Sir Robert Peel consented to resume power.
Sir Robert Peel was probably aware that his fall had been only
postponed. In the four years and a half during which his
ministry had lasted he had done much to estrange his party.
They said, with some truth, that, whether his measures were
right or wrong, they were opposed to the principles which he
had been placed in power to support. The general election
of 1841 had been mainly fought on the rival policies of
protection and free trade. The country had decided for
protection, and Sir R. Peel had done more than all his predecessors
to give it free trade. The Conservative party, moreover,
was closely allied with the church, and Sir Robert had
offended the church by giving an increased endowment to
Maynooth, and by establishing undenominational colleges—“godless
colleges” as they were called—in Ireland. The
Conservatives were, therefore, sullenly discontented with the
conduct of their leader. They were lashed into positive fury
by the proposal which he was now making to abolish the corn
laws. Lord George Bentinck, who, in his youth, had been
private secretary to Canning, but who in his maturer years had
devoted more time to the turf than to politics, placed himself
at their head. He was assisted by a remarkable man—Benjamin
Disraeli—who joined great abilities to great ambition, and who,
embittered by Sir Robert Peel’s neglect to appoint him to office,
had already displayed his animosity to the minister. The policy
on which Sir Robert Peel resolved facilitated attack. For the
minister thought it necessary, while providing against famine
by repealing the corn laws, to ensure the preservation of order
by a new coercion bill. The financial bill and the coercion bill
were both pressed forward, and each gave opportunities for
discussion and, what was then new in parliament, for obstruction.
At last, on the very night on which the fiscal proposals of the
ministers were accepted by the Lords, the coercion bill was
defeated in the Commons by a combination of Whigs, radicals
and protectionists; and Sir R. Peel, worn out with a protracted
struggle, placed his resignation in the queen’s hands.
Thus fell the great minister, who perhaps had conferred more benefits on his country than any of his predecessors. The external policy of his ministry had been almost as remarkable as its domestic programme. When he accepted office the country was on the eve of a great Peel’s foreign policy. disaster in India; it was engaged in a serious dispute with the United States; and its relations with France were so strained that the two great countries of western Europe seemed unlikely to be able to settle their differences without war. In the earlier years of his administration the disaster in Afghanistan was repaired in a successful campaign; and Lord Ellenborough, who was sent over to replace Lord Auckland as governor-general, increased the dominion and responsibilities of the East India Company by the unscrupulous but brilliant policy which led to the conquest of Sind. The disputes with the United States were satisfactorily composed; and not only were the differences with France terminated, but a perfect understanding was formed between the two countries, under which Guizot, the prime minister of France, and Lord Aberdeen, the foreign minister of England, agreed to compromise all minor questions for the sake of securing the paramount object of peace. The good understanding was so complete that a disagreeable incident in the Sandwich Islands, in which the injudicious conduct of a French agent very nearly precipitated hostilities, was amicably settled; and the ministry had the satisfaction of knowing that, if their policy had produced prosperity at home, it had also maintained peace abroad.
On Sir R. Peel’s resignation the queen again sent for Lord John Russell. The difficulties which had prevented his forming a ministry in the previous year were satisfactorily arranged, and Lord Palmerston accepted the seals of the foreign office, while Lord Grey was sent to the colonial office. The history of the succeeding years was destined, however, to prove that Lord Grey had had solid reasons for objecting to Lord Palmerston’s return to his old post; for, whatever judgment may ultimately be formed on Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy, there can be little doubt that it did not tend to the maintenance of peace. The first occasion on which danger was threatened arose immediately after the installation of the new ministry on the The Spanish marriages. question of the Spanish marriages. The queen of Spain, Isabella, was a young girl still in her teens; the heir to the throne was her younger sister, the infanta Fernanda. Diplomacy had long been occupied with the marriages of these children; and Lord Aberdeen had virtually accepted the principle, which the French government had laid down, that a husband for the queen should be found among the descendants of Philip V., and that her sister’s marriage to the duc de Montpensier—a son of Louis Philippe—should not be celebrated till the queen was married and had issue. While agreeing to this compromise, Lord Aberdeen declared that he regarded the Spanish marriages as a Spanish, and not as a European question, and that, if it proved impossible to find a suitable consort for the queen among the descendants of Philip V., Spain must be free to choose a prince for her throne elsewhere. The available descendants of Philip V. were the two sons of Don Francis, the younger brother of Don Carlos, and of these the French government was in favour of the elder, while the British government preferred the younger brother. Lord Palmerston strongly objected to the prince whom the French government supported; and, almost immediately after acceding to office, he wrote a despatch in which he enumerated the various candidates for the queen of Spain’s hand, including Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a near relation of the prince consort, among the number. Louis Philippe regarded this despatch as a departure from the principle on which he had agreed with Lord Aberdeen, and at once hurried on the simultaneous marriages of the queen with the French candidate, and of her sister with the duc de Montpensier. His action broke up the entente cordiale which had been established between Guizot and Lord Aberdeen.
The second occasion on which Lord Palmerston’s vigorous diplomacy excited alarm arose out of the revolution which broke out almost universally in Europe in 1848. A rising in Hungary
