Hungarian leader, landed in England, Palmerston proposed to receive him at Broadlands, a design which was only prevented by a peremptory vote of the cabinet; and in 1850 he took advantage of Don Pacifico’s very questionable claims on the Hellenic government to organize an attack on the little kingdom of Greece.[1] Greece being a state under the joint protection of three powers, Russia and France protested against its coercion by the British fleet, and the French ambassador temporarily left London, which promptly led to the termination of the affair. But it was taken up in parliament with great warmth. After a memorable debate (June 17), Palmerston’s policy was condemned by a vote of the House of Lords. The House of Commons was moved by Roebuck to reverse the sentence, which it did (June 29) by a majority of 46, after having heard from Palmerston the most eloquent and powerful speech ever delivered by him, in which he sought to vindicate, not only his claims on the Greek government for Don Pacifico, but his entire administration of foreign affairs. It was in this speech, which lasted five hours, that Palmerston made the well-known declaration that a British subject—“Civis Romanus sum”—ought everywhere to be protected by the strong arm of the British government against injustice and wrong. Yet, notwithstanding this parliamentary triumph, there were not a few of his own colleagues and supporters who condemned the spirit in which the foreign relations of the Crown were carried on; and in that same year the queen addressed a minute to the prime minister in which she recorded her dissatisfaction at the manner in which Lord Palmerston evaded the obligation to submit his measures for the royal sanction as failing in sincerity to the Crown. This minute was communicated to Palmerston, who did not resign upon it. These various circumstances, and many more, had given rise to distrust and uneasiness in the cabinet, and these feelings reached their climax when Palmerston, on the occurrence of the coup d’état by which Louis Napoleon made himself master of France, expressed to the French ambassador in London, without the concurrence of his colleagues, his personal approval of that act. Upon this Lord John Russell advised his dismissal from office (Dec. 1851). Palmerston speedily avenged himself by turning out the government on a militia bill; but although he survived for many years, and twice filled the highest office in the state, his career as foreign minister ended for ever, and he returned to the foreign office no more. Indeed, he assured Lord Aberdeen, in 1853, that he did not wish to resume the seals of that department. Notwithstanding the zeal and ability which he had invariably displayed as foreign minister, it had long been felt by his colleagues that his eager and frequent interference in the affairs of foreign countries, his imperious temper, the extreme acerbity of his language abroad, of which there are ample proofs in his published correspondence, and the evasions and artifices he employed to carry his points at home, rendered him a dangerous representative of the foreign interests of the country. But the lesson of his dismissal was not altogether lost on him. Although his great reputation was chiefly earned as a foreign minister, it may be said that the last ten years of his life, in which he filled other offices, were not the least useful or dignified portion of his career.
Upon the formation of the cabinet of 1853, which was composed by the junction of the surviving followers of Sir Robert Peel with the Whigs, under the earl of Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston accepted with the best possible grace the office of secretary of state for the home office, nor was he ever chargeable with the slightest attempt to undermine that Government. At one moment he withdrew from it, because Lord John Russell persisted in presenting a project of reform which appeared to him entirely out of season; and he advocated, with reason, measures of greater energy on the approach of war, which might possibly, if they had been adopted, have averted the contest with Russia. As the difficulties of the Crimean campaign increased, it was not Lord Palmerston but Lord John Russell who broke up the government by refusing to meet Roebuck’s motion of inquiry. Palmerston remained faithful and loyal to his colleagues in the hour of danger. Upon the resignation of Lord Aberdeen and the duke of Newcastle, the general sentiment of the House of Commons and the country called Palmerston to the head of affairs, and he entered, on the 5th of February 1855, upon the high office, which he retained, with one short interval, to the day of his death. Palmerston was in the seventy-first year of his life when he became prime minister of England.
A series of fortunate events followed his accession to power. In March 1855 the death of the emperor Nicholas removed his chief antagonist. In September Sevastopol was taken. The administration of the British army was reformed by a consolidation of offices. In the following spring peace was signed in Paris. Never since Pitt had a minister enjoyed a greater share of popularity and power, and, unlike Pitt, Palmerston had the prestige of victory in war. He was assailed in parliament by the eloquence of Gladstone, the sarcasms of Disraeli, and the animosity of the Manchester Radicals, but the country was with him. Defeated by a hostile combination of parties in the House of Commons on the question of the Chinese war in 1857 and the alleged insult to the British flag in the seizure of the lorcha “Arrow,” he dissolved parliament and appealed to the nation. The result was the utter defeat of the extreme Radical party and the return of a more compact Liberal majority. The great events of the succeeding years, the Indian Mutiny, and the invasion of Italy by Napoleon III., belong rather to the general history of the times than to the life of Palmerston; but it was fortunate that a strong and able government was at the head of affairs. Lord Derby’s second administration of 1858 lasted but a single year, Palmerston having casually been defeated on a measure for removing conspiracies to murder abroad from the class of misdemeanour to that of felony, which was introduced in consequence of Orsini’s attempt on the life of the emperor of the French. But in June 1859 Palmerston returned to power, and it was on this occasion that he proposed to Cobden, one of his most constant opponents, to take office, and on the refusal of that gentleman Milner Gibson was appointed to the board of trade, although he had been the prime mover of the defeat of the government on the Conspiracy Bill. Palmerston had learnt by experience that it was wiser to conciliate an opponent than to attempt to crush him, and that the imperious tone he had sometimes adopted in the House of Commons, and his supposed obsequiousness to the emperor of the French, were the causes of the temporary reverse he had sustained. Although Palmerston approved the objects of the French invasion of Italy in so far as they went to establish Italian independence, the annexation of Savoy and Nice to France was an incident which revived his old suspicions of the good faith of the French emperor. About this time he expressed to the duke of Somerset his conviction that Napoleon III. “had at the bottom of his heart a deep and unextinguishable desire to humble and punish England,” and that war with France was a contingency to be provided against. The unprotected condition of the principal British fortresses and arsenals had long attracted his attention, and he succeeded in inducing the House of Commons to vote nine millions for the fortification of those important points.
In 1856 the projects for cutting a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Suez was brought forward by M. de Lesseps, and resisted by Palmerston with all the weight he could bring to bear against it. He did not foresee the advantages to be derived by British commerce from this great work, and he was strongly opposed to the establishment of a powerful French company on the soil of Egypt. The concession of land to the company was reduced by his intervention, but in other respects the work proceeded and was accomplished. It may here be mentioned, as a remarkable instance of his foresight, that
- ↑ David Pacifico (1784–1854) was a Portuguese Jew, born a British subject at Gibraltar. He became a merchant at Athens, and in 1847 his house was burnt down in an anti-Semitic riot. Pacifico brought an action, laying the damages at £26,000. At the same time George Finlay, the historian, was urging his own grievances against the Greek government, and as both claims were repudiated Palmerston took them up. Eventually Pacifico received a substantial sum.
