197 appealed to the nation. The result was the utter defeat of the extreme Radical party, and the return of ,1 more compact Liberal majority. The great events of the suc ceeding years, the Indian revolt 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 tem porary reverse he Jhad 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. A proposal was made to him to cede to Switzerland a small portion of territory covering the canton of Geneva, but he rejected the offer, saying, " We shall shame them out of it"; in this he was mistaken, and his remonstrances found no support in Europe. About this time he expressed to the duke of Somerset his convic tion 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. do 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 establish ment of a powerful French company on the soil of Egypt. The concession of land to the company vas 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 Palmerston told Lord Malmesbury, on his accession to the Foreign Office in 1858, that the chief reason of his opposition to the canal was this : he believed that, if the canal was made and proved successful, Great Britain, as the first mercantile state, and that most closely connected with the East, would be the power most interested in it ; that this country would therefore be drawn irresistibly into a more direct interference in Egypt, which it was desirable to avoid, because England has already enough upon her hands, and because our intervention might lead to a rupture with France. He therefore preferred that no such line of com munication should be opened. Recent events have shown that there was much to be said for this remarkable forecast, and that the mercantile advantages of the canal are to some extent counterbalanced by the political difficulties to which it may give rise. Upon the outbreak of the American civil war iu 1861, Lord Palmerston acknowledged that it was the duty of the British Government to stand aloof from the fray, but his own opinion led him rather to desire than to avert the rupture of the Union, which might have been the result of a refusal on the part of England and France to recog nize a blockade of the Southern ports, which was notoriously imperfect, and extremely prejudicial to the interests of Europe. The cabinet was not of this opinion, and, although the belligerent rights of the South were promptly recognized, the neutrality of the Government was strictly observed. When, however, the Southern envoys were taken by force from the "Trent," a British packet, Palmerston did not hesitate a moment to exact a full and complete reparation for this gross infraction of international law, which President Lincoln was wise enough to make. But the attitude and language of some members of the British Government at that crisis, and the active operations of Southern cruisers, some of which had been fitted out by private firms in British ports, aroused a feeling of resentment amongst the American people which it took many years to efface, and which was at last removed by an award extremely onerous to England. The last transaction in which Palmerston engaged arose out of the attack by the Germanic confederation, and its leading states Austria and Prussia, on the kingdom of Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. There was but one feeling in the British public and the nation as to the dishonest character of that unprovoked aggression, and it was foreseen that Austria would ere long have reason to repent her share in it. Palmerston endeavoured to induce France and Russia to concur with England in maintaining the treaty of London, which had guaranteed the integrity of the Danish dominions. But those powers, for reasons of their own, stood aloof, and the conference held in London in 1864 was without effect. A proposal to send the British fleet into the Baltic was overruled, and the result was that Denmark was left to her own resources against her formidable opponents. It may be interesting to quote, as a specimen of Lord Palmerston s clear and vigorous style and insight, one of the last letters he ever wrote, for, though it relates to the affair of Schleswig- Holstein, it embraces at a glance the politics of the world. "September 13, 1865. "Mv DEAR RUSSELL, It was dishonest and unjust to deprive Denmark of Sleswick and Holstein. It is another question how those two duchies, when separated from Denmark, can be disposed of best for the interest of Europe. I should say that, with that view, it is better that they should go to increase the power of Prussia than that they should form another little state to be added to the cluster of small bodies politic which encumber Germany, and render it of less force than it ought to be in the general balance of power in the world. Prussia is too weak as she now is ever to be honest or independent in her action ; and, with a view to the future, it is desirable that Germany, in the aggregate, should be strong, in order to control those two ambitious and aggressive powers, France and Russia, that press upon her west and east. As to France, we know how restless and aggressive she is, and how ready to break loose for Belgium, for the Rhine, for anything she would be likely to get without too great an exertion. As to Russia, she will, in due time, become a power almost as great as the old Roman empire. .She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it ; and, when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territorv, and railways shall have abridged distances, her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formid able. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength. Therefore, though I heartily condemn the whole of the proceedings I of Austria and Prussia about the duchies, I own that I should rather see them incorporated with Prussia than converted into an additional asteroid in the system of Europe. Yours sincerely, PALMERSTOX." In little more than a month from the date of this letter, on the 18th October 1865, he expired at Brocket
