The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, K. G., G. C. B., Etc., With Selections From His Diaries and Correspondence
The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, K. G., G. C. B., etc., with Selections from his Diaries and Correspondence. By the RIGHT HONORABLE SIR HENRY LYTTON BULWER, G. C. B., M. P. Vols. I. and II. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1870.
THE man who has held successively the offices of Secretary at War, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Home Secretary, and Prime Minister of Great Britain for forty-six years, in that eventful period between 1809 and 1865, may well be regarded as a great public character, whose life, especially when written by one who possesses such peculiar qualifications for the work as Sir H. L. Bulwer, could hardly fail to be interesting. The two volumes now published do not extend beyond the fall of the Whig Ministry in 1841, leaving the most important part of the official life yet to be written.
Bulwer’s method will not be altogether satisfactory to those who look to the daily papers to do their thinking. The reader is left to form his own opinion upon most events, from the private and public letters and extracts from diaries, which are presented very fully. That the biographer has not pursued this cause from want of sympathy with his subject is evident from the brief Preface to the work and his occasional comments, in which he leaves no doubt of his sincere and hearty admiration of Palmerston’s character and political course. If the work has been performed conscientiously, that is, if there has been no improper discrimination in the selections from private correspondence, nothing omitted which would tend to develop the real character of the man, the plan is unobjectionable, —indeed the best possible, — as it brings the man himself very near to the reader.
The matter contained in these volumes, especially the first volume, which includes many letters from Lord Palmerston to his brothers and sisters, designed to show the sentiments which actuated him upon his entrance into public life, will go far to modify the general opinion of him in this country. Most Englishmen are pleased to regard him as a good representative of their nation, − plucky, straightforward, believing in English superiority, and ready, if necessary, to fight for it as an idea. The American public, looking at him from another standpoint, have heretofore regarded him as a good representative of the governing class in England, − egotistical, snobbish, saying more than he was willing to stand by, selfish, and somewhat unscrupulous, in his foreign policy. We do not mean to say that all Americans or the most intelligent have so regarded him, but that the public has put that estimate upon him. And the reason is obvious. The people of our country see only a few prominent points in the policy of a statesman of another country. To us Palmerston was the opponent of Cobden, Bright, and Mill, the liberals, and the head of the British government during the late civil war. To most Americans those two facts were sufficient to destroy all claims to statesmanship or fair dealing.
As we have already said, the most important part of the official life is yet to come. What we have now does not so much touch Palmerston’s character as a statesman as his character as a man. " There was,” says Bul - wer, “ nothing mean, shifty, underhand, or vacillating in his course. Whatever line he took, he pursued it openly, straightforwardly, and firmly.” This view is certainly borne out in the correspondence, so far as given. He must have had a genius for office ; otherwise, with his decided will, and in such troublous times, − radical changes going on in all the governments of Europe, great statesmen being thrust aside never to reappear on the political stage, − he never could have held office so uninterruptedly ; dying at the age of eighty-one, while still grasping with a firm hand the helm of state. We cannot give here more than a very brief outline of the prominent events in the life of the subject of this work.
Henry John Temple was born on the 20th October, 1784. He descended directly from a younger brother of that famous Sir William Temple, “ who had William III. for his friend and Swift for his dependant.” His father was a peer of Ireland; his mother, the daughter of a respectable tradesman of Dublin, who, though not aristocratic, was handsome and accomplished. On the death of his father, in 1802, he succeeded to the title of Viscount, and was thereafter known as Lord Palmerston. He was educated at Harrow until sixteen years of age, when he went to Edinburgh and lived with Dugald Stewart, attending the lectures at the University. In 1803 he went to St. John’s, Cambridge. Just as he became of age, in 1806, Mr. Pitt died, and the University had to choose a new member for Parliament to fill the vacancy. Although Palmerston had not taken his degree, he acted upon the advice of friends and stood as a candidate, but was defeated. In 1806 he stood again for Horsham, but was again defeated. In the following year Parliament was dissolved, and Palmerston again became a candidate for Cambridge, and would have been elected, had he not, with remarkable political honesty, adhered to an agreement to give another candidate the second votes of all his disposable plumpers. Soon after he was returned for Newtown, in the Isle of Wight. Just previous to this he was appointed by the Duke of Portland to be one of the junior Lords of the Admiralty.
The capture of Copenhagen and the Danish fleet, which occurred in September, 1807, furnished the subject of his first speech in the beginning of the session of 1808. For a first effort it was highly commended. In 1809 a quarrel between Castlereagh and Canning led to a change of Ministry, and Percival became the head of the government. The peculiar condition of parties necessitated the selection of young men for the Cabinet. Percival sent for Palmerston, then twenty-five years of age, and offered him the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. It was a tempting offer, and one which few young men possessing the ambition and sanguine temperament of Palmerston could have had the courage to refuse. He did refuse, however, after consulting Malmesbury and others, but soon after accepted the position of Secretary at War. There was at that time a Secretary for War, who had charge of the general war policy, and who was usually Minister of the Colonies, or some other department. There was also a Commander-in-Chief of the army, who had entire control of the discipline, recruiting, and promotions. The Secretary at War controlled the finances of the War Department. Palmerston continued in this office for nineteen years, through Liverpool’s, Canning’s, Goderich’s, and part of Wellington’s administrations. When Gratton brought up the question of Catholic emancipation, in 1813, Palmerston made an able speech in support of it. On all questions, except the reduction of the military establishment, he appears to have taken a more liberal view at this time than most of his Tory friends. “ He spoke no word in favor of the six acts. He took no public share in the attempts to cramp the liberty of the press. His name was never identified with the attempts to increase the severity of the laws against so-called sedition and libel.” Upon the dissolution of the Parliament in 1826 Palmerston found himself opposed, in the canvass for the University, by Eldon and others, on account of his action on the Catholic question, although it had been understood that that question was to be an open one. The Whigs came to his support, and he was elected. “ This,” he says, “ was the first decided step towards a breach with the Tories, and they were the aggressors.”
The wisdom of the course pursued by Palmerston was seen in the following year, when Lord Liverpool died, and Canning was called upon to form a new government. Wellington, the fossilized Eldon, Peel, − all the Tories, − retired. The “ Protestant party,” as it was called, − that is, the party which regarded the Catholics as” having no rights which a Protestant was bound to respect,− was broken. Canning offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer to Palmerston, who was now prepared to accept it. But the king, the first gentleman in Europe, had not been consulted, and for some unexplained reason he disliked Palmerston. To harmonize matters, Canning was obliged to unite the two offices of First Lord and Chancellor in his own person as Prime Minister. The Governorship of Jamaica was offered to Palmerston. He laughed at it. The Governor-Generalship of India − the most lucrative in the gift of the government − was then proposed. He thanked the Minister kindly, but said the climate would not agree with His health. When the Wellington administration was formed, in the early part of 1828, Huskisson, Palmerston, and others, representing what was called the Canningite party, were taken in to secure their support. There was little sympathy between these men and the Great Duke. Huskisson soon resigned, or was forced out, and all the others followed. This was in May, 1828, and Palmerston did not enter the government again until November, 1830, when he became Secretary for Foreign Affairs, under Lord Grey.
From that time until his death he played an important part in European politics, − more important, perhaps, than that of any other man. He had hardly become settled in his new office before he had an opportunity to show his qualities as a diplomatist. The Belgian Revolution broke out, and resulted in the separation of Belgium from Holland, and its establishment as an independent power. Sebastiani was at the head of foreign affairs in the French government, and Talleyrand was Minister at London, both experienced, wily, and unscrupulous. They Considered the opportunity a good one for accomplishing several things, such as puttinga Frenchman, or a creature of France, on the Belgian throne, “rectifying” their Rhine frontier, and reconstructing some of the small states in that vicinity. Palmerston was shrewd enough to see that his only course was to be honest and firm. Here is a paragraph from one of his letters to Granville, British Minister at Paris: “The French continually come upon us with the argument, Do only consider our difficulties and how we are pressed, and so consent to do some little thing unreasonable, unjust, dishonest, against treaties and principles, in order to enable us to say that we have carried some one point, at least. In reply, I would say, Choose some point to be carried which is consistent with treaties and engagements and justice, and probably you will be able to carry it. Why should we wish to help you to maintain yourselves? Why, in order that you may maintain your engagements and abide by your treaties ; but if the way to maintain you is to allow you to break these engagements, we are sacrificing the end to obtain the means.”
In another letter he says : “I wish the French government would make up their minds to act with good faith about Belgium, and we should settle the matter in three weeks ; but the men in power cannot make up their minds to be honest with stoutness, or to play the rogue with boldness.”
Out of this contest of diplomacy Palmerston came with honor, having carried all his points. We should say that Bulwer, who had a hand in this matter, and who is full of it, has entered rather too largely into details, and has stated them in the hard, uninteresting blue-book style.
In 1834 Grey retired, and Melbourne took his place, forming a government, as it was said at the time, out of the dregs of the previous administration. Palmerston was retained in the Foreign Office. But in November of that year Wellington came in and hustled them all off the stage. Wellington stood it only a month ; and was followed by Sir Robert Peel, who in turn gave way to Melbourne again in April, 1835. Palmerston then returned to the Foreign Office, and held it until the Whig Ministry fell, in 1841. We have not space to enter into any discussion of his foreign policy during this period ; and can barely allude to one question of domestic policy, the famous bedchamber question, which fairly shook the British throne. In 1839 the Tories, being called upon by the young queen to form a government, insisted on the removal of the Ladies of the Bedchamber. Here is Palmerston’s account of it : “ The queen declared she would not submit to it; that it would be too painful and affronting to her ; that those ladies have no seats in Parliament ; that the object in view in dismissing them was to separate her from everybody in whom she could trust, and to surround her with political spies, if not with personal enemies. They came three times to the charge. First, Peel made the demand simply ; then he brought to his aid the Duke of Wellington; and again he came back with the unanimous opinion of his Cabinet that was to be. The queen, alone and unadvised, stood firm against all these assaults, showed a presence of mind, a firmness, a discrimination far beyond her years, and had much the best of it in her discussion with Peel and the Duke. She sent Peel this morning her final refusal to comply with this condition, and Peel thereupon resigned his commission to form a government. We shall of course stand by the queen, and support her against this offensive condition which the Tories wanted to impose upon her, and which her youth and isolated position ought to have protected her from.”
The correspondence yet to be published will undoubtedly contain some important historical information concerning the Napoleonic coup d'état and the extent of the aid and comfort furnished by the British Secretary. It will also be interesting to know how far Palmerston was responsible for the policy of the English Cabinet which led to the invasion of the Crimea.
In conclusion, and for the satisfaction of members of Congress, here is an account of a scene in the House of Commons, in the year 1810 :-
“ We had last night a most extraordinary display of folly, coarseness, and vulgarity from Fuller, who, because Sir John Anstruther, chairman of the committee, would not take notice of him when he several times attempted to rise, in order to put some very gross and absurd questions to Lord Chatham, flew into such a passion, and swore, and abused the chairman and the House to such a degree, that it became at last necessary to commit him to custody. As he went out he shook his fist at the Speaker, and said he was a d—d insignificant little puppy, and, snapping his. fingers at him, said he did not care that for him or the House either.”
The Houses of Parliament must have rocked on their foundations at such an exhibition of disrespect.