Lord Palmerston has excelled himself in his latest Spanish cor-
respondence, and has landed his Cabinet in a squabble, as gratui- tous, as profitless, as detrimental, and as discreditable, as he could ve contrived. It was absolutely without provocation. Upon no call, proprio ntotu, he issues from Downing Street to the Spanish Government a recommendation "to adopt a legal and constitutional system." How is he judge of what is legal and constitutional in Spain ? He preaches over " the recent down- fall" of King Louis Philippe—a fugitive to the precincts of the English court—with a presumption as forgetful of official courtesy and as unseemly as Mr. —'s, when that eminent litterateur preached at the convivial table over "the recent downfall" of Porson, and extorted from the great scholar " down among the dead men " the stammering and silencing declaration, " Mr. , I have a great contempt for you!" Not the downfallen. Louis Philippe, but the Duke of Sotomayor, emulates Porson in the contumely of his retort,—returning the didactic despatch which had been forwarded to him by Mr. Bulwer ; also tellinF Mr. Bulwer to keep within the bounds of his mission, or his letters should be returned without remark.
If Lord Palmerston thought to recover the ground which he lost by being outjockeyed in the affair of the Spanish marriages, he has been disappointed, and has gained nothing but the being snubbed by the Duke of Sotomayer. In plainer terms than di- plomacy can always employ, the Duke replies to Lord Palmer- ston—" You are an impertinent fellow ; mind your own business": also casting at the resident British Minister an insulting rebuke that must ibr ever lower that resident Minister in the eyes both of Spaniards and of Englishmen in Spain. But the insult can- not be rebutted ; and it was Lord Palmerston who wantonly gave the opportunity for offering it. It might have been supposed that "the recent downfall" of the French Government would have suggested to any diplomatic politician of respectable faculties that an opportunity had arrived for retrieving British influence in Madrid, if it is necessary to have any influence there at all: Lord Palmerston, however, selects the occasion to establish a position of impertinent meddling, and to provoke a degrading repulse which must destroy British in- fluence. It is impossible, in reading the Viscount's arrogant la- conisms, not to call to mind the seductive place-begging letter written, about the time of the Spanish marriages, to the rival that outjockeyed Lord Palmerston, by the wife of hi a chief Lord John Russell. M. Guizot obliged Lady John, and balked Lord Palmerston : he gave the place of tax-collector to Lady John's lady's-maid's husband, and secured the place of husband to the Spanish Infanta for the Duke, de Montpenaier ; who has ar-
rived in Madrid just in time to witness this new and most morti- fying fillip on the nose administered to our Foreign Secretary.
We have given no blind adhesion to the doctrine of "noninter- vention "; which might, en greats 000asions, he equally mean and cruel. But interventions to support a nation when it cries for help in its extremity is a thing totally distinct from meddling in the details and routine of a foreign administration. Lord Pal- merston seems to think that he is one of the responsible Ministers of Spain ; for his letter amounts to no less a pretension. It is said that the Spanish Government has demanded the recall of Mr. Bulwer. One retort remains to Lord Palmerston, which, in these days of retrenchment, would not be grudged by the English people—to abolish the Madrid Ambassadorship, and so back out of these idle squabbles.
