LORD PALMERSTON.* [SECOND NOTICE.]

Loan PALMERSTON'S foreign policy, as distinguished from his personal mode of urging it, was much less bold and audacious•

than has sometimes been supposed. It was not only at the end of his career, when Denmark was invaded by Prussia and Austria, that he failed in preventing what he thought a great menace to- the equilibrium of Europe. When the Polish insurrection was first, forced on and then bloodily put down in 1863, and when France annexed Savoy in 1860, Lord Palmerston was, or believed him- self, powerless to intervene with any effect ; and when Ruisia.

intervened in Hungary in 1849, a step was taken which he would no doubt have prevented if he had had the resources and the- means of commanding them. But these volumes at least show,. with all deference to Mr. Hanbury, and in spite of the irrelevant precedent which he quoted on Tuesday night from Lord Palmer- ston's doings in 1838, what he would have said to the present discussion about the Fugitive-Slave Circulars. In the first place, in a passage to which it is hardly possible to give too much pub- licity at the present time, he inveighs against the departmental apathy of the Admiralty on all questions of this description :—

" August 13, 1862. " My DEAR RUSSELL,—No First Lord and no Board of Admiralty have ever felt any interest in the suppression of the Slave-trade, or taken of their own free-will any steps towards its accomplishment, and what- ever they have done in compliance with the wishes of others they have done grudgingly and imperfectly. If there was a particularly old, slow- going tub in the Navy, she was sure to be sent to the coast of Africa to' try to catch the fast-sailing American clippers ; and if there was an officer notoriously addicted to drinking, he was sent to a station where

rum is a deadly poison Things go on better now ; but still there is at the Admiralty an invincible aversion to the measures neces- sary for putting down the Slave-trade. These prejudices are so strong with the naval officers of the Board, that the First Lord can hardly be expected not to be swayed by them.—Yours sincerely,

" PALMERSTON." And in the next place, we find the very fullest expression of his opinions on a question which, as we have always maintained, is substantially identical with that raised by the recent circulars,—we mean the right and duty of foreign Governments to protect political refugees from the consequences of the anger entertained against them by the Government they have offended. No doubt, in the particular case to which we now refer, the course taken by the Turkish Government in protecting the Hungarian refugees of 1849 from the violent demands made upon it by Russia and Austria, he was really only vindicating a right for which Turkey could appeal to the explicit words of a treaty. Hence the position which France The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, 1846-1865. 'With Selections from his Speeches and Correspondence. By he Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M.P. 2 roles London: Bentley. and England took up jointly on behalf of Turkey, and which they sent ships to the Dardanelles to enforce, was diplomatically quite unassailable. Still there is more than one way of doing the same thing ; and the warmth with which Lord Palmerston supported the Ottoman Government in this matter, and the severity of his language as to the conduct of Austria, sufficiently prove that he would never have been a party to any orders requiring British officers to send back to any Government the victims of an infamous tyranny, whether that tyranny was a result of a vile domestic institution or of a bad political government :- a Panshanger, September 9, 1849.

" My DEAR PoNsoNey,—The Austrians are really the greatest brutes that ever called themselves by the undeserved name of civilised men. Their atrocities in Galicia, in Italy, in Hungary, in Transylvania are only to be equalled by the proceedings of the negro race in Africa and Haiti. Their late exploit of flogging forty odd people, including two women, at Milan, some of the victims being gentlemen, is really too blackguard and disgusting a proceeding. As to working upon their feelings of generosity and gentlemanlikeness, that is out of the question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have been trained up in the school of Metternich, and the men in whose minds _such inborn feelings have not been crushed by court and office-power have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But I do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country and the Government which you represent, and that you will maintain the dignity and honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this country; and that you will pot allow the Austrians to imagine that the public opinion of England. is to be gathered from articles put into the Times by Austrian agents in London, nor from the purchased support of the Chronicle, nor from the servile language of Tory lords and ladies in London, nor from the courtly notions of royal dukes and duchesses. I have no great opinion of Schwarzenberg's statesmanlike qualities, 'unless he is very much altered from what be was when I .knew him ; but, at least, he has lived in England, and must know something of English feelings and ideas, and be must be capable of un- derstanding the kind of injury which all these barbarities must do to the character of Austria in public opinion here ; and I think that, in spite of his great reliance upon and fondness for Russia, he must see that the good opinion of England is of some value to Austria ; if for nothing else, at least to act as a check upon the ill-will towards Austria, which he supposes, or affects to suppose, is the groat actuating motive of the revolutionary firebrand who now presides at the Foreign Office in Downing Street. You might surely find an opportunity of drawing Schwarzenberg's attention to these matters, which may be made in- telligible to him, and which a British ambassador has a right to submit to his consideration. There is another view of the matter which Schwarzenberg, with his personal hatred of the Italians, would not choose to comprehend, but which, nevertheless, is well deserving of attention, and that is the obvious tendency of these barbarous proceed- ings to perpetuate in the minds of the Italians indelible hatred of Austria; and as the Austrian Government cannot hope to govern Italy always by the sword, such inextinguishable hatred is not an evil altogether to be despised. The rulers of Austria (I call them not statesmen or stateswomen) have now brought their country to this remarkable condition, that the Emperor holds his various territories at the goad-will and pleasure of three external Powers. He holds Italy just as long as and no longer than France cheeses to let him have it. The first quarrel between Austria and France will drive the Austrians out of Lombardy and Venice. He holds Hungary and Galicia just as long as and no longer than Russia chooses to let him have them. The first quarrel with Russia will detach those countries from the Austrian crown. He holds his German provinces by a tenure dependent, in a great degree, upon feelings and opinions which it will be very difficult for him and his Ministers either to combine with or to stand out against. The remedy against these various dangers which are rapidly undermining the Austrian Empire would be generous conciliation ; but instead of that, the Austrian Government know no method of adminis- tration but what consists in flogging, imprisoning, and shooting. ' The Austrians know no argument but force."'—Yours sincerely,

"PALMERSTON."

It is not often, we suspect, that Foreign Ministers write their minds so plainly as this. But Lord Palmerston did not limit himself to expressing his opinion distinctly of the Austrian barbarities. When the ambassadors of the Russian and Austrian empires thought fit to threaten Turkey with war if they did not give up the political fugitives who had taken refuge on Turkish soil, and Turkey applied to France and England for support in refusing that demand, Lord Palmerston was the heart and soul of the resistance. The Prussian Minister at Constantinople at that time described the Turkish Government as being " much frightened at its own courage," and Lord Palmerston writes to Sir Stratford Canning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), that the French Government (of 1849) was in very much the same condition, and in a great hurry to get the squadron which it had sent up to the Dar- nelles back again before any quarrel came of it. Lord Palmerston these Powers kept up the nerve of Turkey and France, while each of them was half amazed at the audacity of the resolution which itself had displayed. Indeed, Lerd Palmerston describes the sending of the Fleet to the Dardanelles as an expedient for the Sultan " like holding a bottle of salts to the nose of a lady who had been frightened ;" and apparently he had something to do to

devise an equivalent for holding another bottle to the nose of the

I French President. For Lord Palmerston refused to retreat from the attitude he had taken, in spite of the French nervousness, until) the whole result of his actions had been gained:— " Broadlonds, November 16, 1849.

"Mr DEAR Citeinxo,—The French are in a monstrous hurry to get their fleet back from the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles. They pre- tend that it is on financial and economical grounds, and that it is im- portant that they should be able to announce to the Assembly that the- fleet is recalled. This, of course, is partly fudge, though, of course, everything that saves money and savours of peace must be useful to them for parliamentary purposes at the present moment. But as you know they hesitated much about ordering their fleet up, and the Cabinet was equally divided, and though the Cabinet, so divided, has- been turned out on account of its internal differences of opinion, the present Government may not be quite at ease on the subject. In fact, the French seem to bo in the same condition in which I understand the Prussian Minister at Constantinople described the Turkish Government as being, that is to say, much frightened at their own courage, or, at least, at the notion of its possible consequences. Brunnow read me. ten days ago, a despatch in which Kisseleff says that Hantponl had positively assured him that orders either had been sent, or would im- mediately be sent, for the return of the fleet. I suspect that Hantpoul did, unguardedly, say something of the kind ; but by the same post almost came a despatch from Normanby, saying that the French Government wished to bring their fleet back, but would not act separ- ately on that matter, and desired to know what we were willing to do. We said, in reply, that we wished to wait, and not to decide till we- heard from Constantinople. But yesterday I received from Normanby a proposal from the President that we should give you and Anpick discretionary power to send away the squadron whenever and as scow as you should think their presence no longer necessary, and this was so reasonable a proposal that we at once closed with it. Our own view is that it is desirable that our squadron should return towards Matto whenever its presence near the Dardanelles is no longer wanted ; but that it should stay where it is as long as its presence is of importance as a moral support for the Sultan. Whenever the Porte and the two- Imperial Courts have come to an agreement upon the main points, the squadron might well come away; but it would not do for us to bring it away while any material point was unsettled, and that we should thus have the appearance of leaving the Sultan in the lurch. Moreover,. it would not do that the Russian agents at Constantinople should have- a pretence for saying that Russia had ordered our fleets off, and that as we had thus yielded to the demands of Russia„the Porte had better do so too, because experience in this instance would show her that though we might swagger at first, yet when it came to the point, we were sure to knock under, and that thus Turkey would always find us ready to urge her on to resistance, and backing out ourselves when Russia began to hold high language to us and to show us a bold front. They would represent us a barking cur that runs off with its tail between its legs when faced and threatened. We should thus lose all we have gained and most of what we had before. You will, of coarse, not fail to bear all this in mind in using the discretionary authority now sent to you ; and though we shall be glad to find the presence of the- fleet no longer necessary, it is better that it should stay there a week or a fortnight too long than that it should come away too soon.—Yours.

sincerely, “Ps.mrsaiavoll."

No one can doubt, after reading these despatches, that Lord' Palmerston would not easily have been persuaded by the Indian Government, or any other Government, to refuse our British officers a full discretion as to protecting escaped slaves against surrender, whenever it seemed to them that British humanity or honour required that such protection should be given.

Perhaps the least coherent part of Lord Palmerston's policy was• the somewhat vacillating line which he took in regard to France between the annexation of Savoy in 1860 and his death. It is obvious that after the curious and somewhat irrational fit of con- fidence which he felt for the Emperor of the French at the time of the coup clitat, and which continued for some time after the close of the Crimean. war, he became almost irrationally suspicions at the- close of his life, and lost a great part of the advantages of the French alliance without sufficient cause. We do not mean that confidence should ever have been placed in the Emperor's Gov- ernment on any other ground than that of the claims of political in- terest. For, as Lord Palmerston himself said, the talk about sentiment between nations and national Governments is, for the most part, pure nonsense. "As to the romantic notion," he said in 1848, "that nations or governments are much or permanently influenced by friendship, and God knows what, I say that those who maintain these notions, and compare the intercourse of individuals to the intercourse of nations, are indulging a vain dream." And cer- tainly there was no more reason for trusting Louis Napoleon is 1851 than there was for trusting him in 1860. Yet somehow, during the last six years of his Premiership, Lord Palmerston lost all the advantages of the friendly policy which he had pursued so sedulously between 1851 and 1859 ; and not only lost all the advantages of the alliance, but gained no countervailing advantages by his cold bearing during that period towards France. In fact, during this period,—the period of Lord Russell's reign at the Foreign Office,—our French policy was hesitating, and even vacillating. We hesitatingly joined with France in the Mexican expedition of 1861, and then broke of from her at the first step. We offended her greatly in 1868 by

our mode of refusing the Congress to which she invited us. And of course, when the difficulty about Denmark came, we found France as willing to snub us as we had so recently been to snub her. No one, we suspect, not belonging to the Cabinet knew how great was the danger of war in 1859-60, just after the annexation of Savoy. Language such as is described in the following letter and memorandum is not held between Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries, or between Prime Ministers and diplomatists, except when war is very near indeed :—

Broadlands, November 4, 1859.

"MY DEAR Join; RUSSELL,—Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust, and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant, and has not died away. Ho seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating, with our aid, or with our concurrence or our neutrality, first Russia and then Austria, and by dealing with them generously, to make them his friends in any subsequent quarrel with us. In this, however, he would, probably, find himself mistaken ; because with nations and governments resentments for former antagonism or grati- tude for former benefits invariably give way to considerations of pre- sent and prospective interests ; and Russia probably, and Austria certainly, would see no advantage in any great lowering of England for the augmentation of the preponderance of France. But this reasoning of mine may be wrong, and Russia, at least, might join France against us. Next, he has been assiduously labouring to increase his naval means, evidently for offensive as well as for defensive purposes ; and latterly great pains have been taken to raise throughout France, and especially among the Army and Navy, hatred of England, and a dis- paraging feeling of our military and naval means. All this may be explained away, and may be accounted for by other causes Than a de- liberate purpose of hostility to England ; but it would be unwise in any English Government to shut its eyes to all these symptoms, and not to make all due preparations for the gale which the political barometer thus indicates, though it may possibly pass away. Of course we should take as ' argent comptant ' ell their professions of ' alliance intime et durable,' as Walewski termed it in his China despatch; and the only expression we ought to give of anything like suspicion should be in the activity and the scale of our defensive arrangements. In regard to them, however, we must not be overruled by financial economy.—Yours sincerely, PALMERSTON."

-" Memorandum of a Conversation with. Count Flahault on Tuesday, March 27, 1860.

"Count Flahault came to me at a quarter after four, just as I was going down to the House of Commons. He said he was going to Paris next morning, and wished to know what he should say from me to the Emperor. I said I could not wait a minute, as I had to be in the House to answer a question, but that if he would go down with me in my brougham we might talk as we went along. To this he agreed. I then referred to what Lord John had said. He objected to that reference, saying that what had fallen from Lord John was personally offensive to the Emperor. I asked what part. He said not the latter part, which related to concert with other Powers; that was political, and could not be objected to ; but Lord John had expressed distrust of the Emperor. I said distrust might be founded on either of two grounds : either upon the supposition of intentional deceit, or upon such a frequent change of purpose and of conduct as to show that no reliance could be placed upon the continuance of the intentions or policy of the moment, and Count Flahault must admit that, without imputing the first, there is ample ground for a feeling founded on the second consideration. Count Flahault said his great object was to prevent war between the two countries. I said that I feared the Emperor and Thouvenel had schemes and views which tended to bring about that result, and might array Europe against France. Count Flahault did not fear that, but was apprehensive that irritation on both sides might bring on war between England and France. I said that I was most anxious to prevent such a war, but if it was forced upon England, England would fearlessly accept! t, whether in conjunction with a confederated alliance, or singly and by herself ; that the nation would rise and rally as one man; although, speaking to a Frenchman, I ought perhaps not to say so, yet I could not refrain from observing that the examples of history led me to conclude that the result of a conflict between English and French, upon anything like equal terms, would not be unsatisfactory to the former. Count Flahault said that he had been at the battle of Waterloo, • and knew what English troops are, but that the French army now is far superior to that which fought on that day. I said no doubt it is, and so is the present English army ; but with regard to the excellence of the French army, I would remind Count Flahault of what passed be- tween Marshal Tallard and the Duke of Marlborough, when the former was taken prisoner at the battle of Blenheim,' Vons ironer.. milord, said the Marshal. 'de battre lee meilleures troupes de l'Europe." Exceptez toujours,' replied Marlborough, ' cellos qui lee out battues." But,' said Count Flahault, what I fear is an invasion of this country, for which steam affords such facilities, and which would bo disastrous to Eng- land.' I replied that steam tells both ways, for defence as well as for attack ; and that as for invasion, though it would no doubt be a tem- porary evil, we are under no apprehension as to its results. That a war between England and Franco would doubtless be disastrous to both -countries, but it is by no means certain which of the two would suffer the moat. Arrived at the House of Commons, we took leave of each other. Count Flahault said he should not say anything to the Emperor calculated to increase the irritation which he egpected to find, but would endeavour to calm. I said that of course Count Flahault would judge for himself what he should say, but he must have observed what is the state of public feeling and opinion in this country. The conversation was car- ried on in the most friendly manner, as between two private friends who had known each other for a long course of years."

We confess that this seems to us to have been one of the most considerable blunders ever made by Lord Palmerston. Had such

language been used to prevent-the annexation of Savoy and Nice, and used in connection with a deliberate policy concerted with other Powers to that end, it might have been well suited for its purpose. But used as it was simply out of apprehension, and without any definite purpose to be gained, it seems to us to have been eminently well fitted to initiate the period of impotent, fruitless, and vacillating policy towards France which, in fact, it did initiate, and which bore its fruits in the fiasco of our Danish negotiations. No one can read these volumes without feeling that there was much more consistency and head in Lord Palmer- ston's foreign policy up to the Italian war of 1859 than there was afterwards. From that period to the end of his life he failed in understanding clearly what he would be at and how he hoped to attain it. But it is not perhaps wonderful that a statesman of seventy-five should fail to some extent in the edge of his political apprehension, and we suspect that it was Lord Russell's rather spasmodic impulsiveness,—not a quality very well adapted for the conduct of foreign affairs,—towards a not very easily understood ally, which helped him to fail. On the whole, Mr. Ashley's very fresh and interesting volumes will sustain fully the public appre- ciation of Lord Palmerston's capacity and mettle.