BY ANTHONY   TROLLOPE LONDON Wm. ISBISTER, Limited 56, LUDGATE HILL 1882 Ballantyne Press BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON...

I N looking for material on which to base this short memoir of Lord Palmerston I have of course taken, as my guide to his general life, the biography of Mr. Evelyn Ashley. [A] I have also referred to the unfinished volumes by Lord Dalling, which Mr. Ashley adopted as far as they went, and by his later edition has rendered unnecessary to the general reader. Beyond this I have had recourse to the Edinburgh , the Quarterly , the Times newspaper, and various periodicals of the period; and I have rea

T HE early years of Lord Palmerston, though he was in office, in Parliament, even when he had become a Cabinet Minister, were not those by which he will be known. Pitt died about the age at which Palmerston went to the Foreign Office, having served his country as Prime Minister for nearly twenty years. But during that period of his comparative youth, Lord Palmerston was always at work, gaining slowly that consideration in the eyes of men on which his fame and strength was built up. It was not in

I T is a great thing to be a Cabinet Minister. Every man when he begins a life of politics feels that. He feels it when he gets into Parliament, and when he joins a Government in some subordinate office. It is the goal to which his hopes aspire, and the success to which his ambition ventures to look. The young politician hardly expects to be Prime Minister, but he does, within his own bosom, think it possible that he may achieve an entrance within those doors which enclose that mysterious entity

W E here begin the record of that portion of Lord Palmerston’s life which is of truth important to the English reader. In years, his life was more than half over. He was already forty-five, and had been in office for more than twenty years; but had he then died, he would have passed away as one of those unimportant statesmen whom, though they may do good work for their country, it is not worth their country’s while to remember. But though he was forty-five, Lord Palmerston’s period of importance

W HY Lord Grey abandoned the Government in 1834, and why he refused to come back again either in 1834 or in 1835, is a question in English politics which it is difficult to answer. That it was occasioned, as Lord Palmerston says, by Mr. O’Connell and the Irish Coercion Act may be true; but why it should have been occasioned thereby is another question. In the summer of 1834 the Government went out with Lord Grey at its head, and came back with Lord Melbourne instead of Lord Grey. The world was a

I N the summer of 1845 Lord Melbourne went out of office, never to come back again, and Lord Palmerston, of course, went with him, having still before him twenty-four years of active official life. Lord Melbourne was only six years his senior, but he died at Brocket Hall in 1848. Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston had remained together since 1827, when Lord Melbourne, as William Lamb, was Secretary for Ireland. They had been united in a peculiar manner, each trusting the other, and believing in

W E now come to Lord Palmerston’s third period at the Foreign Office, which lasted from July, 1846, to December, 1851, but which we shall find it better to divide into three chapters than to comprise it in one, because it includes the romantic affair of Don Pacifico, which, by the attempts made and the success achieved, will deserve a chapter to itself. The coup d’état and his dismissal will demand a third. We will therefore take Lord Palmerston’s life at the Foreign Office down to the year 1850

T HE story of Don Pacifico is interesting, dramatic, and peculiar, and emblematic in the highest degree of Lord Palmerston’s manner of feeling and condition of mind. In it he will be seen carrying British honesty, British honour, and British determination to the very verge of absurdity and arrogance, till he pushes his principles almost beyond the verge. But who shall say what is absurdity? And he is held to have been thoroughly triumphant in the whole affair, because at last he got a majority o

L ORD PALMERSTON achieved his triumph in 1850, and encountered his disgrace, if it is to be so considered, in 1851. There was but the one year and a few months before his foes were too many for him. In describing this second battle, I shall endeavour to tell the story as though the blow had come from Lord John Russell, the head of the Cabinet, with such aid and counsel as may have been given to him by others of his own class. Of the action of the Court, as told to us in detail by Sir Theodore Ma

T HE world had not to wait long. Lord Palmerston had, as we have seen, been turned out on the 19th of December, 1851. Parliament met on the 8th of February following, and before the month was over Lord John was out of office. A Militia Bill was brought in by him to which Palmerston expressed himself as antagonistic. It is not supposed that he had been anxious to turn out his late chief on that special question, but had rather selected it as a commencement for his attack; but the House reconsider

T HE war began in earnest with the naval conflict at Sinope. It was a terrible deed, and done, we must say, altogether in revenge. The English and French fleets had gone up the Dardanelles, and by doing so had offended the proud nature of Nicholas past all immediate forgiveness. The Russian ships came out from Sebastopol, and, after hovering about the Black Sea for a fortnight, to see, probably, whether the combined fleet would interfere, and finding that the small Turkish squadron lying at Sino

O N the 12th of July, 1856, at the Court at Buckingham Palace, Lord Palmerston was made a Knight of the Garter, it being understood that this was done in recognition of his services in reference to the Crimean War. When we remember what had occurred a few years back as to his dismissal from the Foreign Office, we may allow that he was bound to accept this token of her Majesty’s favour. Lord Melbourne is reported to have said some years earlier, when a similar opportunity had come to him, that he

T HE unification of Italy was the first matter of importance to which Lord Palmerston’s new Cabinet had to apply itself. Lord John Russell was Foreign Secretary, but we perceive that Palmerston kept a hold of the reins himself. The things chiefly to be done were as follows. Austria still held Venetia, but had been made to abandon Lombardy by Marshal Mac Mahon at the battle of Magenta. Austria had to be put down and made to depart out of Venetia if possible. France had been victorious; but the Em

P ALMERSTON’S great merit as a governing man arose from his perfect sympathy with those whom he was called upon to govern;—and his demerit, such as it was, sprang from the same cause. He was bold, industrious, honest, strong in purpose as in health, eager, unselfish, and a good comrade. He was at the same time self-asserting, exacting, never doubting himself when his opinion had been formed, and confident against the world in arms. We cannot be surprised that such a one should have been loved by