Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/32

 tive party, protectionists, and Peelites, supported by the extreme radicals, and backed by the “Times” and all the organised forces of foreign diplomacy.’ Palmerston came through the lobby with a triumphant majority, and the conspiracy of foreign powers and English factions to overthrow him had only made him, as he said himself, ‘for the present the most popular minister that for a very long course of time has held my office.’ For the first time he became ‘the man of the people,’ ‘the most popular man in the country,’ said Lord Grey (, l.c. p. 347), and was clearly marked out as the future head of the government.

Palmerston's constant activity and disposition to tender advice or mediation in European disputes procured him the reputation of a universal intermeddler, and the blunt vigour of some of his despatches and diplomatic instructions conveyed a pugnacious impression which led to the nickname of ‘firebrand;’ while his jaunty, confident, off-hand air in the house gave a totally false impression of levity and indifference to serious issues. That he made numerous enemies abroad by his truculent style and stubborn tenacity of purpose is not to be denied; but the enmity of foreign statesmen is no proof of a mistaken English policy, and the result of his strong policy was peace. Just when he was at the height of his power and popularity as foreign minister an event happened which had not been unforeseen by those acquainted with the court. During the years he had held the seals of the foreign office under Lord Melbourne he had been allowed to do as he pleased in his own department. He exerted ‘an absolute despotism at the F. O. … without the slightest control, and scarcely any interference on the part of his colleagues’ (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 298). He created, in fact, an imperium in imperio, which, however well it worked under his able rule, was hardly likely to commend itself to a more vigilant prime minister, or to a court which conceived the regulation of foreign affairs to be its peculiar province. On several occasions Palmerston had taken upon himself to despatch instructions involving serious questions of policy without consulting the crown or his colleagues, whom he too often left in ignorance of important transactions. These acts of independence brought upon him the queen's memorandum of 12 Aug. 1850, in which he was required to ‘distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction;’ and it was further commanded that a measure once sanctioned ‘be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister’ on pain of dismissal (, Life, ii. 219). Palmerston did not resign at once, because he understood that the memorandum was confidential between Lord John Russell and himself, and he did not wish to publish to the house and country what had the air of a personal dispute between a minister and his sovereign (ib. ii. 226–7). He protested to Prince Albert that it was not in him to intend the slightest disrespect to the queen, pleaded extreme pressure of urgent business, and promised to comply with her majesty's instructions. But sixteen years' management of the foreign relations of England may well have bred a self-confidence and decision which brooked with difficulty the control of less experienced persons, and it would not be easy (if it were necessary) to absolve Palmerston from the charge of independence in more than the minor affairs of his office. Many instances occurred both before and after the queen's ‘memorandum,’ and it is clear that from 1849 onwards the court was anxious to rid itself of the foreign minister, and that eventually Lord John Russell resolved to exert his authority on the first pretext. The one he chose was flimsy enough (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 430;, Memoirs, i. 301). In unofficial conversation with Count Walewski, the French ambassador, Palmerston expressed his approval of Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of 2 Dec. 1851, and for this he was curtly dismissed from office by Lord John Russell on the 19th, and even insulted by the offer of the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. The pretext was considerably weakened by the fact that Lord John himself and several members of his cabinet had expressed similar opinions of the coup d'état to the same person at nearly the same time; but the theory seems to have been that an expression of approval from the foreign secretary to the French representative, whether official or merely ‘officious,’ meant a great deal more than the opinions of other members of the government. ‘There was a Palmerston,’ said Disraeli, and the clubs believed that the ‘Firebrand’ was quenched for ever. Schwarzenberg rejoiced and gave a ball, and Prussian opinion was summed up in the doggerel lines: Hat der Teufel einen Sohn, So ist er sicher Palmerston. In England, however, people and press lamented, and Lord John was considered to have behaved badly. Within three weeks the government were defeated on an amendment moved by Lord Palmerston to Russell's