Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/212

 194 PALMERSTON illustrious chief, and was succeeded by the feeble ministry of Lord Goderich, which barely survived the year. But the &quot; Canningites,&quot; as they were termed, remained, and the duke of Wellington hastened to include Palmerston, Huskisson, Charles Grant, Lamb, and Dudley in his Government. A dispute between the duke and Huskisson soon led to the resignation of that minister, and his friends felt bound to share his fate. In the spring of 1828 Palmerston found himself, for the first time in his life, in opposition, From that moment he appears to have directed his attention closely to foreign affairs ; indeed he had already urged on the duke of Wellington a more active interference in the affairs of Greece ; he had made several visits to Paris, where he foresaw with great accuracy the impending revolution ; and on the 1st June 1829 he made a speech on foreign affairs of such excellence that never but once in his long career did he surpass it. For it may here be remarked that Lord Palmerston was no orator ; his language was unstudied, and his delivery somewhat embarrassed ; but he generally found words to say the right thing at the right time, and to address the House of Commons in the language best adapted to the capacity and the temper of his audience. An attempt was made by the duke of Wellington in September 1830 to induce Palmerston to re-enter the cabinet, which he refused to do without Lord Lansdowne and Lord Grey, and from that time forward he may be said to have associated his political fortunes with those of the Whig party. It was therefore natural that Lord Grey should place the department of foreign affairs in his hands upon the formation of the great ministry of 1830, and Palmerston entered with zeal on the duties of an office over which he continued to exert his powerful, influence, both in and out of office, for twenty years. The revolution of July 1830 had just given a strong shock to the existing settlement of Europe. The kingdom of the Netherlands was rent asunder by the Belgian revolution ; Portugal was the scene of civil war : the Spanish succession was about to open and place an infant princess on the throne. Poland &quot;was in arms against Russia, and the Northern powers formed a closer alliance, threatening to the peace and the liberties of Europe. In presence of these varied dangers, Lord Palmerston was prepared to act with spirit and resolution. The king of the Netherlands had appealed to the powers who had placed him on the throne to maintain his rights ; and a conference assembled accordingly in London to -settle the question, which involved the independence of Belgium and the security of England. On the one hand, the Northern powers were anxious to defend the king of Holland ; on the other hand a party in France aspired to annex the Belgian provinces. The policy of the British Government was a close alliance with France, but an alliance based on the principle that no interests were to be promoted at variance with the just rights of others, or which could give to any other nation well-founded cause of jealousy. If the Northern powers supported the king of Holland by force, they would encounter the resistance of France and England united in arms ; if France sought to annex Belgium she would forfeit the alliance of England, and find herself opposed by the whole continent of Europe. In the end the policy of England prevailed ; numerous difficulties, both great and small, were overcome by the conference ; although on the verge of war, peace was maintained ; and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was placed upon the throne of Belgium, which enjoyed for half a century the benefits of his enlightened rule, followed with equal success by that of his son and successor. Upon the whole this transaction may be regarded as the most important and most successful of Lord Palmerston s public life. In 1833 and 1834 the youthful queens Donna Maria of Portugal and Isabella of Spain were the representatives and the hope of the constitutional party in those countries, assailed and hard pressed by their absolutist kinsmen Don Miguel and Don Carlos, who were the representatives of the male line of succession. Lord Palmerston conceived and executed the plan of a quadruple alliance of the con stitutional states of the West to serve as a counterpoise to the Northern alliance. A treaty for the pacification of the Peninsula was signed in London on the 22d April 1834 ; and, although the struggle was somewhat prolonged in Spain, it accomplished its object. France, however, had been a reluctant party to this treaty. She never executed her share in it with zeal or fidelity. Louis Philippe was accused of favouring the Carlists underhand, and he positively refused to be a party to direct interference in Spain. It is probable that the hesitation of the French court on this question was one of the causes of the extreme personal hostility Lord Palmerston never ceased to show towards the king of the French down to the end of his life, if indeed that sentiment had not taken its origin at a much earlier period, Nevertheless, at this same time (June 1834) Lord Palmerston wrote that &quot;Paris is the pivot of my foreign policy.&quot; M. Thiers was at that time in office. Unfortunately these differences, growing out of the opposite policies of the two countries at the court of Madrid, increased in eacli succeeding year : and a constant but sterile rivalry was kept up, which ended in results more or less humiliating and injurious to both nations. The affairs of the East interested Lord Palmerston in the highest degree. During the Greek War of Independ ence he had strenuously supported the claims of the Hellenes against the Turks and the execution of the treaty of London. But from 1830 the defence of the Ottoman empire became one of the cardinal objects of his policy. He believed in the regeneration of Turkey. &quot; All that we hear,&quot; he wrote to Mr Bulwer, &quot;about the decay of the Turkish empire, and its being a dead body or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure unadulterated nonsense.&quot; The two great aims he had in view were to prevent the establishment of Russia on the Bosphorus and the establish ment of France on the Nile, and he regarded the main tenance of the authority of the Porte as the chief barrier against both these aggressions. Against Russia he had long maintained a suspicious and hostile attitude. He was a party to the publication of the &quot; Portfolio &quot; in 1834, and to the mission of the &quot; Vixen &quot; to force the blockade of Circassia about the same time. He regarded the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi which Russia extorted from the Porte in 1832, when she came to the relief of the sultan after the battle of Konieh, with great jealousy; and, when the power of Mohammed AH in Egypt appeared to threaten the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, he succeeded in effecting a combination of all the powers, who signed the celebrated collective note of 27th July 1839, pledging them to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish empire as a security for the peace of Europe. On two former occasions, in 1833 and in 1835, the policy of Lord Palmerston, who proposed to afford material aid to the Porte against the pasha of Egypt, was overruled by the cabinet; and again, in 1839, when Baron Brunnow first proposed the active interference of Russia and England, the offer was rejected. But in 1840 Lord Palmerston returned to the charge and prevailed. The moment was critical, for Mohammed Ali had occupied Syria and won the battle of Nezib against the Turkish forces, and on the 1st July 1839 the sultan Mohammed expired. The Egyptian forces occupied Syria, and threatened Turkey; and Lord Ponsonby, then British ambassador at Constan tinople, vehemently urged the necessity of crushing so