Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/170

 yard of the brewery, and rushed upon him with a torrent of abusive epithets; the general cry was, "Down with the Austrian butcher;" they dropped a truss of straw upon him, pelted him with small missiles, and tore his coat, and knocked his hat over his eyes. He and his friends fought their way out of the brewery, only to find an equally warm reception outside from the people in the streets; he was again pelted, struck, and dragged along the road by his mustache. He finally got shelter in the upper part of a public-house, and the police contrived his escape by the river. The general feeling in the country was "serve him right;" but the Queen was seriously annoyed, and dwelt, not without justice, on the cowardice of an attack by a whole mob upon a single unarmed man. At the desire of the Queen, Palmerston expressed in person to the Austrian chargé d'affaires the regret of the Government at the incident; but at the same time advised that no prosecution should be instituted by Haynau, as this would involve a minute recapitulation of the barbarities of which he was accused. Palmerston's private opinion on the affair was expressed in a letter to Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, in which he says: "The draymen were wrong in the particular course they adopted. Instead of striking him, … they ought to have tossed him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then sent him home in a cab, paying his fare to the hotel." It may be easily imagined that he did not cordially respond to an order to send a formal written apology to the Austrian Government, and there was a prolonged duel between Lord Palmerston on the one side, and the Prime Minister and the Queen on the other, upon the wording of it. As originally drafted by Palmerston, it contained a paragraph implying that it would have shown better taste on the part of General