inspire the Sultan with a week's resolution; and Palmerston availed himself of the opportunity with his accustomed skill. Baron Brünnow, the Russian minister in London, was informed before the determination of his Government was known, that the British fleet was to be sent to the Dardanelles-"just as one holds a bottle of salts to the nose of a lady who has been frightened remarked the flippant Foreign Secretary; and the alternåtives of the withdrawal of the obnoxious demands, or war, were placed plainly before him and his Austrian colleague. In vain Schwarzenberg attempted to effect a retreat through a back-door, by moderating his demands to a request that the fugitives should be detained by the Porte in the interior of Turkey; it was incompatible with the dignity of the Sultan, said Palmerston, that he should act as the gaoler of the Emperor of Austria. When, two years later, the Sultan summoned up courage to set Kossuth and his companions free, Palmerston could claim to have won all along the line.

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CHAPTER VIII.

PALMERSTON AND THE COURT.

1849-1852.

Independence of Lord Palmerston-Differences of opinion with the Court-The Danish succession question-The Pacifico affairBreakdown of negotiations-Indignation of France-Civis Romanus sum-Effect of the speech-The Queen's Memorandum-The Haynau and Kossuth incidents-The coup d'état-Dismissal of Palmerston-Constitutional side of the question-The Militia Bill-The first Derby Ministry.

THOUGH Lord Palmerston's policy since the return of the Whigs to power had been on the whole remarkably sober and sagacious, the Bulwer fiasco at Madrid and the Sicilian incident proved that the old Adam of insubordination was not wholly dead within him. Nor were these the only occasions on which, forgetful of the flight of time, he attempted a repetition of the tactics which had been so successful in the good old days of Lord Melbourne, and sent off important despatches without submitting them to Lord John Russell and the Sovereign, or without inserting the alterations which he had been directed to make. And the necessity of coming to a previous understanding

upon important steps was all the greater because the opinions of the Court and the Foreign secretary were distinctly at issue on many questions of European importance. The sympathies of the Court were with Austria, those of Palmerston with Italy and Hungary, and his views were the wiser of the two; but about North German politics he was rather prejudiced and rather ignorant, yet he paid small attention to the opinions of Prince Albert, who was unquestionably better informed. Among the many wise memoranda which are to be found in Sir Theodore Martin's Life of Prince Consort, perhaps the most remarkable are those in which he urged the necessity of German unity under Prussian leadership. Palmerston, though, as can be seen in an interesting letter written by him during a visit to Berlin in 1844, he was not without some insight into the great part that Prussia would some day be called upon to play, cared little for German unity; and while Prince Albert saw in the Zollverein, or customs union, a feeble beginning of a one and undivided Fatherland, Palmerston resented its existence as an arrangement for placing prohibitive duties on British exports.

Indeed, if the Danish succession question may be taken as a test, Palmerston's want of information on the inner workings of Teutonic politics was very considerable. Count Vitzthum, in his memoirs, goes so far as to state that the Foreign Secretary was actuated by personal motives in the matter, his aim being to purchase the non-interference of Baron Brünnow in the Don Pacifico affair by giving Russia a free hand at Copenhagen, and supporting, or at all events acquiescing, in the claims put forward by the Russian dynasty to a portion of the Danish terri

tory, which included the important harbour of Kiel Even if this account of the history of the Protocol of July 4th 1850, upon which was based the Treaty of 1852, guaranteeing the crown of Denmark to Prince Christian of Glücksburg, be not accepted as gospel, there can be no doubt that the continued exclusion of Germany from the Baltic by the maintenance of the connection between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein was far more a matter of interest to Russia than to England. And though there may be some question as to the motives which dictated the arrangement, there can be none as to the carelessness with which it was executed. The choice of the negotiators fell upon a prince who, whatever claims he might have to the throne of Denmark, was regarded by German jurists to have a right to the Duchies inferior to no less than nineteen other members of the house of Schleswig-Holstein. The renunciations of these agnates were never obtained, nor was the consent of the Estates of the Duchies. Lastly, though the Duchies were indisputably members of the German Federation, no attempt was made to obtain for the arrangement the sanction of the Federation in its collective form, for Austria and Prussia signed the Protocol not as mandatories of the German Diet, but individually, as great Powers.

It seemed quite on the cards that a trial of strength between the Court and the Foreign Secretary might be averted by the retirement of Lord Palmerston from office, in consequence of a hostile opinion in the House of Commons as to the merits of his treatment of what is generally known as the Don Pacifico affair. Lord Palmerston's defence of the Porte against the menaces of Russia and Austria had been generally approved, but there was naturally some revulsion of public feeling when it was

discovered that the fleet which had been so honourably employed at the Dardanelles was immediately afterwards despatched to coerce the weak little kingdom of Greece for the non-compliance with the demands of the British Government for compensation for various acts of violence committed towards British subjects. There was even a feeling of dismay when the intelligence leaked out that the French Government had actually recalled its Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, from London, because it believed that his attempts to patch up the dispute between England and Greece had been treated with scanty respect, and that the Russian Government had demanded an explanation of Palmerstons's proceedings in rather a serious tone.

Perhaps the points at issue were hardly understood. The seizure of the Greek gunboats and Greek merchantmen by Admiral Parker was regarded as a piece of bullying, by people who argued as if the feebleness of a State was a reason for allowing it to commit crimes with impunity. There was also a disposition to minimise the amount and duration of the wrongs committed, and to overlook the utter impossibility of obtaining redress through the Greek courts of law or by any means short of the employment of force. Because one of the complainants, Don Pacifico, was a Jew adventurer who seized the opportunity to put forward some utterly extortionate claims for compensation, there was no reason why satisfaction should not be eeted for the destruction of his house by an Athenian mob. At any rate, Mr. Finlay, the historian, whose land had been seized by King Otho without a drachma in return, was a perfectly reputable person; and, of the other offences of the Hellenic authorities, the torture of an Ionian who was a British subject, and the arrest of the coxswain and boat's