before. In the face of threats and armaments, it was out of the question for Palmerston to agree to any of Thiers' proposed terms, even if they had been admissible in themselves, which they were not, unless England wished the Levant to become a French lake, and France the dictator of Europe. But concessions might fairly have been made to Guizot; and a generous policy, by healing the wounded amour propre of the French nation, would have led in course of time to a complete reconciliation. Palmerston, however, declined to move an inch out of his way. It was not that he was puffed up with pride, on the contrary, even Greville acknowledges that nothing could be more becoming than his bearing in the hour of success; but simply that he hated Louis Philippe, and was determined to pay him out. It is at this point, and not before, that personal motives appear to be predominant in his mind.

In your letter of the 20th [he wrote to Lord Granville] you say that what the French wish is that the final settlement of the Eastern question shall not appear to have been concluded without their concurrence. But that is exactly what I now wish should appear. If France had joined us in July, and had been party to the coercive measures we undertook, we should have been delighted to have had her assistance, and she would have come in as an ally and protector of the Sultan. But France having then stood aloof, and having since that time avowedly taken part with the Pasha, morally though not physically, if she were now to come in and be a party to the final settlement, it would not be as a friend of the Sultan, but as the protector of Mehemet Ali; and of course we should not permit her to meddle with the affair in that capacity and with such a view.

At the same time the question of prestige undoubtedly entered to a considerable extent into the Foreign Secretary's calculations. He felt that France had defied England and must be made to eat the leek; he was cruel only to be kind, though his kindness took a rather irritating form. In the same way he felt that Mehemet

Ali could not be allowed to retain Syria, less, perhaps, because Syria was of very much importance, than because concessions to Mehemet Ali in the midsummer madness of his triumph would inevitably pave the way to fresh aggressions and impertinences.

What Guizot had desired was that the Quadruple Alliance should be dissolved as a preliminary to peace. Palmerston, however, was determined that France should be kept out in the cold until Mehemet Ali had made his humble submission to the Sultan, and had received in return the hereditary Pashalic of Egypt on terms which emphasized the suzerainty of the Porte in the most unmistakable manner. Having thus guarded against the possibility of Egypt becoming a dependency of France, Palmerston carried out, by a Convention concluded at London on July 13th, 1841, the second part of his programme. Turkey was saved from the clutches of Russia, and the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi reduced to waste paper, by a clause which closed the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to the ships of war of all Powers.

When the Melbourne Ministry, which had only tottered through the last few sessions on sufferance, finally fell in August 1841, Palmerston, though without any following in Parliament, and without much influence in the country, had raised the prestige of England throughout Europe to a height which it had not occupied since Waterloo. He had created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the highway to India from France. He had in fact reached the zenith of his career as Foreign Minister, and Canning, though far greater in his conceptions, had been completely outdone by his disciple in performances. The happy marriage to which allusion has already been made, had completed Palmerston's good

fortune. Lord Melbourne's sister, Lady Cowper, had long been acknowledged as one of the leaders of the fashionable world. With her friends Lady Tankerville and Lady Willougby she made up a triad of great importance in society. During the remainder of his life, her charms, talents, and enthusiasm were, as even the coldly critical pages of Greville witness, by no means the least important of her husband's sources of strength. In an obituary notice of her by Mr. Hayward, to the fidelity of which Lord Shaftesbury her sonin-law, Mr. Cowper (the present Lord Mount-Temple) her son, and Mrs. Norton, all give evidence, it was said that" to place her husband and keep him in what she thought his proper position; to make people see him as she saw him; to bring lukewarm friends, carping rivals, or exasperated enemies within the genial atmosphere of his conversation; to tone down opposition and conciliate support this was henceforth the fixed purpose and master passion of her life. . . . The attraction of Lady Palmerston's salon at its commencement was the mixed, yet select and refined, character of the assemblage, the result of that exquisite tact and high-breeding which secured her the full benefits of exclusiveness without its drawbacks. The diplomatic corps eagerly congregated at the house of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. So did the politicians; the leading members of the fine world were her habitual associates, and the grand difficulty of her self-appointed task lay in recruiting from among the rising celebrities of public life, fashion or literature. The services of the great lady to the great statesman extended far beyond the creation of a salon. What superficial drawers mistook for indiscretion was eminently useful to him. She always understood full well what she was telling, to whom she was telling

it, when and where it should be repeated, and whether the repetition would do harm or good. Instead of the secret that was betrayed, it was the feeler that was put forth; and no one ever knew from or through Lady Palmerston what Lord Palmerston did not wish to be known."

If the evidence of contemporaries is to be believed, this accomplished lady was ready on occasion to serve her husband by very vigorous action. Greville records an occasion on which Lord Brougham was compelled by her indignant remonstrances to convert what would have been a formidable attack on the management of foreign affairs into a mere demonstration; and Count Vitzthum tells us of her relentless ostracism of Liberal members who spoke or voted against Lord Palmerston. She could also crush with an epigram; thus-"I can never forgive Nineveh for having discovered Layard." Of the English stateswomen of the past generation she was by far the most able.

CHAPTER V.

ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE.

1841-1846.

Lord Palmerston and the Smaller Powers-Lord Aberdeen-The Chinese War-Policy of the Government-Treaty of 1842-Disputes with the United States-The Boundary Question-The Greely and McLeod affairs-Right of Search-The Ashburton Mission-Lord Aberdeen and France-Palmerston and Home Affairs-The crisis of 1845-His visit to Paris.

THOUGH Palmerston's administration of foreign affairs during the Grey and Melbourne Governments had been distinctly inspiring and eminently successful, it left very bitter recollections behind it in the hearts of many continental nations. Even when the Foreign Secretary was in the right, he had sometimes a wrong way of showing it; and the " swagger and bully" of which he was so fond of accusing the French Ministers was frequently to be found in his own treatment of the minor States of Europe. For instance, in 1838, a paltry dispute about a sulphur monopoly granted by the Government of the Two Sicilies to a French company was terminated by naval hostilities and the capture of Neapolitan vessels by the Mediterranean fleet. "I dined with Lady Holland on Sunday," writes Greville in January 1842,