Mr. Canning was entrusted by George IV. with the formation of a Government, Palmerston was naturally one of the men whose co-operation he would be the first to select. A fusion of Canningites and Whigs was inevitable, owing to the refusal of the Eldonite faction to take part in the Ministry; and the Secretary at War's easy temper and moderate views clearly qualified him to play a prominent part in a coalition ministry. It was but natural that he should be offered the seat in the Cabinet and office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he had refused years before, and it was but natural that he should accept the offer. Unfortunately other ministerial arrangements had necessitated a contest at Cambridge; so it was decided, on the advice of Croker, that Palmerston, while immediately advanced to Cabinet rank, should remain at the War Office until the end of the session, when, the other contests having been decided, he would be returned unopposed on the acceptance of office. About the middle of the session, however, Canning sent for Palmerston, and told him, with considerable embarrassment, that he found that it was more convenient that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should also be First Lord, and that both offices should be united in the person of the Prime Minister, the result being, he said, that he was unable to carry out the intended arrangement. Though he suspected that Canning was being made the cat's-paw of the king, who "personally hated him" and wanted Mr. Herries to take the Exchequer,* Palmerston good-humouredly replied that he was perfectly content to remain where he was; and he even went out of his way to make the Prime Minister's mind easy, by pointing out that as the

*Palmerston was mistaken as far as Herries was concerned. See the elaborate vindication of Herries in the memoir by his son.

Secretary of War was at present administering the discipline and patronage of the army, the office of Commander-in-Chief being vacant through the death of the Duke of York, he might well rest satisfied with his position. In the same pleasant way he brushed aside two attempts to get rid of him, both of which may fairly be traced to the hostility of George IV. When offered the Governorship of Jamaica, he roared with laughter in Canning's face; and to a third proposal that he should become Governor-General of India, he replied that he had no family to provide for, and that his health would not stand the climate.

The untimely death of Canning was followed by the ludicrous efforts of "Goody" Goderich to form and keep together an administration, which terminated, as the world knows, by the Premier bursting into tears in the royal closet, and the King lending him a handkerchief to wipe them away. Palmerston was once more offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and once more asked to release the Premier from the offer, as the King wished for Herries, though the latter had already declined the post on the ground of ill-health. Again Palmerston gave up his claims with easy good humour, though Huskisson, now generally recognised as the leader of the Canningites, told him that he should have pressed them home. With the cat-and-dog existence of the Ministry he seems to have troubled himself very little; foreseeing, in all probability, that its life would be brief.

On the resignation of Goderich, the Duke of Wellington undertook to carry on affairs, and at once opened negotiations with Huskisson, as the head of the Canning party. Though Palmerston had only a few months before, in a letter to his brother, pronounced against

the formation of a "Government like Liverpool's, consisting of men differing on all great questions, and perpetually on the verge of a quarrel," the little band agreed that they would accept office-not as individuals, but as the friends of Mr. Canning. Lord Dudley was to carry out the principles of the departed statesman in Foreign Affairs; Huskisson and Charles Grant (Lord Glenelg) in Colonial and commercial matters; Lamb (Lord Melbourne), as Chief Secretary, would secure toleration for the Irish Catholics; Palmerston kept his old post. The natural results followed; grave divergences of opinion manifested themselves on every subject of importance, and the Cabinet usually separated without coming to a decision. Abroad, the chief difficulty that pressed for solution was the revolution in Greece, which had been brought to a crisis through the destruction of the Turkish fleet by Admiral Codrington at the battle of Navarino. That independence in some shape or form must be granted to the Greeks by the Powers was now inevitable; but while the collective voice of the Cabinet pronounced the battle to be "an untoward event," and while the Tory section were in favour of cutting down the territory and liberties of the new nation to the narrowest possible limits, from fear of its becoming a pawn in the hands of Russia; the Canningites were disposed to let things take their course, and to restore to Greece the sacred places where lingered the memories of her immortal past. As Palmerston afterwards pointed out, a Greece was an absurdity which contained "neither Athens, nor Thebes, nor Marathon, nor Salamis, nor Platæa, nor Thermopylæ, nor Missalonghi." When he proposed that an effort should be made to redeem the Greek women and children who had been carried into slavery at Alexandria, "the Duke received the proposi

tion coldly; Aberdeen treated the matter as a thing we had no right to interfere with; Bathurst, as the exercise of a legitimate right on the part of the Turks; and Ellenborough, as rather a laudable action." On home affairs the same difference of views cropped up at every turn. A dispute between the rival factions of the Cabinet on the duty to be imposed on corn, produced the temporary resignation of Charles Grant; and, finally, in May 1828, after five months' tenure of office, the Canningites retired in a body on the trivial. question of the disfranchisement of the corrupt borough of East Retford. In the division on the Bill, Huskisson, who considered himself bound by previous pledges, voted against the Government; Palmerston and Lamb followed his example. They were in the minority; and, considering the difficulties with which the Duke was surrounded on all sides, it is improbable that he would have taken any notice of their conduct. Huskisson, however, sent him a foolish letter of resignation, and Wellington, weary of perpetual broils, and disliking the bourgeois assurance of the chief of the Canningites, determined to pin him to his word. In vain the other Canningites attempted mediation: "It is no mistake,' said the Duke; "it can be no mistake, and shall be no mistake." Thereupon they held counsel together and decided, Lord Dudley being sorely unwilling, that, as they had entered the Cabinet in a body, they must retire in a body. Palmerston accordingly shook the dust of "pig-tail Toryism," as he styles it in one of his letters, from his feet, and Sir Henry Hardinge reigned at the War Office in his stead.

In opposition he found his opportunity. Hitherto the trammels of office and want of ambition had caused him to remain placidly among the second rank of poli

ticians; now he was unmuzzled, and had tried his strength in a succession of cabinets. His correspondence throughout the years immediately preceding his retirement shows how great was his interest in continental affairs, and it was to the Greek war of liberation, and to the usurpation of Dom Miguel in Portugal that he turned for the main sources of his inspiration rather that to startling series of events which began with the return. of O'Connell for Clare, and concluded with the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act; though he spoke on the measure, and prophesied-though, as the event proved, falsely—that it "would open a career of happiness to Ireland which for centuries she had been forbidden to taste." In 1822 Croker had considered him deficient in that flow of ideas and language which can run on for a couple of hours without, on the one hand, committing the Government, or, on the other, lowering by commonplaces or inanities the station of Cabinet. minister. But in 1829 Greville called a speech of his "the event of the week," and observed that he had at last "launched forth, and with astonishing success." In fact, Palmerston set the seal to his fame as an orator by the speech which was made on the 1st of June, and which dealt with the relations between England and the nations of Europe. The display was nominally made in support of a motion of Sir James Mackintosh on the affairs of Portugal, but through the indulgence of the House, Palmerston was allowed to descant on foreign affairs generally.

The burden of this elaborate indictment is to be found in the statement that England, lately the friend of liberty and civilization, was now the key-stone of

Letter from Croker to Peel, Croker Papers, vol. i. p. 213.