Life of Viscount Palmerston

Front matter

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In Monthly Volumes. Is.

NEW VOLUMES

Prefatory Note

The chief authority for Lord Palmerston's life is the biography of which the first three volumes were written by Lord Dalling — better known, perhaps, as Sir Henry Bulwer — and the fourth and fifth by Mr. Evelyn Ashley (1870-76). A condensed, and in many respects improved, edition of the whole was published by Mr. Ashley in 1879. It is a mine of information to the student of political history, and we may hope that the value of the concluding chapters may one day be increased by the publication of that fuller documentary evidence which has hitherto been apparently withheld from the necessity of keeping secrets of State. A small biography of Lord Palmerston was published by Anthony Trollope in 1881, but it contains little that is not to be found in Mr. Ashley's volumes.

Apart from this main source of knowledge, there is a very large quantity of matter illustrative of Lord Palmerston's private and public life. Lady Enfield tells us something about his youth in her Life and Letters of the First Earl of Minto ; and much that is of interest, vi PREFATORY NOTE.

about his personal character especially, is to be found in Sir Henry Holland's Recollections, Abraham Hayward's Letters, and his article in Eraser's Magazine, vol. xviii., and the Life of Lord Shaftesbury by Mr. Hodder. For an account of his career as a Tory statesman we have his own short autobiography, published as an appendix to the first volume of Lord Dalling's Life, which has been proved to be inaccurate on various points by Mr. E. Hemes, in his Memoir of the Right Hon. J. C. Herries; and incidental notices in Plumer Ward's Memoirs, Lord Colchester's Diary, also in the Croker Papers, which continue to illustrate his official life down to 1855. j With the formation of the Grey ministry commences the severe criticism of Greville, and with the beginning of the present reign the hardly less hostile comments of Sir Theodore Martin ; still the evidence of both of these writers cannot be neglected by anyone who wishes to form a fair judgment of Lord Palmerston's merits. Scattered notices of his foreign policy during the Grey, Melbourne, and Russell ministries are to be found in the third volume of Lord Brougham's Life and Times, Earl Russell's Reminiscences and Suggestions, the Life of Lord Melbourne by Mr. McCullagh Torrens, and Raikes's Journal', while towards the close of this period, Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister and Mr. Morley's Life of Cobden begin to be valuable sources of fact. The continental view of his policy is to be found particularly in the Memoirs of Prince Metternich and Baron Stockmar, the Life of Count Saldanha, and in Guizot's

PREFATORY NOTE. vii

Memoires and L'Histoire de Dix Ans, besides works like Theodore Juste's Memoirs of Leopold I., the histories of the Revolution of 1848 by Lamartine and Gamier Pages, and Mr. Spencer Walpole's admirable History of England, which includes also the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. On the crisis of 1845 much valuable information is to be found in an article by A in the Historical Review ; and the Spanish marriage intrigue is to be traced at length in the correspondence between Louis Philippe and Guizot, published by Taschereau in the Revue Retrospective in 1848. Mr. Kinglake's views on Lord Palmerston's conduct as a member of the Aberdeen Cabinet may be compared with advantage with those set forth in the Quarterly Review of April 1877. During Lord Palmerston's first premiership and onwards, Lord Malmesbury and Mr. Morley continue to be instructive critics, and they are reinforced by Bishop Wilberforce, and Mr. Walter Bagehot in his sketch of The English Constitution. An excellent precis of English foreign policy from 1859 to 1865 is given by Lord Russell in the preface to the second part of his Selected Speeches and Despatches. On Lord Palmerston's later Italian policy abundant information may be found in Bianchi's Storia Document ata delta Diplomazia Europea in Italia, in Mazade's Vie de Cavour, Cavour's Letters and Despatches, notably the private letters to Azeglio published by Bianchi under the title of La Politique du Comte Camille de Cavour. Not much original information, as far as Lord Palmerston is concerned, is to be viii PREFATORY NOTE.

found in Blanchard Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III., but his attitude towards German politics generally, and the Schleswig-Holstein question in particular, are abundantly illustrated in Count Beust's Memoirs, Count Vitzthum's St. Petersburg and London, which contains many personal reminiscences of Lord Palmerston, and Busch's Our Chancellor (Eng. trans., 1884).

L. C. S.

Chapter I. Lord Palmerston And Toryism

1807-1830.

The Temples — Lord Palmerston' s father and mother — At Harrow. Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden Speech — Secretary at War — The Nexc Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His habits, tastes, and disposition — Development of his political views — Attempt to eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wellington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party . . p. 1

Chapter II. Belgian Independence

1830-1833.

Palmerston and home politics — At the Foreign Office — Activity of his policy — Its general features — Objections to it — The Belgian Revolution — Meeting of the London Conference — The Eighteen Articles — Possibility of a war with France — Leopold of Saxe- Coburg becomes King of the Belgians — Modification of the Eighteen Articles — The Dutch declare war and the French enter Belgium — Firmness of Lord Palmerston — The Twenty-four Articles — Anglo-French expedition — Feeling in England — Stability of Belgium . . . . . . . p. 32

CHAPTER ILL

THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE.

1830-1838.

Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland — Tyranny of Dom Miguel in Portugal — Satisfaction obtained by England and France — Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal — He is aided by English Volunteers — Death of Ferdinand of Spain — Combination of the two Pretenders — The Quadruple Treaty — Its immediate success — Coolness between England and France — Its effect on Spanish politics — The Spanish Legion — End of the Carlist war . p. 52

b x CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. The Quadrilateral Alliance

1831-1841.

Lord Palmerston and the Porte — Ibrahim Pasha's adrance on Cbn-< stantinople — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Anti-Russian policy of Lord Palmerston — The first Afghan war — Burnea's despatches — Collapse of the Turkish Empire — Divergence of views between England and France — The Quadrilateral Alliance — Lord Palmerston's difficulties — His bold course of action — His estimate of the situation — Louis Philippe gives way — The fall of Acre — Lord Palmerston's treatment of Guizot — Settlement of the Syrian question — Lord Palmerston's marriage . . . . p. 68

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 Ashburtom Mission — Lord Aberdeen and Prance — Palmerston and Home Affairs — The crisis of 1845 — His visit to Paris . . p. 82

Chapter VI. The Spanish Marriages

Earlier stages of the negotiations — Louis Phillippe's first condition — The agreement of Eu — The Coburg candidate — Guizot's change of attitude — Lord Palmerston's despatch— Its results— Announcement of the marriages — Palmerston's efforts to postpone them

Chapter VII. / Years Of Revolution

Results of the Spanish marriages — The annexation of Cracow — Civil war in Portugal — Lord Palmerston's policy — Termination of the struggle — The Swiss Sonderbund — Lord Palmerston's despatch — Settlement of the dispute — Constitutionalism in Italy — The Minto Mission — The fall of Louis Philippe — The Spanish despatch — Lord Palmerston and the Provisional Government at Paris — Change in his Italian policy — His attitude towards the Sardinian Government — Suppression of the Revolution — Palmerston and Naples — His advice to Austria — The Hungarian refugees . . • p. 107

CONTENTS. xi

Chapter VIII. Palmerston And The Court

1849-1852.

Independence of Lord Palmerston — Differences of opinion with the Conrt — The Danish succession question — The Pacifico affair — Breadown of negotiations — Indignation of France — Chris Romanus num. — Effect of the speech — The Queen's Memorandum — The Haynau and Kossuth incidents — The coup d'etat — Dismissal of Palmerston — Constitutional side of the question — The Militia Bill— The first Derby Ministry p. 129

Chapter IX. The Aberdeen Ministry

1852-1855.

Lord Palmerston at the Home Office — Legislation and Deputations — The Reform Bill — Temporary Resignation of Palmerston — Beginnings of the Eastern Question — The Menschikoff mission — Lord Palmerston's policy — His popularity with the nation — The Vienna note — The Concert of the Powers — Palmerston's description of the objects at issue — Declaration of war by Turkey — The Sinope disaster — Beginning of the war — The Napier banquet and its consequences — Proposal to make Palmerston Secretary at War — The Crimean expedition — Fall of the Ministry . p. 146

Chapter X. The Conclusion Op The Russian War

1855-1856.

Attempts to form a Ministry — Lord Palmerston accepts the task — His difficulties — Darkness of the prospect — Harmony of the Cabinet — Lord Palmerston's tactics — The second Vienna Conference — The Austrian compromise — Conclusion of the war — The Congress of Paris — The Treaty — Lord Palmerston receives the Garter

Chapter XI. Wars And Rumours Op Wars

1856-1839.

Monotony of Home Affairs — Dispute with the United States — Russian chicanery — The Danubian Principalities — Egypt and the Suez Canal — Palmerston and Persigny — The Persian War — The "Arrow" Affair — The Dissolution and General Election — The Indian Mutiny— The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Defeat of the Government ........ p. 175

<y xii CONTENTS.

Chapter XII. \s Lord Palmerston And Italy

1848-1861.

The Willis's Rooms meeting — Defeat of Lord Derby's ministry — Lord Palmerston and Azeglio — The Sardinian Contingent — The Congress of Paris — The mission of Kossnth — The treaty of Villafranca — Policy of the English Cabinet — The cession of Nice and Savoy — Lord Palmerston's efforts on behalf of Italy — His speech on the death of Cavonr . . . . . . p. 189

Chapter XIII. Home Affairs

1859-1865.

Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet — His relations with the Radicals and the Opposition — The Reform Bill — Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone — The Paper Duties Bill — His views on the National Defences — The Fortifications Bill — Legislation and Appointments — The Charges commonly bronght against Lord Palmerston's Government — His Irish Policy ..... p. 200

Chapter XIV. France And The United States

1860-1863.

Lord Palmerston's distrust of Napoleon — Permanent and Special Reasons — Speech on the Fortifications Bill and Conversation with Count Flahault — The Anglo-French Expedition to China — The American Civil War — England's declaration of neutrality — The 1 rent, and Alabama affairs — The Mexican expedition . p. 217

Chapter XV. Poland And Schleswig-holstein

1863-1865.

The Polish Rebellion — Policy of the Cabinet — The proposed European Congress — The Schleswig-Holstein Question — Motives of the Powers — English advice to Denmark — The Cabinet determines on neutrality — The Conference of London — Lord Palmerston on the state of Europe — The Danish debate — Palmerston's last victory The General Election of 1865 — Lord Palmerston's last illness and death — Conclusion .p. 229

LIFE OF

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Chapter I. Lord Palmeeston And Toryism

1807-1830.

The Temples — Lord Palmerston's father and mother — At Harrow, Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden Speech — Secretary at War — The New Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His habits, tastes, and disposition— Development of his political views — Attempt to eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wellington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party.

The Irish branch of the Temple family, from which Lord Palmerston sprang, was founded in the reign of Elizabeth by Sir William Temple, the grandson of Peter Temple, who was lord of the manors of Stowe and Butlers' Marston in the times of Henry VIII. Sir William, who was secretary to Sir Philip Sidney, and afterwards to Essex, and a typical example of the Elizabethan epoch, withdrew to Ireland after the breakdown of the Essex rising* His son, Sir John Temple, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, wrote an ultra-

English History of the Irish Rebellion, and at one time sat in the English House of Commons as burgess for Chichester. Of his family, the eldest son was Sir William Temple, the well-known diplomatist, statesman, man of letters, and patron of Swift; the second, Sir John, who rose to be Attorney-General and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was Lord Palmerston's great-great-grandfather. The title dates from Sir John's son Henry, who was created a peer of Ireland by the titles of Viscount Palmerston, of Palmerston, co. Dublin, and Baron Temple, both in the peerage of Ireland.

In spite of their long connection with Ireland, the Temples remained for the most part English in interests, and almost entirely English in blood, notwithstanding Mr. Kinglake and other writers who talk about the Foreign Secretary's Celtic temperament. Lord Palmerston's father, the second Viscount, succeeded his grandfather in the year 1757, and sat for several years in the English Parliament as member for East Looe, Hastings, and Winchester. By his first wife, the daughter of a Cheshire baronet, he had no issue ; he married secondly, Mary, the daughter of Mr. Benjamin Mee, of Bath,* and the sister of a director of the Bank of England ; and their eldest son Henry John was born at Broad] ands, Hants, his father's English seat, on the 20th of October 1784. The second son, William, who was born in 1788, and died in 1856, became of some note as Minister to the Court of Naples ; and of the two daughters, the eldest, Frances, married Admiral Sir William Banks, and the second, Elizabeth, the Right Hon. Lawrence Sulivan. The story that Lord Palmerston's father and mother became acquainted through

* Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 517, note.

the peer being thrown from his horse in Dublin, and carried into a neighbouring house where he was tenderly nursed by his future wife, appears entirely baseless, as there is no reason for connecting the Mees with the Irish capital. The family belonged to the west country. The marriage was solemnized at Bath, where some of Lady Palmerston's relations lived until comparatively recent times, and Miss Mee is described in the papers of the day as " of Fenchurch Street," which was in all probability the home of her brother. The anecdote appears to have been derived by Lord Palmerston's biographer, Lord Dalling, from a not particularly accurate life of the statesman by Mac- Oilchrist, although the latter declines to vouch for its accuracy, and adds, by way of detail, the evident figment that Mr. Mee was a respectable hatter, in middling circumstances. Mr. Ashley is possibly better informed when he describes him, in the revised edition of the biography, as a man of good family ; but nothing seems to be certainly known about him.

Of Harry Temple's parents, the father seems to have been a good-humoured gentleman, with literary and artistic tastes, and a great fondness for society. " Lord Palmerston," writes Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Lord Minto, to his wife in 1786, " has not got to his second childhood, but only as far as his second boyhood, for no school-boy is so fond of a breaking-up as he is of a junket and pleasuring."** From the same authority we gather that shortly before his death he was constantly repeating Wilkes's mot, that the Peace of 1763 was the peace of God which passeth all understanding. Broadlands, a house which had for nearly two cen-

* Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, edited by his great-niece the. Countess of Minto, vol. i. p. 107.

1 * tunes belonged to the family of St. Barbe was rebuilt by him from designs by " Capability " Brown, which were supplemented by plans furnished by Holland, the architect of Carlton House. It is a favourable specimen of the later Georgian period, with the inevitable Ionic portico, and is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the Test, close to Komsey, with its grand old abbey church. Here he made a collection of pictures of some importance, including the " Infant Academy," which was bequeathed to him by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Of the pair, Lady Palmerston seems to have been decidedly the more popular, and her strong common-sense, even spirits, and unselfish disposition endeared her to a large circle of friends, particularly to the Mintos. They lived chiefly at their houses in Park Lane and at East Sheen, paying, however, several vists to- Italy, where their eldest boy strengthened that knowledge of the language which he had already acquired through an Italian tutor, and which stood him good service in after life. Believers in the doctrine of heredity will notice that the dispositions of both his parents were reproduced by Lord Palmerston in a very remarkable degree.

In due course Harry Temple went to Harrow, where he was a contemporary of Pee] and Lord Althorp, though not, as is sometimes stated, of Lord Byron. There tradition represents him as acquitting himself with credit in a fight with a big boy named Salisbury ; and in an amusing letter written in March 1798, to a young friend Francis Hare, a brother of Augustus and Julius Hare, he describes himself as having begun Homer's Iliad at the " beautifull" episode of Hector's parting from Andromache, as keeping up his Italian, regarding drinking and swearing as ungentlemanlike, and viewing matrimony with qualified approval, " though he would be by no means precipitate in his choice." At the age of sixteen he repaired, according to the educational fashion of the time, to Edinburgh, where for three years he boarded with Dugald Stewart, and attended his lectures at the University, the parents paying £400 a year for those privileges.* " In these three years/' wrote Palmerston in after life, " I laid the foundation for whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I possess." He seems, indeed, to have been a model pupil. Dugald Stewart described his character in the most enthusiastic terms ; and Lord Minto, who was very fond of him, wrote to Lady Palmerston : u Harry is as charming and perfect as he ought to be ; I do declare I never saw anything more delightful. On this subject I do not speak on my own j udgment alone. I have sought opportunities of conversing with Mr. and also with Mrs. Stewart on the subject, and they have made tome the report which you have already heard from others, that he is the only young man they ever knew in whom it is impossible to find any fault. Diligence, capacity, total freedom from vice of every sort, gentle and kind disposition, cheerfulness, pleasantness and perfect sweetness, are in the catalogue of properties by which we may advertise him if he should be lost." To which Lord Minto might have added that he was an extremely handsome and wellgrown lad ; for such is distinctly the impression pro-

* Lord Dalling, in his Life of Palmerston, reproduces a story, apparently from MacGilchrist, to the effect that Sir William Hamilton, when he edited Dugald Stewart's lectures on political economy, based his text on some notes taken in shorthand, and subsequently copied out by Henry Temple. A glance at Sir William Hamilton's preface to the lectures would have convinced him that the anecdote was entirely groundless, as the lectures are based on the notes of pupils called Bridges, Bonar, and Dow.

6 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOK

duced by the interesting water-colour portrait, painted in 1802 by Heapby, which has recently been presented to the National Portrait Gallery. Harry Temple is there represented as looking dreamily at the spectator. The features have a family likeness to those of later life, but the whole expression of the face is completely unlike that of the very wide-awake individual whom Leech has handed down to posterity with a sprig in one corner of his mouth. At the age of eighteen, Harry Temple seemed to be about to develop into a statesman of the Burleigh rather than of the Carteret type, if indeed he took any part in public life at all ; and the change in his disposition between boyhood and manhood seems to have been even more abrupt and complete than is usually the case.

In 1803 he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, and proceeded in the ordinary course to his M.A* degree, without examination. Though he acquitted himself with credit at the College examinations, he made no permanent additions at Cambridge to his stock of knowledge.

Before he left Edinburgh, Palmerston lost his father, and in 1805 his mother died. Both of these blowswere a great shock to him, and after the former, Lord Minto, finding him " entirely silent," wrote to his wife that "Harry had too little spring for his age." He probably modified his opinion when, in 1806, his young friend, though he was only just twenty-one, and had not taken his degree, stood for the University of Cambridge, where a vacancy had been created by the death of Mr. Pitt. Palmerston's competitors were Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, and his old schoolfellow Lord Althorp, both of whom were to be his colleagues in the Grey and Melbourne ministries ; and the Pitt party in the University being broken up, he found himself, as he had expected, at the bottom of the poll. William Wilberforce, in his diary, ascribes Palmerston's defeat in a great measure to the fact that he was supposed, though wrongly, to be an Anti-Abolitionist, whereas Lord Henry Petty was a staunch supporter of the negro cause. Anti-Abolitionist Palmerston can hardly have been, if his subsequent efforts for the suppression of the slave-trade are any criterion. At the general election of 1806 he was elected for Horsham with Lord FitzHarris, the son of his guardian, Lord Malmesbury ; but they were unseated on petition, and thought themselves lucky in being so, for, as he wrote in an autobiographical sketch of his early life, " in a short time came the change, and the dissolution in May 1807, and we rejoiced in our good fortune in not having paid a£5,000 for a three months' seat." He then stood again for Cambridge, and again without success; though had he not, with great straightforwardness, persuaded his friends to divide their votes, according to the understanding with his Tory colleague, Sir Vicary Gibbs, instead of plumping, he would have been returned. Soon after this he came into Parliament for Newtown in the Isle of Wight, a borough of Sir Leonard Holmes. One condition was that he should never set foot in the place, even for the election, so jealous was the patron of the introduction of a new interest in the borough.

Palmerston had just before been nominated a Lord of the Admiralty through the interest of Lord Malmesbury. He was gazetted on the 3rd of April 1807, but it was not until the following February that he ventured to break the ice in the House of Commons. Though silent, however, he was not unobservant ; for a journal begun in June of the previous year, contains some very acute and detailed observations on the great events of the time, notably on the hideous ruin and combustion of the Austrian and Prussian armies at Ulm, Austerliz, and Jena. Very true is his remark that Napoleon, so far from concealing his designs, published even the . most violent of his projected innovations; for instance, the formation of the Rhenish Confederacy, some time before they were put in execution, whereby the world became by degrees reconciled to them. Less fair is his sneer at the conduct of the Grenville ministry on the question of Catholic Emancipation : iC They insisted," he says, " in retaining both their places and opinions."

It was upon continental affairs that the future Foreign Secretary made his maiden speech. Acting on secret information, which they were unable to produce, the Government had anticipated Napoleon by sending an expedition to seize the fleet of the Danes, with whom England was nominally at peace. It was entirely successful, but the Danes resisted, and Copenhagen was bombarded. On February 3, 1808, Mr. Ponsonby, the leader of the Opposition, moved for the production of papers. Canning, in a brilliant speech of three hours, demolished Ponsonby's arguments ; and Palmerston, following somewhat on Canning's lines, pointed out that it would be impossible to produce the papers without breach of honour, and without shutting up future sources of information ; while in answer to Windham, who had urged that England had been guilty of a violation of the law of nations, he made the telling rejoinder : " In the case before the House the law of nature is stronger even than the law of nations. It is to the law of self-preservation that England appeals for the justification of her proceedings."

" It was impossible," wrote the debutant to his sister, " to talk very egregious nonsense in so good a cause," and the speech was a success, though not thought worthy of a report in the Times. Palmerston was regarded as one of the rising men on the Tory side of the House ; nevertheless, he was " infinitely surprised " when, in October, 1809, Mr. Perceval, obliged, owing to the quarrels in the party, to form his ministry out of untried material, offered him successively the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, a Lordship of the Treasurj', and the Secretaryship at War, in the alternative of their being any of them declined by " Orator " Milnes, the father of the late Lord Houghton.* Palmerston consulted Lord Mulgrave and Plumer Ward on the point, and wrote to Lord Malmesbury for advice. As the seat in the Treasury was only offered with the understanding that its occupant should speedily be advanced to the Chancellorship, the choice practically lay between the latter appointment and the Secretaryship at War. With admirable discretion he determined to risk nothing by premature ambition, and accepted the War Office without a seat in the Cabinet, rather than the more exalted position of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Cabinet minister.

Of course [he writes to Lord Malmesbury], one's vanity and ambition would lead one to accept the brilliant offer first proposed ; but it is throwing for a great stake, and where much is to be gained, very much also is to be lost. I have always thought it unfortunate for anyone,

* So Palmerston told his friend Plumer Ward (Memoirs of R. P. Ward, Esq., edited by the Hon. E. Phipps, vol. i. p. 249). In his autobiography Palmerston says, evidently incorrectly, " he [Perceval] said he had offered it [the Chancellorship] to Milnes, who had declined it." See also Palmerston's letters to Lord Malmesbury in Bulwer's Palmerston.

and particularly a young man, to be put above his proper level, as he only rises to fall the lower. Now, I am quite without knowledge of finance, and never but once spoke in the House.

The fear of a breakdown in the House of Commons seems, indeed, to have been his chief deterrent. Besides, he thought that the Government would not last long, and that it was therefore not advisable to be identified with it more closely than was absolutely necessary. "I left him," wrote Plumer Ward, " inclining to the Secretary at War, and admired his prudence, as I have long done the talents and excellent understanding, as well as the many other good qualities as well as accomplishments, of this very fine young man."

To the War Office, accordingly, the very fine young man went, and at the War Office he remained contentedly for nearly twenty years. During this long period he had several chances of advancement ; the Secretaryship for Ireland was offered him in 1812, and after Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister he was twice offered the Governor- Generalship of India, and at another time the Post Office and an English peerage. The simple explanation of this disinclination to move was that, though fond of official life and extremely reluctant to quit it, he had very little personal ambitition at any period of his career, and probably none at its commencement. In a letter about Lord Palmerston's character, which Lord Shaftesbury wrote at the request of his biographer, Mr. Evelyn Ashley, it is stated that as late as 1826, " he passed for a handy clever man who moved his estimates very well, appeared to care but little for public affairs in general, went a good deal into society, and never attracted any other remark but one of wonder, which I often heard, that he had been so long in the same office." He was, in short, content to do carefully and thoroughly what lay before him, but made no attempt to get out of the groove. Mr. E. Herries in his Memoir of the Right Hon. J. C. Herries, accuses Palmerston of " dilatoriness and laxity" at the War Office. But he adduces very feeble evidence to support the charge, and the statement is quite the reverse of what may be gathered from other quarters.

I continue to like this office very much [he writes to Lord Malmesbury in 1809]. There is a good deal to be done, but, if one is confined, there is some satisfaction to have some real business to do ; and if they leave us in long enough, I trust much may be accomplished in arranging the interior details of the office, so as to place it on a respectable footing. Its inadequacy to get through the current bixsiness that comes before it is really a disgrace to the country, and the arrear of regimental accounts unsettled is of a magnitude not to be conceived. We are now working at the Treasury to induce them to agree to a plan, proposed originally by Sir James Pulteney, and reconsidered by Granville Levison, by which, I think, we shall provide for the current business, and the arrear must be got rid of as well as we can contrive to do it.