House of Commons [? 7th June 1859.]
(Tuesday, quarter-past eight o'clock.)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer with his humble duty to your Majesty.
Lord Hartington45 spoke like a gentleman; was badly seconded.
Chancellor of Exchequer rose immediately at six o'clock, and is just down. The House very full, and very enthusiastic.
The Chancellor of Exchequer presumes to say he thinks he satisfied his friends.46
Footnote 45: Lord Hartington, afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire, moved an Amendment to the Address, expressing a want of confidence in the Ministry.
Footnote 46: He flung his taunts right and left at the now united Opposition, and was especially bitter against Sir James Graham. Referring to the Liberal meeting on the 6th, Mr Disraeli reminded the House that Willis's Rooms had, as Almack's, formerly been maintained by fashionable patronesses. "The distinguished assemblies that met within those walls were controlled by a due admixture of dowagers and youthful beauties—young reputations and worn celebrities—and it was the object of all social ambition to enter there. Now Willis's Rooms are under the direction of patrons, and there are two of these patrons below the gangway" (indicating Lord John Russell and Mr Sidney Herbert). In regard to its Foreign Policy, he said the Government should not be condemned without direct documentary evidence. Lord Malmesbury has since deplored Mr Disraeli's neglect to produce the Blue Book with the correspondence relating to the affairs of Italy and Austria, and stated that, had he laid it on the table, the debate would have ended differently (Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, vol. ii. p. 188).
St James's Square, 10th June 1859.
Lord Derby, with his humble duty, submits to your Majesty that the tone of the Government Agents in the House of Commons is less sanguine to-day than it was yesterday with regard to the issue of the Debate to-night. There are no actual changes announced of votes, but the tone of the Opposition is more confident; and when an opinion begins to prevail that the Government are likely to be in a minority, it often realises itself by the effect which it produces on waverers and lukewarm supporters. The Division will certainly take place to-night; and, without absolutely anticipating failure, Lord Derby cannot conceal from your Majesty that he considers the situation very critical. Mr Gladstone expressed privately his opinion last night that, even if successful on the present occasion, the Government could not possibly go on, which does not look like an intention, on the part of the Liberal Party, of considering the present division as decisive.47...
Footnote 47: The rest of the letter relates to the distribution of honours to the outgoing Ministers.
House of Commons, 11th June 1859.
(Saturday morning, half-past two o'clock.)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer with his humble duty to your Majesty:
| For the Amendment . . . . | 323 |
| For the Address . . . . . | 310 |
| —– | |
| Majority against your Majesty's servants | 13 |
| —– |
Buckingham Palace, 11th June 1859.
The Queen was very much grieved to receive Mr Disraeli's report of the division of yesterday, although she was fully prepared for this event.
She did not answer Lord Derby's letter of yesterday in order not to anticipate it. Now that the fate of the Government is decided, she is prepared to grant those favours and acknowledgments of service for which Lord Derby asked in his letter. The Queen could not reconcile it with her own feelings, however, were she to omit this opportunity, when Lord Derby for the second time resigns the post of her Prime Minister, of giving to him personally a public mark of her approbation of his services. The Queen therefore asks him to accept the Garter from her hands.
As the Queen holds a Drawing-room to-day, and receives the City Address after it, Lord Derby will be aware how little time she has this morning (being naturally anxious to have some conversation with him with as little delay as possible); she would ask him to come here either at half-past eleven or half-past twelve o'clock.
St James's Square, 11th June 1859.
Lord Derby, with his humble duty, submits to your Majesty the expression of his deep gratitude for your Majesty's most gracious note this moment received, and for the terms in which your Majesty has been pleased to speak of his very imperfect services. He gratefully accepts the honour which your Majesty has been pleased to confer upon him as a mark of your Majesty's personal favour. As a Minister, he could never have advised your Majesty to bestow it upon him, and he could not have accepted it on the recommendation of any Government to which he was politically opposed; but as a spontaneous act of your Majesty, it acquires in his eyes a value which nothing else could have given to it. Lord Derby is this moment going down to the Cabinet, as a matter of form, and will obey your Majesty's commands as soon as possible after half-past eleven, when he will have an opportunity of expressing in person his deep sense of your Majesty's goodness, and his entire devotedness, in whatever situation he may be placed, to your Majesty's service.
[Undated. 11th June 1859.]
I waited at four o'clock this afternoon48 upon the Queen by Her Majesty's gracious commands. The Queen was pleased to remark upon the importance of the present crisis. Her Majesty informed me that Lord Derby had resigned, and that she had sent for me to desire that I should attempt to form another Administration, which Her Majesty wished should be strong and comprehensive. I respectfully assured the Queen that Her Majesty's commands came upon me by surprise; that at any time I felt my own insufficiency for such a post, and that at this time there were special difficulties; that I believed the only two persons who could form a strong Liberal Government were either Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell; and that, although it had sometimes happened that two statesmen of equal pretensions preferred having a nominal chief to serving under one another, I did not believe that this was the case now. I said that I had reason to believe that Lords Palmerston and John Russell were ready to co-operate with one another, while I doubted whether either would consent to serve under a younger man of such small pretensions as myself.
The Queen in reply informed me that her first thoughts had been turned to Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, that they had both served her long and faithfully, and that Her Majesty felt it to be an invidious task to select one of the two. Her Majesty was also of opinion that as different sections of the Liberal Party were more or less represented by each, it might be more easy for the Party to act together under a third person. Her Majesty added that she had selected me as the Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, and a person in whom both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell had been in the habit of placing confidence, and she expressed her confident hope that their attachment to herself would induce them to yield that assistance without which it would be difficult to form a strong and comprehensive Government.
I proceeded to state some of the most salient difficulties of the task, and asked Her Majesty's permission to ascertain by negotiation what it would be possible to do.
Her Majesty informed me that Her Majesty's experience of former changes of administration had taught her that the construction of an administration had failed when the person entrusted with the task had acted merely as a negotiator, and that the success of other attempts had been owing to the acceptance of the charge by the person for whom she had sent. Her Majesty laid Her Majesty's commands upon me to make the attempt, and I had the honour of conveying two letters from Her Majesty to Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, stating that Her Majesty relied upon their assistance.
Footnote 48: The 11th of June.
Queen Victoria to |
{ | Viscount Palmerston. |
Buckingham Palace, 11th June 1859.
The Queen gives these lines to Lord Granville, whom she has entrusted with the task of forming an administration on the resignation of Lord Derby. She has selected him as the Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. She feels that it is of the greatest importance that both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell should lend their services to the Crown and country in the present anxious circumstances, and thought at the same time that they might do so most agreeably to their own feelings by acting under a third person. They having both served the Queen long and faithfully as her First Minister, she must not conceal from Lord Palmerston (John Russell) that it is a great relief to her feelings not to have to make the choice of one of them, and she trusts that they will feel no difficulty to co-operate with one in whom they have both been in the habit of placing confidence. From the long experience the Queen has had of Lord Palmerston's (John Russell's) loyal attachment to her and the service of the Crown, she feels confident she may rely on Lord Palmerston's (John Russell's) hearty assistance.49
Footnote 49: In reply, Lord Palmerston (in a letter printed in Ashley's Life of Lord Palmerston, vol. ii. p. 155) accepted his responsibility for uniting with others to overthrow the Derby Ministry, and undertook to serve under either Lord John Russell or Lord Granville, but stipulated that any Government he joined must be an efficient and representative one.
Bruton Street, 12th June 1859.
(2 a.m.)
Lord Granville presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to submit that he saw Lord Palmerston immediately after he had left Buckingham Palace. Lord Granville stated what had passed there, omitting any reference to your Majesty's objection to the effect likely to be produced on the Continent by Lord Palmerston's name, if he had the direction of the Foreign Affairs. Nothing could be more frank and cordial than Lord Palmerston's manner. He agreed to lead the House of Commons; he said that he had certainly anticipated that your Majesty would have sent for either Lord John or himself, but having taken a part in the defeat of the present Government, he felt bound to put aside any personal objects, and co-operate with me; and that there was no person whom he should prefer or even like as much as myself. He added that his co-operation must depend upon my being able to form a strong Government. Lord Granville then saw Lord John Russell, and had a very long conversation with him. Lord John had no objection to serving under Lord Granville, but thought that he could not give effect to his political views unless he was either Prime Minister or Leader of the House of Commons, and he doubted whether he had confidence in any one but Lord Palmerston for the Foreign Office. Lord Granville again saw Lord Palmerston, who informed him that if he had been sent for, he should have objected to go to the House of Lords, and that he could not now give up the lead of the House of Commons (which Lord Granville had already proposed to him to retain) to Lord John. This answer rendered it unnecessary for Lord Granville to allude to the objections to his holding the Foreign Office. Lord Granville has seen Lord Clarendon, who acted up to the full spirit of your Majesty's letter, but deprecates strongly the attempt to form a Government without Lord John Russell. Sir George Grey is of the same opinion. Sir George Lewis, Mr Herbert, and Mr Gladstone think every effort should be made to secure Lord John, but that it would not be impossible to form a Government without him. Mr Milner Gibson, with whom Lord Granville had a more reserved conversation, considered it a sine quâ non condition of support from the Liberal Party below the gangway, that Lord John should be a member of the Government. Lord Granville thinks that in his third interview with Lord Palmerston he observed more dissatisfaction at not being sent for by your Majesty. Lord Palmerston suggested that Lord John's absence from the Government would make it more difficult for a Leader of the House, who was not Prime Minister, to hold his position.
Lord Granville has written to Lord John asking for a final answer before he informs your Majesty, whether he is able to attempt the task which your Majesty has with so much kindness and indulgence laid upon him.50
Footnote 50: This letter, and Lord John's reply declining to occupy only the third office in the State, and expressing his anxiety for adequate security in the handling of Foreign Affairs and Reform, are printed in Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell, vol. ii. chap. xxvii.
Lord Granville then wrote to Lord John: "I am glad that I wrote to you yesterday evening, as your answer gave me information which I had not gathered from your conversation in the morning. I came away from Chesham Place with the impression that union between you and Palmerston with or without me was impossible. Your letter afforded a good opportunity of arrangement. As soon as I found by it that I was an obstacle instead of a facility towards the formation of a strong Government. I went to the Queen to ask her to excuse me from the task which she had so unexpectedly and so graciously imposed upon me. In answer to a question, I stated to Her Majesty that it was disagreeable to me to advise as to which of you and Palmerston she should send for, but that I was ready to do so if it was her wish.
"The Queen did not press me. It is a great relief to have finished this business. I have asked Palmerston to do whatever would strengthen the Government, and assist him the most as regards myself."
Buckingham Palace, 12th June 1859.
The Queen writes to inform Lord Derby that after a fruitless attempt on the part of Lord Granville to form a Government comprising Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, she has now charged Lord Palmerston with the task, which she trusts may prove more successful....
94 Piccadilly, 12th June 1859.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to report that he has been to Pembroke Lodge, and has had a satisfactory conversation with Lord John Russell, who has agreed to be a Member of the Government without any suggestion that Viscount Palmerston should leave the House of Commons; but Viscount Palmerston is sorry to say that Lord John Russell laid claim to the Foreign Office in a manner which rendered it impossible for Viscount Palmerston to decline to submit his name to your Majesty for that post when the List of the new Government shall be made out for your Majesty's consideration and approval....
13th June 1859.
Lord Clarendon has just left the Queen. She had a long and full conversation with him. Nothing could be more friendly than his language, and he expressed himself ready to do anything for the Queen's service. But he positively declines entering the Cabinet or taking any other office. He says, as Foreign Secretary, he should be ready to join the Government should there be a vacancy; but that he has never directed his attention much to general politics, and his taking any other office, after having held the Foreign Seals during a long and important time, would be of no use to the Government, and would only injure himself. The Queen told him that he might have any office almost (naming several of those which Lord Palmerston discussed with her), but she could not urge nor press him to do what he felt would injure him, and indeed she found him quite determined in his purpose.
His absence from the Cabinet the Queen sincerely deplores, and she knows that Lord Palmerston will feel it a serious loss.
Buckingham Palace, 13th June 1859.
The Queen is much shocked to find her whole conversation with Lord Granville yesterday and the day before detailed in this morning's leading article of the Times.51 What passes between her and a Minister in her own room in confidential intercourse ought to be sacred, and it will be evident to Lord Granville that if it were not so, the Queen would be precluded from treating her Ministers with that unreserved confidence which can alone render a thorough understanding possible; moreover, any Minister could state what he pleased, against which the Queen would have no protection, as she could not well insert contradictions or explanations in the newspapers herself.
Footnote 51: A circumstantial account of the Queen's conversation with Lord Granville had appeared in the Times, and Lord Derby drew attention to the matter in the House of Lords. Lord Granville in reply expressed his regret in not having used more complete reserve, and frankly attributed the disclosures to his non-observance of adequate discretion.
London, 13th June 1859.
Lord Granville presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and feels deeply your Majesty's reproof.
Lord Granville was extremely annoyed this morning at seeing the article in the Times of to-day, repeating with some accuracy, but in a vulgar, inflated manner, the account which Lord Granville gave yesterday afternoon to many of his political friends, and which he believed your Majesty had authorised him to do. Lord Granville in that account laid much stress on the reasons which your Majesty gave for sending for Lord Granville, as he found that attempts had been made to attribute every sort of motive which might render the Court unpopular.
Besides the gross impropriety of the appearance of reporting your Majesty's conversation, Lord Granville regrets the indirect attack upon Lord John Russell.
Lord Granville begs respectfully to express to your Majesty his vexation at the annoyance, which he has thus been the cause of inflicting on your Majesty, particularly at a moment when your Majesty had just given him an additional proof of the indulgent kindness and confidence which your Majesty has been pleased to place in him.
94 Piccadilly, 1st July 1859.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has been unable till within the last few minutes to make any Report about Mr Cobden, from whom he had received no communication till about an hour ago, when Mr Cobden came to him.52 The result of a long conversation between them has been that Mr Cobden, against the advice of all his friends and of his constituents, has decided to decline taking office. He grounds his decision upon feelings personal to himself. He thinks that after having so often and so strongly disapproved of the Foreign Policy of Viscount Palmerston as tending too much to involve this country in war, it would be inconsistent for him to join the present Cabinet, and he also said that, at his time of life and with his general habits, he does not consider himself fit for administrative office.
Viscount Palmerston used every [means] in his power to induce him to change his decision, and showed that, with respect to present and future action, there is no apparent difference between his views and those of Mr Cobden, since both would desire that this country should remain neutral in the war now raging in Italy. All his arguments, however, were useless, and though Mr Cobden discussed the matter in the most friendly and good-humoured manner, and promised to give out of office all support to the Government, and said that he thought he could do so more effectually out of office than in office, he could not be persuaded to make any change in the answer which he came to give.
Viscount Palmerston will consider what arrangement he may have to propose to your Majesty in consequence of Mr Cobden's answer.
Footnote 52: Mr Cobden had been visiting the United States. On landing at Liverpool he learned that he had been elected at Rochdale, and at the same time he received an offer of the Board of Trade.
Footnote 53: Lord Aberdeen wrote, in a letter printed in Parker's Sir James Graham, vol. ii. p. 388, that the wish of Lord Palmerston, expressed in a speech at Tiverton, "to see the Germans turned out of Italy by the war, has secured Gladstone ... notwithstanding the three articles of the Quarterly and the thousand imprecations of late years."
94 Piccadilly, 2nd July 1859.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty....
Viscount Palmerston has heard from several persons that Mr Bright would be highly flattered by being made a Privy Councillor; would your Majesty object to his being so made if it should turn out that he wishes it? There have been instances of persons made Privy Councillors without office, and if Mr Bright could be led by such an honour to turn his thoughts and feelings into better channels such a change could not fail to be advantageous to your Majesty's service....
Buckingham Palace, 2nd July 1859.
The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter of to-day. She is sorry not to be able to give her assent to his proposal with regard to Mr Bright.54 Privy Councillors have sometimes exceptionally been made without office, yet this has been as rewards, even in such cases, for services rendered to the State. It would be impossible to allege any service Mr Bright has rendered, and if the honour were looked upon as a reward for his systematic attacks upon the institutions of the country, a very erroneous impression might be produced as to the feeling which the Queen or her Government entertain towards these institutions. It is moreover very problematical whether such an honour conferred upon Mr Bright would, as suggested, wean him from his present line of policy, whilst, if he continued in it, he would only have obtained additional weight in the country by his propounding his views as one of the Queen's Privy Councillors.
Footnote 54: In 1859, Lord Palmerston, in offering Mr Cobden a seat in the Cabinet, rejected the idea of accepting Mr Bright as a colleague, on the ground that his public speeches made it impossible. Mr Bright, later in life, was a welcome guest at Windsor, and the Queen became warmly attached to him as one of her Ministers.
Calcutta, 4th July 1859.
Lord Canning presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs permission to offer to your Majesty his respectful thanks for your Majesty's most gracious letter of the 18th of May.
Lord Canning ventures to believe that he is well able to figure to himself the feelings with which your Majesty will have welcomed the termination of the Mutiny and Rebellion in India, and of the chief miseries which these have brought in their train. He hopes that your Majesty will not have thought that there has been remissness in not marking this happy event by an earlier public acknowledgment and thanksgiving in India, as has already been done in England.55 The truth is, that although this termination has long been steadily and surely approaching, it is but just now that it can be said to be complete in the eyes of those who are near to the scene of action. It is only within the last three weeks that the exertions of our Troops on the Oudh and Nepaulese frontier, and in some other parts, have been remitted, and almost every Gazette has recounted engagements with the rebels, which, although they have invariably had the same issue, would scarcely have consisted with a declaration that peace and tranquillity were restored. Now, however, military operations have fairly ceased, and the rains and the climate, which would make a continuance of those operations much to be regretted, will do their work amongst the rebels who are still in arms in the Nepaul jungles more terribly than any human avengers.
Lord Canning has used every exertion and device to bring these wretched men to submission; but many—it is difficult to say how many, but certainly some few thousands—still hold out. With some of them the reason no doubt is that they belong to the most guilty Regiments, and to those which murdered their officers; but this cannot apply to all; and it is to be feared that the prevailing cause is the bad influence of their leaders—the Nana, Bala Rao, and the Begum;56 or rather the Begum's infamous advisers. It is certain that all of these, believing their own position to be desperate, have spared no pains to persuade their followers that the Government is seeking to entrap them, and that, if they submit, their lives will be taken....
Footnote 55: There had been a Public Thanksgiving in England on the 1st of May.
Footnote 56: Bala Rao was a brother of Nana Sahib, chief instigator of the Sepoy Mutiny. See ante, p. 238, note 24.
Buckingham Palace, 5th July 1859.
The Queen is much shocked to see that the Government last night moved for a Committee of the House of Commons to enquire into the Military Departments, without having previously communicated with the Queen on the subject. She is the more surprised at this, as Lord Palmerston told her, when she saw him on the formation of the present Government, and she expressed her anxiety on the subject, that there would be no more trouble about it, and he thought it would drop. The Queen expects that the names of those who it is proposed should compose the Committee, and the wording of it, will be submitted to her.
Piccadilly, 5th July 1859.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to state that the re-appointment of the Committee on the Organisation of the Military Departments was unavoidable. That Committee had been affirmed by the House of Commons and consented to by the late Government, and had begun its sittings; but when a Dissolution of Parliament was announced, it suspended its further sittings, with the understanding that it should be revived in the new Parliament; and to have departed from that understanding would have been impossible. That which Viscount Palmerston intended to convey in what he said to your Majesty on the subject was, that the evidence given by Lord Panmure might be deemed as having fully set aside the objection urged against the present organisation by persons unacquainted with the bearing upon it of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, namely, that the Crown acts in regard to Military matters without having any official adviser responsible for its acts. Such a condition of things, if it could exist, would be at variance with the fundamental principles of the British Constitution, and would be fraught with danger to the Crown, because then the Sovereign would be held personally answerable for administrative acts, and would be brought personally in conflict in possible cases with public opinion, a most dangerous condition for a Sovereign to be placed in.
The maxim of the British Constitution is that the Sovereign can do no wrong, but that does not mean that no wrong can be done by Royal authority; it means that if wrong be done, the public servant who advised the act, and not the Sovereign, must be held answerable for the wrongdoing.
But the Ministers of the Crown for the time being are the persons who are constitutionally held answerable for all administrative acts in the last resort, and that was the pith and substance of the evidence given by Lord Panmure. Those persons who want to make great changes in the existing arrangements were much vexed and disappointed by that evidence, and the attempt made yesterday to put off the Committee till next year on the ground that the evidence now to be taken would be one-sided only, and would tend to create erroneous impressions, was founded upon those feelings of disappointment.
Viscount Palmerston submits names of the persons whom Mr Sidney Herbert proposes to appoint on the Committee, and they seem to be well chosen.
Pembroke Lodge, 10th July 1859.
(7 p.m.)
Lord John Russell presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He has just received from Lord Palmerston, who is here, the paper, a copy of which is enclosed.57
Lord John Russell has to add that Lord Palmerston and he are humbly of opinion that your Majesty should give to the Emperor of the French the moral support which is asked. It is clearly understood that if the Emperor of Austria declines to accept the propositions, Great Britain will still maintain her neutral position.
But it is probable that her moral support will put an end to the war, and your Majesty's advisers cannot venture to make themselves responsible for its continuance by refusing to counsel your Majesty to accept the proposal of France.
Footnote 57: At the seat of war, a series of decisive French victories had culminated in the battle of Solferino, on Midsummer Day (see Introductory Note, ante, p. 308). But the French Emperor was beginning to think these successes too dearly purchased, at the expense of so many French lives, and, actuated either by this, or some similar motive, he attempted, on the 6th of July, to negotiate through the British Government with Austria. The attempt was a failure, but an armistice was signed on the 8th, and again the Emperor sought the moral support of England. The paper which Lord John Russell submitted was a rough memorandum of M. de Persigny's, proposing as a basis of negotiation the cession of Lombardy to Piedmont, the independence of Venetia, and the erection of an Italian Confederation.
Pavilion, Aldershot, 10th July 1859.
The Queen has just received Lord John Russell's letter with the enclosure which she returns, and hastens to say in reply, that she does not consider the Emperor of the French or his Ambassador justified in asking the support of England to proposals he means to make to his antagonist to-morrow. He made war on Austria in order to wrest her two Italian kingdoms from her, which were assured to her by the treaties of 1815, to which England is a party; England declared her neutrality in the war. The Emperor succeeded in driving the Austrians out of one of these kingdoms after several bloody battles. He means to drive her out of the second by diplomacy, and neutral England is to join him with her moral support in this endeavour.
The Queen having declared her neutrality, to which her Parliament and people have given their unanimous assent, feels bound to adhere to it. She conceives Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston ought not to ask her to give her "moral support" to one of the belligerents. As for herself, she sees no distinction between moral and general support; the moral support of England is her support, and she ought to be prepared to follow it up.
The Queen wishes this letter to be communicated to the Cabinet.58
Footnote 58: The Queen not having been informed whether this instruction had been complied with, a correspondence took place on the subject between the Prince and Lord Granville. See the Life of Lord Granville, vol. i. chap. xiii.