CHAPTER XVI.

PRIME MINISTER.

THERE is very little use in discussing the propriety of Lord John's decision in December 1845, in inquiring whether he might have reconciled the conflicting claims of Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey, or whether he might have succeeded in maintaining his position and carrying free trade in corn without the assistance of one or both of these statesmen. His refusal to make the attempt compelled the Queen to recall Sir Robert Peel to her counsels. Sir Robert succeeded in resuscitating his old Ministry, and in introducing the great measure of Free Trade, which some men still regard as the chief glory, and others as the chief reproach, of his

career.

The protracted discussions, however, which took place on the Minister's proposals have much closer reference to the lives of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Disraeli than to the career of Lord John Russell. Lord John, on his part, loyally redeemed the pledge which he had given the Queen to support the proposal of the Ministry, and his speeches on the subject are devoid of any particular interest. They were marked, however, by his usual ability. Writing to Lady John on February 10, Mr. Rutherford said-

You should be very proud of your lord to-day. He has made an admirable speech-to my mind one of the best I ever heard. The Speaker told me last night that he never heard anything more statesmanlike.

And many other letters containing similar praise cheered Lady John during her forced absence in Edinburgh.

Free Trade constituted only one of the difficulties which beset Sir Robert Peel. The state of Ireland, and the relations of this country with the United States, increased the

anxiety of the Minister. American statesmen seemed bent on war; and Mr. Everett, the American Minister in London, took the unusual course of appealing from the Government to the Opposition. Lord John sent him the following answer :

Confidential]

Chesham Place: February 3, 1846.

My dear Mr. Everett,-I am indebted to you for the clear and able view which you have communicated to me of the controversy now pending between your country and mine. The question is still in the hands of our respective Governments, and I understood the other day from Sir R. Peel that a new proposition for arbitration had been made, to which no answer had yet been received.

In this state of affairs I am unwilling to discuss with you the extent of concession which may be made by each party. You may be assured that I should not attempt to embarrass our Ministers by urging them to more rigid consistency than they are disposed themselves to maintain.

You will have seen before this time what I have said at Glasgow and in Parliament: you will, I trust, find that on both occasions I evinced a spirit of friendliness and good-will towards the United States.

I am indeed at a loss to account for the rage of hostility against England, and aggression against all the world, which seems on a sudden to have seized so many of your senators or representatives. Even Mr. Adams seems to imagine that nothing is so glorious as to rush into unprovoked and unnecessary war. Are the United States so cabined and confined in their territory as to make it essential to their existence to overrun some twelve degrees of latitude to find space for their people? or what is the insult which, it seems, can only be washed out in the blood of two brother nations, each strong enough to hurt the other, but neither likely to profit by any termination of hostilities it is possible to imagine? Our own absolute rights we must defend; our disputable rights we are ready to submit to arbitration or regulate by fair compromise; and we seek nothing from the United States which it is not consistent both with her honour and her interests to grant.

Our Ministers will not have my support unless they can show that they have tried every avenue to honourable arrangement. But against wanton aggression they will have not only my support, but that of the whole nation.

I conclude with a wish that in the councils of both countries peaceful spirits may prevail.—I remain, yours very faithfully,

J. RUSSELL.

Lord Aberdeen had the satisfaction of bringing this dispute to a peaceful termination before he resigned office. Sir Robert Peel was not similarly successful in dealing with the Irish question. The disturbed state of some parts of Ireland, and the fear that disturbance would be aggravated by distress, impelled him to introduce a fresh Coercion Bill. Lord John was no friend to such a policy, and in assenting to the first reading of the measure declared that he should have objections to offer to it which would go to the foundations of some of its principal provisions. These objections were not diminished by the delay which, through the obstructive tactics of the Protectionists, occurred in passing the Bill. Even Whigs like Lord Bessborough and Lord Clanricarde, personally interested in Ireland, who had supported the measure in the Lords, changed their minds in consequence, and declared that it was both doing harm and would do harm.2 Under these circumstances Lord John felt that his position was altered; and, instead of carrying out his original intention of amending the Bill from its foundations, decided on opposing it altogether. The Protectionists, who would have done anything to defeat their old leader, rallied in Lord John's support. By a strange coincidence, on the night on which the Corn Bill passed the Lords the Coercion Bill was defeated in the Commons. Immediately afterwards, on the 27th of June, Sir Robert Peel resigned office, and on the 28th of June the Queen sent for Lord John.

But the circumstances under which Lord John made his second journey to Osborne were widely different from those which had surrounded him in the previous December. His wife was no longer detained by illness at Edinburgh. Under Dr. Simpson's care she had sufficiently recovered to be moved to London, and she was now residing with her own child and her step-children at 'a delightful villa' which Lord John had taken at Wimbledon. Office, therefore, did not involve so great a rupture of domestic ties as it had seemed to necessitate six months before. This circumstance deprived the duty which the Queen was committing to him of the misery with which he had then associated it. The events › Hansard, lxxxv. 548. 2 Greville, 2nd series, ii. 382.

of the session, moreover, had naturally lessened some of the difficulties which had stood in the way at the previous Christmas. Though Lord John was still in a minority he could rely on a majority on almost every occasion; for if Protectionists and Peelites were nominally opposed to the Whigs, they were much more hostile to one another. It was certain that Lord George Bentinck at least would support any Minister who would keep Sir Robert Peel out of office.

But if the prospects of a Whig Ministry were in this way improved, the difficulty was still great. The embarrassments which every statesman charged with the formation of a Government has to encounter are probably only known to the few men who have filled such a situation, or to the few others who have had access to their private correspondence. Ordinary persons can hardly understand the rapacity of politicians on such occasions. Second-rate peers send in their applications for offices in the Ministry, for offices in the Household, for ribands for themselves, and for places for their children; and though peers are far the most numerous offenders on these occasions, or were at any rate the most numerous offenders in 1845 and 1846, the commoners who apply for peerages display an equally discreditable hunger. It is hardly worth while, however, to linger over the unseemly greed of men who are already forgotten, on the claims of Lord Taper for the Bath, or the Marquis of Tadpole for the Buckhounds.

Four courses were open to Lord John-(1) to form a Ministry from his own friends; (2) to seek an alliance with Mr. Cobden, (3) with Sir Robert Peel's followers, (4) with the Protectionists. Many men of influence were in favour of the latter alternative, while others thought rightly that a coalition

But Lord John himself, three months before, had given excellent reasons against it.

My dear Duncannon,

April 11, 1846.

I should not like to embark in a Government which rested on the support of any extreme party. This has been the case too much both with our Ministry of '35 and Peel's of '41. It were much to be desired that men of sound and temperate liberality would aid in the formation of any Government that may succeed at present. But their union must be formed on the

of men who enjoyed no community of opinion had nothing to recommend it. This alternative being rejected, Lord John decided on applying to some of the younger and abler members of Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet-Lord Dalhousie, Lord Lincoln, and Mr. Sidney Herbert-and he wrote the following letter (mutatis mutandis) to each of these three

men :

Confidential]

Chesham Place: July 1, 1846.

My Lord,-Her Majesty having been pleased to confide to me the task of forming an Administration, I think it my duty both to her Majesty and the country to endeavour to unite in her Majesty's Cabinet Council not only those who have acted in political connection with me, and have taken a prominent part in public business, but also some of those who, belonging to a different party, have brought forward measures of commercial freedom and have received our zealous support.

I have received the Queen's permission to propose to you to join the new Cabinet, and I have received a similar permission with respect to Lord Lincoln and Mr. Sidney Herbert.

I shall be ready at any time to enter into the fullest explanation with you respecting the policy of the future Government; but, without knowing your views on the preliminary question, such an explanation. would be premature.—I have, &c.,

The Earl of Dalhousie.

J. RUSSELL.

All three men declined the offer, and Lord John, therefore, was driven to consider the remaining alternative, whether he should form a Government from his own friends or should claim Mr. Cobden's assistance. On this point there was the gravest difference of opinion among the old

solid ground of agreement in political questions now above the horizon. Your liberal Protectionists must seriously consider whether they can bear to see franchises, equal to those of Englishmen, bestowed on Irishmen; offices given to Catholics as well as to Protestants; the Irish landlords compelled to act fairly by their tenants; the national revenue maintained by adequate taxes; crime put down by vigilance and exertion rather than by shutting up honest people all night; and, when measures of severity are necessary, taking care to give the soothing as well as the drastic medicine. If such measures are beyond the ken of the Protection party, and they seek only for revenge, we should do ill to patch up a Ministry which the first Cabinet meeting might dissolve.—Yours truly,

J. R.