CHAPTER XII.

THE CRISIS OF 1839.

If the session of 1837-38 was memorable for the abandonment of the Appropriation Clause, it was also remarkable for the vigour and skill with which Lord John fought the battle of his party. It must be recollected that, in a House which was almost evenly divided as to numbers, nearly all the debating power was on the Conservative side. Nothing could be weaker than the Treasury bench in the House of Commons, except perhaps the Treasury bench in the House of Lords. The Duke of Bedford, writing to Lord John on the 24th of August, said—

It is a very inefficient Government, and, with the exception of yourself, and perhaps Lords Melbourne and Howick, there is not a man amongst them fit to be called a Minister.

The Viceroy on the 28th of July, after a short visit to London, said very much the same thing :—

It is very unpleasant, even in confidence to you, to say disparaging things of those with whom one has been personally and politically connected. But I really do not think, except you and Melbourne, that there is a single man in the Government for whom, at present, the county cares a straw. . . . You would be quite surprised if I were to enumerate the number of persons who held this language in London while I was last there.

Mr. Sydney Smith used similar language:

I only mention Lord John Russell's name so often because he is beyond all comparison the ablest man in the whole Administration; and to such an extent is he superior, that the Government could not exist a moment without him. If the Foreign Secretary were to retire, we should no longer be nibbling

ourselves into disgrace on the coast of Spain; if the amiable Lord Glenelg were to leave us, we should feel secure in our colonial possessions; if Mr. Spring Rice were to go into holy orders, great would be the joy of the three per cents. A decent, goodlooking head of the Government might easily be found in lieu of Viscount Melbourne. But, in five minutes after the departure of Lord John Russell, the whole Whig Government would be dissolved into sparks of Liberality and splinters of Reform.1

This weakness of the Government naturally compelled Lord John to make unusual exertions; and, though he was far from well during a great part of the session, he never before spoke so frequently. His extreme followers were, indeed, discontented with the marked moderation of his views. 'Russell is a Whig, Stanley is a Tory, Peel is a Radical,' was the observation of a discerning bystander; 2 and Lord John did not attempt to mitigate the annoyance which the Radicals felt at his opposition to organic Reform by unbending to them in private life. Like Mr. Pitt at the beginning, and Sir Robert Peel in the middle, of the century, he took no pains to win the good-will of his followers. His father wrote to him at the end of the session

I hear in more quarters than one that there are circumstances in which you are to blame, and in which you give great offence to your followers (or tail) in the House of Commons, by not being courteous to them, by treating them superciliously, and de haut en bas, by not listening with sufficient patience to their solicitations or remonstrances-or whatever it may be with many other complaints of that sort. I tell you what I hear with freedom, because I am your father and best friend, and no one else could tell you what I now do.

This extract from the Duke's letter will explain the first Lord Lytton's famous lines:—

Next, cool and all unconscious of reproach,

Comes the calm 'Johnny, who upset the coach.'

1 Sydney Smith's Works, iii, 100, note.

2 Sir Charles Grey, a man who had held high judicial office in India, who subsequently served on the Special Commission over which Lord Gosford presided in Canada, and who had lately been returned to Parliament. I owe the anecdote to my father, who heard Sir C. Grey give this opinion.

How formed to lead, if not too proud to please-
His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze.
Like or dislike, he does not care a jot :

He wants your vote, but your affections not;
Yet human hearts need sun, as well as oats,
So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes ;
And, while his doctrines ripen day by day,
His frost-nipped party pines itself away.

Yet even discontent, though chilled, could admire.
But see our statesman when the steam is on,
And languid Johnny grows to glorious John :
When Hampden's thought, by Falkland's muses dressed,
Lights the pale cheek and swells the generous breast;
When the pent heart expands the quickening soul,
And, foremost in the van, the wheels of genius roll.

But, if Lord John was cold and distant to his 'tail,' there was no better or brighter companion among the men whose conversation he relished and whose company he loved. And even those who differed from him in politics admitted that the gatherings at Grillion's were hardly complete unless the leader of the Whig party was among them.1

1

1 Sir Philip Egerton's History of Grillion's contains one or two references to Lord John. Thus, on a Wednesday evening in 1837-a day on which Colonel Thomson had made a formal attack on the Horse Guards, moving that 'the government of the army as at present constituted is against law,' and had failed to obtain a seconder-the annals of the club relate (April 5, 1837): Be it remembered that, on this day, immediately after dinner, Sir Robert Inglis proposed the toast of "Church and King," and was seconded by Lord John Russell; the necessity of a seconder having been clearly shown in a previous debate in the House of Commons. On this auspicious event, Sir Robert Inglis called for, and bound himself to drink, a second bottle of port.' A few meetings afterwards the club decided on celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary by a jubilee dinner (which was ultimately postponed indefinitely in consequence of the King's death). The members present promised many choice dainties for the feast-old wine, fat venison, and other luxuries. But Lord John made the best promise of all-an adjournment of the House of Commons. At these delightful dinners, where fun and good-humour prevailed under the genial sway of Sir Thomas Acland, who, nearly forty years before, had been Lord John's schoolfellow at Sunbury, Lord John and Lord Stanley maintained the warm friendship which they had formed as colleagues in the Administration of Lord Grey. And perhaps, in 1838, though they sat on opposite sides of the table, there were no better friends in the House of Commons. On one occasion in. that year, when the House was weary with some difficult detail, Lord Stanley

The ordinary embarrassments of a session were increased in 1838 by the course of events in Canada and the conduct of Lord Durham. It will be recollected that Lord Durham had been sent to the colony armed with special and unusual powers. The choice was, in one sense, fortunate. Lord Durham enjoyed the confidence of extreme Liberals, and they were consequently ready to trust him with an authority which they would not readily have conceded to other men. But it was in another sense unfortunate. Lord Melbourne underrated Lord Durham's ability, distrusted his judgment, and disliked his views; and Lord Durham himself, before he left England, contrived to give strong proofs of his indiscretion. Lord Melbourne, writing on the 16th of April, said

The fact is that this mission is the greatest scrape we have yet got into, and the greatest blunder we have committed.

Lord Durham's indiscretion unhappily did not cease with his departure. On his arrival in Canada he dismissed his predecessor's Council, appointed one composed of his own officers, and persuaded it to issue an ordinance directing that eight Canadians should be transported to Bermuda, and that fifteen others, who had left the colony, should suffer death if they returned to it. He accompanied it with a proclamation conceding a general amnesty to all Canadians except these twenty-three.

News of these proceedings reached England before Parliathrew a slip of paper across the table to Lord John, 'If you will put it off for three days, Sir Y. Z. has great hopes of an inspiration. It is the only chance I see.-STANLEY. . . .' The Sir Y. Z.'s on either side of the House, equally innocent of inspiration, were not likely to enter into the fun which their leaders were making at their expense. But little anecdotes of this kind will at least show the relations which existed between the foremost men on the front benches. And, at the very end of the session, Lord Stanley wrote to Lady J. Russell, Pray tell Lord John that I wish with all my heart that he could have made up his mind to settle all the Irish questions this year. He shall have all the help we can give him to settle the only one that remains on Monday. But, if Ministers will put off the prorogation till the end of August, how can they expect that even their best friends will remain in London? I am sure I would not if I could help it, nor would you return in October-would you?'

ment was prorogued. Lord Durham's conduct was denounced as illegal in both Houses of Parliament. Lord Brougham introduced and carried a measure to indemnify Lord Durham from the consequences of his actions. Lord Melbourne and Lord Glenelg made only a feeble defence of their agent, and promised to disallow the ordinance which he had issued.

Lord Brougham's Bill reached the Commons in the closing days of a protracted session. The prorogation was too near, the attendance was too small, to make it possible to convert it into a declaratory Act explaining what the objects of Parliament had been; and, as one part of Lord Durham's ordinance, the transportation of criminals to Bermuda, was clearly illegal, Lord John determined to accept the measure. But in doing so he at least showed a capacity to rise to the responsibilities of his position, and a reluctance to abandon an agent placed in a difficult situation. Speaking with great force and clearness, he asserted that Parliament had intended to invest the Governor of Lower Canada with a dictatorship; that the ordinance which Lord Durham had issued, except in a trifling detail, was legal; and that it was impossible to determine its expediency because Parliament was not fully aware of the circumstances in which it had been framed.

I ask you to pass this Bill of Indemnity, telling you that I shall be prepared when the time comes, not indeed to say that the terms or words of the ordinances passed by the Earl of Durham are altogether to be justified, but that, looking at his conduct as a whole, I shall be ready to take part with him. I shall be ready to bear my share of any responsibility which is to be incurred in these difficult circumstances.1

This manly language, so becoming a Minister of the Crown, excited unbounded admiration at the time, and the Speaker hurriedly wrote Lord John the following note on the first scrap of paper that came into his hands :

Frivate]

You have done two things. You have made the best speech

1 Compressed from Hansard, xliv. 1226.