declined to secure it by other means; and throughout his career he remained, by preference, without the advantage, which Lord Palmerston never failed to secure, of some competent journal, prepared to expound his policy and to explain his reasons. If Lord John took no steps to instruct public opinion through the newspaper press, he made a great effort, before another session arrived, to win the confidence of the people by enlarging the basis of his Administration. Circumstances afforded him ample opportunity for doing so. The unexpected death of Mr. Charles Buller in December 1848, and the still more sudden death of Lord Auckland in January 1849, deprived the Government of one of its most popular members and of one of its ablest administrators, but afforded the Prime Minister the opportunity of offering office to some of the capable men who had served in the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel. After communicating with Lord Lansdowne, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston, Lord John wrote to Sir James Graham, who was at Netherby, and asked him to come to London and see him respecting the vacancy at the Admiralty. Sir James at once put himself into the train, travelled through the night to London, and announced his arrival by a note from Euston Square, written at five o'clock on the morning of January 12. Later in the day he had a long interview with Lord John, and (to quote Lady John's account)— inquired minutely into the proposed policy of Ministers-domestic, foreign, Irish, financial, &c.: even asked if the Cabinet were united, as otherwise he could not consent to enter it. John answered him with the utmost frankness. Sir James thanked him; said nothing could be more agreeable to him personally than to belong to a Ministry of which John was the head; that, if he did, it would be without a wish that any more of the Peel party, of whom he considered himself independent, should be asked to join; that he should like to consult Sir Robert Peel and 1 Lord John had previously offered Sir James the Governor-Generalship of India. give his answer in the evening; but that, if John wished it, he would give it immediately. John said he did not, and they parted after a conversation of an hour and a half. At eight in the evening John received a note from him saying that he had by accident missed Sir Robert Peel, whom on second thoughts he preferred not to implicate in his decision; that he had made up his mind, and would come and give John his reason at half-past nine. This set us speculating which way his mind was made up, till he came and declined. The grounds were that the Ministry were not prepared to go as far as he should think right in the Cobden line of retrenchment. Saturday morning.-John saw Sir Francis Baring and offered the Admiralty to him. Sir Francis came in the evening and accepted. One result ensued from the offer which was thus made to Sir James Graham. During the session of 1849, Peelites and Whigs drew closer together; and the strange distrust which had so frequently separated Sir Robert Peel and Lord John began visibly to wear away. The more aggressive attitude which the Protectionists displayed tended to the cohesion of their opponents. At the outset of the session the Protectionists in either House made the mistake of moving amendments to the Address. These amendments, however, while they revealed the hostility of the aggressors, displayed also their weakness; and the Government set itself to the task before it with a resolution which it had not displayed in the previous year. Besides the legislation which the state of Ireland necessitated, and which has already been described in a previous chapter, the two chief measures of the session of 1849 were the Bill for altering Parliamentary Oaths and the Bill for repealing the Navigation Acts. Both Bills passed the House of Commons by considerable majorities. The former met its inevitable extinction in the House of Lords; the latter was saved from this fate by the firmness of Lord John. He boldly staked the existence of his Ministry on the adoption of the measure. He used his direct personal influence to secure the attendance of peers when the House was in committee, and VOL. II. G proxies were not available; and by these expedients he carried his proposal, though the second reading was only passed by a majority of ten. Lord John used, in his old age, to say that the repeal of the Navigation Acts was carried by the votes of the bishops; and it is a remarkable circumstance that of the twenty-five prelates who took part in the division. sixteen supported the measure. But, as a matter of fact, there was a majority, though the smallest of majorities, of lay peers in favour of it; and Lord John's remark afforded, perhaps, a proof that he was always ready to place the most favourable construction on a body of men who were not usually equally tolerant towards himself. Oddly enough, Lord Brougham found it consistent with his political opinions to oppose this great measure of reform. But the fact would hardly be worth mentioning if it were not for the happy remark which it suggested to Lord John. "There is no wonder,' he said, 'that Brougham thinks he knows something of the Navigation Laws, as he has been fishing for seals so long.'1 The Ministry in 1849 acquired the increased reputation which always attaches to a Government successful in carrying 1 Lord Morpeth's unpublished diary, p. 79. The repeal of the Navigation Laws was resisted by the shipowners. But experience soon showed that their anticipations were incorrect. Many years afterwards one of their number thus admitted his error : SHEPPERTON, Middlesex, November 9, 1868. DEAR LORD RUSSELL,-It is now close upon twenty years since I addressed to your Lordship a series of letters, which contained a great number of plausible reasons against the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and had an immense circulation. Two years afterwards I discovered that all my reasons were very erroneous and unsound, and that your Lordship knew a great deal better: what was for the interest of the shipowners than the shipowners themselves. I have just launched a book entitled 'The Log of My Leisure Hours,' which it really is; and, as the 8th chapter of the 3rd volume is devoted to show, in a chit-chat manner, what fools we shipowners were, and how much we, as well as the nation at large, have gained by your great and wise measure of repeal, I have taken the liberty to request the publishers to send to your Lordship, for your acceptance, a copy of the 'Log,' and I remain, my Lord, with much respect, yours faithfully, W. S. LINDSAY. THE RIGHT HON. EARL RUSSELL, K.G. a great measure. Yet, during a session, in which he succeeded to a large extent in retrieving his position, Lord John frequently suffered from the physical debility which, throughout his life, so materially increased the difficulties of his political The short Easter recess found him grievously in need of rest; and his best friends seriously debated the propriety of his seeking relief in the calmer atmosphere of the House of Lords. At Althorp, where Mr. Greville stayed at the end of March, career. Graham talked much of John Russell, and said his loss would be so great that, if he was unable to face the severe work of the House of Commons, he had better go to the Lords, and retain his office. Sir James Graham's opinion was repeated to the Duke of Bedford, who communicated it to his brother; and Lord John seems to have actually made up his mind to take a peerage; but, as he did not consider his own fortune and the Irish estate, which the Duke had settled on him, adequate for its support, to create it with remainder to his brother the Duke. The short Easter holiday, however, enabled him sufficiently to recover his strength to struggle on. The notion of a peerage was abandoned for another twelve months, when it was revived in another shape.1 And in the result another dozen years passed before Lord John, on the eve of entering his seventieth year, escaped from the late hours of the House of Commons to the easier duties of the House of Lords. Lord John, moreover, in the summer of 1849, had one consolation which had always a marked effect on his own health. Lady John gave him a fresh assurance of her gradual recovery by presenting him, on July 11, with his third son. V The boy was christened three months afterwards at Windsor, the Prince standing sponsor to him, and giving him the second of his three names-Francis Albert Rollo. In the interval between the boy's birth and the christening a good deal happened. Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person. 1 Vide ante. p. 57. on August 1; and, while the Queen set out on her visit to Ireland, her First Minister retired to the quiet of his own home at Richmond, where he celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday by giving the children of a little school, which he had just opened at Petersham, a tea under the trees and a dance on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge. Two days afterwards he set out to attend the Queen at Balmoral. While he was at Balmoral he had a day's shooting with the Duke of Leeds, and had the satisfaction of killing his first deer, and, if the Times correspondent at Balmoral was correct, the first deer ever shot by a Prime Minister in office;1 and thence he forwarded to Lady John the following lines : I breathe the lightsome mountain air, Why is my breast weighed down with care? I breathe it far from thee. The mountain stream flows clear and bright, My stream of life still wants the light The heather springs beneath my feet, I want nor path nor guide; Such skies and streams and walks were sweet Lord John left Balmoral in the society of Mr. Greville, who had been summoned north to attend a council, who drew from the Prime Minister in conversation his real opinion of Lord Palmerston's conduct, and parted from him at Perth. Lord John spent the rest of the autumn chiefly at Pembroke Lodge, paying, however, visits at Woburn, at Windsor, and Bowood. At Bowood he saw for the last time his old friend the poet Moore, whose intellect was already obscured by the weight of sorrow which clouded his declining years; and at Woburn he ་ 1 The Times said a stag. But Lord John, writing to his wife, said, 'I have been out deer-stalking, and have killed a deer. It was a hind (113 yards off), but no matter. Mr. Ross says I am the first Prime Minister who has been out deer-stalking.' |