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friendly kind would continue to pass between the CHAP. French Emperor and an English Minister who had suffered for his sake; and the very same manliness of disposition which would prevent him from engaging in anything like an underhand intrigue against his colleagues, would make him refuse to sit dumb when, in words brought him fresh from the Tuileries, an ambassador came to talk to him of the Eastern Question-came to tell him that the new Emperor had an unbounded confidence in his judgment, wished to be governed by his counsels, and, in short, would dispose of poor France as the English Minister wished.

Here, then, was the real bridge by which French overtures of the more secret and delicate sort would come from over the Channel. Here was the bridge by which England's acceptance or rejection of all such overtures would go back to France.

Thus, from the ascendancy of his strong nature, from his vast experience, and from his command of the motive power which he could bring at any moment from Paris, Lord Palmerston, even so early as the spring of 1853, was the most puissant member of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet; and when, with all these sources of strength, he began to draw support from a people growing every day more and more warlike, he gained a complete dominion. If, after the catastrophe of Sinope, his colleagues had persevered in their attempt to resist him, he would have been able to overthrow them with ease upon the meeting of Parliament.

Therefore, in the transactions which brought on

VOL. I.

2 G

CHAP. the war, Lord Palmerston was not drifting; he XXVI. was joyfully laying his course. Whither he meant

His way of masking the tendency of

ernment.

to go, thither he went; whither he chose that others should tend, thither they bent their reluctant way. If some immortal were to offer the surviving members of Lord Aberdeen's Government the privilege of retracing their steps with all the light of experience, every one of them perhaps, with only a single exception, would examine the official papers of 1853, in order to see where he could most wisely diverge from the course which the Cabinet took. Lord Palmerston would do nothing of the kind. What he had done before he would do again.

Lord Palmerston's plan of masking the warlike tendency of the Government was an application to the Gov. politics of an ingenious contrivance which the Parisians used to employ in some of their street engagements with the soldiery. The contrivance was called a live barricade.' A body of the insurgents would seize the mayor of the arrondissement, and a priest (if they could get one), and also one or two respectable bankers devoted to the cause of peace and order. These prisoners, each forced to walk arm-inarm between able-bodied combatants, were marched in front of a body of insurgents, which boldly advanced towards a spot where a battalion of infantry might be drawn up in close column of companies; but when they got to within hailing distance, one of the insurgents gifted with a loud voice would shout out to the troops: Soldiers! respect the cause of order!

'

6

6

'Don't fire on Mr Mayor! Respect property! Don't CHAP. 'level your country's muskets at one who is a man

and a brother, and also a respectable banker! Soldiers for the love of God don't imbrue your hands ' in the blood of this holy priest!' Confused by this appeal, and shrinking, as was natural, from the duty of killing peaceful citizens, the battalion would hesitate, and meantime the column of the insurgents, covered always by its live barricade, would rapidly advance and crowd in upon the battalion, and break its structure and ruin it. It was thus that Lord Palmerston had the skill to protrude Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone, and keep them standing forward in the van of a Ministry which was bringing the country into war. No one could assail Lord Palmerston's policy without striking at him through men whose conscientious attachment to the cause of peace was beyond the reach of cavil.

XXVI.

upon the

ment still

In the debates which took place upon the Address, Debates the speeches of the unofficial members of Parliament Address. in both Houses disclosed a strange want of acquaintance with the character and spirit of the negotiations which had been going on for the last eight months. Confiding in the peaceful tendency of a Government Parlia headed by Lord Aberdeen, and having Mr Glad- in the dark stone for one of its foremost members, Mr Bright, in real tenthe summer of 1853, had deprecated all discussion; the Govdency of and, under his encouragement, the Government, after ernment. some hesitation, determined to withhold the production of the papers. With the lights which he then had, Mr Bright was perhaps entitled to believe that the

as to the

XXVI.

CHAP. course he took was the right one, and the intention of the Government was not only honest, but in some degree self-sacrificing; for it cannot be doubted that the disclosure of the able and high-spirited despatches of Lord Clarendon would have raised the Government in public esteem. It is now certain, however, that the disclosure of the papers in the August of 1853 would have enabled the friends of peace to take up a strong ground, to give a new turn to opinion whilst yet there was time, and to save themselves from the utter discomfiture which they underwent in the interval between the prorogation and the meeting of Parliament.

The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen was not famous for its power of preventing the leakage of State matters; but the common indiscretion by which simple facts are noised abroad does not suffice to disclose the general tenor and bearing of a long and intricate negotiation. Besides, in the absence of means of authentic knowledge, there were circumstances which raised presumptions opposite to the truth. Of course the chief of these was the retention of office by two men whose attachment to the cause of peace was believed to be passionately strong; but it chanced, moreover, that publicity had been given to a highly-spirited and able despatch, the production of the French Foreign Office; and since there had transpired no proof of a corresponding energy on the part of England, it was wrongly inferred that Lord Aberdeen's Government were hanging back. Accordingly, Ministers were taunted for this sup

XXVI.

posed fault by almost all the speakers in either CHAP. House. What the Government were chargeable with was an undue forwardness in causing England to join with France alone in the performance of a duty which was European in its nature, and devolving in the first instance upon Austria. What they were charged with was a want of readiness to do that which they had done. Therefore every one who spoke against the Ministry was committing himself to opinions which (as soon as their real course of action should be disclosed) would involve him in an approval of their policy.

Produc

tion of the

Papers.

effect.

But now at last, and within a day or two from the conclusion of the debate on the Address, some of the papers relating to the negotiations of 1853 and the preceding years were laid upon the table of both Houses. As soon as the more devoted friends of peace were able to read these documents, and in some degree to comprehend their scope and bearing, they began to see how their cause had fared under the official guardianship of Lord Aberdeen and Mr Their Gladstone. They began to see that for near eight months the Government had been following a course of action which was gently leading towards war. They did not, however, make out the way in which the deflection began. They did not see that the way in which the Government had lapsed from the paths of peace, was by quitting the common ground of the four Powers for the sake of a closer union with one, and by joining with the French Emperor in making a perverse use of the fleets.