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IT is a great thing to be a Cabinet Minister. Every man when he begins a life of politics feels that. He feels it when he gets into Parliament, and when he joins a Government in some subordinate office. It is the goal to which his hopes aspire, and the success to which his ambition ventures to look. The young politician hardly expects to be Prime Minister, but he does, within his own bosom, think it possible that he may achieve an entrance within those doors which enclose that mysterious entity which we call the Cabinet. The Cabinet is essentially English in its abnormal constitution, having grown to its present enormous responsibility without any written rules or defined powers. There is nothing to prescribe its numbers, which do indeed vary very greatly; nor indeed is there any law requiring that this or that officer of the Government should be a member of it—as there is no law by which its very existence is made necessary. It is considered essential that the Chancellor and the Secretaries of State should be of the Cabinet, but we have no law which would be broken were it to be completed without them. But it is understood by all men that the governing of the country is in the hands of a small junta of individuals who form the Cabinet, and it is equally well understood that all members of the Government who are not in the Cabinet are responsible for nothing beyond the proper performances of their own official duties; though they, too, are bound to resign when their betters resign, and are bound also to support their betters by parliamentary aid and judicious backing in all but the very few matters which are regarded as “open questions.” In fact, the Cabinet Minister is a governing power, and the Minister not in the Cabinet is simply the servant of the Premier. It is therefore undoubtedly the ambition of every political servant of his country to make good his claim to a seat in the Cabinet. And although there may now be some little advance in the thorough distinction of the two places since the days in which Lord Palmerston was first enlisted as a servant of the Crown, rather more than seventy years ago, yet even then the feeling as to the power of the Cabinet Minister existed as it does now. It has been told how, in 1809, Mr. Percival offered to make Lord Palmerston Chancellor of the Exchequer. “Annexed to this office he offered a seat in the Cabinet, if I chose it,” he said in a letter to Lord Malmesbury, asking for advice. “And he thought it better I should have it. I, of course, expressed to him how much honoured I felt by this very flattering proof of the good opinion he was pleased to entertain of me; but also my great fears that I should find myself wholly incompetent for the situation, both from my inexperience in the details of matters of finance, and my want of practice in public speaking.” From this we see how much surprised Lord Palmerston had himself been by the offer. But with that wonderful reliance on his own power which always marked him, and which was as conspicuous when he doubted his power as when he relied on it, he declined the offer. And he added, “A bad speech, though tolerated in any person not in a responsible situation, would make a Chancellor of the Exchequer exceedingly ridiculous, particularly if his friends could not set off against his bad oratory a great knowledge and capacity for business.” Actuated by these reasons, Lord Palmerston declined the offer, and then came into office simply as Secretary at War without a seat in the Cabinet. His self-diffidence was repaid by sixteen years of comparative exclusion. Mr. Percival had been murdered, and Lord Liverpool, who became Prime Minister in Mr. Percival’s place, had either thought less of Lord Palmerston or had been thought less of by him. The fact probably was that as Palmerston grew in years he had learned to discard many of the ideas of Toryism, and that he became year by year less palatable to so thorough a Tory as was Lord Liverpool. Be that as it may, we can fancy that before he reached the age of forty-three he must occasionally have looked back with watering lips at that offer which had once been made to him. Governor-Generalships and peerages were not to his taste. Such rich rewards would have removed him from that central and busy life which he intended for himself in the House of Commons. But the fruition of the central and busy life, though it had been offered to him young, had been long delayed before it came again within his grasp. I can fancy that he must have felt this, though in his letters there is no word of baulked expectations or of disappointed hopes. He took it all as it came, resolving to be useful after his kind, and resolving also to be powerful. Wherever he might be, he would be interfered with by none, by Kings or Kaisers, by Prime Ministers or Commanders-in-Chief, nor would he interfere with any others in their line. I am far from saying that in this manner a servant of his country, who is anxious to be useful rather than powerful, may best do his duty. Lord Palmerston was a man with whom it must often have been difficult for a colleague to serve. The lines of demarcation between one officer and another, and between one class of duty and another class, are not so plain as to make it easy if practicable, or to make it always pleasant; but this was a man with whom such a theory was a determined principle, and acting upon that he went to the end with greater success than might have been possible in the hands of another. He had shown his stubbornness even when not in the Cabinet, and now that he was to be in the Cabinet, it was not probable that he would become more malleable than before. I do not say that a determination so to act had come from that process of mind which we call thinking a thing out. It was not in his nature to think many things out beyond the matters which he had in hand; but given the matter, it was so that he acted. In a book just published,[F] the author speaks of “the childish perversity which marked Lord Palmerston’s dealings with Greece in these years, from his stubborn defence of Count Armansperg down to his disputes about etiquette.” This perversity was an essential part of Lord Palmerston’s character—and of his strength.

In 1827 Lord Liverpool died, and new arrangements of the Cabinet and Government became necessary. Mr. Canning was selected as Prime Minister, and proceeded to form that combination which led to the adoption of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and to the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832. It has been customary to say that certain of the Whig party joined the Tories when Mr. Canning became Prime Minister. But it would perhaps be more correct to describe that which then took place as a fusion in the minds of men caused by natural changes, as in the course of years the old Tory convictions gave way to new ideas as to the liberty of the subject. The last really Tory Government in England, which had now become extinct, was that of Lord Liverpool and Lord Eldon; and even their Toryism grows pale when compared with that of the Ministers who had assisted George III. in taxing the Americans.

When Mr. Canning became Prime Minister, he was desirous of keeping the seals of the Foreign Office in his own hands, and with this object offered to Lord Palmerston the place of Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a seat in the Cabinet. This Lord Palmerston at first accepted. But there were difficulties in the way. “George IV., who personally hated me,” said Lord Palmerston, “did not fancy me as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wanted to have Herries in that office.” Whether this be true or not, or whether Canning changed his mind, the arrangement was never carried out. “Some weeks after this Canning sent for me again, to say he had a proposition to make to me, which he should not himself have thought of, but that the King had said he knew, and was sure, that it was just the very thing I should like, and that was to go as Governor to Jamaica. I laughed so heartily that I observed Canning looked quite put out, and I was obliged to grow serious again.” Canning then offered him the Governor-Generalship of India; but Lord Palmerston refused, with sundry excuses as to his health (which he would by no means allow when the same office was offered by him many years afterwards to Canning’s son), and alleging, also, that he had no family for whom he was desirous of amassing a fortune. In the end a Cabinet was made up by expedients intended only to be temporary. Canning was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Granville, retaining his embassy at Paris, became for the time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Palmerston, still keeping some hold on the Chancellorship of the Exchequer for the future, remained Secretary at War, but with the additional plum that he was to have the patronage of the army, no new Commander-in-Chief having been appointed in place of the Duke of Wellington, who had thought it necessary to resign with his brother Tories. “As to the Tories, who would hardly vote for our measures before, we must not look for any cordial support from them now. Not but that, by degrees and one by one, they will all by instinct come round to the oat-sieve.” Come round to the oat-sieve! Alas, it is sad to see a public servant, who had already served his country for nearly twenty years, and who was yet destined to serve it for forty years more, speaking in such language of those by whom Cabinets are formed! But though we may believe it of Lord Eldon, we do not believe it of the Duke of Wellington or of Sir Robert Peel—three of the men of whom Lord Palmerston was then speaking; nor, in truth, do we believe it of Lord Palmerston himself.

Of this period of Lord Palmerston’s life, we have the record left to us in a partial autobiography which he drew out afterwards, and which has been made known to us by Lord Dalling. In reference to this autobiography, the memory of Lord Palmerston has been laden with some reproach, which seems not altogether to be undeserved when we look at the purposes for which it has been used. But we must remember that it was not written, like the journal by which it is preceded, at the time of the occurrences which it relates, but many years afterwards, when it was prepared, probably at the request of Lord Dalling to whom it was at any rate given by Lady Palmerston. Mr. Herries had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Goderich’s Administration. In this autobiography the name of Mr. Herries is mentioned with disrespect—and we must certainly say with inaccuracy, after the defence which has lately been published by his sons. This vindication has been occasioned, as is stated in the first words of the memoir,[G] by the appearance of Mr. Spencer Walpole’s “History of England,” and is an attack on Mr. Walpole rather than on Lord Palmerston. But Mr. Walpole has founded his objectionable assertion partly on Lord Palmerston’s words; and though we may think ourselves entitled to declare that Lord Dalling should be made accountable for inaccuracies so published, and not the writer of an autobiography, who after nearly forty years has trusted to his memory when his journal failed him, still there are the written words, not intentionally false when written, but still imbued with that venom to which political feelings are at any rate as subject now as they were then.

The passage in the autobiography of which complaint is made was as follows. The period alluded to is the formation of the Cabinet by Canning on Lord Liverpool’s death, the spring, namely, of 1827. “In the meanwhile intrigues were set on foot. George IV., who personally hated me, did not fancy me as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wanted to have Herries in that office. There were questions about palaces and crown lands which the King was very anxious about, and he wished either to have a creature of his own in the Exchequer, or to have the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer held by the First Lord, whose numerous occupations would compel him to leave details very much to George Harrison, the Secretary, and to Herries, Auditor of the Civil List.” To this a note is appended by Lord Dalling, stating that Mr. Herries was also Joint Secretary of the Treasury. One sees here the acrimony displayed by the Whig of the day in which it was written against the Tory King and the Tory financier, whose party he had already left. But the character of George IV. suffers more than that of Mr. Herries from the words of the autobiographer. An insinuation about the “palaces and crown lands” is no doubt made, which we surrender to the filial feelings of Sir Charles and Mr. Herries. To have heard such words quoted from the old memoirs of an old man is fairly admitted by them both not to have required such a measure of vindication as a book—which is, however, quite able to justify itself by its own merits. It is their use, when taken from Lord Dalling’s book, and applied to purposes of history, that has caused their indignation.

But it was after this, in August and September, 1827, after Mr. Canning’s death, and when Lord Goderich was the Prime Minister elect, that the contest with the King went on as to the appointment of Mr. Herries. Here, in lieu of the autobiography, we have Lord Palmerston’s letters, as to the actual truth of which no doubt is raised. There existed evidently one of those insoluble knots, which have to be cut at last by him who has the greatest power. The King did want Herries to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was anxious to have as many Tories as might be possible in the mixed Government for which he had given his authority. “The King wants Herries to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Whigs object to him pointedly, and Goderich wishes to have me. Neither party will give way.” That is quoted from a letter from Lord Palmerston to his brother, and it is at any rate true. It ended in the weakest man giving way, for Lord Goderich was told “to go home and take care of himself.” The Duke became Prime Minister, with Goulburn for his Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Herries became Master of the Mint.

Canning died on the 8th of August, and all these arrangements were more short-lived than had been intended. Lord Goderich, as stated above, became Prime Minister, but retained his place only a few months—with no effect on Lord Palmerston’s immediate work, except that he ceased to hold the patronage of the army, the Duke of Wellington becoming again Commander-in-Chief. In our days it is presumed that the head of the army shall exercise no political power, and in no wise be guided by political exigencies. But that was not the Duke’s understanding. He had declined to serve under Mr. Canning, thus leaving the office for a while vacant. But now that Canning was gone he was reappointed. “He comes in without any stipulations or conditions whatever,” Lord Palmerston said to his brother; and in his autobiography he tells a story of the Duke and Lord Anglesey. Lord Anglesey, on behalf of the Government, had been sent to invite the Duke to resume the office. “Well, gentlemen, I have done what you sent me to do,” he said on his return. “I have brought you the Duke of Wellington’s acceptance as Commander-in-Chief, and, by God, mark my words; as sure as you are alive he will trip up all your party before six months are over your heads.” “But it was the King who did it,” continued Lord Palmerston.

Early in 1828 the Duke succeeded Lord Goderich as Prime Minister; but though going in as a Tory, he took with him the leading members of Mr. Canning’s party, who may be regarded as the Liberals of those days—as men who had at any rate learned to lean towards Liberalism in the course of the training they had received. These were Lord Dudley and Ward, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Grant, and Lord Palmerston. But more to be noted than any such members of the Duke’s Government was the fact that Lord Eldon was not a member. Lord Lyndhurst was the Lord Chancellor instead of Lord Eldon. Lord Lyndhurst had been Lord Chancellor under Lord Goderich and Mr. Canning; but that was to have been expected. Mr. Canning had not intended to defend his country from Roman Catholic aggression; but the Duke would surely do so; and under the Duke’s leading Mr. Peel, who, as Home Secretary, would lead the House of Commons, would surely assist in such work. And were there not Lord Bathurst and Lord Ellenborough and Mr. Goulburn in the Cabinet? Though Palmerston and Huskisson were to be there, Lord Eldon’s hopes ran high. But the time for Lord Eldon had passed by. He was probably the last of the English Statesmen who could not under any circumstances have been got to vote for the smallest amount of political relief to a Roman Catholic. In all descriptions of politicians of those days, we see men defined as being Catholic or the reverse, and men also sometimes are called “Protestants.” Lord Eldon was especially a “Protestant;” as Lord Palmerston, and soon afterwards the Duke of Wellington and Peel were “Catholics.” The great political question of the present day was the expediency of lessening in some degree “Catholic” disabilities. And when Cabinets were formed, men were admitted or the reverse according to their “Catholic” proclivities. Lord Palmerston during his official career had gradually become “Catholic”; and it was well known of him now that, let him enter what Government he might, he would do so pledged to support the Catholics.

Lord Palmerston was now to go out of office and to remain for two years in opposition; but the circumstances of his going were of a nature to bring about a violent decision of the “Catholic” claims, though it cannot be said that he himself was in any way responsible for doing so. There came up some dispute in the Cabinet as to the disfranchisement of East Retford and Penryn, in the course of which Mr. Huskisson resigned. Mr. Huskisson was the follower of Mr. Canning. That the Duke and Mr. Huskisson should not have been easy together in the same Cabinet we can understand; but we are told that Mr. Huskisson was anxious that his resignation should not be accepted. The Duke, however, was determined that he should go, and would hear nothing of any mistake made as to the letter of resignation. “It was not a mistake,” he said; “it is not a mistake; and it shall not be a mistake.” The consequence was that with Mr. Huskisson three other members resigned, Lord Dudley and Ward, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Grant. Now Mr. Grant, who was President of the Board of Trade, was followed in that office by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, the member for County Clare. The County Clare thus became vacant, and, declining to re-elect Mr. Fitzgerald, returned Mr. O’Connell in his place; and thus the Roman Catholic question was forced upon the country. The three or four gentlemen who filled the vacant places in the Duke of Wellington’s Cabinet were of course Tories; and in this way a Tory Government, pur et simple, was again established. But it was not such a Tory Government as that presided over by Lord Liverpool, and in which Lord Eldon kept the conscience of the King.

At this time Lord Palmerston had already taken much interest in foreign affairs, and we find him explaining in his letters to his brother how stood the Portuguese affairs, and Spanish, and Austrian, and Greek, and Turkish. It is not necessary, in this short memoir, to explain how the Turkish and Egyptian fleets had been destroyed at Navarino by us and our allies, seeing that Lord Palmerston had not been concerned in the matter. But it is pleasant to see, in looking over the details as given in his life, how anxious he already was for freedom in Portugal and in Greece, and how steadily he was opposed to Prince Metternich and Austrian obstinacy. Three or four articles of that creed, to which he was true during his whole life, now crop up. These, we should say, were Catholic emancipation and the maintenance of English influence at home and abroad, and, above all things, the suppression of the slave trade. Greece was then fighting for the possession of herself, and Lord Palmerston was eager that we should take her part. He was as strongly opposed to Turkey in oppressing Greece as he was eager afterwards in defending Turkey from Russian oppression. But in all these matters he spoke and wrote with an evident desire that England should be supreme; and, though he was no more concerned in them than as one of an entire Cabinet which was concerned, he was forming that character in which we find it difficult to say whether he was hereafter most to be blamed as a bully or to be praised as a patriot. Had he brought England into disgrace or suffering, or, worse still, to ruin, the question would have answered itself. He would have gone down the valley of time nearly forgotten, and this little book would never have been written. But he played his game boldly, and dared to run the risk of dismissal, of personal hatred, and perhaps of impeachment. From first to last he played it successfully, and has obtained the goodwill of his countrymen, high reputation throughout Europe, and a fame which is due rather to his courage than his genius.