Lord Palmerston. Anthony Trollope
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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.
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