Lord Melbourne, however, induced him to withdraw his resignation, assuring him that it would involve the dissolution of the Government. “And,” he added, “how another is to be formed in the present state of parties and opinions I see not.” The Cabinet yielded, and Lord Palmerston had his way, as he usually did have, by a singular mixture of undaunted pluck and rectitude of purpose. I do not venture to assert that in this Turkish question Lord Palmerston did that which the welfare of the East of Europe certainly demanded. It is useless now to think whether the Bulgarian horrors might have been avoided in 1876 had not Lord Palmerston supported the Sultan in 1840, as it is also to argue that England could not have maintained her power in Europe and her hold over Egypt had she not then supported Turkey. Considerations of matters so intricate are too difficult for a little book such as this, however fitting they may be for deeper and longer volumes. My business is here to explain the nature of the conduct and character of Lord Palmerston. And when I speak of his rectitude of purpose I allude rather to his motives than to his actions. To do the best he could for English interests, and to do that best in an honest and manly manner, was his object; and the world may therefore give him credit for rectitude of purpose. The world must give him credit also for positive success.
Just when Palmerston was offering to resign his seat in the Cabinet, meaning to show thereby that his power of carrying his own views in the Government was not to be contested seriously, though questions concerning it might be raised, a whole series of pamphlets appeared against him, in which he was accused of selling his own country to Russia. These charges came chiefly from one Mr. Urquhart, who had been put into the Civil Service by Lord Palmerston himself, and had since filled himself with an idea that his former employer had become false to his country. Mr. Urquhart’s furor was so like madness that it would not be here mentioned, were it not worth our while to spend a page in showing the kind of things which were published at the time. There was a Mr. Doubleday, who, at a meeting at Newcastle, spoke as follows;--“I hereby declare my conviction that Lord Palmerston is a traitor, and ought to be impeached; and, if found guilty before a tribunal of his country, his head ought to roll upon the scaffold!” “I happen to know that this man was, a few years ago, as poor as a person called a lord could well be conceived to be,--that he was hunted about, and had half a dozen executions in his house at once,--and now, without any visible cause, without any visible means of making a better livelihood, this man has suddenly become rich, has paid all his debts, and is living upon the fat of the land. What rational conclusion can one come to but that he is enabled to do this by means of Russian gold?” For these calumnies there is not a tittle of excuse. There was not a word of truth in them. We are sometimes inclined to think that bitterness of speech against public men has now attained a worse acrimony than it ever did. But when we look back at some of these speeches against Lord Palmerston, we shall see that it is not so.
