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.