Greeks were unreasonable, and that therefore, in terms of the arrangement made in London, Mr. Wyse was justified in resorting to coercion without further instructions. Mr. Wyse may have been mistaken in supposing that M. Gros retired from the negotiations in the circumstances which, according to the London Convention, would have justified a resort to coercion without further reference to Lord Palmerston. If that were the case, the Government had a good defence; for it would have been unfair to censure them for Mr. Wyse's blunder. But was it the case? How could Mr. Wyse have blundered in interpreting the conditions of the London Convention, if no instructions in accordance with that Convention had been sent to him? The complaint was that the Foreign Secretary had neglected to send these instructions, and a close and careful examination of Palmerston's own Blue-book, fails to bring to light the slightest proof that they ever were sent. Therefore it was clear (1), that Britain had broken a binding diplomatic compact with France, and (2), that this breach of faith had enabled Mr. Wyse at Athens to extort by force from a small, weak Power more onerous terms than the British Government had agreed with France to accept in London. The House of Lords took this view of the matter, and when the debate ended, in the grey dawn of a summer's morning, it was found on division that there was a majority of 37 against the Government.

Some members of the Cabinet were for resignation. Many friends of the Government thought that Palmerston should personally offer the Queen his resignation, begging her not to accept that of his colleagues if they tendered theirs. But the Foreign Secretary made no offer to resign, and at first the Cabinet resolved to take no more notice of the vote of censure in the Upper House. Ultimately, they found that they must notice it, and as their Foreign Policy as a whole was impugned, they decided not to abandon the Foreign Secretary. On the 20th of June, Lord John Russell explained why he would not resign. He gave two reasons-one good and the other bad,-the first being one of which the Queen approved. It was that a change of Government, in consequence of a resolution of the House of Lords, would be unconstitutional, because, in his opinion, it might be dangerous even to the House of Lords to lay upon it the responsibility of controlling her Majesty's Executive. Two precedents, one a hundred years old, and one taken from 1833, when the Peers, on the motion of the Duke of Wellington, censured Lord Grey's Foreign Policy in Portugal, were ingeniously cited by Lord John Russell in support of this constitutional doctrine. But his second reason was characteristically Palmerstonian. He said that the House of Lords had laid it down, that it was the duty of the British Government to see that British subjects in Foreign States got full protection from the laws of those States. That was a limitation of duty which Lord John Russell refused to recognise, because, said he, a Foreign State might make bad laws, and it would be the duty of England to prevent her subjects from being injured by those laws. No principle is more clearly established in international law than this -that a Sovereign State has an absolute right to dictate the terms on which

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THE CIVIS ROMANUS SUM DOCTRINE.

435

any alien shall abide on its soil.* If the alien does not like the law of the Foreign State, he has no business to call on his own countrymen to defend him by force of arms in refusing to obey it, seeing that it was not at their request or in their interest, but of his own free will, and in pursuit of his own fortune, he went to live or traffic abroad. In fact, to lay it down that England might levy war on any country, whose laws Englishmen residing in that country considered inequitable, was tantamount to proclaiming her hostis humani generis. Yet such was the doctrine which the House of Commons, in spite of the protests of the Tories, of Radicals like Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, and Peelites like Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone, cheerfully accepted from the Whigs at this period. The only thing that can be said in its defence is that it is a doctrine which the House has never dared to apply to a stronger Power than Greece--never to a Power like Russia, which deports English Jews, nor like Germany, which deported British residents, personally obnoxious to Prince Bismarck, in the most arbitrary manner. It is doubtful if it would even dare to apply it to an autonomous colony like Victoria, had her Government. refused, as was threatened, to permit the Irish informer, James Carey, to reside within her frontier.

Having decided to defy the House of Lords, the Government hit on an ingenious plan for neutralising the vote of censure. They put up Mr. Roebuck on the 21st of June to move a vote of confidence in them not touching the Greek dispute, but approving generally of their Foreign Policy as one likely "to preserve untarnished the honour and dignity of this country." The debate, which lasted five days, was à veritable tournament of Titans. On both sides speeches were made that touch the highest point to which Parliamentary eloquence can reach. Mr. Cockburn, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, delivered an oration by which, at one bound, he leapt into the first rank of British orators. Peel delivered the last speech he was fated to make in the great assembly, on which for years he had played with the easy mastery of a musician on his favourite instrument. Palmerston himself spoke for four hours and a quarter with more than his usual dash and intrepidity, and with surprising moderation and good taste-basing his case virtually on the application of the civis Romanus sum doctrine to British Foreign Policy. This was the point in it which Mr. Gladstone demolished in a passionate protest, that may be said to have become classical. But in the end the Government triumphed by a majority of 46! Yet, on the face of the facts, they had absolutely no case. Why, then, were they victorious? For many reasons. In the then divided state of parties, the Government was felt to be the only possible Government. Palmerston, by adroitly spreading the report that the attack on

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Semi-barbaric

This, of course, applies only to States within the European comity of nations. Asiatic or African States-e.g., Turkey and Tunis-by special treaties or 'capitulations," surrendered to England extra-territorial jurisdiction over cases in which her subjects resident in their territories were concerned.

him was really fomented by the agents of the despotic Powers, whose policy he had persistently opposed, won strong support from the Radicals. The Whigs felt that as the Foreign Policy of the Government as a whole was

attacked, they were bound to defend the Ministry, quite irrespective of Palmerston's possibly objectionable method of carrying out that policy. Moreover, it was undoubtedly a weak point in the tactics of the Opposition, that they did not venture to submit in the House of Commons, the motion of censure which they had carried in the House of Lords. But though Lord Palmerston's triumph was complete, the Queen continued to be dissatisfied

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COURT INTRIGUE AGAINST PALMERSTON.

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with his reckless manner of managing the Foreign Office. Pressure was put on him by the concurrence of Lord John Russell, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Clarendon to take another department, which, however, he refused to do. For the time-confident in his popularity-he was able to

hold his position, but ere a year had elapsed her Majesty's warnings were fulfilled, and Lord John was simply compelled to force him to retire.* It must be here told how this whole controversy ended. Before the debate closed, it was announced that we had accepted, with some trifling modifications

* The details of this intrigue, it is understood, were recorded by Mr. Greville, but the publication of them was withheld by the editor of his " 'Journal," for reasons which may easily be guessed. The whole story will probably not be told during the lifetime of the Queen.

in detail, the French proposals made on behalf of Greece. The demands of the claimants in support of whom we had been brought to the brink of war with France, were finally assessed at £10,000-about one-thirtieth part of the sum they originally asked!

No other question of Foreign Policy agitated the House of Commons in 1850, save Mr. Hutt's proposal to withdraw the British war-ships engaged in suppressing the West African slave trade. The cost of the squadron had made its maintenance unpopular even with Liberals, and when Lord John Russell threatened to stake the existence of his Ministry on it, the Queen was distressed to learn that there was every prospect of his being defeated, at a time when a change of Government would have produced the utmost confusion. A meeting of the Liberal Party was convened by the Prime Minister at Downing Street, and pressure, which they hardly dared to resist, induced the malcontents to support the Government. Mr. Hutt's motion was lost, many Ministerialists, however, complaining bitterly that the Prime Minister had concussed them into voting against their convictions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SOME EPOCH-MARKING LEGISLATION.

Lord John Russell's Colonial Bill-Mr. Gladstone's Scheme for Colonial Church Courts-The Colonial Bills Mangled-More English Doles for Ireland - An Irish Reform Bill-Lord John Russell proposes to abolish the Lord-Lieutenancy-The Queen's Irish Policy-Her Offer to Establish a Royal Residence in IrelandThe Bungled Budget-The Demand for Retrenchment-The Tories insist on a Reduction of Official Salaries-Lord John Russell's Commission on the Universities-The Queen and the Church-The Ecclesiastical Appeals Bill-The "Gorham Case"-Death of Peel-The Queen's Sorrow-Peel's Character and Career-The Queen's Alarm about Prince Albert's Health-The Coming Exhibition-The Commandershipin-Chief-Pate's Assault on the Queen-Aftacks on Prince Albert-The Queen and Lord Palmerston-The Haynau Incident-No Popery Agitation-The Crystal Palace.

FAR more interesting, however, was the Colonial legislation of the Government in 1850, which indeed might be termed epoch-marking. The Queen had at the opening of the Session indicated in her Speech from the Throne that a measure extending Constitutional government to the Colonies would be introduced. It was known that she was personally of opinion that the Colonies were giving promise of a growth so rapid, that it would be impossible for any length of time to hold them in the leading-strings of the Colonial Office. The incessant attacks which had been made on Lord Grey in Parliament and in the Press merely served to confirm the Queen in this opinion. It was, therefore, with great satisfaction that she discovered that men of light and leading on both sides of the House of Commons were so far agreed on the subject, that it was deemed practicable by Lord John Russell to minimise the friction between the Colories and the Colonial Office, by conceding to the Colonists