1849] DIFFICULTIES IN GREECE 201 Claims of Eng disregarded. her own influence in the East, and seeing a road to that object rather in flattering the hopes of Greece for increased territory than in support of good government, had sided with the Absolutists, leaving England the sole supporter of constitutional rule. The Government and administration were deplorably bad. One Prime Minister, Coletti, had been himself little better than a leader of brigands. Justice was of a violent and arbitrary sort, and the judges were dependent on the Ministry. Any demands raised by the English against the Government, and the bad administration afforded abundant opportunity for dispute, were certain to encounter the opposition of the King, supported by the advice of all the diplomatic body. Such questions had arisen. Ionians, claiming to be British subjects, had been maltreated, the boat's crew of a Queen's ship roughly handled, and in two cases the lish subjects money claims of English subjects against the Government disregarded. They were trivial enough in themselves; a piece of land belonging to a Mr. Finlay, a Scotchman, had been incorporated into the royal garden, and the price-no doubt somewhat exorbitant -which he set upon it refused. The house of Don Pacifico, a Jew, a native of Gibraltar, had been sacked by a mob, without due interference on the part of the police. He demanded compensation for illusage, for property destroyed, and for the loss of certain papers, the only proof as he declared of a somewhat doubtful claim against the Portuguese Government. Such claims in the ordinary course of things should have been made in the Greek Law Court. But Lord Palmerston, placing no trust in the justice to be there obtained, made them a direct national claim upon the Government. For several years on various pretences the settlement of the question had been postponed, and Palmerston had even warned Russia that he should some day have to put strong pressure upon the Greek Court to obtain the discharge of their debts. At length, at the close of 1849, English fleet his patience became exhausted. Admiral Parker, with sent to the the British fleet, was ordered to the Piræus. Mr. Wyse, Jan. 1850. the English Ambassador, embarked in it. The claims were again formally laid before the King, and upon their being declined the Piræus was blockaded, ships of the Greek navy captured, and merchant vessels secured by way of material guarantee for payment. The French and the Russians were indignant at this unexpected act of vigour. The Court of the Czar found in it an opportunity for revenging itself for the late action of England with regard to the Hungarian refugees, and sent and published a strongly worded and threatening despatch Piræus. French media tion unsuccessful. to Lord Palmerston. The French, on the other hand, displeased at the idea of the matter being settled without reference to themselves, made an offer of their good offices as mediators. The offer was accepted; but on the distinct understanding that neither the principle involved, nor, except in certain cases, the amount demanded, were to be subjects of discussion. Their emissary was to use his influence to persuade the Greeks to meet the claim. Should he fail, England was to be free again to have recourse to its own means of coercion. Baron Gros was the emissary sent. During his negotiation the blockade was suspended. He reached Athens on the 5th of March, and after six weeks of delay and argument— during which, as Palmerston thought, he had constantly passed the limits of mediation, and adopted the position of arbitrator-on the 21st of April he declared that his negotiation was unsuccessful. But the French, disliking a treaty contracted under English guns, had meanwhile employed their Minister in London, Drouyn de L'Huys, to agree with Lord Palmerston upon a Convention, settling the terms on which the quarrel might be ended. The Convention was agreed to on the 18th of April. A steamer had been sent from France informing Baron Gros of the probability of such a Convention; it arrived on the 24th of April. But no corresponding information had been sent to Mr. Wyse. He therefore refused to renew negotiations Greece yields to force. April 1850. through the French, again proceeded to coercive measures, and on the 26th the Greek Government yielded. The French thus found that after all the business had been concluded without their participation. As Palmerston pleaded that the delay which had occurred in communicating with Mr. Wyse as to the Convention was the effect of accident, the French demanded that the accident should be corrected, and that the Convention and not Mr. Wyse's terms should form the basis of the final agreement. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, thinking that on the withdrawal of Baron Gros from the negotiation England had again entered on her full rights, justified Mr. Wyse in renewing the blockade, and held to the arrangement then made. In extreme anger the French charged him with duplicity and recalled their ambassador from England. The matter was too small to cause any risk of war; but the Cabinet thought it so serious as to require some concession, and finally on all points not already completed the Convention was accepted. For the time this trumpery little affair caused the greatest excitement, and being regarded as a typical instance of Lord Palmerston's management of the Foreign Office, it formed the ground of a very seri 1850] LORD PALMERSTON 203 the House of June 17, 1850. ous attack upon the Government. In the House of Lords in a great debate in June the foreign policy of the Government Attack on was arraigned, and Lord Palmerston was accused of Palmerston in having alienated the whole of Europe. His constant Lords. interference on behalf of the Liberals, it was said, had set in array against us the absolute Powers of Europe, without in any way advancing the cause of liberty, for on all sides those absolute Powers were for the time successful. His conduct had not even been consistent. The national aspirations of the Duchies of Holstein and Sleswig had not been supported. Anxious, with much show of reason, to attach themselves to the German nation, they had found assistance in the Assembly of Frankfort and the Prussian King. But England had throughout, while assuming the part of mediator, favoured the maintenance of the unity of the Danish dominions, and thus our position, both with regard to Prussia and to all those desirous of German unity, had been injured. The appearance of the fleet in the Dardanelles, contrary to treaty, had excited the hostility of Russia and Austria, and now, while alienating our one real ally, France, we had exhibited ourselves in the odious attitude of a bully, and laid ourselves open to reproaches so insulting as those of the Russian despatch of February. The resolution condemnatory of our foreign policy, supported by Lord Stanley and Lord Aberdeen, was carried by a large majority. Lower House. June 25, 1850. Had Lord John Russell thrown over Palmerston it might have been regarded as a personal attack; but he was too true to his friends and too constitutional in his views to adopt such a line. It became necessary to take some steps to vindicate Government. This was managed by the introduction by Mr. Roebuck of a resolution, declaring the approval of the House of Lord Palmerston's management of foreign affairs. The debate which ensued, Palmerston's and which lasted four nights, is one of the most defence in the celebrated on record. At length Palmerston rose, and in a speech of nearly five hours' duration defended the whole course of his administration, a speech which is said to have been more admirable than convincing, but which, at all events, had the effect of obtaining for Government a majority of 46, and of retaining Lord Palmerston in office; while by its essentially manly and English tone it won for him that strong popularity which subsequently rendered him so exceptionally the Minister of the nation. It drew from Sir Robert Peel the observation that "It has made us all proud of him." Yet Sir Robert Peel had spoken against the resolution. Nor is it possible to say that a policy which allied against it such men as Starley, Aberdeen, Canning, Sir James Graham, Sir William Molesworth, Sidney Herbert, Gladstone, Cobden and Peel, was not open to some stricture. But in fact Lord Palmerston, conservative in many of his tendencies, was in his foreign policy democratic. Judged from the point of view of the ordinary statesman, who saw in England only one of a group of nations arranged upon dynastic principles, the policy which had, as a matter of fact, shocked every Court in Europe, could not but be blameworthy. From those who regarded England as the guardian and champion of the great idea of liberty, and from those also who rightly or wrongly considered it the duty of England to raise a constant protest in favour of its own position, the policy could scarcely fail to elicit warm admiration. Death of Sir The debate of June 28th was remarkable, not only for the triumph of Palmerston, but because it was the last occasion on which the voice of Sir Robert Peel was heard in the House. The next day, while he was riding up Constitution Hill, he was thrown from his horse, and received injuries which speedily proved fatal. Sir Robert Peel was a typical English statesman, not gifted with that insight, that comprehension of the contest of forces with which he is surrounded and its probable outcome which makes the great man, but ready to treat with admirable sagacity and practical power each question as it arises; not a leader of public opinion, but ready to accept and throw into its best form opinion already ripened, and by skilful interweaving of the new and old, saving the country from the disastrous results of sudden innovation. In the first part of his life he was hampered by the creeds of his youth and entangled with party ties. He opposed with a tenacity not creditable to his foresight the removal of disabilities from the Roman Catholics and the reform of the constituencies. But after the passage of the Reform Bill he appears to have reconsidered his position. From that time onward it is difficult not to recognise in him the national statesman rather than the party leader. Under the English system it was impossible for him to use his influence without a party at his back. His attachment to the fundamental structure of the constitution, and his dislike to rapid change naturally allied him with the Tories. But reconstituted by him the party ceased to be merely obstructive, and not without some mistrust found itself led into a course of moderate and progressive advance. Although it is difficult to point exact moment at which his views were formed, it is evident 1850] SIR ROBERT PEEL'S DEATH 205 that he recognised in the middle-class the real element of national strength, and shook himself free from the aristocratic and territorial influences of his younger days. It was upon this view that he rested his financial and commercial policy. The production of wealth and (as far as was consistent with the principles of political economy which he had embraced) the well-being of those who produced it appeared to him to be the objects an English statesman should pursue, implying, as they did to his mind, the maintenance of stable order and a friendly and peaceful attitude towards other countries. He apparently hoped to educate by degrees the party which he led to accept the financial system which would secure these ends, and of which the repeal of the Corn Laws was a part. The terrible outbreak of famine and disease in Ireland, which, as is evident from his letters, moved him deeply, drove him from this course, and obliged him suddenly to offer the completion of the system to his friends as yet untrained to accept it. It was the belief that he was charged with the fate of England, and not of party, which allowed him, though not without much effort, to break loose from his political relations, to forego, as he well understood must be the result, all further hope of office, and to submit to the bitter assaults with which he was assailed. The position which he regarded himself as holding when in office he continued to hold after his fall. The consistent friend and wise adviser of the Liberal Ministry, to whom alone the carrying out of his ideas could be intrusted, he passed his last years in anxiously watching the effect of what he had done, and, without a following and without office, remained to the end of his life the most respected and powerful statesman in the country. The triumph of Palmerston in the late debate, and his maintenance in the position of Foreign Minister, was a matter of some The Sleswigmoment, for war was still raging between Denmark Holstein War. and the Duchies of Sleswig and Holstein; and in the course of the autumn there appeared to be every probability that Prussia and Austria would come to blows. The legal position of the SleswigHolstein question is intricate, the principle at issue very simple. The inhabitants of Holstein and a considerable portion of those of Sleswig, speaking the German language, desired to be admitted to any new form of confederation arrived at, and the upholders of the unity of Germany were eagerly determined that this junction should be effected. It would appear that legally Holstein had always been a German fief, Sleswig nearly always a Danish fief. But an old law had declared that Sleswig should always be joined to Holstein, and the law of suc |