October-beginning of December
Written for the *' New York Tribune," by Dr. MARX, and communicated by him to ui.
FIRST ARTICLE. RUGCIEHO is again and again fascinated by the falte charms of Aid ne, which he knows to disguise an old witch—
Sans tetth, sauf eyes, Sam taste, sans averythiag and the knight-errant cannot withstand falling in love with her anew whom he knows to have transmuted all her former adorers into asses and other beasts. The English public is another Ruggiero, and Palmerston is another Aïcine. Although a septuagenarian, and since 1847 occupying the public stage, almost without interruption, he contrives to remain a novelty, and to evoke all the hopes that used to centre on an untried and promisiog youth. With one foot in the grave, lie it supposed not yet to have begun his true career. If he were to die to-morrow, all Kngland would be surprised at learning that he has been a Secretary of State half this century.
If not a good statesman of all work, he is at least a good actor of all work. He succeeds in the comic as in the heroic — in pathos as in fa-miliarity — in the tragedy as in thefarce : although the latter may be more congenial to his feelings. He is no first class orator, but he is an accomplished debater. Possessed of a wonderful memory, of great experience, of a consummate tact, of a never-failing presence d'etprit, of a gentlemanlike versatility, of the most minute knowledge of parliamentary tricks, intrigues, parties, and men, he handles difficult cases in an admirable manner and with a pleasant volu-bility, sticking to]the prejudices and susceptibi-lities of his public, secured from any surprise by his cynic impudence, from any self-confession by his selfish dexterity, from running into a passion by his profound frivolity, his perfect indifference, and his aristocratic contempt. Being an er-ceedingly happy joker, he ingratiates himself wtih everybody. Never losing his temper, he imposes on an impassioned antagonist. When unable to master a subject, he knows how to play with it. If wanting of general views, he is always ready to tissue elegant generalities.
Endowed with a restless and indefatigable spicit, he abbors inactivity, and pines for agitation, if not for action. A country like England allows him, of course/to busy himself in every corner of the earth. What he aims at is not the substance, but the mere appearance of success.
If he can do nothing, he will devise anything. Where he dares not interfere, he intermeddles. Not able to vie with a strong enemy, he impro-vises a weak one.
Being no man of deep designs, pondering on no combinations of long standing, pursuing no great object, he embarks in dilkculties with a view to disentangle himself in a showy manner. He wants complications to feed his activity, and when he finds them not ready, he will create them. He eiults in snow-conflicts, show-battles, show enemies, diplomatical notes to be exchanged, ships to be ordered to sail, the whole movement ending for him in violent parliamentary debates, which are sure to prepare bim an ephemeral success, the constant and the only object of all his exertions. He manages internal conflicts like an artist, driving matters to a certain point, retreating when they threaten to become serious, but having got, at all events, the dramatic excitement he wants. In his eyes, the movement of history itself is nothing but a pastime, expressly invented for the private satisfaction of the noble Viscount Pslmerstnn of Palmerston.
Yielding to foreign influence in facts, he Opposes it inwards. Having inherited from Canning England's mission to propagate Constitutionalism on the Continent- he. i never in
the act of piracy, while admitting that Denmark had evidenced no hostility whateier towards Great Britain, he contended that thiy were right in bombarding its capital and stea'ing its fleet, because tbey had to prevent Dan sh neutrality from being, perhaps, converted intoopen hostility by the compulsion of France. Ths was the new law of nations, proclaimed by ny lord Palmerston.
When agsin speecbifying.'we fird that English minister par excellente, engaged in the defence of foreign troops, called over fron the continent to England, with the express nissioa of maintaining forcibly the oligarchic mle, to establish which William had, in 1688, come over from Holland, with his Dutch troops. Palmerston answered to the well-founded "apprehensions for the liberties of the country," originating from the presence of the King's Gernan Legion, in a very flippant manner. Why siould we not have 16,000 of those foreigners at home; while you know, that we employ " a far larger proportion of foreigners abroad." (liaise of Commons, March 10, 1812.)
When similar apprebensiois for the constitution arose from the large standing army, maintained siince 1815, he found *'a sufficient protection of| the constitution in the very constitution of our army," a large proportion of its officers being " men of property and' con-nexions." (House of Comnons, Marcha, 1816.) When the large standing army was attacked from a financial point of view, he made the curious discovery that * much of our financial embarrassments had bem caused by our former low peace establishment' (House of Commons, March 8, 1816)
When the "borders of the country," and the " misery of the peo»le" were contrasted with the lavish military expenditure, he reminded parliament that th<ae burdens and that misery " were the price which we (viz.,, the English oligarchy) agreed to pay for our freedom and independence." House of Commons, May 16, 1828.)
In his eyes, military despotism was not to be apprehended from the exertions of "those self-called, but misled Reformers, who demand that sort of reform in the country which, according to every first principle of government, must end, if it were acceded to, in a military despotism." (House of Commons, June 14, 1820.)
While large standing armies were thus his panacea for maintaining the constitution of the country, flogging was his panacea for maintaining the constitution of the army. He defended it in the debates on che Mutiny Bill, on the 5th of March, 1824, he declared it tobe "absolutely indispensable" en March 11, 1825, he recommended it again on March 10, 1828 ; he sto d by it in the deba.es of April, 1833, and he proved an amateur of flogging on every subsequent occasion.
There existed no abuse in the army, he did not find plausible reasons for, if it happened to foster the interests of aristocratic parasites. Thus, for instarce, in the debates on the Sale of Commission. (House of Commons, March 12, 1828.)
Lord Palmerston likes to parade his constant exertions for the establishment of religious liberty. Now, he voted against Lord Russell's motion for the Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts. Why .: Because he was " a warm and zealous friend to religious liberty," and could, therefore, not allow ibe Dissenters to be relieved from " imaginary grievances, while real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics." (House of Commons, Feb. 26, 1828.)
In proof of his zeal for religious liberty he informs us of his " regret to see the increasing numbers of the Dissenters. It is my wish that the Established Church should be the predomi-
Part of a page of The People's Paper with the first article of Marx's series Lord Palmerston
First Article[3]
[The People's Paper, No. 77, October 22, 1853]
Ruggiero is again and again fascinated by the false charms of Alcina, which he knows to disguise an old witch—
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,
and the knight-errant cannot withstand falling in love with her anew whom he knows to have transmuted all her former adorers into asses and other beasts. The English public is another Ruggiero, and Palmerston is another Alcina. Although a septuagenarian, and since 1807 occupying the public stage, almost without interruption, he contrives to remain a novelty, and to evoke all the hopes that used to centre on an untried and promising youth. With one foot in the grave, he is supposed not yet to have begun his true career. If he were to die to-morrow, all England would be surprised at learning that he has been a Secretary of State half this century.
If not a good statesman of all work, he is at least a good actor of all
The article published in the New-York Daily Tribune on October 19, 1853 began as follows: "The Eastern complications have worked a great change in England, if not as to parties, at least as to the men at the head of parties. Lord Palmerston has again become a popular favorite. He is in everybody's mouth, he is the only man to save England, he is confidently announced as the indispensable Premier of any modified Cabinet, extolled alike by the Tories, the Whigs, the self-styled patriots, the press, and public opinion in general.
"So extraordinary a phenomenon is the Palmerston mania that one is tempted to suppose it to be of a merely fictitious character, got up not for home consumption, but as an article of export, destined for foreign use. This, however, would be a mistake."—Ed.
Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7. Ruggiero and Alcina are characters from Ariosto's poem L'Orlando furioso.—Ed.
work. He succeeds in the comic as in the heroic — in pathos as in familiarity — in the tragedy as in the farce: although the latter may be more congenial to his feelings. He is no first class orator, but he is an accomplished debater. Possessed of a wonderful memory, of great experience, of a consummate tact, of a never-failing présence d'esprit* of a gentlemanlike versatility,[15] of the most minute knowledge of parliamentary tricks, intrigues, parties, and men, he handles difficult cases in an admirable manner and with a pleasant volubility, sticking to the prejudices and susceptibilities of his public, secured from any surprise by his cynic impudence, from any self-confession by his selfish dexterity, from running into a passion by his profound frivolity, his perfect indifference, and his aristocratic contempt. Being an exceedingly happy joker, he ingratiates himself with everybody. Never losing his temper, he imposes on an impassioned antagonist. When unable to master a subject, he knows how to play with it. If wanting of general views, he is always ready to tissue elegant generalities.
Endowed with a restless and indefatigable spirit, he abhors inactivity, and pines for agitation, if not for action. A country like England allows him, of course, to busy himself in every corner of the earth. What he aims at is not the substance, but the mere appearance of success.
If he can do nothing, he will devise anything. Where he dares not interfere, he intermeddles. Not able to vie with a strong enemy, he improvises a weak one.
Being no man of deep designs, pondering on no combinations of long standing, persuing no great object, he embarks in difficulties with a view to disentangle himself in a showy manner. He wants complications to feed his activity, and when he finds them not ready, he will create them. He exults in show-conflicts, show-battles, show-enemies, diplomatical notes to be exchanged, ships to be ordered to sail, the whole movement ending for him in violent parliamentary debates, which are sure to prepare him an ephemeral success, the constant and the only object of all his exertions. He manages internal0 conflicts like an artist, driving matters to a certain point, retreating when they threaten to become serious, but having got, at all events, the dramatic excitement he wants. In his eyes, the movement of history itself is nothing but a pastime, expressly
Presence of mind.— Ed. The New-York Daily Tribune has "variety of talent" instead of "versatility".— Ed.
The New-York Daily Tribune has "international".— Ed.
invented for the private satisfaction of the noble Viscount Palmerston of Palmerston.(1)
Yielding to foreign influence in facts, he opposes it in words. Having inherited from Canning England's mission to propagate Constitutionalism on the Continent, he is never in need of a theme to pique the national prejudices, and to counteract revolution abroad, and, at the same time, to hold awake the suspicious jealousy of foreign powers. Having succeeded in this easy manner to become the
bête noire of the continental courts, he could not fail in being set up as the truly English minister at home. Although a Tory by origin, he has contrived to introduce into the management of foreign affairs all the shams and contradictions that form the essence of Whiggism. He knows how to conciliate a democratic phraseology with oligarchic views,(2) how to cover the peacemongering policy of the middle classes with the haughty language of England's aristocratic past — how to appear as the aggressor where he connives, and as the defender where he betrays — how to manage an apparent enemy, and how to exasperate a prétendant ally — how to find himself, at the opportune moment of the dispute, on the side of the stronger against the weak, and how to utter brave words in the act of running away.
Accused by the one party of being in the pay of Russia, he is suspected by the other of Carbonarism.[257] If, in 1848, he had to defend himself against the motion of impeachment for having acted as the minister of Nicholas, he had, in 1850, the satisfaction of being persecuted by a conspiracy of foreign ambassadors, which was successful in the House of Lords, but baffled in the House of Commons.[258] If he betrayed foreign peoples, he did it with great politeness — politeness being the small coin of the devil, which he gives in change for the life-blood of his dupes. If the oppressors were always sure of his active support, the oppressed did never want a great ostentation of his rhetorical generosity. Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Germans, found him in office, whenever they were crushed, but their despots always suspected him of secret conspiracy with the victims they had allowed him to make. Till now, in all instances, it was a probable chance of success to have him for one's adversary, and a sure chance of ruin to have him for one's friend. But, if this art of diplomacy does not shine in the actual results of his foreign negotiations, it shines the more brilliantly in the construction he induced the English people to lay upon them, by accepting phrases for facts, phantasies for realities, and high-sounding pretexts for shabby motives.
Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, deriving his title from a peerage of Ireland, was nominated Lord of the Admiralty in 1807, on the formation of the Duke of Portland's Administration. In 1809, he became Secretary of War, and he continued to hold this office till May, 1828. In 1830 he went over, very skilfully too, to the Whigs, who made him their permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Excepting the intervals of Tory administration, from November 1834 to April 1835, and from 1841 to 1846, he is responsible for the whole foreign policy England has pursued from the revolution of 1830 to December 1851.
Is it not a very curious thing to find, at first view, that Quixote of "free institutions," and that Pindarus of the "glories of the constitutional system," a permanent and an eminent member of the Tory administrations of Mr. Perceval, the Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Canning, Lord Goderich, and the Duke of Wellington, during the long epoch of the Anti-Jacobin war carried on, the monster-debt contracted, the Corn Laws promulgated,[259] foreign mercenaries stationed on the English soil, the people — to borrow an expression from his colleague, Lord Sidmouth,[3]—"bled," from time to time, the press gagged, meetings suppressed, the mass of the nation disarmed, individual liberty suspended together with regular jurisdiction, the whole country placed as it were in a state of siege — in one word, during the most infamous and most reactionary epoch of English history?
His debut in parliamentary life is a characteristic one. On February 3, 1808, he rose to defend — what?—secrecy in the working of diplomacy, and the most disgraceful act ever committed by one nation against another nation, viz., the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the capture of the Danish fleet, at the time when England professed to be in profound peace with Denmark.[261] As to the former point, he stated that, secrecy;" but he went farther : "I also object generally to making public the working of diplomacy, because it is the tendency of disclosures in that department to shut up future sources of information."
Vidocq would have defended the identical cause in the identical terms. As to the act of piracy, while admitting that Denmark had evidenced no hostility whatever towards Great Britain, he contended that they were right in bombarding its capital and stealing its fleet, because they had to prevent Danish neutrality from being, perhaps, converted into open hostility by the compulsion of France. This was the new law of nations, proclaimed by my lord Palmerston.
When again speechifying, we find that English minister par excellence, engaged in the defence of foreign troops, called over from the Continent to England, with the express mission of maintaining forcibly the oligarchic rule, to establish which William had, in 1688, come over from Holland with his Dutch troops. Palmerston answered to the well-founded "apprehensions for the liberties of the country," originating from the presence of the King's German Legion, in a very flippant manner. Why should we not have 16,000 of those foreigners at home; while you know, that we employ "a far larger proportion of foreigners abroad." (House of Commons, March 10, 1812.)
When similar apprehensions for the constitution b arose from the large standing army, maintained since 1815, he found "a sufficient protection of the constitution in the very constitution of our army," a large proportion of its officers being "men of property and connexions." (House of Commons, March 8, 1816.)
When the large standing army was attacked from a financial point of view, he made the curious discovery that "much of our financial embarrassments had been caused by our former low peace establishment." (House of Commons, April 25, 1816.)
When the "burdens of the country," and the "misery of the people" were contrasted with the lavish military expenditure, he reminded Parliament that those burdens and that misery "were the price which we" (viz., the English oligarchy) "agreed to pay for our freedom and independence." (House of Commons, May 16, 1820.)
In his eyes, military despotism was not to be apprehended from the exertions of
"those self-called, but misled Reformers, who demand that sort of reform in the country which, according to every first principle of government, must end, if it were acceded to, in a military despotism." (House of Commons, June 14, 1820.)
While large standing armies were thus his panacea for maintaining the constitution of the country, flogginga was his panacea for maintaining the constitution of the army. He defended it in the debates on the Mutiny Bill,[262] on the 5th of March, 1824, he declared it to be "absolutely indispensable" on March 11, 1825, he recommended it again on March 10, 1828; he stood by it in the debates of April, 1833, and he proved an amateur of flogging on every subsequent occasion.
There existed no abuse in the army, he did not find plausible reasons for, if it happened to foster the interests of aristocratic parasites. Thus, for instance, in the debates on the Sale of Commission. (House of Commons, March 12, 1828.)
Lord Palmerston likes to parade his constant exertions for the establishment of religious liberty. Now, he voted against Lord Russell's motion for the Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts.[263]
Why? Because he was "a warm and zealous friend to religious liberty," and could, therefore, not allow the Dissenters[264] to be relieved from "imaginary grievances, while real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics." (House of Commons, Feb. 26, 1828.)
In proof of his zeal for religious liberty he informs us of his "regret to see the increasing numbers of the Dissenters. It is my wish that the Established Church should be the predominant Church in this country," and it is his wish "that the Established Church should be fed at the expense of the misbelievers." His jocose lordship accuses the rich Dissenters of affording churches for the poor ones,b while
"with the Church of England it is the poor alone who feel the want of Church accommodation.... It would be preposterous to say, that the poor ought to subscribe for churches out of their small earnings." (House of Commons, April 9, 1824.)
It would be, of course, more preposterous yet to say, that the rich members of the Established Church ought to subscribe for the church out of their large earnings.
Let us now look at his exertions for Catholic Emancipation,[265]
one of his great "claims" on the gratitude of the Irish people. I shall not dwell upon the circumstances, that, having declared himself for Catholic Emancipation, when a member of the Canning Ministry, he entered, nevertheless, the Wellington Ministry, avowedly hostile to that emancipation. Perhaps Lord Palmerston considered religious liberty as one of the .Rights of Man, not to be intermeddled with by Legislature. He may answer for himself,
"Although I wish the Catholic claims to be considered, I never will admit those claims to stand upon the ground of right.... If I thought the Catholics were asking for their right, I, for one, would not go into the committee." (House of Commons, March 1, 1813.)
And why is he opposed to their asking their right?
"Because the Legislature of a country has the right to impose such political disabilities upon any class of the community, as it may deem necessary for the safety and the welfare of the whole.... This belongs to the fundamental principles on which civilised government is founded." (House of Commons, March 1, 1813.)
There you have the most cynic confession ever made, that the mass of the people have no rights at all, but that they may be allowed that amount of immunities, the Legislature — or, in other words, the ruling class — may deem fit to grant them. Accordingly, Lord Palmerston declared in plain words, "Catholic Emancipation to be a measure of grace and favour." (House of Commons, Feb. 10, 1829.)
It was then entirely upon the ground of expediency that he condescended to discontinue the Catholic disabilities. And what was lurking behind this expediency?
Being himself one of the great Irish proprietors, he wanted to entertain the delusion, that other remedies for Irish evils than Catholic Emancipation are impossible, that it would cure absen-teeism,[266] and prove a substitute for Poor Laws.— (House of Commons, March 18, 1829.)
The great philanthropist, who afterwards cleared his Irish estates of their Irish natives, could not allow Irish misery to darken, even for a moment, with its inauspicious clouds, the bright" sky of the landlords and moneylords.(3)
"It is true," he said, "that the peasantry of Ireland do not enjoy all the comforts which are enjoyed by all the peasantry of England" (only think of all the comforts enjoyed by a family at the rate of 7s. a week). Still, he continues, "still however, the Irish peasant has his comforts.... He is well supplied with fuel, and is seldom" (only four days out of six), "at a loss for food."
What a comfort![3] But this is not all the comfort he has—"he has a greater cheerfulness of mind than his English fellow sufferer!" — (House of Commons, May 7, 1829.)
As to the extortions of Irish landlords, he deals with them in as pleasant a way as with the comforts of the Irish peasantry.
It is said that the Irish landlord insists on the highest possible rent that can be extorted. Why Sir, I believe that is not a singular circumstance; certainly in England the landlord does the same thing.— (House of Commons, May 7, 1829.)
Are we then to be surprised that the man, so deeply interested in the mysteries of the "glories of the English constitution," and the "comforts of her free institutions," should aspire at spreading them all over the Continent?
Second Article
[The People's Paper,No. 78, October 29, 1853]
When the Reform Movement[267] had grown irresistible, Lord Palmerston deserted the Tories, and slipped into the Whiggery camp. Although he had apprehended the danger of military despotism springing up, not from the presence of the King's German legion on the English soil, nor from keeping large standing armies, but only from the "self-called Reformers," he patronised, nevertheless,b already in 1828, the extension of the franchise to such large industrial places as Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester. But why?
"Not because I am a friend to Reform in principle, but because I am its decided enemy."
He had persuaded himself that some timely concessions made to the overgrown manufacturing interest0 might be the surest means
In the New-York Daily Tribune this sentence is omitted.—Ed. The New-York Daily Tribune of October 19, 1853 has the beginning of this passage as follows: "It is known that, when the Reform-movement had grown irresistible, Lord Palmerston deserted the camp of the Tories, and skilfully effected his junction with the Whigs. We have seen that he once apprehended danger of military despotism from the demands of the self-called Reformers. Nevertheless...." — Ed.
of escaping "the introduction of general reform." (House of Commons, June 27th, 1828.) Once allied with the Whigs, he did not even pretend that the Reform Bill aimed at breaking through the narrow trammels of the Venetian Constitution; but, on the contrary, at the increase of its strength and solidity, by disjoining the middle classes from the people's opposition.
"The feelings of the middle classes will be changed, and their dissatisfaction will be converted into that attachment to the constitution, which will give to it a vast increase of strength and solidity."
He consoled the peers with the prospect of the Reform Bill not really endangering the "influence of the House of Lords," and their "interfering in elections." He told the aristocracy that the constitution was not to lose its feudal character, "the landed interest being the great foundation upon which rests the fabric of society, and the institutions of the country." He allayed their fears by throwing out the ironical hint that "we have been charged with not being in earnest or sincere in our desire to give to the people a real representation," that "it was said, we only proposed to give a different kind of influence to the aristocracy and the landed interest." He went even as far as to own that, besides the inevitable concession to be made to the middle classes, "disfranchisement," viz., the disfranchisement of the old Tory rotten boroughs for the benefit of new Whig boroughs, "was the chief and leading principle of the Reform Bill."[3] (House of Commons, March 24th, 1831, and May 14, 1832.)
It is now time to return to the performances of the noble lord in the foreign branch of policyb:
In 1823, when, consequent on the resolutions of the Congress of Verona,[268] a French army was marched into Spain, in order to overturn the constitution of that country, and to deliver it up to the merciless revenge of the Bourbon idiotc and his suite of bigot monks, Lord Palmerston disclaimed any "Quixotic crusades for abstract principles," any intervention in "favour of the people," whose heroic resistance had saved England from the sway of Napoleon. The words he addressed on that occasion to his Whig
The New-York Daily Tribune, instead of "viz., the disfranchisement of the old Tory rotten boroughs for the benefit of new Whig boroughs", has: "that is to say, a new kind of distribution of rotten boroughs between the Tory Aristocrats and the Whig Aristocrats was the chief and leading principle of the Reform Bill".— Ed
In the New-York Daily Tribune this sentence ends as follows: "during the Tory period of his life".— Ed adversaries are a lively and true picture of his own foreign policy, after he had turned himself into the permanent Minister of Foreign Affairs for those who then were his opponents. He said,
"Some would have had us use threats in negotiation, without being prepared to go to war, if negotiation failed.[...] To have talked of war, and to have meant neutrality; to have threatened an army, and to have retreated behind a state paper; to have brandished the sword of defiance in the hour of deliberation, and to have ended in a penful of protests on the day of battle, would have been the conduct of a cowardly bully, and would have made us the object of contempt, and the laughing-stock of Europe." — (House of Commons, April 30, 1823.)
At last, we arrive at the Greco-Turkish debates, affording to Lord Palmerston the first opportunity for displaying his unrivalled talents, as the unflinching and persevering advocate of Russian interests, in the Cabinet and in the House of Commons. One by one, he re-echoed all the watch-words given out by Russia of Turkish cruelty, Greek civilisation, religious liberty, Christianity, and so forth. At first, we meet him repudiating, in his ministerial capacity,[3] any intention of passing "a censure" upon the meritori-ous conduct "of Admiral Codrington," which had caused the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino,[269] although he admits that "this battle took place against a power with which we are not at war," and that it was "an untoward event." — (House of Commons, January 31, 1828.)
Then, having retired from office, he opens the long series of his attacks upon Aberdeen, by reproaching him with having been too slow in executing the orders of Russia.0
"Has there been much more energy and promptitude in fulfilling our engagements to Greece? [...] July, 1829, is coming fast upon us, and the treaty of July, 1827, is still unexecuted.... The Morea, indeed, has been cleared of the Turks.... But why were the arms of France checked at the Isthmus of Corinth?... The narrow policy of England stepped in, and arrested her progress.... But why do not the allies deal with the country north of the Isthmus, as they have done with that of the south, and occupy at once all that which must be assigned to Greece? I should have thought that the allies had had enough of negotiating with Turkey about Greece." — (House of Commons, June 1, 1829.)
Prince Metternich was, as is generally known, at that time opposing the encroachments of Russia, and accordingly her diplomatic agents — I remind you of the despatches of Pozzo di Borgo and Prince Lieven — had been advised to represent Austria as the great enemy of Grecian emancipation and of European civilisation, the furtherance of which was the exclusive object of Russian diplomacy.[3] The noble lord follows, of course, in the beaten track.
"By the narrowness of her views, the unfortunate prejudices of her policy, Austria almost reduced herself to the level of a second-rate power;" and consequent on the temporising policy of Aberdeen, England is represented as "the key-stone of that arch of which Miguel, Spain, Austria, and Mahmud are the component parts.... People see in the delay in executing the treaty of July not so much fear of Turkish resistance as inevitable repugnance to Grecian freedom."—(House of Commons, June 1, 1829.)
Again he assails Aberdeen because of his anti-Russian diplomacy(1):
"I, for one, shall not be satisfied with a number of despatches from the government of England, which will no doubt read well and smooth enough, urging, in general terms, the propriety of conciliating Russia, but accompanied, perhaps, by strong expressions of the regard which England bore to Turkey, which, when read by an interested party, might easily appear to mean more than was really intended.... I should like to see that, whilst England adopted a firm resolution — almost the only course she could adopt — upon no consideration and in no event to take part with Turkey in that war — that that decision was fairly and frankly communicated to Turkey.... There are three most merciless things — time, fire, and the Sultan."—(House of Commons, Feb. 16, 1830.)
Arrived at this point, I must recall to memory some few historical facts, in order to leave no doubt about the meaning of the noble Lord's philo-Hellenic feelings.(2)
Russia, having seized upon Gokcha, a strip of land bordering on the Lake of Sevan, which was an indisputed possession of Persia, demanded as the price of its evacuation the abandonment of Persia's claims to another portion of her own territory, the lands of Kapan. Persia not yielding, she was overrun, vanquished, and forced to subscribe to the treaty of Turkmanchai,[271] in February, 1828. According to this treaty Persia had to pay an indemnity of two millions sterling to Russia, to cede the provinces of Erivan and Nakhichevan, including the fortresses of Erivan and Abbasabad, the exclusive purpose of this arrangement being, as Nicholas stated, to define the common frontier by the Araxes, the only means, he said, of preventing any future dispute of the two empires, although he refused simultaneously to give back Talish and Moghau, which are situated on the Persian bank of the Araxes. Finally, Persia pledged herself to maintaining no navy on the Caspian Sea. Such were the origin and the results of the Russo-Persian war.
As to the religion and the liberty of Greece, Russia cared at that epoch as much about them as the god of the Russians cares now about the key of the "Holy Sepulchre" and the famous "Cupola."[272] It was the traditionary policy of Russia, to excite the Greeks to revolt, and, then, to abandon them to the revenge of the Sultan. So deep was her sympathy for the regeneration of Hellas, that she treated them as rebels at the congress of Verona, acknowledging the right of the Sultan to exclude all foreign intervention between himself and his Christian subjects. Yea, the Czar(3) offered "to aid the Porte in suppressing the rebellion;" a proposition which was, of course, rejected. Having failed in that attempt, he turned round upon the Great Powers with the opposite proposition, "To march an army into Turkey, for the purpose of dictating peace under the walls of the Seraglio." In order to hold his hands bound by a sort of common action, the other Great Powers concluded a treaty with him at London, July 6, 1827, by which they mutually engaged in enforcing, if need be, by arms, the adjustment of the differences between the Sultan and the Greeks. A few months before she had signed that treaty, Russia concluded another treaty with Turkey, the treaty of Akerman,[273] by which she» bound herself to renounce all interference with Grecian affairs. This treaty was brought about, after Russia had induced the crown prince of Persia to invade the Ottoman dominions, and after she had inflicted the greatest injuries on the Porte, in order to drive her to a rupture. After all this had passed, the resolutions of the London treaty of July 6, 1827, were presented to the Porte by the English Ambassador,[5] or in the name of Russia and the other Powers. By virtue of the complications resulting from these frauds and lies, Russia found at last the pretext for beginning the war of 1828 and 1829. That war terminated with the treaty of Adrianople,[274] whose contents are resumed in the following quotations from McNeill's celebrated pamphlet on the Progress of Russia in the East:
"By the treaty of Adrianople the Czar acquired Anapa and Poti with a considerable extent of coast on the Black Sea, a portion of the Pashalik of Akhalzikh, with the fortresses of Akhalkalaki and Akhalzikh, the islands formed by the mouths of the Danube, the stipulated destruction of the Turkish fortress of Giurgevo, and the abandonment by Turkey of the right bank of the Danube to the distance of several miles from the river.... Partly by force, and partly by the influence of the priesthood, many thousand families of the Armenians were removed from the Turkish provinces in Asia to the Czar's territories.... He established for his own subjects in Turkey an exception from all responsibility to the national authorities, and burdened the Porte with an immense debt, under the name of expenses for the war and for commercial losses — and, finally, retained Moldavia, Wallachia, and Silistra, in pledge for the payment.... Having by this treaty imposed upon Turkey the acceptance of the protocol of March 22, which secured the suzerainty of Greece, and a yearly tribute from that country, Russia used all her influence to procure the independence of Greece, which was erected into an independent state, of which Count Capo d'Istria, who had been a Russian Minister, was named President." (Pp. 105-07.)
Such are the facts. Now look at the picture drawn of them by Lord Palmerston's hand(4):
"It is perfectly true that the war between Russia and Turkey arose out of aggressions made by Turkey on the commerce and rights of Russia, and violations of treaties." — (House of Commons, Feb. 16, 1830.)
When the Whig-incarnation of the office of Foreign Affairs, he improved on this statement:
"The honourable and gallant member" (Col. Evans) "has represented the conduct of Russia as one of unvarying aggression upon other States from 1815 to the present time. He adverted more particularly to the wars of Russia with Persia and Turkey. Russia was the aggressor in neither of them, and although the result of the Persian war was an aggrandisement of her power, it was not the result of her own seeking.... Again, in the Turkish war, Russia was not the aggressor. It would be fatiguing to the house to detail all the provocations Turkey offered to Russia; but I believe there cannot be a doubt that she expelled Russian subjects from her territory, detained Russian ships, and violated all the provisions of the treaty of Akerman, and then, upon complaint being made, denied redress — so that, if there ever was a just ground for going to war, Russia had it for going to war with Turkey. She did not, however, on any occasion, acquire any increase of territory, at least in Europe. I know there was a continued occupation of certain points" [Moldavia and Wallachia are only points, and the mouths of the Danube are mere zeros] "and some additional acquisitions on the Euxine in Asia; but she not lead to any aggrandisement in Europe."—(House of Commons, Aug. 7, 1832.)
Your readers will now understand Sir Robert Peel's telling the noble lord, in a public session of the house,[3] that "he did not know whose representative he was."[275]
Third Article
[The People's Paper, No. 79, November 5, 1853]
The noble viscount is generally known as the chivalrous protector of the Poles, and never fails to give vent to his painful feelings with regard to Poland before the deputations that wait upon him once every year by "dear, dully, deadly" Dudley Stuart,c
"a worthy who makes speeches, passes resolutions, votes addresses, goes up with deputations, has at all times the necessary quantity of confidence in the necessary individual, and can, also, if necessary, give three cheers for the Queen."
The Poles had been in arms for about a month when the noble lord came into office, in November, 1830. As early as August 8th, 1831, Mr. Hunt presents to the House of Commons a petition from the Westminster Union, in favour of the Poles, and "for the dismissal of Lord Palmerston from his Majesty's councils." Mr. Hume stated on the same day he concluded from the silence of the noble lord that the government "intended to do nothing for the Poles, but allow them to remain at the mercy of Russia." Lord Palmerston replied that, "whatever obligations existing treaties
a On February 16, 1830.— Ed,
In the New-York Daily Tribune of November 4, 1853, and also in the pamphlet Palmerston and Russia, published on the basis of the newspaper text in London in 1853, the article begins as follows: "At a recent meeting in London, to protest against the action of the British Ministry, in the present controversy between Russia and Turkey, a gentleman who presumed to find special fault with Lord Palmerston, was saluted and silenced by a storm of indignant hisses. The meeting evidently thought that if Russia had a friend in the Ministry it was not the noble Viscount, and would no doubt have rent the air with cheers, had some one been able to announce that his Lordship had become Prime Minister. This astonishing confidence in a man so false and hollow, is another proof of the ease with which people may be imposed on by brilliant abilities, and a new evidence of the necessity of taking off the mask from this wily enemy to the progress of human freedom. Accordingly, with the history of the last twenty-five years, and the debates of Parliament for guides, we proceed with the task of exposing the real part which this accomplished actor has performed in the drama of modern Europe." — Ed.
imposed, would at all times receive the attention of the government." Now, what sort of obligation was there imposed in his opinion upon England by existing treaties?
"The claims of Russia," he tells us. himself, "to the possession of Poland bear the date of the treaty of Vienna."—(House of Commons, July 9, 1833.)
And that treaty makes this possession dependent upon the observance of the Polish constitution by the Czar, but
"the mere fact of this country being a party to the treaty of Vienna, was not synonymous with our guaranteeing that there would be no infraction of that treaty by Russia."—(House of Commons, March 25, 1834.)
If you guarantee a treaty, you do by no means guarantee the observance of the treaty. Thus answered the Milanese to the Emperor Barbarossa: "You have had our oath, but remember we did not swear to keep it."[276]
For one thing, however, the treaty of Vienna is good. It gives to the British government, as one of the contracting parties,
"a right to entertain and express an opinion on any act which [...] tends to a violation of that treaty.... The contracting parties to the treaties of Vienna had a right to require that the constitution of Poland should not be touched, and this was an opinion which I have not concealed from the Russian government. I communicated it by anticipation to that government previous to the taking of Warsaw, and before the result of hostilities was known. I communicated it again when Warsaw fell. [...] The Russian government, however, took a different view of the question."—(House of Commons, July 9, 1833.)
He is quietly anticipating the downfall of Poland, and watches this opportunity for expressing and entertaining an opinion on certain articles of the treaty of Vienna, persuaded as he is that the magnanimous Czar waits only for having crushed the Polish people by armed force, in order to honour a constitution trampled upon when they were yet possessed of unbounded means of resistance. Simultaneously the noble lord charges the Poles with having "taken the uncalled for, and, in his opinion, unjustifiable steps of the [...] dethronement of the Emperor." — (House of Commons, July 9, 1833).
"He could also say that the Poles were the aggressors, for they commenced the contest."—(House of Commons, August 7, 1832.)
When the apprehensions for the extinction of Poland became troublesome, he declared that When reminded afterwards of the wayward expectations thus held out, he assures that he had been misunderstood, that he had said so not in the political but in the Pickwickian sense of the word, meaning that the Emperor of Russia was unable
"to exterminate nominally or physically so many millions of men as the Polish kingdom in its divided state contained."—(House of Commons, April 20, 1836.)
When the house makes a pretence of interfering during the struggle of the Poles,[3] he appeals to his ministerial responsibility. When the thing is done, he coolly tells them that
"no vote of this house would have the slightest effect in reversing the decision of Russia."—(House of Commons, July 9, 1833.)
When the atrocities committed by the Russians, after the fall of Warsaw, are denounced, he recommends to the house great tenderness towards the Emperor of Russia, declaring that
"no person could regret more than he did — the expressions which had been uttered" (House of Commons, June 28, 1832), that "the present Emperor of Russia was a man of high and generous feelings" — that "where cases of undue severity on the part of the Russian government to the Poles have occurred, we may set this down as a proof that the power of the Emperor of Russia is practically omitted, and we may take it for granted that the Emperor has, in those instances, yielded to the influence of others, rather than follow the dictates of his spontaneous feelings."—(House of Commons, July 9, 1833.)
When the doom of Poland was sealed on the one hand, and on the other the dissolution of the Turkish Empire became imminent, from the rebellion of Mehemet Ali,b he assured the house that "affairs in general were proceeding in a satisfactory train."— (House of Commons, January 26, 1832.)
A resolution for granting subsidies to the Polish refugees having been moved, it is
"exceedingly painful to him to oppose the grant of any money to those individuals which the natural and spontaneous feelings of every generous man would lead him to acquiesce in; [...] but, [...] it is [...] not consistent with his duty [...] to propose any grant of money to those unfortunate persons."—(House of Commons, March 25, 1834.)
The same tender-hearted man had defrayed, as we shall see by and by, the cost of Poland's fall, to a great extent, out of the pockets of the British people.
The noble lord has taken good care to withhold all state papers on the Polish catastrophe from the parliament. But statements made in the House of Commons, which he did never as much as attempt to controvert, leave no doubt as to the game he played at that fatal epoch.
After the Polish revolution had broken out, the Consul of Austria did not quit Warsaw, and the Austrian government went so far as to send a Polish agent, M.Walewski, to Paris, with the missions of negotiating with the governments of France and England about the re-establishment of a Polish kingdom. The Court of the Tuileries declared "it was ready to join England in case of her consenting to the project." Lord Palmerston rejected the offer. In 1831 M. de Talleyrand, the Ambassador of France, at the Court of St. James, proposed a plan of combined action on the part of France and England, but met with a distinct refusal, and with a note from the noble lord, stating that
"an amicable intermediation on the Polish question would be declined by Russia. The powers had just declined a similar offer on the part of France; the intervention of the two Courts of France and England could only be by force in case of a refusal on the part of Russia, and the amicable and satisfactory relations between the Cabinet of St. James and the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, would not allow his British Majesty[3] to undertake such an interference. The time was not yet come to undertake such a play with success against the will of a sovereign, whose rights were indisputable."
This was not all.(1) On February 23, 1848, Mr. Anstey made the following declaration in the House of Commons:
"Sweden was arming her fleet for the purpose of making diversion in favour of Poland, and of regaining to herself the provinces in the Baltic, which have been so unjustly wrested from her in the last war. The noble lord instructed our ambassador at the Court of Stockholm, in a contrary sense, and Sweden discontinued her armaments. The Persian Court [...] had, with similar purpose, despatched an army three days on its march towards the Russian frontier, under the [...] command of the Persian Crown prince. [...] The Secretary of Legation at the Court of Teheran, Sir John McNeill followed the prince, at a distance of three days' march from his headquarters, overtook him, and there, under instructions from the noble lord, and in the name of England, threatened Persia with war if the prince advanced another step towards the Russian frontier. Similar inducements were used by the noble lord to prevent Turkey from renewing war on her side."
To Colonel Evans asking for the production of papers with regard to Prussia's violation of her pretended neutrality in the Russo-Polish war, the noble lord objected,
"that the ministers of this country could not have witnessed that contest without the deepest regret, and [...] it would be most satisfactory for them to see it terminated."—(House of Commons, August 16, 1831.)
Certainly he wished to see it terminated as soon as possible, and Prussia shared in his feelings.
On a subsequent occasion, Mr. H. Gaily Knight thus resumed the whole proceedings of the noble lord with regard to the Polish insurrection—
"There is something curiously inconsistent in the proceedings of the noble lord when Russia is concerned.... On the subject of Poland, the noble lord has disappointed us again and again. Remember when the noble lord was pressed to exert himself in favour of Poland, then he admitted the justice of the cause — the justice of our complaints; but he said, 'Only restrain yourselves at present, there is an ambassador fast setting out of known liberal sentiments, you may be sure we will do all that is right; you will only embarrass his negotiation, if you incense the power with whom he has to deal. So, take my advice, be quiet at present, and be assured that a great deal will be effected.' We trusted to those assurances; the liberal ambassador went; whether he ever approached the subject or not, was never known, but all we got were the fine words of the noble lord, and no results."—(House of Commons, July 13, 1840.)
The so-called kingdom of Poland having disappeared from the map of Europe, there remained still, in the free town of Cracow, a fantastic remnant of Polish nationality. The Czar Alexander had, during the general anarchy resulting from the fall of the French empire, not conquered the Duchy of Warsaw, but simply seized it, and wished, of course, to keep it, together with Cracow, incorporated with the Duchy by Bonaparte. Austria, once possessed of Cracow, wished to have it back. The Czar being unable to obtain it himself and unwilling to concede it to Austria, proposed to constitute it as a free town. Accordingly the treaty of Vienna stipulated in article VI,a
"that the town of Cracow with the territory is to be for ever a free, independent, and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Austria, Russia, and Prussia," and in its article IX "that the Courts of Russia, Austria, and Prussia engage to respect, and to cause to be always respected, the neutrality of the free town of Cracow and its territory. No armed force shall be introduced upon any pretence whatever."
Immediately after the close of the Polish insurrection of 1830-31, the Russian troops suddenly entered Cracow, the occupation of which lasted two months.[3] This, however, was considered as a transitory necessity of war, and in the turmoil of that time was soon forgotten.
In 1836, Cracow was again occupied by the troops of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, on the pretext of forcing the authorities of Cracow to deliver up the individuals concerned in the Polish revolution five years before. The constitution of Cracow was abrogated, the three consular residencers assumed the highest authority — the police was entrusted to Austrian spies — the senate was overthrown — the tribunals were destroyed — the university of Cracow put down in consequence of the prohibitions to the neighbouring provinces — and the commerce of the free city with the surrounding countries destroyed.[5]
On March 18th, 1836, when interpellated on the occupation of Cracow, the noble viscount declared that occupation to be of a merely transitory character. Of so palliative and apologetic a kind was the construction he put on the doings of his three northern allies, that he felt himself obliged suddenly to stop and to interrupt the even course of his speech by the solemn declaration.
"I stand not up here to defend the measure, which, on the contrary, I must censure and condemn. I have merely stated those circumstances which, though they do not excuse the forcible occupation of Cracow, might yet afford a justification, &c..."
He admits that the treaty of Vienna bound the three Powers to abstain from any step without the previous consent of England, but,
"they may be justly said to have paid an involuntary homage to the justice and plain dealing of this country, by supposing that we would never give our assent to such a proceeding."
Mr. Patrick Stewart(2) having, however, found out that there existed better means for the preservation of Cracow than the "abstention from remonstrance," moved on April 20, 1836, that the government should be ordered to send a representation to the free town of Cracow as consul, there being three consuls there from the three Northern Powers. The joint arrival of an English and French consul at Cracow would prove an event.[3] The noble viscount seeing that the majority of the house was for the motion induced Mr. Stewart to withdraw it by solemnly pledging himself that the government "intended to send a consular agent to Cracow." On March 22, 1837, being reminded by Lord Dudley Stuart of his promise, the noble lord answered that "he had altered his intention, and had not sent a consular agent to Cracow, and it was not at present his intention to do so." Lord D.Stuart having given notice that he should move for papers elucidatory of this singular declaration, the noble viscount succeeded in defeating the motion by the simple process of being absent and of causing the house to be counted out.b
In 1840, the "temporary" occupation continued, and the people of Cracow had addressed a memorandum to the governments of France and England, which says, amongst other things:
"The misfortunes which overwhelm the free city of Cracow and its inhabitants, are such that the undersigned see no further hope for themselves and their fellow citizens than in the powerful and enlightened protection of the governments of France and England. The situation in which they find themselves placed, gives them a right to invoke the intervention of every power that subscribed to the treaty of Vienna."0
Being interrogated on July 13th, 1840, about this petition from Cracow, the noble viscount declared
"that between Austria and the British government the question of the evacuation of Cracow remained only a question of time."
As to the violation of the treaty of Vienna
"there were no means of enforcing the opinions of England, supposing that this country was disposed to do so by arms, [...] because Cracow was evidently a place where no English action could possibly take place."
After these words the New-York Daily Tribune has: "and must, in any case, have prevented the noble lord from afterward declaring himself unaware of the intrigues pursued at Cracow by the Austrians, Russians and Prussians".— Ed.
The New-York Daily Tribune has after this: "He never stated why or wherefore he had not fulfilled his pledge, and withstood all attempts to squeeze out of him any papers on the subject." The following text beginning with: "In 1840, the 'temporary' occupation continued" and ending with the quotation from Palmerston's statement on August 17, 1846, is omitted in the Tribune.— Ed.
Be it remarked that two days after this declaration the noble lord concluded a treaty with Russia, Austria, and Prussia for closing the Black Sea[277] to the English navy, probably in order that no English action could take place in those quarters. It was at the very same time that the noble lord renewed a Holy Alliance with those Powers against France. As to the commercial loss sustained by England, consequent upon the occupation of Cracow, the noble lord demonstrated that "the amount of general exports to Germany had not fallen off," which, as Sir Robert Peel justly remarked, had nothing to do with Cracow. As to his intentions on the subject and to the consular agent to be sent to Cracow,
"he thought that his experience of the manner in which his unfortunate assertion" (made by the noble lord in 1836, in order to escape from the censure of a hostile house) "of an intention to appoint a British Consul at Cracow, had been taken up by honourable gentlemen opposite, justified him in positively refusing to give any answer to such a question, which might expose him to similar [...] unjustifiable attacks."
On August 17, 1846, he stated that
"whether the treaty of Vienna is, or is not executed and fulfilled by the Great Powers of Europe, depends not upon the presence of a consular agent at Cracow."
On January 28, 1847, when again asked[3] for the production of papers relative to the non-appointment of a British Consul at Cracow, he declared that
"the subject had no necessary connexion with the discussion on the incorporation of Cracow, and he saw no advantage in reviving an angry discussion on a subject which had only a passing interest."
He proved true to his opinion in the production of state papers, pronounced on March 17, 1837:
"If the papers bear upon questions now under consideration, their production would be dangerous; if they refer to questions that are gone by, they can obviously be of no use."
The British government was very exacdy informed of the importance of Cracow, not only from a political but also from a commercial point of view, their own Consul at Warsaw, Colonel Duplat having reported to them that(3) "Cracow, since its elevation into an independent state, has always been the depot of very considerable quantities of English merchandise sent thither by the Black Sea, Moldavia, and Galicia, and even via Trieste; and which afterwards find their way to the surrounding countries. In the course of years it came into railway communication with the great lines of Bohemia, Prussia, and Austria.... It is also the central point of the important line of railway communication between the Adriatic and the Baltic. It will come in direct communication of the same description with Warsaw.... Looking, therefore, to the almost certainty of every great point of the Levant, and even of India and China, finding its way up the Adriatic, it cannot be denied that it must be of the greatest commercial importance, even to England, to have such a station as Cracow, in the centre of the great net of railways connecting the Western and Eastern Continent."[3]
Lord Palmerston himself was obliged to confess to the house that the Cracow insurrection of 1846[278] had been intentionally provoked by the Three Powers.
"I believe the original entrance of the Austrian troops into the territory of Cracow was in consequence of an application from the government. But, then, those Austrian troops retired. Why they retired has never yet been explained. With them retired the government and the authorities of Cracow; the immediate, at least, the early, consequence of that retirement, was the establishment of a provisional government at Cracow. (House of Commons, Aug. 17, 1846.)
On the 22nd of February, 1846, the army of Austria, and afterwards of Russia and Prussia, took possession of Cracow. On the 26th of the same month the Prefect of Tarnow issued his proclamation calling upon the peasants to murder their proprietors, and promising them "a sufficient recompense, in money,"[15] which proclamation was followed by the Galician atrocities, and the massacre of about 2,000 proprietors. On March the 12th appeared the Austrian proclamation to the "faithful Galicians having aroused themselves for the maintenance of order and law, and destroyed the enemies of order." In the official Gazettec of April 28th, Prince Frederick of Schwarzenberg stated that "the acts that had taken place had been authorised by the Austrian government," which, of course, acted on a common plan with Russia and with Prussia, the footman of the Czar.d Now, after all
Marx gives this passage from Duplat's report to Aberdeen of March 10, 1846 as quoted in the speech of Stuart Wortley in the House of Commons on March 16, 1847.— Ed these abominations had passed, Lord Palmerston thought fit to declare in the house,
"I have too high an opinion of the sense of justice and of right that must animate the governments of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, to believe that they can feel any disposition or intention to deal with Cracow otherwise than Cracow is entitled by treaty-engagements to be dealt with." (House of Commons, Aug. 17th, 1846.)
For the noble lord the only business in hand was to get rid of parliament, the session drawing to a close. He assured the Commons that "on the part of the British government everything shall be done to ensure" a due respect being paid to the provisions of the treaty of Vienna." Mr. Hume, giving vent to his doubts about Lord Palmerston's "intention to cause the Austro-Russian troops to retire from Cracow," the noble lord begged of the house not to give credence to the statements made by Mr. Hume, as he was in possession of better information, and was convinced that the occupation of Cracow was only a "temporary" one. The parliament of 1846 having been got rid of, in the same manner as that of 1853, out came the Austrian proclamation of November 11th, 1846, incorporating Cracow into the Austrian dominions. When parliament re-assembled on January 19th, 1847, it was informed by the Queen's[3] Speech that Cracow was gone, but that there remained in its place a protest on the part of the brave Palmerston. To deprive this protest of even the appearance of a meaning, the noble lord contrived at that very epoch to engage, on the occasion of the Spanish marriages,[279] England in a quarrel with France, very near setting the two countries by the ears, as he was twitted in the teeth by Mr. Smith O'Brien. The French government having applied to him for his co-operation in a joint protest against the incorporation of Cracow, Lord Normanby, under instructions from the noble viscount, answered that the outrage of which Austria had been guilty in annexing Cracow was not greater than that of France in effecting a marriage between the Duke of Montpensier and the Spanish Infanta — the one act being a violation of the treaty of Vienna, and the other of the treaty of Utrecht.[280] Now, the treaty of Utrecht, renewed in 1782, was definitively abrogated by the Anti-Jacobin war; and that, therefore, ever since 1792 ceased to exist. There was no man in the house better informed of this circumstance than the noble lord, as he had stated himself on the occasion of the blockades of Mexico and Buenos Ayres,[281] that "the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht have long lapsed in the variations of war, with the exception of the single clause relating to the boundaries of Brazil and French Guiana, because that clause had been expressly incorporated in the treaty of Vienna."
We have not yet done with the exertions of the noble lord for resisting the encroachments of Russia on Poland.6
There existed a curious convention between England, Holland, and Russia — the so-called Russian-Dutch loan. During the Anti-Jacobin war the Czar Alexander had contracted a loan with Messrs. Hope and Co., at Amsterdam; and after the fall of Bonaparte, the King of the Netherlands' "desired to make a suitable return to the Allied Powers for having delivered his territories," and for having annexed to his own Belgium, upon which he had no claim whatever, and engaged himself — the other Powers waiving their common pretensions in favour of Russia, then in great need of money — to execute a convention with Russia for paying her by successive instalments the twenty-five millions of florins she owed to Messrs. Hope and Co. England, in order to cover the robbery she committed on Holland, of her colonies at the Cape of Good Hope, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, became a party to that convention, and bound herself to pay a certain proportion of the subsidies granted to Russia. This stipulation became part of the treaty of Vienna, but upon the express condition "that the payment should cease if the union between Holland and Belgium were broken prior to the liquidation of the debt." When Belgium separated itself by revolution d from Holland, she of course refused to pay her portione
to Russia. On the other hand, there remained, Mr. Herries stated, "not the smallest iota of a claim on the part of Russia for the continuance of debt by England." (House of Commons, Jan. 26, 1832.)
Lord Palmerston, however, found it quite natural that,
"at one time Russia is paid for supporting the union of Belgium with Holland, and that at another time she is paid for the separation of these countries." (House of Commons, July 16th, 1832.)
He appealed in a very tragical manner to the faithful observance of treaties — and above all, of the treaty of Vienna; and he contrived to carry a new convention with Russia, dated 16th November, 1831, in the preamble of which it is expressly stated that it is contracted "in consideration of the general arrangements of the Congress of Vienna which remain in full force."
When the convention relating to the Russo-Dutch loan, had been inserted in the treaty of Vienna, the Duke of Wellington exclaimed,
"This is a master-stroke of diplomacy on the part of Lord Castlereagh; for Russia has been tied down to the observance of the Vienna treaty by a pecuniary obligation."
When Russia, therefore, withdrew her observance of the Vienna treaty by the Cracow confiscation, Mr. Hume moved to stop any further payment(4) to Russia from the British Treasury. The noble viscount, however, thought that although Russia had a right to violate the treaty of Vienna with regard to Poland, England remained tied to the treaty with regard to Russia.
But this is not the most extraordinary incident of the noble lord's proceedings. After the Belgian revolution had broken out, and before parliament had sanctioned the new loan to Russia, the noble lord defrayed the costs of the Russian war against Poland, under the false pretext of paying off the old debt contracted by England in 1815, although we may state, on the authority of the greatest English lawyer, Sir E. Sugden, now Lord St. Leonards, that
"there was not a single debatable point in that question, [...] and [...] the government had no power whatever to pay a shilling of the money." (House of Commons, January 26, 1832.)
And on the authority of Sir Robert Peel that "the noble lord was not warrantable by law in advancing the money." (House of Commons, July 12, 1832.)
Now we understand why the noble lord is reiterating on every occasion that "nothing can be more painful to men of proper feeling than discussions upon the subject of Poland."(5)
Fourth Article[3]
[The People's Paper, No. 80, November 12, 1853]
The great and eternal themes of the noble viscount's self-glorification are the services he has rendered to the cause of constitutional liberty all over the continent. The world owes him, indeed, the invention of the "constitutional" kingdoms of Portugal, Spain, and Greece,— three political phantoms, only to be compared with the homunculus of Faust's Wagner.b Portugal, under the yoke of that huge hill of flesh, Donna Maria da Gloria, backed by a Coburg,c
"must be looked upon as one of the substantive powers of Europe." (House of Commons, March 10, 1837.)
At the very time the noble viscount uttered these words, six British ships-of-the-line anchored at Lisbon, in order to defend the "substantive" daughter of Don Pedro from the Portuguese people, and to help her to destroy the constitution she had sworn to defend. Spain, at the disposition of another Maria,d who, although a notorious sinner, has never found a Magdalene,
"holds out to us a fair, [...] a flourishing, and even a formidable power among the European kingdoms." (Speech of Lord Palmerston, H. of C, March 10, 1837.)e
In the New-York Daily Tribuiie of November 21, 1853, the article begins as follows: "There are those who expect that in the war between Turkey and Russia, which has now begun, the British Government will at last abandon its system of half-way measures and fruitless negotiations to act with energy and effect in repelling the Muscovite invader back from his prey and from the universal dominion he dreams of. Such an expectation may not be without some ground of abstract probability and policy to justify it, but how little real reason there is for it will appear to whoever ponders the facts below set forth with regard to the past conduct of that English Minister who is thought to be most hostile to the advance of Russian despotism in Europe. Indeed, most people in England who are dissatisfied with the policy of the Government in the contest between Turkey and Russia, fondly believe that matters would be in a very different state if Lord Palmerston had the control of them. Such persons, in recalling the noble Viscount's history, must leave blank the whole eventful period from 1832 to 1847 — a blank which we will fill up for their instruction." — Ed.
The New-York Daily Tribune has: "the constitutional model-kingdoms"; the end of this sentence, beginning with the words "three political phantoms", is omitted.— Ed.
Ferdinand August.— Ed Formidable, indeed, to the holders of Spanish bonds. The noble lord has even his reasons ready for having delivered the native country of the Pericles and the Sophocles to the nominal sway of an idiot Bavarian boy.
"King Otto belongs to a country where there exists a free Constitution." (H. of C , August 8, 1832.)
A free constitution in Bavaria, the German Bastia![3] This passes the licentia poeticah of rhetorical flourish, the "legitimate hopes" held out by Spain, and the "substantive" power of Portugal. As to Belgium, all Lord Palmerston did for it was burdening it with a part of the Dutch debt, reducing it by the Province of Luxemburg, and adding to it a Coburg dynasty. As to the entente
cordiale with France, waning from the moment he pretended to give it the finish by the Quadruple Alliance[282] of 1834, we have already seen how far the noble lord understood to manage it in the instance of Poland, and we shall hear, by and by, what became of it in his hands.c
One of those facts, hardly adverted to by contemporaries, but broadly marking the boundaries of historical epochs, was the military occupation of Constantinople by the Russians, in 1833.
The eternal dream of Russia was at last realised. The barbarian from the icy banks of the Neva held in his grasp luxurious Byzantium, and the sunlit shores of the Bosphorus. The self-styled heir to the Greek Emperors occupied, however temporarily, the Rome of the East.d
"The occupation of Constantinople by Russian troops [...] sealed the fate of Turkey as an independent power. [...] The fact of Russia having occupied Constantinople even for the purpose" (?) "of saving it, was as decisive a blow to Turkish independence as if the flag of Russia now waved on the Seraglio." (Speech of Sir Robert Peel, H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
In consequence of the unfortunate war of 1828-29,e the Porte had lost her prestige in the eyes of her own subjects. As usual with Oriental empires, when the paramount power is weakened, successful revolts of Pashas broke out. As early as October, 1831, commenced the conflict between the Sultan[3] [and] Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had supported the Porte during the Greek insurrection. In the spring of 1832, Ibrahim Pasha, his son, marched his army into Syria, conquered that province, by the Battle of Horns, crossed the Taurus, annihilated the last Turkish army at the battle of Konia, and moved on the way to Stambul. The Sultan was forced to apply to St. Petersburg, on February 2, 1833. On February 17, the French Admiral Roussin arrived at Constantinople, remonstrated with the Porte two days afterwards, and engaged for the retreat of the Pasha on certain terms, including the refusal of Russian assistance; but, unassisted as he was, he was, of course, unable to cope with Russia. "You have asked for me, and you shall have me."b On February 20, a Russian squadron sailed from Sebastopol, and disembarked a large force of Russian troops on the shores of the Bosphorus, and laid siege to the capital. So eager was Russia for the protection of Turkey, that a Russian officer was simultaneously dispatched to the Pashas of Erzerum and Trebizond, to inform them that, in the event of Ibrahim's army marching towards Erzerum, both that place and Trebizond should be immediately protected by a Russian army. At the end of May, 1833, Count Orloff arrived from St. Petersburg, and intimated to the Sultan that he had brought with him a little bit of paper, which the Sultan was to subscribe to, without the concurrence of any minister, and without the diplomatic agent, at the Porte. In this manner the famous treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was brought about and concluded for eight years to come. By virtue of it the Porte entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Russia, resigned the right of entering into any new treaties with other powers, except with the concurrence of Russia, and confirmed the former Russo-Turkish treaties, especially that of Adrianople.c By a secret article, appended to the treaty, the Porte obliged herself,
"in favour of the Imperial Court of Russia, to close the Straits of the Dardanelles — viz., not to allow any foreign man-of-war to enter it under any pretext whatever."
Whom was the Czar indebted to for occupying Constantinople by his troops, and for transferring, by virtue of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, the supreme seat of the Ottoman empire from Constantinople to St. Petersburg? To nobody else but to the Right Honourable Henry John Viscount Palmerston, Baron Temple, a Peer of Ireland, a Member of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Knight of the Great Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a Member of Parliament, and His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was concluded on July 8th, 1833. On July 11th, 1833, Mr. H.L. Bulwer, moved for the production of papers with respect to the Turko-Syrian affairs. The noble lord opposed the motion,
"because the transactions to which the papers called for referred, were incomplete, and the character of the whole transaction would depend upon its termination. [...] As the results were not yet known, [...] the motion was premature."—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
Accused by Mr. Bulwer of not having interfered for the defence of the Sultan against Mehemet Ali, and not having thus prevented the advance of the Russian army, he began that curious system of defence and of confession, developed on later occasions, the membra disjecta[3] of which I shall now gather together.
"He was not prepared to deny, that the latter part of last year an application was made on the part of the Sultan to this country for assistance."—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
The Porte made formal application for assistance in the course of August— (H. of C , August 24, 1833.)
No, not in August.
"The request of the Porte for naval assistance has been made in the month of October, 1832."—(H. of C , August 28, 1833.)
No, it was not in October.b
"Its assistance was asked by the Porte in November 1832." — (H. of C, March 17, 1834.)
The noble lord is as uncertain of the day when the Porte implored his aid, as Falstaff was of the number of rogues in buckram suits, who came at his back, in Kendal green.c He is not prepared, however, to deny that the armed assistance offered by Russia was rejected by the Porte, and that he was applied to. He refused to comply with her demands. The Porte did again apply to the noble lord. First she sent M. Maurogerii to London; then she sent Namick Pasha, who entreated the assistance of a naval squadron on the condition of the Sultan undertaking to defray all the expenses of that squadron, and promising in future requital for that succour, the grant of new commercial privileges, and advantages to British subjects in Turkey. So sure was Russia of the noble lord's refusal, that she joined the Turkish Envoy in praying his lordship for the affording of the demanded succour. He tells us himself,
"it was but justice that he should state, that so far from Russia having expressed any jealousy as to this government granting this assistance, the Russian Ambassador[3] officially communicated to him, [...] while the request was still under the consideration, that he had learned that such an application had been made, and that, from the interest taken by Russia in the maintenance and preservation of the Turkish empire, it would afford satisfaction if ministers could find themselves able to comply with that request." — (H. of C, August 28, 1833.)
The noble lord remained, however, inexorable to the demands of the Porte, although backed by disinterested Russia herself. Then, of course, the Porte knew what she was about. She understood that she was doomed to make the wolf shepherd. Still she hesitated, and did not accept the Russian assistance till three months later.(1)
"Great Britain," says the noble lord, "never complained of Russia granting that assistance, but, on the contrary, was glad that Turkey had been able to obtain effectual relief from any quarter."—(H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
At whatever epoch the Porte may have implored the aid of Lord Palmerston, he cannot but own,
"No doubt if England had thought fit to interfere, the progress of the invading army would have been stopped, and the Russian troops would not have been called in."— (H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
Why then did he not "think fit" to interfere and to keep the Russians out?
First he pleads want of time. According to his own statement the conflict between the Porte and Mehemet Ali arose as early as October 1831, while the decisive battle of Konia was not fought till December 21st 1832. Could he find no time during all this period? A great battle was won by Ibrahim Pasha in July 1832,[283] and again he could find no time from July to December. But he was all that time waiting for a formal application, which, according to his last version, was not made till the 3rd of November.
"Was he then," asks Sir Robert Peel, "so ignorant of what was passing in the Levant, that he must wait for a formal application?"—(H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
And from November, when the formal application was made, to the latter part of February, there elapsed again four long months, and Russia did not arrive until February 20, 1833. Why did not he?
But he has better reasons in reserve. The Pasha of Egypt was but a rebellious subject, and the Sultan was the Suzerain.
"As it was a war against the sovereign by a subject, and that sovereign was in alliance with the King of England, it would have been inconsistent with good faith to have had any communication with the Pasha." (H. of C , August 28, 1833.)
Etiquette prevented the noble lord from stopping Ibrahim's armies. Etiquette forbade him giving instructions to his Consul at Alexandria to use his influence with Mehemet Ali.a Like the Spanish Grandee, the noble lord would rather let the Queen burn to ashes than infringe on etiquette and interfere with her petticoats. Perchance it so appears that the noble lord had already in 1832 accredited consuls and diplomatic agents to the "subject" of the Sultan without the consent of the Sultan, that he entered into treaties with Mehemet altering existing regulations and arrangements touching matters of trade and revenue and establishing other ones in their room; that he did so without the consent of the Porte beforehand, or caring for its approbation afterwards.0—(H. of C , February 23, 1848.)
Accordingly, we are told by Earl Grey, the then chief of the noble viscount, that "They had at the moment extensive commercial relations with Mehemet Ali which it would not have been their interest to disturb."—(House of Lords, February 4, 1834.)
What commercial relations with the "rebellious subject."[3]
But the noble viscount's fleets were occupied in the Duero, and the Tagus, and blockading the Scheide, and doing the service of the midwife at the birth of the constitutional empires of Portugal, Spain, and Belgium, and he was, therefore, not in a situation to spare one single ship.— (H. of C, July 11, 1833, and March 17, 1834.)
But what the Sultan insisted on was precisely naval assistance. For argument's sake we will grant the noble lord to have been unable to dispose of one single vessel.*[5] But there are great authorities assuring us that what was wanted was not a single vessel, but only a single wordc on the part of the noble lord. There is Admiral Codrington, the destroyer of the Turkish fleet at Navarino.
"Mehemet Ali," he states, "had of old felt the strength of our representations on the subject of the evacuation of the Morea. He had then received orders from the Porte to resist all applications to induce him to evacuate it at the risk of his head, and he did resist accordingly, but at last prudently yielded and evacuated the Morea."—(H. of C, April 20, 1836.)
There is the Duke of Wellington.
"If, in the session of 1832 or 1833, they had plainly told Mehemet Ali, that he should not carry on his contest in Syria and Asia Minor, they would have put an end to the war without the risk of allowing the Emperor of Russia to send a fleet and an army to Constantinople."—(House of Lords, February 4, 1834.)
But there are better authorities. There is the noble lord himself.
"Although," he says, "his Majesty's government did not comply with the demand of the Sultan for naval assistance, yet the moral assistance of England was afforded; and the communications made by the British government to the Pasha of Egypt, and to Ibrahim Pasha, commanding in Asia Minor, did materially contribute to bring about that arrangement" (of Kutaiah) "between the Sultan and the Pasha, by which that war was terminated." — (H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
This sentence is omitted in the New-York Daily Tribune.— Ed. The New-York Daily Tribune has after this: "for such trifles as preventing Russia from occupying Constantinople, or Mehemet Ali from endangering the status quo of the world".— Ed.
There is Lord Derby, then Mr. Stanley and a member of the Palmerston Cabinet, who
"boldly asserts that what stopped the progress of Mehemet Ali, was the distinct declaration of France and England that they would not permit the occupation of Constantinople by his troops."—(H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
Thus then, according to Lord Derby and to Lord Palmerston himself,(2) it was not the Russian squadron and army at Constantinople, but it was a distinct declaration on the part of the British consular agent at Alexandria, that stopped Ibrahim's victorious march upon Constantinople, and brought about the arrangement of Kutaiah, by virtue of which Mehemet Ali obtained, besides Egypt, the Pashalik of Syria, of Adana and other places, added as appendage. But the noble lord thought fit not to allow his consul at Alexandria to make this distinct declaration till after the Turkish army was annihilated — Constantinople overrun by the Cossacks, the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi signed by the Sultan, and pocketed by the Czar.
If want of time and want of fleets, forbade the noble lord to assist the Sultan, and a superfluity of etiquette to check the Pasha, did he at least employ his ambassador at Constantinople to guard against excessive influence on the part of Russia, and to keep her influence confined to narrow bounds? Quite the contrary. In order not to clog the movements of Russia, the noble lord took good care to have no ambassador at all at Constantinople during the most fatal period of the crisis.
"If ever there was a country in which the weight and station of an ambassador were useful — or a period in which that weight and station might be advantageously exerted — that country was Turkey, during the six months before the 8th of July."—(Speech of Lord Mahon, H. of C , April 20, 1836.)
Lord Palmerston tells us, that the British Ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, left Constantinople in September, 1832 — that Lord Ponsonby, then at Naples, was appointed in his place in November, and that "difficulties experienced in making the necessary arrangements for his conveyance,"—although a man-of-war was in waiting for him—"and the unfavourable state of the weather, did prevent his getting to Constantinople until the end of May, 1833."—(H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
The Russian was not yet in, and Lord Ponsonby was accordingly ordered to require seven months for sailing from Naples to Constantinople.[3]
But why should the noble lord prevent the Russians from occupying Constantinople?
"He for his part had great doubts that any intention to partition the Ottoman Empire at all entered into the policy of the Russian government."—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
Certainly not. Russia wants not to partition the empire but to keep the whole of it. Besides the security Lord Palmerston possessed in this doubt he had another security "in the doubt, whether it enters into the policy of Russia at present to accomplish the object," and a third "security" in the third "doubV
"whether the Russian nation" (just think of a Russian nationl) "would be prepared for that transference of power, of residence, and authority to the southern provinces which would be the necessary consequence of the conquest by Russia of Constantinople."—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
Besides these negative arguments the noble lord had an affirmative one:
"if they had quietly beheld the temporary occupation of the Turkish capital by the forces of Russia, it was because they had full confidence in the honour and good faith of Russia.... The Russian government in granting its aid to the Sultan had pledged its honour, and in that pledge he reposed the most implicit confidence."0—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
So inaccessible, indestructible, integral, imperishable, inexpunga-ble, incalculable, incommensurable, and irremediable; so bound-less, dauntless, and matchless was the noble lord's confidence, that still on March 17, 1834, when the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi had become a fait accompli, he went on declaring that, "in their confidence ministers were not deceived." Not his is the fault if nature has developed his protuberance of confidence, to altogether anomalous dimensions.
Instead of the sentence beginning with the words: "The Russian was not yet in", the New-York Daily Tribune has: "Sir Stratford Canning is recalled in September and Lord Ponsonby appointed in November. But Ibrahim Pasha had not yet crossed the Taurus, not yet fought the battle of Konia and the Russians had not yet seized upon Czarigrad. Accordingly Lord Ponsonby is ordered to employ seven months in sailing from Naples to Constantinople." — Ed.
Article Fifth
[The People's Paper, No. 81, November 19, 1853]
The contents of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi were published by The Morning Herald, on Aug. 21, 1833.a On August 24, Sir Robert Inglis asked Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons,
"whether there really had been concluded a treaty, offensive and defensive, between Russia and Turkey? [...] He hoped that the noble lord would be prepared, before the prorogation of parliament to lay before the house, not only the treaties that had been made, but all communications connected with the formation of those treaties between Turkey and Russia."
Lord Palmerston answered that
"when they were sure that such a treaty as that alluded to really did exist; and when they were in possession of that treaty, it would then be for them to determine what was the course of policy they ought to pursue.... It could be no blame to him if the newspapers were sometimes beforehand with the government." (House of Commons, August 24, 1833.)
Seven months afterwards he assures that
"it was perfectly impossible that the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, not to be ratified at Constantinople until the month of September, should have been officially known to him in August." (H. of C, March 17, 1834.)
He did know the treaty, but not officially.[13]
"The British government was surprised to find that when the Russian troops quitted the Bosphorus, they carried that treaty [...] with them." (Speech of Lord Palmerston, H. of C , March 1, 1848).
Yea, the noble lord was in possession of the treaty before it had been concluded.
"No sooner had the Porte received it" (viz., the draft of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi), "than the treaty was communicated by them to the British Embassy at Constantinople, with the prayer for our protection against Ibrahim Pasha, and [...] against Nicholas. [...] The application was rejected,—but that was not all. With an atrocious perfidiousness, the fact was made known to the Russian Minister. Next day the very copy of the treaty which the Porte had lodged with the British Embassy, was returned to the Porte by the Russian Ambassador,0 who ironically
Instead of "by The Morning Herald" the New-York Daily Tribune of November 21, 1853, has: "by the journals of London".—Ed.
advised the Porte—'to choose better another time its confidents.' " (H. of C, Feb. 8, 1848.)(1)
But the noble viscount had obtained all he cared for. He was interrogated with respect to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, of whose existence he was not sure on August 24, 1833. On August 29 parliament was prorogued, receiving from the throne the consola-tory assertion that
"the hostilities which had disturbed the peace of Turkey had been terminated, and they might be assured that the king's attention would be carefully directed to any events which might affect the present state or the future independence of that empire."
Here we have the key to the famous Russian treaties of July. In July they are concluded; in August, something about them is transpiring through the public press. Lord Palmerston is interrogated in the Commons. He, of course, is aware of nothing. Parliament is prorogued — and, when it reassembles, the treaty has grown old, or, in 1841, has already been executed, in spite of public opinion.(2)
Parliament was prorogued on August 29, 1833, and it reassem-bled on Feb. 5, 1834. The interval between the prorogation and its reassembling was marked by two incidents intimately interwoven with each other. On the one hand, the united French and English fleets proceeded to the Dardanelles, displayed there the tricoloured, and the national flag of England, sailed their way to Smyrna, and returned from thence to Malta. On the other hand, a new treaty was concluded between the Porte and Russia, on January 29, 1834, the treaty of St. Petersburg.[285] This treaty was hardly signed when the united fleet was withdrawn.
This combined manoeuvre was intended to stultify the British people and Europe into the belief that the hostile demonstration on the Turkish seas and coasts, directed against the Porte, for having concluded the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, had enforced upon Russia the new treaty of St. Petersburg. This treaty, by promising the evacuation of the Principalities,(3) and reducing the Turkish payments to one-third of the stipulated amount, apparently relieved the Porte from some engagements enforced on her by the treaty of Adrianople. In all other instances it was a ratification of the treaty of Adrianople, not at all relating to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, nor dropping a word about the passage of the Dardanelles. On the contrary, the alleviations it granted to Turkey, were the purchase-money for the exclusion of Europe, by the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, from the Dardanelles.
"The very day on which the demonstration" (of the British fleet) "was being made, an assurance was given by the noble lord to the Russian Ambassador[3] at this court, that this combined movement of the [...] squadrons was not intended in any sense hostile to Russia, nor to be taken as a hostile demonstration against her; but, that, in fact, it meant nothing at all. I say this on the authority of Lord Ponsonby, the noble lord's own colleague, the Ambassador at Constantinople."—(Speech of Mr. Anstey, H. of C , Feb. 23, 1848.)
After the treaty of St. Petersburg had been ratified, the noble lord expressed his satisfaction with the moderation of the terms imposed by Russia.*(4)
When Parliament had reassembled, there appeared in The Globe, the organ of the Foreign Office, a paragraph stating that
"The treaty of St. Petersburg was a proof either of the moderation or good sense of Russia, or of the influence which the union of England and France, and the firm and concerted language of those two powers had acquired in the councils of St. Petersburg."— (Globe, Feb. 24, 1834.)
Thus public attention was to be diverted from the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, and the animosity it had aroused in Europe against Russia, to be soothed down.(5)
Artful as the dodging was, it would not do. On March 17, 1834, Mr. Sheil brought in a motion for
"the copies of the treaties between Turkey and Russia, [...] and of any correspondence between the English, Russian, and Turkish Governments, respecting those treaties, to be laid before the house."
The noble lord resisted this resolution to his utmost, and succeeded in baffling it by assuring the house that "peace [...] could be preserved only by the house reposing confidence in the government," and refusing to accede to the motion.[3] So grossly inapt were the reasons he stated to prevent him from producing the papers, that Sir Robert Peel called him, in his parliamentary language "a very unconclusive reasoner," and his own Colonel Evans could not help exclaiming:
"The speech of the noble lord appeared to him the most unsatisfactory he had ever heard from him."
Lord Palmerston strived to convince the house that,(6) according to the assurances of Russia, the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was to be looked upon "as one of reciprocity," that reciprocity being, that if the Dardanelles should be closed against England in the event of war they should be closed against Russia also. The statement was altogether false, but if true, this certainly would have been Irish reciprocity, for it was all on one side. To cross the Dardanelles is for Russia not the means to get at the Black Sea, but on the contrary, to leave it.
So far from refuting Mr. Sheil's statement, "the consequence of the treatv of Unkiar-Skelessi was [...] the same as if the Porte surrendered to Russia the possession of the Dardanelles," Lord Palmerston owned that the treaty closed the Dardanelles to British men-of-war, and that "under its provisions even merchant vessels might, [...] in effect, be practically excluded from the Black Sea," in the case of a war between England and Russia. But if the government acted with a "temper," if it "showed no unnecessary distrust," that is to say, if it quietly submitted to all further encroachments of Russia, he was
"inclined to think that the case might not arise in which that treaty would be called into operation; and that therefore it would, in practice, remain a dead letter."— (H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
Besides, "the assurance and explanations" which the British government had received from the contradictory parties to that treaty greatly tended to remove its objections to it. Thus then it was not the articles of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, but the assurances Russia gave with respect to them, not the acts of Russia, but her language, he had in his opinion to look upon. Yet, as on the same day his attention was called to the protest of the French chargé d'affaires, M. Lagrené, against the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, and the offensive and contumacious language of Count Nesselrode, answering in the St. Petersburg Gazette* that "the Emperor of Russia would act as if the declaration contained in the note of M. Lagrené had no existence," then the noble lord, eating up his own words, propounded the opposite doctrine that
"it was on all occasions the duty of the English government to look rather to the acts of foreign power, than to the language which the power might hold on any particular subject on any occasion."
One moment he appealed from the acts of Russia to her language, and the other from her language to her act. Still in 1837 he assured that
"the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was a treaty between two independent powers."—(H. of C , December 14, 1837.)(7)
Ten years later, the treaty having long since elapsed, and the noble lord being just about acting the play of the Truly English Minister and the "civis Romanus sum,"[286] he told the house plainly,
"the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi [...] was no doubt to a certain degree forced upon Turkey by Count Orloff, the Russian Envoy, under circumstances"—created by the noble lord himself—"which rendered it difficult for Turkey to refuse acceeding to it.... It gave practically to the Russian government a power of interference and dictation in Turkey, not consistent with the independence of that state."—(H., of C , March 1, 1848.)
During the whole course of the debates about the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, the noble lord, like the clown in the comedy, had an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands and serve all questions — the Anglo-French alliance. When his conniv-
This newspaper is not mentioned in the New-York Daily Tribune.—Ed. Quoted from Palmerston's speech in the House of Commons on March 17, 1834.—Ed ance with Russia was pointed at, in sneers, he gravely retorted[3]:
"If the present relations established between this country and France, were pointed at in these sneers, he would only say, that he should look [...] with feelings of pride and satisfaction at the part he had acted in bringing about that good understanding."—(H. of C , July 11, 1833.)
When the production of the papers relating to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was demanded, he answered that
"England and France had now cemented a friendship [...] which had only grown stronger."—(H. of C , March 17, 1834.)
"He could but remark," exclaimed Sir Robert Peel, "that whenever the noble lord was thrown into a difficulty as to any part of our European policy, he at once found a ready means of escape, by congratulating the House upon the close alliance [...] between this country and France," simultaneously the noble lord was strengthening the suspicions of his Tory opponents that "England was compelled to connive [...] at an aggression upon Turkey, which France had directly encouraged."
At that time, then, the ostensible alliance with France was to cover the secret infeoffment to Russia, as, in 1840, the clamorous rupture with France was to cover the official alliance with Russia.
While the noble lord fatigued the world with ponderous folios of printed negotiations on the affairs of the constitutional empire of Belgium and with ample explanations, verbal and documentary, with regard to the "substantive power" of Portugal, to this moment it has proved quite impossible to wrest out of him any document whatever relating to the first Syro-Turkish war, and to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi. When the production of the papers was first demanded, on July 11th, 1833, "The motion was premature, the transactions incomplete, and the results not yet known." On August 24th, 1833, "the treaty was not officially signed, and he was not in possession of it." On March 17th, 1834, "Communications were still carrying on ... the discussions, if he might so call them, were not yet completed." Still, in 1848, when Mr. Anstey told him that, in asking for the papers, he did ask for the
In the New-York Daily Tribune this passage reads as follows: "The great triumphant argument which, during the whole transactions with respect to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, the noble lord had ready to oppose to all the attacks upon his connivance with Russia, was that of his intimate alliance with France. Like the clown in the comedy, he had an answer of most monstrous size, that must meet all demands and serve all questions, namely: The Anglo-French Alliance. When he was pointed at with sneers because he had allowed the Russian occupation of Constantinople, he retorted that...."—Ed.
proof of the noble lord's collusion with the Czar, the chivalrous minister preferred killing time by a five hours' speech to killing suspicion by self-speaking documents. Notwithstanding all this, he had the cynic impudence to assure Mr. T. Attwood, on December 14th, 1837,a that "the papers connected with that treaty, viz., the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, were laid before the house three years ago," that is to say in 1834, when "peace could be preserved only" by withholding the papers from the house. On the same day he told Mr. Attwood that
"this treaty was a matter which had gone by, that it was entered into for a limited period, [...] and that period having expired, [...] its introduction by the honourable member was wholly unnecessary and uncalled for."
According to the original stipulation, the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was to expire on July 8th, 1841. Lord Palmerston tells Mr. Attwood that it had already expired on December 14th, 1837.b
"What trick, what devise, what starting hole, can'st thou now find to hide thee from this open and apparent shame? Come let's hear, Jack — what trick hast thou now?"
Article Sixth
[The People's Paper,No. 84, December 10, 1853]
There is no such word in the Russian vocabulary as "honour." As to the thing itself, it is considered to be a French delusion.
In the New-York Daily Tribune this sentence begins as follows: "His system of fictions, pretexts, contradictions, traps and incredible statements reached its climax, when, on December 14, 1837, he objected to a resolution of Mr. T. Attwood for the production of the papers connected with the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, on the ground that...."—Ed.
The New-York Daily Tribune has: "The noble Viscount knew as well that the papers were not laid before the House in 1834, or at any other period, as that the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, far from having expired on December 14, 1837, continued to remain in full vigor till July 8, 1841."—Ed.
"Schto takoi honneur? Eto Fransusski chimère," is a Russian proverb. For the invention of Russian honour the world is exclusively indebted to my Lord Palmerston, -who, during a quarter of a century, used, at every critical moment, to pledge himself, in the most emphatical manner, for the "honour" of the Czar.(1) So he did at the close of the Session of 1853, as at the close of the Session of 1833.
Now it happens that the noble lord, while he expressed "his most implicit confidence in the honour and good faith" of the Czar, had just got into possession of documents, concealed from the rest of the world, and leaving no doubt, if any existed, about the nature of Russian honour and good faith. He had not even to scratch the Muscovite in order to find the Tartar. He had caught the Tartar in his naked hideousness. He found himself possessed of the self-confessions of the leading Russian ministers and diplomatists, throwing off their cloaks, opening out their most secret thoughts, unfolding, without constraint, their plans of conquest and subjugation, scornfully railing at the imbecile credulity of European Courts and Ministers, mocking the Villèles, the Metternichs, the Aberdeens, the Cannings, and the Welling-tons; and devising, in common, with the savage cynicism of the barbarian, mitigated by the cruel irony of the courtier, how to sow distrust against England at Paris, and against Austria at London, and against London at Vienna, how to set them all by the ears, and how to make all of them the mere tools of Russia.
At the time of the insurrection of Warsaw, the vice-royal archives kept in the palace of Prince Constantine, and containing the secret correspondence of Russian ministers and ambassadors from the beginning of the century down to 1830, fell into the hands of the victorious Poles. Polish Refugees brought these papers over first to France, and, at a later period, Count Zamoyski, the nephew of Prince Czartoryski, placed them in the hands of Lord Palmerston, who buried them in Christian oblivion. With these papers in his pockets, the noble viscount was the more eager to proclaim in the British Senate and to the world "his most implicit confidence in the honour and good faith of the Emperor of Russia. " (2)
Not the fault of the noble viscount, that those startling papers were at length published at the end of 1835, through the famous Portfolio. King William IV, whatever he was in other respects, was a most decided enemy of Russia. His private secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor, was intimately connected with David Urquhart, introducing this gentleman to the King himself, and from that moment royalty was conspiring with those two friends against the policy of the "truly English" minister.
"William IV [...] ordered the above-mentioned papers to be given up by the noble lord. They were given up and examined at the time at Windsor Castle, and it was found desirable to print and publish them. [...] In spite of the great opposition of the noble lord, the king compelled him to lend the authority of the Foreign Office to their publication, [...] so [...] that the editor, who took the charge of revising them for the press, published not a single word which had not the signature or initials attached. I, myself, have seen the noble lord's initial attached to one of those documents, although the noble lord has denied these facts. Lord Palmerston was compelled to place the documents in the hands of Mr. Urquhart for publication. Mr. Urquhart was the real editor of The Portfolio." (Speech of Mr. Anstey, House of Commons, February 23rd, 1848.)
After the death of the king, Lord Palmerston refused to pay the printer of The Portfolio, and disclaimed, publicly and solemnly, all connexion on the part of the Foreign Office, and induced, in what manner is not known, Mr. Backhouse, his under-secretary, to set his name to those denials.3 We read in The Times of January 26th, 1839:
"It is not for us to understand how Lord Palmerston may feel, but we are sure there is no misapprehending how any other person in the station of a gentleman, and in the position of a minister, would feel, after the notoriety given to the correspondence between Mr. Urquhart, whom Lord Palmerston dismissed from office, and Mr. Backhouse, whom the noble viscount has retained in office, by The Times of yesterday. There never was a fact apparently better established through this correspondence than that the series of official documents contained in the well-known publication, called The Portfolio, were printed and circulated by Lord Palmerston's authority, and that his lordship is responsible for the publication of them, both as a statesman to the political world here and abroad, and as an employer of the printers and publishers, for the pecuniary charge accompanying it."
In consequence of her financial distress, resulting from the exhaustion of the treasury by the unfortunate war of 1828-29, and the debt to Russia stipulated by the treaty of Adrianople, Turkey found herself compelled to extend that obnoxious system of monopolies by which the sale of almost all articles was granted only to those who had paid government licenses. Thus a few usurers were enabled to seize upon the entire commerce of the country. Mr. Urquhart proposed to King William IV, a commercial treaty to be concluded with the Sultan,(3) which treaty, while guaranteeing great advantages to British commerce, intended at the same time to develop the productive resources of Turkey, to restore her Exchequer to health, and thus to emancipate her from the Russian yoke. The curious history of this treaty cannot be better related than in the words of Mr. Anstey:
"The whole of the contest between Lord Palmerston on the one hand, and Mr. Urquhart on the other, was directed to this treaty of commerce. On the third of October, 1835, Mr. Urquhart obtained his commission as Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, given him for the one purpose of securing the adoption there of the Turkish commercial treaty. He delayed his departure however till June or July, 1836. Lord Palmerston pressed him to go. The applications to him urging his departure were numerous, but his answer invariably was: I will not go until I have this commercial treaty settled with the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office; and then I will accompany it, and procure its acceptance at the Porte.... Finally, Lord Palmerston gave his approbation to the treaty, and it was forwarded to Lord Ponsonby, the Ambassador at Constantinople." (In the meantime the latter had been instructed by Lord Palmerston to take the negotiations entirely out of the hands of Mr. Urquhart into his own, contrary to the engagement entered into with Mr. Urquhart.) "As soon as the removal of Mr. Urquhart from Constantinople had been effected through the intrigues of the noble lord, the treaty was immediately thrown overboard. Two years later the noble lord resumed it, giving Mr. Urquhart before Parliament the compliment of being the author of it, and disclaiming for himself all merits in it. But the noble lord had destroyed the treaty, falsified it in every part, and converted it to the ruin of commerce. The original treaty of Mr. Urquhart placed the subjects of Great Britain in Turkey, upon the footing of the most favoured nation"—viz., the Russians. "As altered by Lord Palmerston, it placed the subjects of Great Britain upon the footing of the taxed and oppressed subjects of the Porte. Mr. Urquhart's treaty stipulated for the removal of all transit duties, monopolies, taxes, and duties of whatever character, others than those stipulated by the treaty itself. As falsified by Lord Palmerston, it contained a clause, declaring the perfect right of the Sublime Porte to impose whatever regulations and restrictions it pleased, with regard to commerce. Mr. Urquhart's treaty left importation subject only to the old duty of three shillings; that of the noble lord raised the duty from three shillings to five shillings. Mr. Urquhart's treaty stipulated for an ad valorem duty in this manner, that if any article of commerce was so exclusively the production of Turkey, as to insure it a ready sale, at the prices usually received under the monopoly in foreign ports, then the export duty to be assessed by two commissioners appointed on the part of England and Turkey, might be a high one, so as to be remunerative and productive of revenue, but that, in the case of commodities produced elsewhere than in Turkey, and not being of sufficient value in foreign ports to bear a high duty, a lower duty should be assessed. Lord Palmerston's treaty stipulated a fixed duty of twelve shillings ad valorem upon every article whether it would bear the duty or not. [...] The original treaty extended the benefit of Free Trade to Turkish ships and produce; [...] the substituted treaty contained no stipulation whatever on the subject.... I charge these falsifications, I charge also the concealment of them, upon the noble lord, and further — I charge the noble lord with having falsely stated to the house that his treaty was that which had been arranged by Mr. Urquhart."—(Speech of Mr. Anstey, H. of C , February 23rd, 1848.)
So favourable to Russia, and so obnoxious to Great Britain, was the treaty as altered by the noble lord, that some English merchants in the Levant resolved to trade henceforth under the protection of Russian firms, and others, as Mr. Urquhart states, were only prevented from so doing by a sort of national pride.
With regard to the secret relations between the noble lord and William IV, Mr. Anstey stated to the house,
"The king forced the question of the progress of Russian encroachment in Turkey, upon the attention of the noble lord.... I can [...] prove that the noble lord was obliged to take the directions in this matter from the late King's private secretary, and that his existence in office depended upon his compliance with the wishes of the monarch.... The noble lord did on one or two occasions, as far as he dared, resist, but his resistance was [...] invariably followed by abject expressions of contrition and compliance. I will not take upon myself to assert that, on one occasion, the noble lord was actually out of office for a day or two, [...] but I am able to say that the noble lord was [...] in danger of a most unceremonious expulsion from office on that occasion. I refer to the discovery which the late king had made, that the noble lord consulted the feelings of the Russian government as to the choice of an English ambassador at the Court of St. Petersburg, and that Sir Stratford Canning, originally destined for the embassy, was set aside to make room for the late Earl of Durham, an ambassador more agreeable to the Czar."—(H. of C, Feb. 23, 1848.)
It is one of the most astonishing facts that, while the king was vainly struggling against the Russian policy of the noble lord — the noble lord and his Whig-allies succeeded in keeping alive the public suspicion that the king — who was known as a Tory — was paralysing the anti-Russian efforts of the "truly English" minister. The pretended Tory predilection of the monarch for the despotic principles of the Russian Court, was of course made to explain the otherwise inexplicable policy of Lord Palmerston. The Whig Oligarchs smiled mysteriously when H. L. Bulwer informed the house, that "what reception Count Orloff, having been sent over to England after the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, had met with at his Majesty's Court." — (H. of C , August 28, 1833.)
The papers entrusted by the dying king and his Secretary, the late Sir Herbert Taylor, to Mr. Urquhart "for the purpose of vindicating, upon the fitting opportunity, the memory of William IV"—will, when published, throw a new light upon the past career of the noble lord and the Whig Oligarchy, of which the public generally know little more than the history of their pretensions, their phrases, and their so-called principles — in a word, the theatrical and fictitious part,—the mask.
This is a fitting occasion to give his due to Mr. David Urquhart, the indefatigable antagonist for twenty years of Lord Palmerston, who has proved his only adversary — one not to be intimidated into silence, bribed into connivance, charmed into suitorship, while, what with cajoleries, what with seductions, Alcina Palmerston contrived to change all other foes into fools. We have just heard the fierce denunciation of his lordship by Mr. Anstey.
"A circumstance most significant is that the accused minister sought the member"—viz., Mr. Anstey—"[...] and was content to accept his [...] co-operation and private friendship without the forms of recantation or apology. [...] Mr. Anstey's recent legal appointment by the present government speaks for itself." (D. Urquhart's Progress of Russia.)
On February 8, 1848, the same Mr. Anstey had compared the noble viscount with
"the infamous Marquis of Carmarthen, Secretary of State to William III, [...] whom, during his visit to his court, the Czar, Peter I, found means to corrupt to his interests with the gold of British merchants."—(H. of C, February 8, 1848.)
Who defended Lord Palmerston on that occasion against the accusations of Mr. Anstey? Mr. Sheil; the same Mr. Sheil which had, on the conclusion of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, in 1833, acted the same part of accuser against his lordship as Mr. Anstey in 1848. Mr. Roebuck, once his strong antagonist, procured him the vote of confidence in 1850. Sir Stratford Canning, having denounced during a decennium the noble lord's connivance with the Czar, was content to be got rid of as Ambassador at Constantinople. The noble lord's own dear Dudley Stuart was intrigued out of Parliament for some years for having opposed the noble lord. When returned back to it, he had become the âme damnée of the truly English minister. Kossuth, who might have known from the Blue Books[3] that Hungary had been betrayed by the noble viscount, called him "the dear friend of his bosom" when landing at Southampton.
Seventh Article[287]
[The People's Paper, No. 85, December 17, 1853]
One glance at the map of Europe will show you on the Western littoral of the Black Sea the outlets of the Danube, the only river which, springing up in the very heart of Europe, may be said to form a natural highway to Asia. Strictly opposite, on the Eastern side, to the south of the river Kuban, begins the mountain-range of the Caucasus, stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian in a south-easterly direction for some seven hundred miles and separating Europe from Asia.
If you hold the outlets of the Danube, you hold the Danube, and with it the highway to Asia, and a great part of the commerce of Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Turkey, and above all of Moldo-Wallachia. If you hold the Caucasus too, the Black Sea becomes your property,(1) and to shut up its door, you only want Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The possession of the. Caucasus mountains makes you at once master of Trebizond, and through their domineering the Caspian Sea, of the northern seaboard of Persia.
The greedy eyes of Russia embraced at once the outlets of the Danube and the mountain-range of the Caucasus. There, the business in hand was to conquer supremacy, here to maintain it. The chain of the Caucasus separates Southern Russia from the luxurious provinces of Georgia, Mingrelia, Imeretia, and Guria, wrested by the Muscovite from the Mussulman. Thus the foot of the monster empire is cut off from its main body. The only military road deserving to be called such winds from Mozdok to Tiflis, through the Engpass of Dariel, fortified by a continuous line of entrenched places, but exposed on both sides to the never-ceasing attacks from the Caucasian tribes. The union of those tribes under one military chief might even endanger the bordering country of the Cossacks. "The thought of the dreadful consequences which a union of the hostile Circassians under one head would produce in the south of Russia fills one with terror" — exclaims M. Kupffer, a German, who presided over the scientific commission, which, in 1829, accompanied the expedition of General Emmanuel to Elbruz.[3]
At this very moment our attention is directed with equal anxiety to the banks of the Danube, where Russia has seized the two corn-magazines of Europe, and to the Caucasus, whence she is menaced in the possession of Georgia.b It was the treaty of Adrianople, that prepared Russia's usurpation of Moldo-Wallachia, and recognised her claims to the Caucasus.
Article IV of that treaty stipulates,
"All the countries situated north and east of the line of demarcation between the two empires" (Russia and Turkey), "towards Georgia, Imeretia, and the Guria, as well as all the littoral of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the Kuban, as far as the port of St. Nicholas inclusively, shall remain under the domination of Russia."
With regard to the Danube the same treaty stipulates,
"The frontier line will follow the course of the Danube to the mouth of St. George, leaving all the islands formed by the different branches in the possession of Russia. The right bank will remain as formerly in the possession of the Ottoman Porte. It is however agreed that that right bank from the point where the arm of St. George departs from that of Sulina, still remain uninhabited to a distance of two hours" (six miles) "from the river, and that no kind of structure shall be raised there, and in like manner, on the islands which still remain in the possession of the Court of Russia. With the exception of quarantines which will be there established, it will not be permitted to make any other establishment or fortification."
Both these paragraphs, inasmuch as they secure to Russia an "extension of territory and exclusive commercial advantages.," openly infringed upon the protocol of April 4, 1826, drawn up by the Duke of Wellington at St. Petersburg, and on the treaty of July 6, 1827, concluded between Russia and the other Great Powers at London.[288] The English Government, therefore, refused to recognise the treaty of Adrianople. The Duke of Wellington protested against it. (Speech of Lord Dudley Stuart, H. of C , March 17, 1837.)
Lord Aberdeen protested.
with no small dissatisfaction on many parts of the Treaty of Adrianople, and especially notices [...] the stipulations respecting the islands of the Danube. He denies that that peace" (the Treaty of Adrianople), "has respected die territorial rights of the Sovereignty of the Porte, and the condition and the interests of all maritime states in the Mediterranean."—(Speech of Lord Mahon, H. of C , April 20, 1836.)
He declared that
"the independence of the Porte would be sacrificed, and die peace of Europe endangered by this treaty being agreed to."—(Speech of Earl Grey, H. of L., Feb. 4th, 1834.)
Lord Palmerston himself informs us,
"As far as the extension of the Russian frontier is concerned [...] in the South of the Caucasus, and the shores of the Black Sea, it is certainly not consistent with the solemn declaration made by Russia in the face of Europe, previous to the commencement of the Turkish war." (H. of C , March 17th, 1837.)
The Eastern littoral of the Black Sea, by blockading of which and cutting off supplies of arms and gunpowder to the north-western districts of the Caucasus, Russia could alone hope to realise her nominal claim to those countries — this littoral of the Black Sea and the outlets of the Danube are certainly no places "where an English action could possibly take place,"[3] as was lamented by the noble lord in the case of Cracow. By what mysterious contrivance, then, has the Muscovite succeeded in blockading the Danube, in blocking up the littoral of the Euxine, and in forcing Great Britain to submit, not only to the Treaty of Adrianople, but at the same [time] to the violation by Russia herself of that identical treaty?
These questions were put to the noble viscount in the House of Commons, on April 20th, 1836, numerous petitions having poured in from the merchants of London, of Glasgow, and other commercial towns, against the fiscal regulations of Russia in the Black Sea, and her enactments and restrictions tending to intercept English commerce on the Danube. There had appeared, on February 7th, 1836, a Russian ukase, which, by virtue of the Treaty of Adrianople, established a quarantine on one of the islands formed by the mouths of the Danube. In order to execute that quarantine, Russia claimed a right of boarding and search, of levying fees, and seizing and marching off to Odessa refractory ships, proceeding on their voyage up the Danube. Before the quarantine was established, or rather before a custom-house and fort were erected, under the false pretence of a quarantine, the Russian authorities threw out their feelers, to ascertain the risk they might run with the British government. Lord Durham, acting upon instructions received from England, remonstrated with the Russian Cabinet, for the hindrance which had been given to British trade.
"He was referred to Count Nesselrode, Count Nesselrode [...] referred him to the Governor of South Russia, and the Governor of South Russia again referred him to the Consul at Galatz, who communicated with the British Consul at Bräila, who was instructed to send down the captains from whom toll had been exacted, to [...] the Danube, the scene of their injuries, in order that inquiry might be made on the subject, it being well known that the captains thus referred to were then in England." —(H. of C , April 20, 1836 [Speech of Mr. Patrick Stewart].)
The formal ukase of the 7th Feb., 1836, aroused, however, the general attention of British commerce.
"Many ships had sailed, and others were going out, to whose captains strict orders had been given, not to submit to the right of boarding and search, which Russia [...] claimed. [...] The fate of these ships must be inevitable, unless some expression of opinion were made on the part of that house. [...] Unless that were done, British shipping, to the amount of not less than 5,000 tons, would [...] be seized and marched off to Odessa, until the insolent commands of Russia were complied with." (Speech of Mr. Patrick M.Stewart, H. of C, April 20, 1836.)
Russia required the marshy islands of the Danube, by virtue of a clause of the Treaty of Adrianople, which clause itself was a violation of the treaty she had previously contracted with England and the other powers in 1827. The bristling [of] the gates of the Danube with fortifications, and these fortifications with guns, was a violation of the Treaty of Adrianople itself, which expressly prohibits any fortification to be erected within six miles of the river. The exaction of tolls, and the obstruction of the navigation, was a violation of the Treaty of Vienna, declaring that the navigation of rivers along their whole course, from the point where each of them becomes navigable to its mouth, shall be entirely free, that "the amount of the duties shall in no case exceed those now" (1815) "paid;" and that "no increase shall take place, except with the common consent of the states bordering on the river." Thus, then, all the argument on which Russia could plead not guilty was the treaty of 1827, violated by the Treaty of Adrianople, the Treaty of Adrianople violated by herself, the whole backed by a violation of the Treaty of Vienna.
It proved quite impossible to wring out of the noble lord any declaration, whether he did or did not recognise the treaty of Adrianople. As to the violation of the Treaty of Vienna, he had "received no official information that anything has occurred which is not warranted by the treaty. [...] When such a statement is made by the parties concerned, it shall be dealt with [...] in such manner as the law-advisers of the Crown shall deem consistent with the rights of the subjects of this country." (Speech of Lord Palmerston, H. of C, April 20, 1836.)
By the treaty of Adrianople, Art. 5, Russia guarantees the "prosperity" of the Danubian Principalities and full "liberty of trade" for them. Now, Mr. Stewart proved that the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were objects of deadly jealousy to Russia, as their trade had taken a sudden development since 1834, as they vied with Russia's own stable production, as Galatz was becoming the great depot of all the grain of the Danube, and driving Odessa out of the market. If, answered the noble lord,
"if my honourable friend had been able to show that whereas some years ago we had had a large and important commerce with Turkey, [...] and that that commerce had, by the aggression of other countries, or by the neglect of the government of this, dwindled down to an inconsiderable trade, then there might have been ground to call upon parliament." In lieu of such an occurrence, "my honourable friend has shown that during the last few years the trade" with Turkey "has risen from next to nothing to a very considerable amount."
Russia obstructs the Danube navigation, because the trade of the Principalities is growing important, says Mr. Stewart. But she did not so when that trade was next to nothing, retorts Lord Palmerston. You neglect to oppose the recent encroachments of Russia on the Danube, says Mr. Stewart. We did not so at the epoch these encroachments were not yet ventured upon, replies the noble lord. What "circumstances" have, therefore, "occurred against which the Government [...] are [...] not likely to guard, unless driven thereto by the direct interference of this House?"3
He prevented the Commons from passing a resolution by assuring them that,
"there is no disposition of his Majesty's government to submit to aggressions on the part of any power, be that power what it may, and be it more or less strong," and by warning them that, "we should also cautiously abstain from anything which might be construed by other powers, and reasonably so, as being a provocation on our part."
A week after these debates had taken place in the House of Commons, a British merchant0 addressed a letter to the Foreign Office with regard to the Russian Ukase.
"I am directed by Viscount Palmerston," answered the Under-Secretary[3] at the Foreign Office, "to acquaint you that his lordship has called upon the law-adviser for the Crown for his opinion as to the regulations promulgated by the Russian Ukase of Feb. 7, 1836; but in the meantime Lord Palmerston directs me to acquaint you, with respect to the latter part of your letter, that it is the opinion of his Majesty's government, that no toll is justly demanded by the Russian authorities at the mouth of the Danube, and that you have acted properly in directing your agents to refuse to pay it."
The merchant acted according to this letter. He is abandoned to Russia by the noble lord; a Russian toll is, as Mr. Urquhart states, now exacted in London and Liverpool by Russian Consuls on every English ship sailing for the Turkish ports of the Danube; and "the quarantine still stands on the Island of Leti."
Russia did not limit her invasion on the Danube to a quarantine established, to fortifications erected, and to tolls exacted. The only mouth of the Danube remaining still navigable, the Sulina mouth, was acquired by her through the treaty of Adrianople. As long as possessed by the Turks, there was kept a depth of water in the channel of from fourteen to sixteen feet. Since, in the possession of Russia, the water became reduced to eight feet, a depth wholly inadequate to the conveyance of the vessels employed in the corn trade. Now Russia is a party to the treaty of Vienna, and that treaty stipulates in Art. 113, that
"each state shall be at the expense of keeping in good repair the Towing Paths, and shall maintain the necessary work in order that no obstruction shall be experienced by the navigation."
For keeping the channel in a navigable state, Russia found no better means than gradually reducing the depth of the water,0
paving it with wrecks, and choking up its bar with an accumulation of sand and mud. To this systematic and protracted infraction of the treaty of Vienna she added another violation of the treaty of Adrianople, which forbids any establishment at the mouth of the Sulina, except for quarantine and light-house purposes, while, at her dictation, a small Russian fort has there sprung up, living from the extortions upon the vessels, the occasion for which is afforded by the delays and expenses for lighterage, consequent upon the obstruction of the channel.
Cum principia negante non est disputandum,[3] of what use is it to dwell upon abstract principles with despotic governments, who are accused of measuring right by power, and of ruling their conduct by expediency, and not by justice.—(Speech of Lord Palmerston, April 30, 1823.)
According to his own maxim the noble viscount was contented to dwell upon abstract principles with the despotic government of Russia; but he went farther. While he assured the house on July 6, 1840, that the freedom of the Danube navigation was "guaranteed by the treaty of Vienna"—while he lamented on July 13, 1840, that the occupation of Cracow being a violation of the treaty of Vienna, "there were no means of enforcing the opinions of England, because Cracow was evidently a place where no English action could possibly take place;" two days later he concluded a Russian treaty, closing the Dardanelles to England(2) "during times of peace with Turkey," and thus depriving England of the only means of "enforcing" the treaty of Vienna, and transforming the Euxine into a place where no English action could possibly take place.
This point once obtained, he contrived to give a sham satisfaction to public opinion by firing off a whole battery of papers, reminding the "despotic government, which measures right by power, and rules its conduct by expediency, and not by justice," in a sententious and sentimental manner, that
"Russia, when she compelled Turkey to cede to her the outlet of a great European river, which forms the commercial highway for the mutual intercourse of many nations, undertook duties and responsibilities to other states which she should take a pride in making good."
To this dwelling upon abstract principles Count Nesselrode was giving the inevitable answer that, "the subject should be carefully examined," and expressing from time to time "a feeling of soreness on the part of the imperial government at the mistrust manifested as to their intentions."
Thus, through the management of the noble lord, in 1853 things arrived at the point where the navigation of the Danube was declared impossible, and corn rotting at the mouth of the Sulina, while famine threatened to invade England, France, and the South of Europe. Thus Russia was not only adding, as The Times says, "to her other important possessions, that of an iron gate between the Danube and the Euxine,"[3] she possessed herself of the key to the Danube, of a bread-screw, which she can put on, whenever the policy of Western Europe becomes obnoxious to punishment.b
Eighth Article
[The People's Paper, No. 86, December 24, 1853]
The petitions presented to the House of Commons, on April 20th, 1836, and the resolution moved by Mr. Patrick M'Stewart in reference to them, did not only refer to the Danube, but to Circassia too, the rumour having spread through the commercial world that the Russian government, on the plea of blockading the coast of Circassia, pretended to exclude English ships from landing goods and merchandise in certain ports of the Eastern littoral of the Black Sea. On that occasion Lord Palmerston solemnly declared:
"If parliament will place their confidence in us — if they will leave it to us to manage the foreign relations of the country [...] we shall be able to protect the interests, and to uphold the honour of the country, without being obliged to have recourse to war."—(House of Commons, April 20th, 1836.)
Some months afterwards, on October 29th, 1836, the Vixen, a trading vessel belonging to Mr. George Bell, and laden with a cargo of salt, set out from London on a direct voyage for Circassia. On November 25th, she was seized in the Circassian Bay of Soudjouk-Kale by a Russian man-of-war, for "having been employed on a blockaded coast." (Letter of the Russian Admiral Lazareff to the English Captain, Mr. Childs, December 24th, 1836.c) The vessel, her cargo, and her crew were sent to the port
This statement from The Times, No. 16062, March 28, 1836, is quoted according to D. Urquhart, Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South.—Ed.
In the New-York Daily Tribune the article ends as follows: "The mystery, however, of Lord Palmerston's transactions with Russia as to her schemes on the Danube was not revealed till during the course of the debates on Circassia. Then it was proved by Mr. Anstey on February 23, 1848, that 'the noble Viscount's first act on coming into office'" (as the Minister of Foreign Affairs) "'was to accept the treaty of Adrianople,'—the same treaty against which the Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen had protested.
of Sebastopol, where the condemnatory decision of the Russians was received on January 27th, 1837. This time, however, no mention was made of a "blockade," but the Vixen was simply declared a lawful prize, because "it was guilty of smuggling;" the importation of salt being prohibited, and the Bay of Soudjouk-Kale, a Russian port, not provided with a custom-house. The condemna-tion was executed in an exquisitely ignominious and insulting manner. The Russians, who effected the seizure, were publicly rewarded with decorations. The British flag was hoisted, then hauled down, and the Russian flag hoisted in its stead. The master and crew, put as captives on board the Ajax—the captor — were despatched from Sebastopol to Odessa, and from Odessa to Constantinople, whence they were allowed to return to England. As to the vessel itself, a German traveller, who visited Sebastopol a few years after this event, wrote, in a letter addressed to the Augsburg Gazette:
"After all the Russian ships-of-the-line which I visited, no vessel excited my curiosity more than the Soudjouk-Kale, formerly the Vixen, [...] under Russian colours, she has now quite changed her appearance. [...] This little vessel is now the best sailer in the Russian fleet, and is generally employed as transport between Sebastopol and the coast of Circassia."(1)
The capture of the Vixen certainly afforded Lord Palmerston a great occasion for fulfilling his promise "to protect the interests, and to uphold the honour of the country." Besides the honour of the British flag and the interests of British commerce there was another question at stake—the independence of Circassia. At first Russia justified the seizure of the Vixen on the plea of an infraction of the blockade proclaimed by her; but the ship was condemned on the opposite plea of a contravention against her custom-house regulations. By proclaiming a blockade, Russia declared Circassia a hostile foreign country, and the question was whether the British government had ever recognised that blockade? By the establishment of custom-house regulations, Circassia was, on the contrary, treated as a Russian dependency, and the question was whether the British government had ever recognised the Russian claims to Circassia?
Before proceeding, let it be remembered that Russia was at that epoch yet far from having completed her fortifications of Sebastopol.
Any Russian claim to the possession of Circassia could only be derived from the treaty of Adrianople, as explained in a previous article. But the treaty of July 6th, 1827, bound Russia to not attempting any territorial aggrandisement, nor securing any exclusive commercial advantage from her war with Turkey. Any extension, therefore, of the Russian frontier, attendant on the treaty of Adrianople, openly infringed the treaty of 1827, and was, as shown by the protest of Wellington and Aberdeen, not to be recognised on the part of Great Britain. Russia, then, had no right to receive Circassia from Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey could not cede to Russia what she never possessed, and Circassia had always remained so independent of the Porte that, at the time when a Turkish Pasha yet resided at Anapa, Russia herself had concluded several conventions with the Circassian chieftains as to the coast-trade, the Turkish trade being exclusively and legally restricted to the port of Anapa. Circassia being an independent country, the municipal, sanitary, or customs' regulations with which the Muscovite might think fit to provide her were as binding as his regulations for the port of Tampico.
On the other hand, if Circassia was a foreign country hostile to Russia, the latter had only a right to blockade, if that blockade was no paper blockade — if Russia had the naval squadron present to enforce it, and really domineered the coast. Now, on a coast extending 200 miles, Russia possessed but three isolated forts, all the rest of Circassia remaining in the hands of the Circassian tribes. There existed no Russian fort in the bay of Soudjouk-Kale. There was in fact no blockade, because no maritime force was employed. There was the offer of the distinct testimony of the crew of two British vessels who had visited the bay — the one in September, 1834 — the other, that of the Vixen itself — confirmed subsequently by the public statements of two British travellers who visited the harbour in the years 1837 and 1838, that there was no Russian occupation whatever of the coast.— (Portfolio,VIII, March 1, 1844.)
When the Vixen entered the harbour of Soudjouk-Kale,
"there were no Russian ships of war in sight nor in the offing.... A Russian vessel of war came into the harbour 36 hours after the Vixen had cast anchor, and at the moment when the owner and some of the officers were on shore [...] in fixing the dues demanded by the Circassian authorities, and payable on the value of the goods.... The man-of-war came not coastwise, but from the open sea." —(Speech of Mr. Anstey, H. of C , Feb. 23, 1848.)
But need we give further proofs than the St. Petersburg Cabinet itself seizing the Vixen en pretext of blockade, and confiscating it en pretext of custom-house regulations?
The Circassians thus appeared the more favoured by accident, as the question of their independence coincided with the question of the free navigation of the Black Sea — the protection of British commerce, and an insolent act of piracy committed by Russia on a British merchant ship. Their chance of obtaining protection from the mistress of the seas seemed less doubtful as
"the Circassian declaration of independence had a short time ago been published after mature deliberation and several weeks' correspondence with different branches of the government, in a periodical" (The Portfolio) "connected with the foreign department, and as Circassia was marked out as an independent country in a map revised by Lord Palmerston himself."—(Speech of Lord Stanley, H. of C , June 21, 1838.)
Will it then be believed that the noble and chivalrous Viscount knew how to handle the case so masterly, that the very act of piracy committed by Russia against British property afforded him the long sought-for occasion of formally recognising the treaty of Adrianople, and the extinction of Circassian independence?
On March 17, 1837, Mr. Roebuck moved, with reference to the confiscation of the Vixen, for
"a copy of all correspondence between the government of this country and the governments of Russia and Turkey [...] relating to the treaty of Adrianople, as well as [...] all transactions or negotiations connected with the ports and territories on the shores of the Black Sea by Russia since the Treaty of Adrianople."
Mr. Roebuck, from fear of being suspected of humanitarian tendencies, and of defending Circassia on the ground of abstract principles, plainly declared:
"Russia may endeavour to obtain possession of all the world, and I regard her efforts with indifference; but the moment she interferes with our commerce, I call upon the government of this country" (which country exists in appearance somewhere beyond the limits of all the world), "to punish the aggression."
Accordingly he wanted to know "if the British government had acknowledged the treaty of Adrianople?"
The noble lord, although pressed very hard, had ingenuity enough to make a long speech, and
"to sit down without telling the house [...] who was in actual possession of the Circassian coast at the present moment [...] whether it really belonged to Russia, and whether it was by right of a violation of fiscal regulations, or in consequence of an existing blockade, that the Vixen had been seized, and whether or not he recognised the Treaty of Adrianople." (Speech of Mr. Hume, H. of C, March 17th, 1837.)
Mr. Roebuck stated that, before allowing the Vixen to proceed to Circassia, Mr. Bell had applied to the noble lord, in order to ascertain whether there was any impropriety or danger to be apprehended of a vessel landing goods in any part of Circassia, and that the Foreign Office answered in the negative. Thus, Lord Palmerston found himself obliged to read to the house the correspondence exchanged between himself and Mr. Bell. Reading these letters, one would fancy he was reading a Spanish comedy of the cloak and the sword, rather than an official correspondence between a minister and a merchant. When he heard the noble lord read the letters respecting the seizure of the Vixen, Daniel O'Connell exclaimed, "He could not help calling to his mind the expression of Talleyrand that language had been invented to conceal thoughts."
For instance, Mr. Bell asks, "whether there were any restrictions on [...] trade recognised by His Majesty's government — as, if not, he intended to send thither a vessel with a cargo of salt?" "You ask me," answers Lord Palmerston, "whether it would be for your advantage to engage in a speculation in salt," and informs him "that it is for commercial firms to judge for themselves whether they shall enter or decline a speculation." "By no means," replies Mr. Bell. "All I want to know is, whether or not His Majesty's government recognise the Russian blockade on [...] the Black Sea to the South of the river Kuban?" "You must look at the London Gazette," retorts the noble lord, "in which all the notifications, such as those alluded to by you, are made." The London Gazette was, indeed, the quarter to which a British merchant had to refer for such information, instead of the ukases of the Emperor of Russia. Mr. Bell, finding no indication whatever in the Gazette of the acknowledgement of the blockade or of other restrictions, despatched his vessel. The result was, that some time after he was himself placed in the Gazette.
"I referred Mr. Bell," says Lord Palmerston, "to the Gazette, where he would find that no blockade had been [...] communicated or declared to this country by the Russian government — consequently, none was acknowledged."
By referring Mr. Bell to the Gazette, Lord Palmerston did not only deny the acknowledgement on the part of Great Britain of the Russian blockade, but simultaneously affirmed that, in his opinion, the coast of Circassia formed no part of the Russian territory, because blockades of their own territories by foreign states — as for instance against revolted subjects — are not to be notified in the Gazette. Circassia forming no part of the Russian territory could not, of course, be included in Russian custom-house regulations. Thus, according to his own statement, Lord Palmerston denied, in his letters to Mr. Bell, Russia's right to blockade the Circassian coast, or to subject it to commercial restrictions. It is true that, through his speech, transpired the desire to induce the house to infer that Russia had possession of Circassia. But, on the other hand, he stated plainly,
"As far as the extension of the Russian frontier is concerned [...] on the South«of the Caucasus and the shores of the Black Sea, [...] it is certainly not consistent with the solemn declaration made by Russia in the face of Europe, previous to the commencement of the Turkish war."
When he sat down, pledging himself ever "to protect the interests and to uphold the honour of the country," he seemed to labour beneath the accumulated miseries of his past policy, rather than hatching treacherous designs for the future. On that day he met with the following cruel apostrophe:
"The want of vigour and alacrity to defend the honour of the country which the noble lord had displayed was most culpable; [...] the conduct of no former minister had ever been so vacillating, so hesitating, so uncertain, so cowardly, when insult had been offered to British subjects. [...] How much longer [...] did the noble lord propose to allow Russia thus to insult Great Britain, and thus to injure British commerce? [...] The noble lord was degrading England by holding her out in the character of a bully — haughty and tyrannical to the weak, humble and abject to the strong."
Who was it that thus mercilessly branded the truly English Minister? Nobody else than Lord Dudley Stuart.
On November 25th, 1836, the Vixen was confiscated. The stormy debates of the House of Commons, just quoted, took place on March 17th, 1837. It was not till April 19th, 1837, that the noble lord requested the Russian government
"to state the reasons on account of which it had thought itself warranted to seize, [...] in time of peace, a merchant vessel belonging to British subjects."
On May 17th, 1837, the noble lord received the following despatch from the Earl of Durham, the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg[3]:
"My Lord,—With respect to the military de facto occupation of Soudjouk-Kale, I have to state to your lordship that there is a fortress in the bay which bears the
Passages from Palmerston's correspondence with Durham, the English Ambassador to Russia, are quoted from "Letters from the Black Sea and the Caucasus.—The Vixen again", The Portfolio, 1844, Vol. II, No. VIII.— Ed.
name of the Empress (Alexandrinski), and that it has always been occupied by a Russian garrison.
"I have &c.
"Durham."
It need hardly be remarked that the fort Alexandrinski had not even the reality of the pasteboard towns exhibited by Potemkin, before the Empress Catherine II, on her visit to the Crimea.[290]
Five days after the receipt of this despatch, Lord Palmerston returns the following answer to St. Petersburg:
"His Majesty's government, considering in the first place that Soudjouk-Kale which was acknowledged by Russia in the Treaty of 1783 as a Turkish possession, now belongs to Russia, as stated by Lord Nesselrode, by virtue of the Treaty of Adrianople, [...] see no sufficient reason to question the right of Russia to seize and confiscate the Vixen."a
There are some very curious circumstances connected with the negotiation. Lord Palmerston requires six months of premedita-tion for opening, and hardly one to close it. His last despatch, of May 23d, 1837, suddenly and abruptly cuts off any further transactions. It quotes the date before the Treaty of Kutshuk-Kainardji, not after the Gregorian, but after the Greek chronology. Besides, "between April 19th, and May 23d," as Sir Robert Peel said,
"a remarkable change from official declaration to satisfaction, occurred [...] apparently induced by the assurance received from Count Nesselrode, that Turkey had ceded the coast in question to Russia by the Treaty of Adrianople. [...] Why did he not protest against this ukase?" (H. of C , June 21st, 1838.)
Why all this? The reason is very simple. King William IV had secretly instigated Mr. Bell to despatch the Vixen to the coast of Circassia. When the noble lord delayed negotiation, the King was still in full health. When he suddenly closed the negotiations, William IV was in the agonies of death, and Lord Palmerston disposed as absolutely of the Foreign Office, as if he was himself the Autocrat of Great Britain. Was it not a master-stroke on the part of his jocose lordship to formally acknowledge by one dash of the pen the Treaty of Adrianople, Russia's possession of Circassia, and the confiscation of the Vixen, in the name of the dying king, who had despatched that saucy Vixen, with the express view to mortify the Czar,b to disregard the Treaty of Adrianople, and to affirm the independence of Circassia?
Quoted from D. Urquhart, Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South, p. 320.— Ed.
Mr. Bell, as we stated, went into the Cazette, and Mr. Urquhart, then the first secretary of the Embassy at Constantinople, was recalled, because of "having persuaded Mr. Bell to carry his Vixen expedition into execution."
As long as King William IV was alive, Lord Palmerston dared not openly countermand the Vixen expedition, as is proved by the Circassian declaration of independence, published in The Portfolio, by the Circassian map — revised by his lordship — by his uncertain correspondence with Mr. Bell, by his vague declarations in the house, by the supercargo of the Vixen, Mr. Bell's brother receiving, when setting out, despatches from the Foreign Office, for the Embassy at Constantinople, and direct encouragement from Lord Ponsonby, the British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.
In the earlier times of Queen Victoria, the Whig ascendancy seemed to be safer than ever, and accordingly the language of the chivalrous viscount suddenly changed. From deference and cajolery, it became at once haughty and contemptuous. Interrogated by Mr. T. Attwood, on December 14, 1837, with regard to the Vixen and Circassia—
"As to the Vixen, Russia had given such explanations of her conduct as ought to satisfy the government of this country. That ship was not taken during a blockade. It was captured because those who had the management of it contravened the municipal and customs' regulations of Russia."
As to Mr. Attwood's apprehension of Russian encroachment—
"I say that Russia gives to the world quite as much security for the preservation of peace as England." (Speech of Lord Palmerston, H. of C , Dec. 14, 1837.)
At the close of the session the noble lord laid before the house the correspondence with the Russian government, the two most important parts of which we have already quoted.
In 1838 party aspects had again changed, and the Tories recovered an influence. On June 21st they gave Lord Palmerston a round charge, Sir Stratford Canning, the present Ambassador at Constantinople, moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the allegations made by Mr. George Bell against the noble lord, and into his claims of indemnification. At first his lordship was highly astonished that Sir Stratford's motion should be of "so trifling a character."
Russia to the sovereignty of Circassia, [...] or to establish those customs and sanitary regulations she was enforcing by the power of her arms."
"If that be not your duty, what is the use of the Foreign Office at all?" asked Mr. Peel.
"It is said," resumed the noble lord, "that Mr. Bell, this innocent Mr. Bell, was led into a trap by me by the answers I gave him. [...] The trap, if there was one, was laid not for Mr. Bell, but by Mr. Bell," namely, by the questions he put to innocent Lord Palmerston.
In the course of these debates (June 21st, 1838), out came at length the great secret. Had he been willing to resist in 1836 the claims of Russia, the noble lord had been unable to do so from the very simple reason that, already in 1831 his first act on coming into office was to acknowledge the Russian usurpation of the Caucasus, and thus, in a surreptitious way, the treaty of Adrianople. Lord Stanley (now Lord Derby) stated that, on August 8th, 1831, the Russian Cabinet informed its representative at Constantinople of its intention
"to subject to sanitary regulations the communications which freely exist between the inhabitants of the Caucasus and the neighbouring Turkish provinces," and that he was "to communicate the above-mentioned regulations to the foreign missions at Constantinople as well as to the Ottoman Government."
By allowing Russia the establishment of so-called sanitary and custom-house regulations on the coast of Circassia, although existing nowhere except in the above letter, Russian claims to the Caucasus were acknowledged, and consequently the treaty of Adrianople, on which they were grounded.
"Those instructions," said Lord Stanley, "had been communicated in the most formal manner to Mr. Mandeville" (Secretary to the Embassy), "at Constantinople, expressly for the information of the British merchants, and transmitted to the noble Lord Palmerston."
Neither did he, nor dared he, "according to the practice of former governments, communicate to the committee at Lloyd's[291]
the fact of such a notification having been received." The noble lord made himself guilty of "a six years' concealment," exclaimed Sir Robert Peel.
On that day his jocose lordship escaped from condemnation by a majority of sixteen; 184 votes being against, and 200 for him. Those sixteen votes will neither out-voice history nor silence the mountaineers,[292] the clashing of whose arms proves to the world that the Caucasus does not "now belong to Russia, as stated by Count Nesselrode," and as echoed by Lord Palmerston!
Endnotes
[257] Carbonari—members of bourgeois and aristocratic revolutionary secret societies which appeared in Italy in the early nineteenth century. They fought for national independence and unification of Italy and at the same time demanded liberal-constitutional reforms. The Carbonari played an important role in the revolutionary developments in the kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia early in the 1820s and also during the revolutionary struggle in Italy against Austrian rule and local feudal monarchies in the 1830s.
[258] In the course of the parliamentary debates in June 1850 on the Anglo-Greek conflict connected with the Pacifico incident (see Note 148) the government's foreign policy was approved by the House of Commons; the House of Lords, however, rejected by a majority of 37 the stand taken by the Foreign Secretary Palmerston on this issue. France and Russia also disapproved of this stand; as a sign of protest the French Ambassador left London and the Russian Ambassador refused Palmerston's invitation to dinner.
[259] In 1815a law was passed prohibiting grain imports when grain prices in England fell below 80 shillings per quarter. In 1822 the law was modified slightly and in 1828 a sliding scale was introduced — a system of raising or lowering tariffs in proportion to the fall or rise of grain prices on the home market. The Corn Laws were introduced by Tory cabinets in the interests of the big landowners. The industrial bourgeoisie who opposed the Corn Laws under the slogan of free trade secured their repeal in 1846.
[261] A reference to the bombardment of Copenhagen by the British in September 1807 with the aim of preventing Denmark from joining the continental blockade inaugurated by Napoleon, which forbade the countries of the Continent to trade with Britain.
[262] A Mutiny Act was passed annually by Parliament from 1689 to 1881. By this Act the Crown was invested with the authority to have a standing army and navy of 263 265 267 270 court-martial and establish a system of punishment for mutiny, disobedience of orders, breach of discipline, etc.
[263] Under the Corporation Act passed by the British Parliament in 1661 persons who held elected posts (this applied mainly to municipal administration) were required to accept the dogmas of the Church of England. The Test Act of 1673 required the same of all persons holding government posts.
[264] Dissenters—members of Protestant sects and trends which departed from the dogmas of the official Church of England; in a broader sense those who disagree with any opinion.
[265] Catholic Emancipation—the abolition by the British Parliament in 1829 as a result of the mass movement in Ireland of restrictions on the political rights of Catholics. Catholics were granted the right to stand for election to Parliament and to hold certain government offices. Simultaneously, the property qualification was raised fivefold. The British ruling classes hoped that this manoeuvre would bring the élite of the Irish bourgeoisie and Catholic landowners to their side and cause a split in the Irish national movement.
[266] Absentees—landlords who owned estates in Ireland but lived permanently in England. Their estates were managed by realty agents who robbed the Irish peasants, or were leased to speculator-middlemen, who subleased small plots to the peasants.
[267] A reference to the broad campaign for a Reform Bill (see Note 123) which started some years before the Bill was passed in 1832.
[268] See Note 5.
[269] See Note 27.
[271] The Treaty of Turkmanchai, which ended the Russo-Persian war of 1826-28, was signed on February 22, 1828. Under this treaty Russia received the territories of the Yerevan and Nakhichevan khanates (Eastern Armenia), and Russia's exclusive right to have a navy in the Caspian Sea was confirmed. Persia was to pay war indemnities of 20 million rubles. At the same time the treaty marked a turning point in the destiny of the Armenian people who were suffering from Persian and Turkish despotism. The Persian Government was required to let Armenians leave the country freely and soon more than 40,000 people moved to the Armenian region which was joined to Russia, and to other Russian Transcaucasian territories. Turkish Armenians also moved to the region.
[272] 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 which France and Russia used as a pretext in the struggle for hegemony in the Middle East, was the question of whether the Catholic or Orthodox Church should have the keys to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the right to take care of its dome.
[273] The Treaty of Akkerman was signed by Russia and Turkey on October 7, 1826. Under this treaty the Turkish Government was to observe the former treaties signed with Russia, the Russian merchant fleet obtained the right to sail in Turkish waters and Russian merchants to trade throughout the whole of Turkey. The treaty confirmed the recognition of Serbian autonomy by the Sultan and provided for the election of Hospodars in Moldavia and Wallachia from the local Boyards. The Akkerman Treaty did not touch upon the Greek question. In this connection on the eve of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29 Turkish official circles violated the treaty and asserted that by it Russia had pledged non-interference in Greek affairs and broken this pledge by her assistance to the Greeks. However, in fact the Tsarist Government's declaration of its "disinterestedness in Greek affairs" was made several months before it signed the treaty.
[274] See Note 35.
[275] In the New-York Daily Tribune of October 19, 1853 this article was concluded with the following words, evidently added by the editors: "This was a plain way of saying he was not the representative of liberty, or honesty, or what makes the best character of England. Such as the noble lord was then, and in the earlier part of his career which we have reviewed, he is at this, and none who know him can expect at his hands any but false service to the cause of justice and human rights in the present momentous crisis. What remains of his public history we leave for another day; we are sorry to say that is not the better half."
[276] The refusal of the Milanese to .pay homage to Frederick I Barbarossa took place in 1159 and was prompted by Frederick's attempts to abolish the free towns in Northern Italy and subjugate them to his rule. The prolonged struggle that ensued culminated in the victory of the towns although the city of Milan was destroyed in 1162.
[277] A reference to the London Convention of July 15, 1840 (see Note 244). p. 365
[278] For the Cracow insurrection see Note 225; for the developments in Galicia mentioned below see Note 11.
[279] In 1846 the Guizot Government managed to arrange the marriage of the Spanish infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda to Louis Philippe's youngest son, the Duke of Montpensier, and thwart Britain's plans to marry Leopold of Coburg to Isabella II of Spain. The tension between the British and French 280 283 Palmerston sought a pretext to take revenge.
[280] The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 was one of a series of peace treaties concluding the war of the Spanish succession which began in 1701 between France and Spain, on the one hand, and the countries of the anti-French coalition — Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Savoy and Habsburg Austria — on the other; Austria did not sign the treaty and made peace with France at Rastatt in 1714. Under the terms of the treaty, Philip V, the Bourbon King of Spain and Louis XIV's grandson, kept Spain. The King of France was to renounce his right and that of his successors from the Bourbon dynasty to the Spanish Crown. Several French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies and North America, as well as Gibraltar, were obtained by Britain. When he accused France in 1846 of violating the Treaty of Utrecht, Palmerston had in mind Louis Philippe's plans to unite the two monarchies through the marriage of his youngest son and the Spanish infanta.
[281] Under the pretext of protecting French subjects in Mexico a French squadron started to blockade the Mexican ports on April 16, 1838; after the bombardment, the port of Vera Cruz was occupied on November 27-28. On March 9, 1839 Mexico was compelled to sign a treaty and an agreement with France. The blockade of Buenos Aires and the littoral territory by the Anglo-French fleet (1845-50) was aimed at making the Argentine Government open the Parana and Uruguay to foreign ships (they had been closed since 1841 as a result of the war between Argentina and Uruguay) and recognise Uruguay's independence. In 1850-51 these demands were accepted.
[282] The relations established between Britain and France after the July revolution of 1830 and known in history as the entente cordiale were not confirmed by treaty until April 1834, when the so-called Quadruple Alliance was concluded between Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. But when this treaty was being concluded disagreements between Britain and France became apparent and they subsequently led to the aggravation of relations between the two countries. Formally directed against the absolutist "northern states" (Russia, Austria and Prussia), the treaty in fact allowed Britain to strengthen her position in Spain and Portugal under the pretext of rendering armed assistance to both governments in their struggle against pretenders to the throne (Don Carlos in Spain and Dom Miguel in Portugal).
[283] A reference to the battle of Beilan (Syria) which took place at the end of July 1832. Egyptian troops commanded by Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Sultan's army and drove it out of Syria. The subsequent entry of Egyptian troops into Asia Minor and the defeat of the Turkish army in December 1832 at Konia (the battle is mentioned several times above) led to the victory of Egypt in the Turko-Egyptian war of 1831-33. In April 1833 under a treaty signed at Kutaiah the Egyptian Pasha Mehemet Ali was recognised as independent ruler of Egypt and Syria.
[13] The Cyrillic alphabet, one of the two ancient Slav alphabets (the other is called the Glagolitic alphabet), is named after Cyril, a missionary monk of the mid-ninth century, who, together with his brother Methodius, translated several religious texts from Greek into Slavonic. The Russian, Bulgarian and many other Slavonic languages use a modified form of the Cyrillic alphabet, p. 10
[285] A reference to the Russo-Turkish Treaty of January 29, 1834 which amended certain articles of the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople. The annual payments of indemnities by Turkey under the Adrianople Treaty were curtailed, the total sum of indemnities being reduced by two million ducats.
[286] See Note 148.
[287] In the New-York Daily Tribune of January 11, 1854 the article began as follows: "Lord Palmerston's resignation seems to be working in England all the marvels he could have hoped from it. While the public indignation is becoming more and more active against the Cabinet he has abandoned, and whose policy he had on all occasions, up to the last moment of his connection with them, emphatically endorsed, the very parties loudest in their denunciations of the Coalition, vie with each other in the praise of Palmerston. And while they call for energetic and honorable resistance to the encroachments of Russia, on the one hand, they seem to desire nothing so much as the restoration of their favorite statesman to high office on the other. Thus this accomplished and relentless actor deludes the world. It would be an amusing spectacle were the interests involved less momentous. How deep is the delusion we have already had occasion to show, and now add below a new demonstration of the truth that, for some reason or other, Lord Palmerston has steadily labored for the advancement of Russia, and has used England for that purpose. Those who seek to look behind the scenes of current history and to judge events and men at their real value will, we think, find our exposure instructive." These words could not be by Marx, as the last articles of the series "Lord Palmerston" were sent by him to the New-York Daily Tribune not later than December 6, 1853, not less than ten days prior to Palmerston's resignation (December 16, 1853). The editors of the Tribune delayed publication of this article until January 11, 1854, and the passage which they inserted in it may have been borrowed from another article by Marx, which he sent later (Marx's notebook gives the date December 20, 1853), on English press comments on Palmerston's resignation. The article of December 20, 1853 has not been discovered in the New-York Daily Tribune and the manuscript is not extant.
[288] For the St. Petersburg Protocol of April 4, 1826 and the London Convention of July 6, 1827 see Note 38. Britain and Russia, who signed the Protocol, tried to conceal the real aims of their intervention in the Greco-Turkish conflict on the side of Greece and declared that they had no intention of expanding their territory at Turkey's expense, or of seeking exceptional influence or special commercial privileges in the Sultan's possessions. Similar declarations were made when Britain, Russia and France signed the London Convention of July 6, 1827.
[290] Marx is alluding to the so-called Potemkin villages — an expression which symbolises sham prosperity. It was said that the Empress Catherine II's favourite, Prince Potemkin, who was Governor-General of the southern provinces of Russia, built sham villages on Catherine's route to the south in 1787 to convince her that the territory entrusted to him was flourishing.
[291] Lloyd's—a company founded in London in the seventeenth century specialising in marine insurance and shipping information.
[292] A reference to the war of the mountain-dwellers of the Northern Caucasus against Tsarist Russia which began at the end of the 1820s. It was caused by the Tsarist colonisation policy and the oppressive rule of local feudal lords who were supported by the Tsarist Government. This movement was led mainly by the adherents of Muridism — a fanatical and militant trend in Islam. Using the support of the Moslem clergy and the discontent of the mountain-dwellers they were able to muster considerable forces and to set up a religious-military state headed by Shamyl in Daghestan and Chechnya in the 1830s. The war waged by Tsarist troops against Shamyl, who had captured the mountain fortresses, was very arduous and continued for decades. The Russian troops won decisive victories over Shamyl's forces after the end of the Crimean war; in 1859 Gunib, the last stronghold of the mountain-dwellers, fell. Shamyl's defeat was also due to the fact that the peasants oppressed by the local nobility which consisted of the upper stratum of Murids, deserted the movement.
[3] At the sitting of the House of Commons on March 1, 1853, Palmerston formally declared that if the continental powers demanded that Britain should expel political refugees, Britain would decline. However, the statement of the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, in the House of Lords on March 4 contained a promise of concessions on this question. Marx had dealt with this subject in a number of his previous reports to the New-York Daily Tribune. See also an article on this subject, "The Refugees and the London Police", in The People's Paper, No. 47, March 26, 1853.
[15] The New-York Daily Tribune has: "the Russian war of 1809". The reference is to the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-12, which ended in the defeat of Turkey and the signing in May 1812 of the Bucharest peace treaty, according to which Bessarabia was joined to Russia. The treaty provided for Serbian autonomy in domestic affairs, thus laying the foundation for Serbia's future independence (see Note 26). In 1807 Russia and Turkey concluded an armistice with the mediation of France, but the peace negotiations were interrupted and military operations resumed in 1809.
[5] At the Congress of the Holy Alliance (an alliance of European monarchs founded on September 26, 1815 on the initiative of the Russian Emperor Alexander I and the Austrian Chancellor Metternich), which began in Troppau in October 1820 and ended in Laibach in May 1821, the principle of intervention in the internal affairs of other states was officially proclaimed. Accordingly, the Laibach Congress decided to send Austrian troops to Italy to crush the revolutionary and national liberation movement there. French intervention in Spain with similar aims was decided on at the Congress of Verona in 1822.