GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK VILLIERS.

FOURTH EARL OF CLARENDON.

FRUM A PHOTOGRAPH PY JOHN WATKINS

THE PALMERSTON GOVERNMENT-LORD PANMURE.

he wrote to the earl. "I wanted to say how much I have to thank you for your handsome conduct, and for your friendly and energetic exertions in removing the difficulties which I at first experienced in my endeavour to reconstitute the government in such a manner as to combine in it all the strength which, in the circumstances of the moment, it was possible to bring together. I well know, that without your assistance that most desirable and important combination could not have been effected." The queen also warmly thanked him for his kind and disinterested assistance. Palmerston went to work in his usual prompt and vigorous fashion, and with that kind of easy gaiety which distinguished him. "I think our government will do very well," he says in the letter to his brother, already quoted. "I am backed by the general opinion of the whole country, and I have no reason to complain of the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the court. As Aberdeen has become an impossibility I am for the moment l'inévitable. We are sending John Russell to negotiate at Vienna. This will serve as a proof to show we are in earnest in our wish for peace, and in our determination to have sufficiently satisfactory terms." He then goes on to say what must be demanded of the Emperor Nicholas, in whose sincerity he has no great faith, "though it is said he is much pressed by many around him to make peace as soon as he can."

Palmerston had the inestimable support of public confidence; but he had also the important advantage of having succeeded to power at a time when it had begun to be known what were the real needs of the army, and when provisions were being made to supply them. He set himself at once to work to remedy the evils of which complaints had been made; and soon a sanitary commission under Dr. Sutherland, Dr. Gavin, and Mr. Rawlinson were sent out, and, as we have seen, began to improve the hospitals, the camp, and the harbour. "They will of course be opposed and thwarted by the medical officers, by the men who have charge of the port arrangements, and by those who have the clean-❘ ing of the camp," he wrote to Lord Raglan.

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"Their mission will be ridiculed, and their recommendations set aside unless enforced by the peremptory exercise of your authority. But that authority I must request you to exert in the most peremptory manner for the immediate and exact carrying into execution whatever changes of arrangement they may recommend. . . . It is scarcely to be expected that officers, whether military or medical, whose time is wholly occupied by the pressing business of each day, should be able to give their attention or their time to the matters to which these commissioners have for many years devoted their action and their thoughts."

With a remarkable grasp even of minor details, and with a promptitude of action which went far to justify Lord John's obstinate recommendations of his earlier appointment to a post of responsible power, Palmerston directed the various modes of provision and relief, and he was ably seconded by Lord Panmure, who had accepted the office of secretary of war, which was thereafter to be amalgamated with that of secretary of state for the war department. The reappointment of Mr. Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer gave real strength to the government. Mr. Sidney Herbert was colonial secretary, and the Duke of Argyll lord privy-seal. Earl Granville became lord-president of the council; Sir George Grey, home secretary; Sir C. Wood took the board of control; Lord Cranworth was lord-chancellor; Mr. Cardwell, Indian secretary; the Earl of Carlisle, Lordlieutenant of Ireland; Mr. Horsman, Irish secretary; Sir James Graham, first lord of the admiralty; and Sir B. Hall took the control of woods and forests. It will be seen that the new ministry had been formed not so much by a change of men as by a redisposition of some of the offices. The coalition cards had, so to speak, been shuffled; but there was little change, except that Lord Palmerston had become the head of the government, and the Duke of Newcastle had been superseded by Lord Panmure. The latter appointment, however, was an important one.

Lord Panmure, who was better known as Mr. Fox Maule, had been minister of war during the six years of the Russell administration, and had

it was said, remained shut up in his room, where nobody was admitted to speak to him except on urgent business.

a great knowledge of the duties that belonged to the office. He was an army reformer in a moderate degree, and had displayed remarkable talent in relation to the various details of military organization. For twenty years, as Mr. Fox Maule, he had held a distinguished position in parliament, and whenever his party was in power had satisfactorily filled offices of greater or less importance. His father, the youngest son of the eighth Earl of Dalhousie, had changed his name from Ramsay to Maule on succeeding through his grandmother to the estates of the old earls of Panmure, whose title he took when he was raised to the peerage in 1831. Mr. Fox Maule, who had succeeded to the title only just before the formation of the Aberdeen government, had served twelve years as an officer of the 79th Highlanders, and was thirty-four years old before he entered the civil service of the country. In November, 1842, he had been elected Lord-rector of the University of Glasgow, in 1849 became Lord-lieutenant of Forfarshire, and in 1853 lord-keeper of the privy seal of Scotland. As under secretary of state for the home department in the government of Lord Melbourne he had shown such business aptitude that he was afterwards nominated vice-president of the Board of Trade; but it was in the war department that he displayed the marked ability which led to his being appointed to the onerous position which he accepted under Lord Palmerston. A cheerful, rather jovial, witty man, but with a certain dignity, which, in conjunction with his appearance, stamped him as belonging rather to the old school of man-vigour, but it was their duty to take all

ners. There was in his appearance something to remind one of Elliston the theatrical manager, and of the fashion of the best men of the fourth Georgian period. A fur-collared cloak, a full-bosomed coat, and what has been called "a cataract of black satin," forming a stock fastened with a double pin; a face clean shaven, and neatly brushed curling hair; this is the portrait of Lord Panmure at the time of which we are speaking. There was much fun in the expression of his mouth, much penetration in his eyes, and he was, in fact, distinguished for his ready bonhomie, except when he had an attack of gout, and, as

Lord Palmerston appealed to the house to support a government which he said he thought would be able to carry on public affairs. It contained, he believed, sufficient administrative ability, sufficient political sagacity, sufficient patriotism and determination to justify him in asking the house and the country for support in the present critical state of our national affairs. In sketching the intentions of the government he said that the secretary of the admiralty had established a board to superintend the transport service at sea. We were engaged in warlike operations with France as an ally, but we had not the means of sending so many men into the field as France, and it was but fair that we should make some return to France in the shape of additional naval arrangements. He was convinced that the establishment of that board would lead to increased economy and efficiency in that department. Well-grounded complaints having been made as to the condition of our war-hospitals, it was intended to send out three civilians for the purpose making good sanitary arrangements for the hospitals, camps, and ships, and from their scientific labours he anticipated the greatest advantages. No means would be omitted to reinforce the army in due time. Charged as the government was with the interests of a great nation, they had to look not only to the means of carrying on the war with great

of

measures in their power to put an end to it. They had been informed that certain arrangements agreed to between England and France had been submitted to Austria, and adopted by Russia as the basis of negotiation. In order that these negotiations might be most solemnly conducted they proposed to Lord John Russell to undertake the duty, being convinced that when they were placed in the hands of a man so generally respected at home and so well known throughout Europe, if their efforts should fail they would stand acquitted from blame. The noble lord would first proceed to Paris, thence to Berlin, where

MR. ROEBUCK PRESSES HIS RESOLUTION.

he would be in communication with the King of Prussia, and although some time might elapse before his arrival in Vienna, the time he spent in those two capitals would not be thrown away.

Mr. Layard, however, was still in bitter opposition to the government, though the new administration had begun its work with energy, and Lord Panmure had already put forward a plan for obtaining more recruits by enlisting experienced men for shorter periods of two or three years, instead of the young fellows who, being unseasoned, died on being despatched to the Crimea. Mr. Layard was not to be pacified, and in the House of Commons rose to "call attention to the existing state of affairs." The country, he asserted, stood on the brink of ruin-it had fallen into the abyss of disgrace, and had become the laughing-stock of Europe. The new ministry differed little from the last. Was Lord Palmerston willing to accept peace on any terms? Was the country going to engage in prolonged hostilities? Was it proposed to engage on our behalf oppressed nationalities? Would the Circassians be assisted? In short, what was the government going to do? The people of England demanded a thorough reform. What the country wanted was not septuagenarian experience, but more of youthful activity and energy. He commended the plan of the French revolutionary convention, and intimated that it would be well if the house should send out a commission of its own members to inquire and to regulate proceedings in the Crimea. Lord Palmerston's retort was ready. He suggested that it might be satisfactory to the house to take the honourable member at his word, and to add to the direction that he and his colleagues should proceed instantly to the Crimea, the further instruction that they should remain there during the rest of the session. This was of course received with great laughter; but Mr. Roebuck's motion still hung over the government, and this was no laughing matter. It would seem to have been unreasonable that a committee of inquiry levelled against one administration should be continued against another which had neither been tried nor found wanting;

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| but it was contended that there had been no real change of ministry-that the same men remained, but were distributed in different offices. On these grounds Mr. Disraeli demanded the prosecution of the inquiry by a select committee, in accordance with Mr. Roebuck's motion, satirically basing the demand. upon the recommendation of Lord John Russell: the first minister of the crown in this house-the man of whom as a member, irrespective of all party politics, this house is most proud the man who had previously been prime minister of England for a long period. of years- the man whose qualities, whose sagacity, whose wisdom, whose statesmanlike mind have been just eulogized by the first minister on the treasury bench--a man of such qualities, that though he had intentionally destroyed his late colleagues, they have already employed him upon an august mission -this eminent person comes down to parliament and tells you that although as a minister of the crown he cannot, with all the advantages of official experience, penetrate the mystery of the national calamity that has occurred, that he thinks inquiry ought to be granted, as the plea for it is irresistible." Mr. Disraeli then went on to say that after this opinion had been endorsed by a majority almost unprecedented in the records of parliament, they were told that the House of Commons was to stultify itself to recede from the ground which it so triumphantly occupied-to rescind the resolution which it so solemnly affirmed.

Mr. Roebuck, however, had no intention to recede from his original proposal; he had been suffering from illness, but he pressed the inquiry with renewed energy. Lord Palmerston, believing that to make the motion for an inquiry into one of want of confidence would, in the condition of the public temper, again break up the government and provoke another crisis, consented to the appointment of a select committee. The country, it was argued, was bent on having the inquiry, and therefore it was that the House of Commons insisted upon it, and not from hostility to the new ministry. Had such hostility existed, the house, it was felt, would not have voted, as they had just done, without a murmur, largely