text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/27

 severely criticised than perhaps any other part of his management of foreign affairs. His constant support of Turkey has been censured as an upholding of barbarism against civilisation. It must, however, be remembered that Palmerston's tenure of the foreign office from 1830 to 1841 coincided with the extraordinary revival and reforming efforts of that energetic and courageous sultan Mahmûd II, when many statesmen entertained sanguine hopes of the regeneration of Turkey. Palmerston himself did not believe that the Ottoman empire was decaying; on the contrary, he held that ten years of peace might convert it into ‘a respectable power’ (letters to H. Bulwer, 22 Sept. 1838, 1 Sept. 1839). Besides this hope, he was firmly convinced of the paramount importance of maintaining a barrier between Russia and the Mediterranean. Russia, however, was not the only danger. The ‘eastern question’ of that time presented a new feature in the formidable antagonism of a great vassal, Mohammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt. The first phase of his attack upon the sultan, culminating in the victory of Koniya (December 1832), was carried out without any interference by Palmerston. He foresaw indeed that unless the powers intervened, Russia would undertake the defence of Turkey by herself; but he failed to convince Lord Grey's cabinet of the importance of succouring the Porte. Turkey, deserted by England and by France (who, imbued with the old Napoleonic idea, encouraged the pasha), was forced to appeal to Russia, who willingly sent fifteen thousand troops to Asiatic Turkey, compelled Ibrahim to retire, and saved Constantinople. In return the tsar exacted from the sultan the treaty of Unkiar Skelesi on 8 July 1833, by which Russia acquired the right to interfere in defence of Turkey, and the Black Sea was converted into a Russian lake. Palmerston in vain protested both at Constantinople and at St. Petersburg, and even sent the Mediterranean squadron to cruise off the Dardanelles. Henceforward his eyes were open to the aggrandising policy of Russia and her hostile influence not only in Europe but in Persia and Afghanistan, which brought about Burnes's mission and the beginning of the Afghan troubles. In spite of his suspicion of Russia, however, on his return to office in 1835 under Melbourne, after Peel's brief administration, Palmerston found it necessary in 1840 to enter into an alliance with the very power he suspected, in the very quarter to which his suspicions chiefly pointed.

The cause lay in the increasing alienation of France. The policy of Louis-Philippe and Thiers was to give Mohammed Ali a free hand, in the hope (as Rémusat admitted) that Egypt might become a respectable second-class power in the Mediterranean, bound in gratitude to support France in the contest with England that was anticipated by many observers. Palmerston had tried to induce France to join him in an engagement to defend Turkey by sea if attacked; but he had failed to bring the king or Thiers to his view, and their and Soult's response to his overtures bred in him a profound distrust of Louis-Philippe and his advisers. When, therefore, the Egyptians again overran Syria, delivered a crushing blow to the Turks at the battle of Nezib on 25 June 1839, and by the treachery of the Turkish admiral obtained possession of the Ottoman fleet, Palmerston abandoned all thoughts of joint action with France, and opened negotiations with Russia. Inaction meant dividing the Ottoman empire into two parts, of which one would be the satellite of France, and the other the dependent of Russia, while in both the interests and influence of England would be sacrificed and her prestige humiliated (to Lord Melbourne, 5 July 1840). Russia received his proposals with eagerness. Nothing was more to the mind of Nicholas than to detach Great Britain from her former cordial understanding with Louis-Philippe, and friendly negotiations rapidly arranged the quadrilateral treaty of 15 July 1840, by which England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia agreed with the Porte to drive back the Egyptians and to pacify the Levant.

Palmerston did not carry his quadrilateral alliance without considerable opposition. In the cabinet Lords Holland and Clarendon, and later Lord John Russell, were strongly against him: so, as afterwards appeared, was Melbourne; so was the court; and so was Lord Granville, the ambassador at Paris. Palmerston, however, was resolute, and placed his resignation in Melbourne's hands as the alternative to accepting his policy (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 308). Ultimately the measure was adopted by the majority of the cabinet. The fears which had been expressed that Mohammed Ali, with French encouragement, was too strong for us, and that France would declare war, proved groundless. Palmerston had throughout maintained that Mohammed Ali was not nearly so strong as he seemed, and that Louis-Philippe was ‘not the man to run amuck, especially without any adequate motive’ (to H. Bulwer, 21 July 1840). Everything he prophesied came true. Beyrout, Sidon, and St. Jean d'Acre were successively taken by the British fleet under Charles Napier between


text:
Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/24

 THE PERVERSE WIDOW upon the matter when he pleases to speak. They both kept their Countenances, and after I had sat half an Hour meditating how to behave before such profound Casuists, I rose up and took my Leave. Chance has since that time thrown me very often in her Way, and she as often has directed a Discourse to me which I do not understand. This Barbarity has kept me ever at a Distance from the most beautiful Object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also she deals with all Mankind, and you must make Love to her, as you would conquer the Sphinx, by posing her. But were she like other Women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must the Pleasure of that Man be, who could converse with a Creature—But, after all, you may be sure her Heart is fixed on some one or other; and yet I have been credibly inform'd; but who can believe half what is said! After she had done speaking to me, she put her Hand to her Bosom, and adjusted her Tucker. Then she cast her eyes a

16

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/150

138 reasonable, and it would be convenient for us to deal with him, but he is a white-haired, whey-faced, abject man with pinkish eyes, and it's too painful to go into his shop. We've been there twice, and I think that if we went a third time, or gave him an order, he'd collapse, and I'd have to gather him up from the floor. And the hand-rubbing, and the writhing, and the sickly smirk of him! The British shopkeeper's smile is enough to warn off a Bushman first thing. They straighten up pretty quick when they strike a bad debt.

I went to the draper's and got a pair of gloves as a present for the wife. They insisted on sending them, so I gave in, and told the draper to send them in a van. He bowed. I asked him to send them in the best and showiest vehicle he had, if he had more than one. He bowed, and said he would. And he did. I don't think the van belonged to him—he must have borrowed or hired it. Perhaps he bought it on the strength of a new customer.

But I had hopes then. I thought I detected, in the sending of the van, the action of a sly, dry humorist—a "joker" or "hard case," as we'd call him in the Bush; so I determined to cultivate that draper, and if possible get him to come up to my place some time of an evening, and help me to keep from feeling homesick. But I was mistaken and disappointed; he probably had less humour in him than any other man in the village.

It is cut-throat competition that does it—makes crawlers of beings who might have been men had they


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/151

Rh had the brains or courage to emigrate. These shopkeepers will do anything, short of crawling and grovelling at your feet, while they hope to gain your patronage, and while they think you're safe; but let trouble come to your home—they are at you like crows round a dying sheep in the Bush, though the bill be but a few shillings. They have no souls, and have learned no mercy. They know no middle level; they cannot meet you as man to man, as in Australia; they must either crawl or bully. No Australian could help feeling a hearty contempt for the average British shopkeeper. In a village like this they do all in their power to overreach their rivals; they hate each other, and yet they are all informers amongst themselves. They will supply and cheat a customer for years, and the moment they think he is going down they stop credit, and inform their rivals of his trouble. If you have a dispute and close accounts with one of them, he will often take revenge by hinting doubts of your solvency to the others.

This is plain truth. But something more must be said in truth and justice. In the Bush—take your own town of Come-by-Chance, for instance; the shopkeepers have a hard enough job to pull through; they will dump your groceries down at the front door, and growl if you growl, and swear if you swear, and sometimes call you by your Christian name; but if you're honestly hard-up, they'll say, "Oh! come up to the store and get what you want, and settle up when you can." But here in England, where people do not move about as in Australia (where the husband's work, if he is a shearer or drover, might take him away five hundred or a


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/133

Rh not impress me; it suggests to me an imitation of the interior of some older and larger building which I haven't seen yet. The statuary, of white marble, is so smoked that it suggests at once cheap plaster casts coated with grey or stone-coloured paint to preserve and keep them together. This after the pure white marble in Sydney gardens.

There is a sprinkling of people on a regiment of seats in the centre, under the dome, between the shafts, and the organ is playing. I am not educated to classical or organ music. I suppose that if I were to hear a good voice now, singing "Bonnie Doon," or "Annie Laurie" or "Mary of Argyle," or any of those old songs, I'd feel nice and miserable. Those are the sort of tunes that impress me. To me the volume of the organ of St. Paul's does not seem greater than that of the Sydney organ—the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. But I remember what I said in my last letter about not seeing the contrast between a great thing and a small thing of the same kind seen previously.

I go round one side of the nave behind the shafts and meet a spectral figure in a black gown—a man who looks as if he's just come out of the hospital—and he closes a wicket noiselessly and raises a ghostly hand against me—as if there's some one dying up there. He doesn't impress me at all. He might impress the majority, but he impresses me least of anything in St. Paul's. I think he ought to be swept up and taken away in the dust cart.

I go back and round the other way and try to get


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/28

 September and November 1840; Ibrahim was forced to retreat to Egypt, and Mohammed Ali was obliged to accept (11 Jan. 1841) the hereditary pashaship of Egypt, without an inch of Syria, and to restore the Turkish fleet to its rightful owner. ‘Palmerston is triumphant,’ wrote Greville reluctantly; ‘everything has turned out well for him. He is justified by the success of his operations, and by the revelations of Thiers and Rémusat’ (l.c. i. 354). French diplomacy failed to upset these arrangements; and, when the Toulon fleet was strengthened in an ominous manner, Palmerston retorted by equipping more ships, and instructed (22 Sept. 1840) Bulwer, the chargé d'affaires at Paris, to tell Thiers, ‘in the most friendly and inoffensive manner possible, that if France throws down the gauntlet we shall not refuse to pick it up.’ Mohammed Ali, he added, would ‘just be chucked into the Nile.’ The instruction was only too ‘Palmerstonian’—neglect of the forms of courtesy, of the suaviter in modo, was his great diplomatic fault—but it had its effect. The risk of a diplomatic rupture with France vanished, and the success of the naval campaign in the Levant convinced Louis-Philippe, and led to the fall of Thiers and the succession of ‘Guizot the cautious.’ In the settlement of the Egyptian question Palmerston refused to allow France to have any voice; she would not join when she was wanted, and she should not meddle when she was not wanted (to Granville, 30 Nov. 1840). There was an injudicious flavour of revenge about this exclusion, and Palmerston's energetic language undoubtedly irritated Louis-Philippe, and stung him to the point of paying England off by the treachery of the Spanish marriages; but it is admitted even by Greville that Palmerston bore himself with great modesty after his triumph over France, and let no sign of exultation escape him (loc. cit. i. 370). The parties to the quadruple alliance concluded a convention on 13 July 1841 by which Mohammed Ali was recognised as hereditary pasha of Egypt under the definite suzerainty of the sultan, the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to ships of war of every nation, and Turkey was placed formally under the protection of the guaranteeing powers. The treaty of Unkiar Skelesi was wiped out.

With the first so-called ‘opium war’ with China the home government had scarcely anything to do. Their distance and ignorance of Chinese policy threw the matter into the hands of the local authority. Palmerston, like the chief superintendent, of course disavowed any protection to opium smuggling, but when Commissioner Lin declared war by banishing every foreigner from Chinese soil, there was nothing for it but to carry the contest to a satisfactory conclusion. Graham's motion of censure in April 1840 was easily defeated, and the annexation of Hong-Kong and the opening of five ports to foreign trade were important commercial acquisitions. Meanwhile to Palmerston's efforts was due the slave trade convention of the European powers of 1841. There was no object for which Palmerston worked harder throughout his career than the suppression of the slave trade. He frequently spoke on the subject in the House of Commons, where the abolition of slavery was voted in 1833 at a cost of twenty millions; ‘a splendid instance,’ he said, ‘of generosity and justice, unexampled in the history of the world.’

By his conduct of foreign affairs from 1830 to 1841 (continuously, except for the brief interval in 1834–5 during which Peel held office) Palmerston, ‘without any following in parliament, and without much influence in the country, raised the prestige of England throughout Europe to a height which it had not occupied since Waterloo. He had created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the highway to India from France’ (, Life, p. 79). When he came into office he found eighteen treaties in force; when he left he had added fourteen more, some of the first magnitude. A strong foreign policy had proved, moreover, to be a policy of peace. Apart from the concerns of his department, Palmerston, as was his custom, took little part in the work or talk of the House of Commons. His reputation was far greater abroad than at home. The most important personal event of these years was his marriage, on 11 Dec. 1839, to Lord Melbourne's sister, the widow of Earl Cowper. This lady, by her charm, intellect, tact, and experience, lent a powerful support to her husband, and the informal diplomatic work accomplished at her salon prepared or supplemented the interviews and transactions of the foreign office.

In opposition from 1841 to 1846, during Peel's administration, Palmerston took a larger share in the debates in the House of Commons. His periodical reviews of foreign policy were looked forward to with apprehension by the tory government; for while he said that ministers were simply ‘living upon our leavings,’ and ‘carousing upon the provisions they found in the larder,’ he saw nothing but danger in Lord Aberdeen's ‘antiquated imbecility’ and timid use of these ‘leavings;’ he said the government ‘purchased


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/29

 temporary security by lasting sacrifices,’ and he denounced the habit of making concessions (as in the Ashburton treaty with America) as fatal to a nation's interests, tranquillity, and honour. It was rumoured that he supported these opinions by articles in the ‘Morning Chronicle;’ and, though he denied this when in office, Aberdeen and Greville certainly attributed many of the most vehement ‘leaders’ to him when he was ‘out’ (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 327, vol. ii. pp. 105, 109, &c.). In home affairs he was a free-trader, as he understood it, though he advocated a fixed duty on corn; he supported his intimate friend Lord Ashley (afterwards Shaftesbury) in his measures for the regulation of women's and children's labour and the limiting of hours of work in factories, and voted in 1845 for the Maynooth bill.

On 25 June 1846 Peel was defeated on the Irish coercion bill and placed his resignation in the hands of the queen. The new prime minister, Lord John Russell, naturally invited Palmerston to resume the seals of the foreign office, though the appointment was not made without apprehensions of his stalwart policy. For the third time he took up the threads of diplomacy in Downing Street on 3 July 1846. The affairs of Switzerland were then in a serious crisis: the federal diet on 20 July declared the dissentient Sonderbund of the seven Roman catholic cantons to be illegal, and in September decreed the expulsion of the jesuits from the country; civil war ensued. France suggested armed intervention and a revision of the federal constitution by the powers. Palmerston refused to agree to any use of force or to any tinkering of the constitution by outside powers; he was willing to join in mediation on certain conditions, but he wished the Swiss themselves, after the dissolution of the Sonderbund, to modify their constitution in the mode prescribed in their federal pact, as guaranteed by the powers. His chief object in debating each point in detail was to gain time for the diet, and prevent France or Austria finding a pretext for the invasion of Switzerland. In this he succeeded, and, in spite of the sympathy of France and Austria with the seven defeated cantons, the policy advocated by England was carried out, the Sonderbund was abolished, the jesuits expelled, and the federal pact re-established. Palmerston's obstinate delay and prudent advice materially contributed to the preservation of Swiss independence.

Meanwhile Louis-Philippe, who was ambitious of a dynastic union between France and Spain, avenged himself for Palmerston's eastern policy of 1840. He had promised Queen Victoria, on her visit to him at the Château d'Eu in September 1843, to delay the marriage of his son, the Duc de Montpensier, with the younger infanta of Spain until her elder sister, the queen of Spain, was married and had issue. At the same time the pretensions to the young queen's hand of Prince Albert's first cousin, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and of the French king's eldest son were withdrawn, and it was agreed that a Spanish suitor of the Bourbon line should be chosen—either Francisco de Paula, duke of Cadiz, or his brother Enrique, duke of Seville. On 18 July 1846 Palmerston, having just returned to the foreign office, sent to the Spanish ministers an outspoken despatch condemning their misgovernment, and there fell into the error of mentioning the Duke of Coburg with the two Spanish princes as the suitors from whom the Spanish queen's husband was to be selected. The French ambassador in London protested, and Coburg's name was withdrawn. But Louis-Philippe and his minister Guizot, in defiance of the agreement of the Château d'Eu, made Palmerston's despatch the pretext for independent action. They arranged that the Duke of Cadiz, although Louis-Philippe knew him to be unfit for matrimony, should be at once united in marriage to the Spanish queen, and that that marriage and the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier with the younger infanta should be celebrated on the same day. Both marriages took place on 10 Oct. (Annual Reg. 1847, p. 396;, Politique Extérieure de la France, i. 156; , vii. 600 et seq.; , v. 534; , Chute de Louis-Philippe). The result was that the Orleanist dynasty lost the support of England, its only friend in Europe, and thereby prepared its own fall.

From the autumn of 1846 to the spring of 1847 Palmerston was anxiously engaged in dealing with the Portuguese imbroglio. His sending the fleet in November to coerce the rebellious junta and to re-establish the queen on conditions involving her return from absolutism to her former constitutional system of government, though successfully effected with the concurrence of France and Spain and the final acceptance of Donna Maria, was much criticised; but the motions of censure in both houses of parliament collapsed ludicrously. Palmerston's defence was set forth in the well-considered memorandum of 25 March 1847.

The troubles in Spain and Portugal, Switzerland and Cracow (against whose


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/30

 annexation by Austria he earnestly protested) were trifles compared with the general upheaval of the ‘year of revolutions.’ Palmerston was not taken by surprise; he had foreseen sweeping changes and reforms, though hardly so general a movement as actually took place. In an admirable circular addressed in January 1848 to the British representatives in Italy, he urged them to impress upon the Italian rulers the dangerous temper of the times, and the risk of persistent obstruction of reasonable reforms. In this spirit he had sent Lord Minto in 1847 on a special mission to the sovereigns of Italy to warn and prepare them for the popular judgment to come; but the mission came too late; the ‘Young Italian’ party was past control, and the princes were supine or incapable. Palmerston's personal desire was for a kingdom of Northern Italy, from the Alps to the Adriatic, under Charles Albert of Sardinia, combined with a confederation of Italian states; and he was convinced that to Austria her Italian provinces were really a source of weakness—‘the heel of Achilles, and not the shield of Ajax.’ He was out in his reckoning for Italian independence by some ten years, but even he could not foresee the remarkable recuperative power of Austria, whose system of government (an ‘old woman,’ a ‘European China’) he abhorred, though he fully recognised the importance of her empire as an element in the European equilibrium. Throughout the revolutionary turmoil his sympathies were frankly on the side of ‘oppressed nationalities,’ and his advice was always exerted on behalf of constitutional as against absolutist principles; but, to the surprise of his detractors, he maintained a policy of neutrality in diplomatic action, and left each state to mend its affairs in its own way. ‘Every post,’ he wrote, ‘sends me a lamenting minister throwing himself and his country upon England for help, which I am obliged to tell him we cannot afford him.’ The chief exception to this rule was his dictatorial lecture to the queen of Spain on 16 March 1848, which was indignantly returned, and led to Sir H. L. Bulwer's dismissal from Madrid; but even here the fault lay less with the principal than with the agent (who was not instructed to show the despatch, much less to publish it in the Spanish opposition papers), though Palmerston's loyalty to his officer forbade the admission. Another instance of indiscreet interference was the permission given to the ordnance of Woolwich to supply arms indirectly to the Sicilian insurgents. Only the unmitigated brutalities of ‘Bomba’ could palliate such a breach of neutrality; but Palmerston's disgust and indignation were so widely shared by Englishmen that when he was brought to book in the commons, his defence, in ‘a slashing impudent speech’ (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 277), completely carried the house with him. His efforts in conjunction with France to mediate between Austria and Sardinia had little effect beyond procuring slightly better terms of peace for the latter; but the Marquis Massimo d'Azeglio's grateful letter of thanks (August 1849) showed how they were appreciated in Italy, and a result of this sympathy appeared later in the Sardinian contingent in the Crimean war.

The French revolution of February 1848 found no cold reception from Palmerston. ‘Our principles of action,’ he instructed Lord Normanby on 26 Feb., ‘are to acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other. We desire friendship and extended commercial intercourse with France, and peace between France and the rest of Europe.’ He fully trusted Lamartine's sincerity and pacific intentions, and used his influence at foreign courts on his behalf. One result was seen in Lamartine's chilly reception of Smith O'Brien's Irish deputation; and the value of Palmerston's exertions in preventing friction between the powers and the French provisional government was warmly attested by the sagacious king of the Belgians, who stated (3 Jan. 1849) that this policy had assisted the French government in ‘a system of moderation which it could but with great difficulty have maintained if it had not been acting in concert with England.’

The rigours adopted by Austria in suppressing the rebellions in Italy and Hungary excited England's indignant ‘disgust,’ as Palmerston bade Lord Ponsonby tell Prince Schwarzenberg ‘openly and decidedly.’ When Kossuth and other defeated leaders of the Hungarian revolution, with over three thousand Hungarian and Polish followers, took refuge in Turkey in August 1849, the ambassadors of Austria and Russia demanded their extradition. On the advice of Sir Stratford Canning, supported by the French ambassador, the sultan declined to give up the refugees. The Austrian and Russian representatives at the Porte continued to insist in violent and imperious terms, and on 4 Sept. Prince Michael Radzivil arrived at Constantinople charged with an ultimatum from the tsar, announcing that the escape of a single refugee would be taken as a declaration of war. The Turkish government, in great alarm, sought counsel with


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/31

 the ‘Great Elchi,’ and Sir Stratford Canning [q. v.] took upon himself the responsibility of advising resolute resistance, and, in conjunction with his French colleague, allowed the Porte to understand that in the event of war Turkey would have the support of England and France (, Life of Stratford Canning, ii. 191). Upon this the imperial ambassadors broke off diplomatic relations with the Porte. Palmerston at once obtained the consent of the cabinet to support Turkey in her generous action, and to make friendly representations at Vienna and Petersburg to induce the emperors ‘not to press the Sultan to do that which a regard for his honour and the common dictates of humanity forbid him to do.’ At the same time the English and French squadrons were instructed to move up to the Dardanelles with orders to go to the aid of the sultan if he should invite them (to S. Canning, 2 Oct. 1849). Palmerston was careful to explain to Baron Brunnow that this step was in no sense a threat, but merely a measure ‘to prevent accidents,’ and to ‘comfort and support the sultan’—‘like holding a bottle of salts to the nose of a lady who had been frightened.’ He was fully conscious, however, of the gravity of the situation, and prepared to go all lengths in support of Turkey, ‘let who will be against her’ (to Ponsonby, 6 Oct. 1849). Firm language and the presence of the fleets brought the two emperors to reason, and in a fortnight Austria privately intimated that the extradition would not be insisted on.

Palmerston's chivalrous defence of the refugees brought him great renown in England, which his imprudent reception of a deputation of London radicals, overflowing with virulent abuse of the two emperors, did nothing to diminish. The ‘judicious bottle-holder,’ as he then styled himself, was the most popular man in the country (cf. cartoon in Punch, 6 Dec. 1851). The ‘Pacifico affair,’ which occurred shortly afterwards, tested his popularity. Two British subjects, Dr. George Finlay [q. v.] and David Pacifico [q. v.], had laid claims against the Greek government for injuries suffered by them at the hands of Greek subjects. The Greek government repudiated their right to compensation. Consequently Admiral Sir William Parker [q. v.] blockaded the Piræus in January 1850. The claims were clear, and force was used only after every diplomatic expedient had been exhausted. ‘It is our long forbearance, and not our precipitation, that deserves remark,’ said Palmerston. The French government offered to mediate, but on 21 April the French mediator at Athens, Baron Gros, threw up his mission as hopeless. The coercion of Greece by the English fleet was renewed (25 April), and the Greek government compelled to accept England's terms (26 April). The renewed blockade of the Piræus was held by France to be a breach of an arrangement made in London on 18 April between Palmerston and the French ambassador, Drouyn de Lhuys. It seems that the promptness of action taken at Athens by Admiral Parker and by Thomas (afterwards Sir Thomas) Wyse [q. v.], the British minister at Athens, who was not informed of the negotiations in London, was not foreseen by the foreign secretary. It had, however, been understood all along that, if French mediation failed, coercion might be renewed without further reference to the home government (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 334). The French government seized the opportunity to fix a quarrel upon England in order to make a decent figure before the warlike party in the assembly at Paris. With a great show of offended integrity, and expressly on the queen's birthday, they recalled Drouyn de Lhuys from London, and in the chambers openly taxed the English government with duplicity. Those who understood French politics were not deceived. ‘Oh, it's all nonsense,’ said the old Duke of Wellington; and Palmerston did not think it even worth while to retaliate by recalling Lord Normanby from Paris. He hastened, on the contrary, to conciliate French susceptibilities by consulting Guizot in the final settlement of some outstanding claims upon Greece, and the storm blew over. The House of Lords indeed censured him by a majority of thirty-seven, on Lord Stanley's motion on 17 June, supported by Aberdeen and Brougham; but in the commons Roebuck's vote of confidence was carried in favour of the government by forty-six. The debate, which lasted four nights, was made memorable by the brilliant speeches of Gladstone, Cockburn, and Peel, who spoke for the last time, for his fatal accident happened next day; but the chief honours fell to Palmerston. In his famous ‘civis Romanus’ oration he for more than four hours vindicated his whole foreign policy with a breadth of view, a tenacity of logical argument, a moderation of tone, and a height of eloquence which the house listened to with rapture and interrupted with volleys of cheers. It was the greatest speech he ever made; ‘a most able and temperate speech, a speech which made us all proud of the man who delivered it,’ said Sir Robert Peel, generous to the last. It ‘was an extraordinary effort,’ wrote Sir George C. Lewis (to Sir E. Head, Letters, p. 227). ‘He defeated the whole conserva-


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/32

 tive party, protectionists, and Peelites, supported by the extreme radicals, and backed by the “Times” and all the organised forces of foreign diplomacy.’ Palmerston came through the lobby with a triumphant majority, and the conspiracy of foreign powers and English factions to overthrow him had only made him, as he said himself, ‘for the present the most popular minister that for a very long course of time has held my office.’ For the first time he became ‘the man of the people,’ ‘the most popular man in the country,’ said Lord Grey (, l.c. p. 347), and was clearly marked out as the future head of the government.

Palmerston's constant activity and disposition to tender advice or mediation in European disputes procured him the reputation of a universal intermeddler, and the blunt vigour of some of his despatches and diplomatic instructions conveyed a pugnacious impression which led to the nickname of ‘firebrand;’ while his jaunty, confident, off-hand air in the house gave a totally false impression of levity and indifference to serious issues. That he made numerous enemies abroad by his truculent style and stubborn tenacity of purpose is not to be denied; but the enmity of foreign statesmen is no proof of a mistaken English policy, and the result of his strong policy was peace. Just when he was at the height of his power and popularity as foreign minister an event happened which had not been unforeseen by those acquainted with the court. During the years he had held the seals of the foreign office under Lord Melbourne he had been allowed to do as he pleased in his own department. He exerted ‘an absolute despotism at the F. O. … without the slightest control, and scarcely any interference on the part of his colleagues’ (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 298). He created, in fact, an imperium in imperio, which, however well it worked under his able rule, was hardly likely to commend itself to a more vigilant prime minister, or to a court which conceived the regulation of foreign affairs to be its peculiar province. On several occasions Palmerston had taken upon himself to despatch instructions involving serious questions of policy without consulting the crown or his colleagues, whom he too often left in ignorance of important transactions. These acts of independence brought upon him the queen's memorandum of 12 Aug. 1850, in which he was required to ‘distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction;’ and it was further commanded that a measure once sanctioned ‘be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister’ on pain of dismissal (, Life, ii. 219). Palmerston did not resign at once, because he understood that the memorandum was confidential between Lord John Russell and himself, and he did not wish to publish to the house and country what had the air of a personal dispute between a minister and his sovereign (ib. ii. 226–7). He protested to Prince Albert that it was not in him to intend the slightest disrespect to the queen, pleaded extreme pressure of urgent business, and promised to comply with her majesty's instructions. But sixteen years' management of the foreign relations of England may well have bred a self-confidence and decision which brooked with difficulty the control of less experienced persons, and it would not be easy (if it were necessary) to absolve Palmerston from the charge of independence in more than the minor affairs of his office. Many instances occurred both before and after the queen's ‘memorandum,’ and it is clear that from 1849 onwards the court was anxious to rid itself of the foreign minister, and that eventually Lord John Russell resolved to exert his authority on the first pretext. The one he chose was flimsy enough (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 430;, Memoirs, i. 301). In unofficial conversation with Count Walewski, the French ambassador, Palmerston expressed his approval of Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of 2 Dec. 1851, and for this he was curtly dismissed from office by Lord John Russell on the 19th, and even insulted by the offer of the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. The pretext was considerably weakened by the fact that Lord John himself and several members of his cabinet had expressed similar opinions of the coup d'état to the same person at nearly the same time; but the theory seems to have been that an expression of approval from the foreign secretary to the French representative, whether official or merely ‘officious,’ meant a great deal more than the opinions of other members of the government. ‘There was a Palmerston,’ said Disraeli, and the clubs believed that the ‘Firebrand’ was quenched for ever. Schwarzenberg rejoiced and gave a ball, and Prussian opinion was summed up in the doggerel lines: Hat der Teufel einen Sohn, So ist er sicher Palmerston. In England, however, people and press lamented, and Lord John was considered to have behaved badly. Within three weeks the government were defeated on an amendment moved by Lord Palmerston to Russell's


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/33

 militia bill, and resigned. They had long been tottering, and were glad once more to avail themselves of a pretext. The result of the division was a surprise to Palmerston, who had not intended to turn them out (to his brother, 24 Feb.;, Letters, p. 251).

During the 305 days of the first Derby administration Palmerston thrice refused invitations to join the conservative government. He rendered cordial aid, however, to Lord Malmesbury, the new foreign secretary (, Mem. i. 317), and on 23 Nov. 1852 he saved the government from defeat by an adroit amendment to Villiers's free-trade resolution; but the respite was short. On 3 Dec. they were beaten on Disraeli's budget, and resigned. In the coalition government under Aberdeen, Palmerston, pressed by Lords Lansdowne and Clarendon, took the home office, the post he had settled upon beforehand as his choice in any government (to his brother, 17 Nov. 1852). He did not feel equal to ‘the immense labour of the foreign office;’ and probably he did not care to run the chance of further repression, though he now stood ‘in better odour at Windsor’ (, l.c. pt. iii. vol. i. p. 14). But before he joined the cabinet of the statesman whose foreign policy he had persistently attacked, he took care to ascertain that his own principles would be maintained. He proved an admirable home secretary, vigilant, assiduous, observant of details, original in remedies. Stimulated by Lord Shaftesbury, he introduced or supported various improvements in factory acts, carried out prison reforms, established the ticket-of-leave system and reformatory schools, and put a stop to intramural burials. He shone as a receiver of deputations, and got rid of many a troublesome interrogator with a good-humoured jest. On the question of parliamentary reform he was not in accord with Russell, and resigned on 16 Dec. 1853 on the proposals for a reform bill; but returned to office after ten days on the understanding that the details of the bill were still open to discussion. Another subject on which the cabinet disagreed was the negotiation which preceded the Crimean war. Palmerston was all for vigorous action, which, he believed, would avert war. Aberdeen, however, was tied by his secret agreement with the Emperor Nicholas, signed in 1844 (, Memoirs, i. 402), granting the very points at issue, and was constitutionally unequal to strong measures. Of Lord Clarendon, who early in the administration succeeded Russell at the foreign office, Palmerston had a high opinion, and supported him in the cabinet. Concession, he held, only led to more extortionate demands. ‘The Russian government has been led on step by step by the apparent timidity of the government of England,’ he told the cabinet, when pressing for the despatch of the fleets to the Bosporus in July 1853, as a reply to Russia's occupation of the principalities. He believed the tsar had resolved upon ‘the complete submission of Turkey,’ and was ‘bent upon a stand-up fight.’ ‘If he is determined to break a lance with us,’ he wrote to Sidney Herbert, 21 Sept., ‘why, then, have at him, say I, and perhaps he may have enough of it before we have done with him.’ It is curious, however, that the special act which provoked the declaration of war—the sending of the allied fleets to take possession of the Black Sea—was ordered by the cabinet during the interval of Palmerston's resignation. When war had been declared, and the troops were at Varna, Palmerston laid a memorandum before the cabinet (14 June 1854) in which he argued that the mere driving of the Russians out of the principalities was not a sufficient reprisal, and that ‘it seems absolutely necessary that some heavy blow should be struck at the naval power and territorial dimensions of Russia.’ His proposals were the capture of Sevastopol, the occupation of the Crimea, and the expulsion of the Russians from Georgia and Circassia. His plan was adopted by the cabinet, and afterwards warmly supported by Gladstone (, Life, ii. 300). No one then foresaw the long delays, the blunders, the mismanagement, and the terrible hardships of the ensuing winter. When things looked blackest there was a feeling that Palmerston was the only man, and Lord John Russell proposed that the two offices of secretary for war and secretary at war should be united in Palmerston. On Aberdeen's rejection of this sensible proposal, Lord John resigned, 23 Jan. 1855, sooner than resist Roebuck's motion (28 Jan.) for a select committee of inquiry into the state of our army in the Crimea. After two nights' debate the government were defeated by a majority of 157, and resigned on 1 Feb. 1855.

On the fall of the Aberdeen ministry Lord Derby attempted to form a government, and invited Palmerston to take the leadership of the House of Commons, which Disraeli was willing to surrender to him. Finding, however, that none of the late cabinet would go with him, Palmerston declined, engaging at the same time to support any government that carried on the war with energy, and sustained the dignity and interests of the country abroad. When both Lord Derby


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/34

 and Lord John Russell had failed to construct an administration, although Palmerston magnanimously consented to serve again under ‘Johnny,’ he was himself sent for by the queen, and, after some delay, succeeded (6 Feb. 1855) in forming a government of whigs and Peelites; the latter, however (Gladstone, Graham, and Sidney Herbert), retired within three weeks, on Palmerston's reluctant consent to the appointment of Roebuck's committee of inquiry into the management of the war. Their places were filled by Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir C. Wood, and Lord John Russell, and the cabinet thus gained in strength and unity—especially as Russell was fortunately absent at the Vienna conference.

The situation when Palmerston at last became prime minister of England, at the age of seventy, was full of danger and perplexity. The siege of Sevastopol seemed no nearer a conclusion; the alliance of the four powers was shaken; the emperor of the French had lost heart, and was falling more and more under the influence of financiers; the sultan of Turkey was squandering borrowed money on luxuries and showing himself unworthy of support; parties in England were broken up and disorganised, and the House of Commons was in a captious mood. At first Palmerston's old energy and address seem to have deserted him, but it was not long before his tact and temper began to reassert their power. He infused a new energy into the military departments, where his long experience as secretary at war served him in good stead. He united the secretaryships for and at war in one post, which he gave to Lord Panmure; he formed a special transport branch at the admiralty; sent out Sir John McNeill [q. v.] to reconstitute the commissariat at Balaclava, and despatched a strong sanitary commission with peremptory powers to overhaul the hospitals and camp. He remonstrated personally with Louis Napoleon upon his desire for peace at any price; and urged him (28 May 1855) ‘not to allow diplomacy to rob us of the great and important advantages which we are on the point of gaining.’ In a querulous House of Commons his splendid generalship carried him triumphantly through the session. The Manchester party he treated with contemptuous banter, and refused to ‘count for anything’—the country was plainly against them; but he vigorously repulsed the attacks of the conservatives, and administered a severe rebuke (30 July) to Mr. Gladstone and the other Peelites who had in office gone willingly into the war, and then turned round and denounced it. The new energy communicated to the army was rewarded by the fall of the south side of Sevastopol in September, and then once more Austria tried her hand at negotiations for peace. Palmerston firmly refused to consent to Buol's proposal to let the Black Sea question be the subject of a separate arrangement between Russia and Turkey—‘I had better beforehand take the Chiltern Hundreds,’ he said—but greatly as he and Clarendon would have preferred a third year's campaign, to complete the punishment of Russia, he found himself forced, by the action of the emperor of the French and the pressure of Austria, to agree to the treaty of Paris, 30 March 1856. The guarantee by the powers of the integrity and independence of the Turkish empire, the abnegation by them of any right to interfere between the sultan and his subjects, and the neutralisation of the Black Sea, with the cession of Bessarabia to Roumania and the destruction of the forts of Sevastopol, appeared to him a fairly satisfactory ending to the struggle. The Declaration of Paris, abolishing privateering and recognising neutral goods and bottoms, followed. The Garter was the expression of his sovereign's well-deserved approbation (12 July 1856).

Shortly after France had joined in guaranteeing the integrity of the Ottoman empire, she proposed to England, with splendid inconsistency, to partition the Turkish possessions in North Africa—England to have Egypt. While pointing out the moral impossibility of the scheme, Palmerston stated to Lord Clarendon his conviction that the only importance of Egypt to England consisted in keeping open the road to India. He opposed the project of the Suez Canal tooth and nail; the reasons he gave have for the most part been proved fallacious, but the real ground of his opposition was the fear that France might seize it in time of war and reduce Egypt to vassalage. He had little faith in the constancy of French friendship; ‘in our alliance with France,’ he wrote (to Clarendon, 29 Sept. 1857), ‘we are riding a runaway horse, and must always be on our guard.’ He predicted the risk of a Franco-Russian alliance; the necessity of a strong Germany headed by Prussia; and the advance of Russia to Bokhara, which led to the Persian seizure of Herat and the brief Persian war of the winter of 1856–7.

On 3 March 1857 the government was defeated by a majority of fourteen by a combination of conservatives, Peelites, liberals, and Irish, on Cobden's motion for a select committee to investigate the affair of the lorcha Arrow and the justification alleged


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/35

 for the second China war. It had already been censured in the lords by a majority of thirty-six. A technical flaw in the registration of the Arrow gave a handle for argument to those who, ignorant of our position in China and regardless of a long series of breaches of treaty and of humiliations, insults, and outrages upon British subjects, saw merely an opportunity for making party capital or airing a vapid philanthropy which was seldom less appropriate. Palmerston might have sheltered himself behind the fact that the war had been begun by Sir John Bowring in the urgency of the moment, without consulting the home government; but he never deserted his officers in a just cause, and the case in dispute fitted closely with his own policy. His instructions to Sir John Davis, on 9 Jan. 1847, which were familiar to Bowring and Parkes, fully covered the emergency: ‘We shall lose,’ he wrote, ‘all the vantage-ground we have gained by our victories in China if we take a low tone. … Depend upon it, that the best way of keeping any men quiet is to let them see that you are able and determined to repel force by force; and the Chinese are not in the least different, in this respect, from the rest of mankind’ (Parl. Papers, 1847, 184, p. 2;, Life of Sir Harry Parkes, i. 216–37). No foreign secretary was so keenly alive to the importance of British interests in China, so thoroughly conversant with conditions of diplomacy in the Far East, or so firm in carrying out a wise and consistent policy. He accepted his parliamentary defeat very calmly, and, after finishing necessary business, appealed to the country. No man could feel the popular pulse more accurately, and the result of the general election was never doubtful. It was essentially a personal election, and the country voted for ‘old Pam’ with overwhelming enthusiusm. That ‘fortuitous concourse of atoms,’ the opposition, was scattered to the winds; Cobden, Bright, and Milner Gibson lost their seats, and the peace party was temporarily annihilated. In April the government returned to power with a largely increased majority (366 liberals, 287 conservatives).

Meanwhile the Indian mutiny had broken out. At first Palmerston, like most of the authorities, was disposed to underrate its seriousness, but his measures for the relief of the overmatched British garrison of India and the suppression of the rebellion were prompt and energetic. He sent out Sir Colin Campbell at once, and by the end of September eighty ships had sailed for India, carrying thirty thousand troops. Foreign powers proffered assistance, but Palmerston replied that England must show that she was able to put down her own rebellions ‘off her own bat’ (, l.c. ii. 351). When this was accomplished, he brought in (12 Feb. 1858) the bill to transfer the dominions of the East India Company to the crown, and carried the first reading by a majority of 145. A week after this triumphant majority the government was beaten by nineteen on the second reading of the conspiracy to murder bill (by which, in view of Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon III, conspiracy to murder was to be made a felony). The division was a complete surprise, chiefly due to bad management of the whips. Palmerston at once resigned, and was succeeded by Lord Derby. The new ministry was in a minority, and, being beaten on a reform bill early in 1859, dissolved parliament. The election, however, left them still to the bad, and after Lord Derby had for the fourth time tried to induce the popular ex-premier to join him, he was defeated on 10 June, and resigned.

Embarrassed by the difficulty of choosing between the two veterans, Palmerston and Russell, the queen sent for Lord Granville, who found it impossible to form a cabinet, though Palmerston generously consented to join his junior. The country looked to ‘Pam,’ and him only, as its leader, and at the age of seventy-five he formed his second administration (30 June 1859), with a very strong cabinet, including Russell, Gladstone, Cornewall Lewis, Granville, Cardwell, Wood, Sidney Herbert, and Milner Gibson. His interval of leisure while out of office had enabled him to resume his old alliance with those who had opposed him on the Crimean and China wars. It was one of Palmerston's finest traits of character that he never bore malice. When Guizot was banished from France in 1848 Palmerston had him to dinner at once, old foe as he was, and they nearly ‘shook their arms off’ in their hearty reconciliation (, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 157). ‘He was always a very generous enemy,’ said dying Cobden. When Granville supplanted Palmerston at the foreign office in 1851, he met with a cheery greeting and offers of help. When Russell threw him over, he called him laughingly ‘a foolish fellow,’ and bore him no personal grudge. So in 1859 he brought them all together again. His six remaining years were marked by peaceful tranquillity both in home and foreign affairs. Italy and France indeed presented problems of some complexity, but these were met with prudence and skill. Palmerston and his foreign minister, Lord John Russell, now


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/36

 completely under his leader's influence, declined to mediate in the Franco-Austrian quarrel, as the conditions were unacceptable to Austria; but they did not conceal their disapproval of the preliminary treaty of Villafranca, which Palmerston declared drove Italy to despair and delivered her, tied hand and foot, into the power of Austria. ‘L'Italie rendue à elle-même,’ he said, had become ‘l'Italie vendue à l'Autriche.’ That he maintained strict neutrality in the later negotiations connected with the proposed congress of Zürich, and his suggested triple alliance of England, France, and Sardinia to prevent any forcible interference of foreign powers in the internal affairs of Italy (memorandum to cabinet, 5 Jan. 1860), is scarcely to be argued. The result of the mere rumour of such an alliance (which never came to pass) was the voluntary union of the Italian duchies to Sardinia and a long stride towards Italian unity. Palmerston resolutely refused to accede to the French desire that he should oppose Garibaldi, and hastened to recognise with entire satisfaction the new kingdom of Italy. An eloquent panegyric on the death of Cavour, delivered in the House of Commons on 6 June 1861, formed a worthy conclusion to the sympathy of many years.

Palmerston's vigilant care of the national defences was never relaxed, and the increase of the French navy and the hostile language towards England which was becoming more general in France strengthened him in his policy of fortifying the arsenals and dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, and Cork, for which he obtained a vote of nine millions in 1860. In his memorable speech on this occasion (23 July) he said: ‘If your dockyards are destroyed, your navy is cut up by the roots. If any naval action were to take place … you would have no means of refitting your navy and sending it out to battle. If ever we lose the command of the sea, what becomes of this country?’ In spite of a personal liking, from 1859, when he visited him at Compiègne, onwards he had grown more and more distrustful of Louis Napoleon, whose mind, he said, was ‘as full of schemes as a warren is full of rabbits,’ and whose aggrandising theory of a ‘natural frontier,’ involving the annexation of Nice and Savoy, and even of Chablais and Faucigny, neutral districts of Switzerland, had produced a very unfavourable impression. A threat of sending the English fleet was necessary to prevent Genoa being added to the spoils of the disinterested champion of Italy. The interference of France in the Druse difficulty of 1860 also caused some anxiety. Palmerston was convinced that Louis Napoleon would yield to a national passion for paying off old scores against England, and he preached the strengthening of the army and navy and encouraged the new rifle volunteer movement. In this policy he was opposed by Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, whose brilliant budgets contributed notably to the reputation of the government. There was little cordiality between the two men. ‘He has never behaved to me as a colleague,’ said Palmerston, and went on to prophesy that when Gladstone became prime minister ‘we shall have strange doings.’ On the chancellor of the exchequer's pronounced hostility to the scheme of fortifications, Palmerston wrote to the queen that it was ‘better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth.’ With Lord John Russell's projects of electoral reform the prime minister was not in sympathy; but he quietly let his colleague introduce his bill, knowing very well that, in the total apathy of the country, it would die a natural death. It is significant of these differences and of the general confidence in Palmerston that for a temporary purpose, and in view of possible secessions from the cabinet, Disraeli promised the government the support of the conservative party. The ‘consummate tact,’ to use Greville's phrase, displayed by the premier in accommodating the dispute between the lords and commons over the paper bill, and the adoption of Cobden's commercial treaty with France, were among the events of the session of 1860, at the close of which Lord Westbury wrote to Palmerston to express his admiration of his ‘masterly leading during this most difficult session.’

During the civil war in America Palmerston preserved strict neutrality of action, in spite of the pronounced sympathy of the English upper classes, and even it was believed of some of the cabinet, for the South, and the pressure in the same direction exerted by the emperor of the French. What friction there was with the North arose out of isolated cases for which the government had no responsibility. The forcible seizure of two confederate passengers on board the British mail-steamer Trent in November 1861 was an affront and a breach of the law of nations, especially inexcusable in a state which repudiated the ‘right of search.’ Palmerston's prompt despatch of the guards to Canada, even before receiving a reply to his protest, proved, as he prophesied, the shortest way to peace. Seward, the American secretary of state, at once submitted, and restored the prisoners. The Alabama


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/37

 dispute went far nearer to a serious rupture, though the hesitation to detain the vessel at Birkenhead in August 1862 was due not to Palmerston or Russell, but to the law officers of the crown. Whatever the sympathies of England for the South, Palmerston actively stimulated the admiralty in its work of suppressing the slave trade.

In 1862 the Ionian Islands were presented to Greece, on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation, although Palmerston had formerly held the opinion that Corfu ought to be retained as an English military station. Apart from a fruitless attempt in 1863 to intercede again for the Poles, and a refusal to enter a European congress suggested by Louis Napoleon for the purpose of revising the treaties of 1815, and thereby opening, as Palmerston feared, a number of dangerous pretensions, the chief foreign question that occupied him during his concluding years was the Danish war. While condemning the king of Denmark's policy towards the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, he thought the action of Prussia and Austria ungenerous and dishonest; but the conference he managed to assemble for the settlement of the dispute broke up when it appeared that neither party could be induced to yield a point; and, in presence of a lukewarm cabinet and the indifference of France and Russia, Palmerston could do little for the weaker side. Challenged by Disraeli on his Danish policy, the premier, then eighty years of age, defended himself with his old vigour, and then turning to the general, and especially the financial, work of the government, ‘played to the score’ by citing the growing prosperity of the country under his administration, with the result that he secured a majority of eighteen. His last important speech in the house was on Irish affairs, on which, as a liberal and active Irish landholder, he had a right to his opinions. He did not believe that legislative remedies or tenant-right could keep the people from emigrating: ‘nothing can do it except the influence of capital.’

For several years before his death Lord Palmerston had been a martyr to gout, which he did not improve by his assiduous attendance at the House of Commons. There, if he seldom made set speeches (his sight had become too weak to read his notes), his ready interposition, unfailing tact and good humour, practical management, and wide popularity on both sides, smoothed away difficulties, kept up a dignified tone, and expedited the business of the house. He refused to give in to old age, kept up his shooting, rode to Harrow and back in the rain when nearly seventy-seven to lay the foundation-stone of the school library, and on his eightieth birthday was on horseback nearly all day inspecting forts at Anglesey, Gosport, and elsewhere. When parliament, having sat for over six years, was dissolved, 6 July 1865, he went down to his constituency and won a contested election. But he never met the new parliament, for a chill caught when driving brought on complications, and he died at his wife's estate, Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, 18 Oct., within two days of his eighty-first birthday. His official despatch-box and a half-finished letter showed that he died in harness. He had sat in sixteen parliaments, had been a member of every administration, except Peel's and Derby's, from 1807 to 1865, and had held office for all but half a century. He was buried on 27 Oct. with public honours in Westminster Abbey, where he lies near Pitt. Lady Palmerston was laid beside him on her death on 11 Sept. 1869, at the age of eighty-two.

Among the honours conferred upon him, besides the Garter, may be mentioned the grand cross of the Bath (1832), the lord-wardenship of the Cinque ports (1861), lord-rectorship of Glasgow University (1863), and honorary degrees of D.C.L., Oxford (1862), and of LL.D., Cambridge (1864). His title died with him, and his property descended to Lady Palmerston's second son by her first marriage, William Francis Cowper, who added the name of Temple, and was created Baron Mount Temple of Sligo in 1880; and thence devolved to her grandson, the Right Hon. Evelyn Ashley (1836–1908).

Lord Palmerston, as Mr. Ashley points out (ii. 458–9), was a great man rather by a combination of good qualities, paradoxically contrary, than by any special attribute of genius. ‘He had great pluck, combined with remarkable tact; unfailing good temper, associated with firmness almost amounting to obstinacy. He was a strict disciplinarian, and yet ready above most men to make allowance for the weakness and shortcomings of others. He loved hard work in all its details, and yet took a keen delight in many kinds of sport and amusement. He believed in England as the best and greatest country in the world … but knew and cared more about foreign nations than any other public man. He had little or no vanity, and claimed but a modest value for his own abilities; yet no man had a better opinion of his own judgment or was more full of self-confidence.’ He never doubted for an instant, when he had once made up his mind on a subject, that he was right and those who differed from him were hopelessly


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/38

 wrong. The result was a firmness and tenacity of purpose which brought him through many difficulties. He said himself, ‘A man of energy may make a wrong decision, but, like a strong horse that carries you rashly into a quagmire, he brings you by his sturdiness out on the other side.’ M. Drouyn de Lhuys used the same simile when speaking of Palmerston's ‘sagacity, courage, trustworthiness’ as a ‘daring pilot in extremity.’ Lord Shaftesbury, the man whom Palmerston loved and esteemed above all others, wrote of him, ‘I admired, every day more, his patriotism, his simplicity of purpose, his indefatigable spirit, his unfailing good humour, his kindness of heart, his prompt, tender, and active consideration for others in the midst of his heaviest toils and anxieties.’ His buoyant, vivacious, optimistic nature produced an erroneous impression of levity, but this very lightness of heart carried him unscathed through many a dark crisis, and kept up the spirit of the nation, whose faults and whose virtues he so completely represented. A thorough English gentleman, simple, manly, and detesting display and insincerity, he brought into private life the same generous, kindly, happy spirit which he showed in his public career. An excellent landlord, he spent infinite pains and money over his Irish and English estates, and did his best to extirpate the middleman. He took a keen interest in all local amusements, sports, and meetings, and showed a real and genial sympathy with the welfare of farmers, labourers, and working men. A keen sportsman, he preserved game, hunted when he could, rode daily on his old grey, familiar to all Londoners, and made exercise, as he said, ‘a religion.’ He bred and trained horses since 1815, but seldom betted. His green and orange colours were especially well known at the smaller provincial race meetings. But he won the Cesarewitch with Ilione in 1841, and the Ascot Stakes with Buckthorn in 1852, and his Mainstone ran third favourite for the Derby in 1860, but was believed to have been ‘got at.’ In 1845 he was elected an honorary member of the Jockey Club. Indoors he had a genius for ‘fluking’ at his favourite game at billiards; his opponents said it was typical of his statesmanship. He was no student, and, though he could quote Horace and Virgil and the English classics, he only once refers to a book in his published correspondence—and that was ‘Coningsby.’ His conversation was agreeable but not striking; but, as Greville acutely observed, ‘when he takes his pen in his hand, his intellect seems to have full play.’ His despatches are clear, bold, trenchant, logical; there he spoke his mind with unsparing lucidity and frank bluntness. His letters, always written in a hurry, are simple, clear, honest, and humorous, and show a skilful delicacy both in reproof and praise. As a speaker, he had the great art of gauging the temper of his hearers and suiting his speech to their mood. He was ready in debate, and his set speeches, which were carefully prepared, carried his audience with him, although they were neither brilliant nor philosophical, and he often resorted to somewhat flippant jokes and fustian rhetoric to help out an embarrassing brief. But what gave him his supreme influence with his countrymen in his later life, as orator, statesman, and leader, was his courage and confidence.

The chief portraits of Palmerston are: (1) æt. 15 or 16, by Heaphy at Broadlands, formerly the seat of the Right Hon. E. Ashley; (2) æt. circa 45, by Partridge, in the National Portrait Gallery; (3) æt. 51, a sketch by Hayter, for his picture of the reformed House of Commons, at Broadlands; (4) æt. 66, a full-length by Partridge, presented to Lady Palmerston by members of the House of Commons in 1850, at Broadlands; (5) æt. 71, a large equestrian portrait, on the favourite grey, by Barraud, at Broadlands; (6) æt. 80, a remarkable sketch by Cruikshank, at Broadlands. Statues of him stand in Westminster Abbey (by Robert Jackson), Palace Yard (by Thomas Woolner, R.A.), and at Romsey market-place (by Matthew Noble). A bust by Noble and a portrait in oils by G. Lowes Dickenson are in the hall of the Reform Club. From 6 Dec. 1851, when (Sir) John Tenniel's cartoon of Palmerston in the character of the ‘Judicious Bottle-Holder, or the Downing Street Pet’ appeared in ‘Punch,’ Palmerston was constantly represented in that periodical; a straw was invariably placed between the statesman's lips in allusion to his love of horses (, History of Punch, pp. 203–4).

[The Life of Lord Palmerston up to 1847 was written by his faithful adherent, Lord Dalling (Sir H. Lytton Bulwer), vols. i. and ii. 1870, vol. iii. edited and partly written by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, 1874, after the author's death. Mr. Ashley completed the biography in two more vols. 1876. The whole work was reissued in a revised and slightly abridged form by Mr. Ashley in 2 vols. 1879, with the title ‘The Life and Correspondence of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston;’ the letters are judiciously curtailed, but unfortunately without indicating where the excisions occur; the appendices of the original work are omitted, but much fresh matter is added, and this edition is undoubtedly the standard biography, and has been freely used and quoted above. Palmerston wrote a brief and


text:
Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/25

17


text:
Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/26

 THE PERVERSE WIDOW little down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings excellently: her Voice in her ordinary Speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a Publick Table the Day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some Tansy in the Eye of all the Gentlemen in the Country: She has certainly the finest Hand of any Woman in the World. I can assure you, Sir, were you to behold her, you would be in the same Condition; for as her Speech is Musick, her Form is Angelick. But I find I grow irregular while I am talking of her: but indeed it would be Stupidity to be unconcerned at such Perfection. Oh the excellent Creature, she is as inimitable to all Women, as she is inaccessible to all Men."

I found my Friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the House, that we might be joined by some other Company; and am convinced that the Widow is the secret Cause of all that Inconsistency which appears

18


text:
Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/27

 THE PERVERSE WIDOW in some Parts of my Friend's Discourse; tho' he has so much Command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to that of Martial, which one knows not how to render in English, Dum tacet bane loquitur. I shall end this Paper with that whole Epigram, which represents with much Humour my honest Friend's Condition.

19


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/41

 order it to be burnt by the common hangman (Egerton MS. 917, f. 108); but since then it has been frequently reprinted both in Dublin and in London.

In 1647, after the conclusion of the peace between Ormonde and the parliament, Temple was appointed a commissioner for the government of Munster, and on 16 Oct. the following year was made joint commissioner with Sir W. Parsons for the administration of the great seal of Ireland. But, having voted with the majority on 5 Dec. in favour of the proposed compromise with Charles, he was excluded from further attendance in the house; and during the next four years he took no part in public affairs, residing the while quietly in London. His personal experience, however, of the circumstances attending the outbreak of the rebellion led to his appointment on 21 Nov. 1653 as a commissioner ‘to consider and advise from time to time how the titles of the Irish and others to any estate in Ireland, and likewise their delinquency according to their respective qualifications, might be put in the most speedy and exact way of adjudication consistent with justice.’ His labours accomplished, he returned to England in the following year, and, the government of Ireland having grown into a settled condition, he expressed his willingness to resume the regular execution of his old office of master of the rolls. He accordingly repaired thither in June 1655, bearing a highly recommendatory letter from Cromwell to the lord-deputy Fleetwood and council of state in his favour (Commonwealth Papers, P.R.O. Dublin, A/28, 26, f. 60). In addition to an increased official salary he received from time to time several grants of money for special services rendered by him. In September that year he was joined with Sir R. King, Benjamin Worsley, and others in a commission for letting and setting of houses and lands belonging to the state in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, and Carlow, and on 13 June 1656 was appointed a commissioner for determining all differences among the adventurers concerning lands, &c. (ib. A/26, 24, ff. 115, 227). As a recompense for his services he received on 6 July 1658 a grant of two leases for twenty-one years, the one comprising the town and lands of Moyle, Castletown, Park, &c., adjoining the town of Carlow, amounting to about 1,490 acres, in part afterwards confirmed to him under the act of settlement on 18 June 1666; the other of certain lands in the barony of Balrothery West, co. Dublin, to which were added those of Lispoble in the same county on 30 March 1659 for a similar term of years. He obtained license to go to England for a whole year or more on 21 April 1659 (, Law Officers, p. 67). At the Restoration he was confirmed in his office of master of the rolls, sworn a member of the privy council, appointed a trustee for the '49 officers, and on 4 May 1661 elected, with his eldest son William, to represent co. Carlow in parliament (Official Return of M.P.s, Ireland, pt. ii. p. 607). On the 6th of the same month he obtained for the payment of a fine of 540l. a reversionary lease from the queen mother Henrietta Maria of the park of Blandesby or Blansby, Pickering, Yorkshire, for a term of forty years. He received a confirmation in perpetuity of his lands in co. Dublin, including those of Palmerstown, under the act of settlement on 29 July 1666; to which were added on 20 May 1669 others in counties Kilkenny, Meath, Westmeath, and Dublin. Other grants followed, viz. on 3 May 1672 of 144 acres formerly belonging to the Phœnix Park, and on 16 Nov. 1675 of certain lands, fishings, &c., in and near Chapelizod. He was appointed vice-treasurer of Ireland in 1673, but died in 1677, and was buried beside his father in Trinity College near the campanile, having that year made a benefaction of 100l. to the college to be laid out in certain buildings, entitling him and his heirs to bestow two handsome chambers upon such students as they desired.

By his wife Mary, daughter of Dr. John Hammond [q. v.], of Chertsey, Surrey, who died at Penshurst in Kent in November 1638, Temple had, besides two sons and a daughter who died young, Sir William, the statesman (1628–1699), noticed separately; Sir John (see below); Martha [see under, (1628–1699)]; and Mary, who married (1) Abraham Yarner, and (2), on 19 Dec. 1693, Hugh Eccles.

(1632–1704), having received an education in England qualifying him for the bar, was on 10 July 1660 created solicitor-general of Ireland (patent, 1 Feb. 1661;, Law Officers, p. 177), and in March following appointed a commissioner for executing the king's ‘Declaration’ of 30 Nov. 1660 touching the settlement of the country. He was returned M.P. for Carlow borough on 8 May 1661, and was elected speaker on the first day (6 Sept.) of the second sessions of parliament in the place of Sir A. Mervyn (cf., Life of Ormonde, App. pp. 20–1), being shortly afterwards knighted. His reputation as a lawyer stood very high, and there was some talk in October 1679 of making him attorney-general of England (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. pt. i. p. 476). He was continued in his office of solicitor-


text: Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/28


text:
Page:Pierre.djvu/439

Rh infinitely better, is for Pierre's own private shelf. That it is, whose unfathomable cravings drink his blood; the other only demands his ink. But circumstances have so decreed, that the one cannot be composed on the paper, but only as the other is writ down in his soul. And the one of the soul is elephantinely sluggish, and will not budge at a breath. Thus Pierre is fastened on by two leeches;—how then can the life of Pierre last? Lo! he is fitting himself for the highest life, by thinning his blood and collapsing his heart. He is learning how to live, by rehearsing the part of death.

Who shall tell all the thoughts and feelings of Pierre in that desolate and shivering room, when at last the idea obtruded, that the wiser and the profounder he should grow, the more and the more he lessened the chances for bread; that could he now hurl his deep book out of the window, and fall to on some shallow nothing of a novel, composable in a month at the longest, then could he reasonably hope for both appreciation and cash. But the devouring profundities, now opened up in him, consume all his vigour; would he, he could not now be entertainingly and profitably shallow in some pellucid and merry romance. Now he sees, that with every accession of the personal divine to him, some great land-slide of the general surrounding divineness slips from him, and falls crashing away. Said I not that the gods, as well as mankind, had unhanded themselves from this Pierre? So now in him you behold the baby toddler I spoke of; forced now to stand and toddle alone.

Now and then he turns to the camp-bed, and wetting his towel in the basin, presses it against his brow. Now he leans back in his chair, as if to give up; but again bends over and plods.

Twilight draws on, the summons of Isabel is heard from the door; the poor, frozen, blue-lipped,

title: Page:Pierre.djvu/439


text:
Page:Pierre.djvu/440

426 traveller for St. Petersburg is unpacked; and for a moment stands toddling on the floor. Then his hat, and his cane, and out he sallies for fresh air. A most comfortless staggering of a stroll! People gaze at him passing, as at some imprudent sick man, wilfully burst from his bed. If an acquaintance is met, and would say a pleasant newsmonger's word in his ear, that acquaintance turns from him, affronted at his hard aspect of icy discourtesy. 'Bad-hearted,' mutters the man, and goes on.

He comes back to his chambers, and sits down at the neat table of Delly; and Isabel soothingly eyes him, and presses him to eat and be strong. But his is the famishing which loathes all food. He cannot eat but by force. He has assassinated the natural day; how then can he eat with an appetite? If he lays him down, he cannot sleep; he has waked the infinite wakefulness in him; then how can he slumber? Still his book, like a vast lumbering planet, revolves in his aching head. He cannot command the thing out of its orbit; fain would he behead himself, to gain one night's repose. At last the heavy hours move on; and sheer exhaustion overtakes him, and he lies still—not asleep as children and day-labourers sleep—but he lies still from his throbbings, and for that interval holdingly sheathes the beak of the vulture in his hand, and lets it not enter his heart.

Morning comes; again the dropped sash, the icy water, the flesh-brush, the breakfast, the hot bricks, the ink, the pen, the from-eight-o'clock-to-half-past-four, and the whole general inclusive hell of the same departed day.

Ah! shivering thus day after day in his wrappers and cloaks, is this the warm lad that once sung to the world of the Tropical Summer?

title: Page:Pierre.djvu/440


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Rauch, Christian Daniel

RAUCH, row CH, Christian Daniel, German sculptor: b. Arolsen, western Germany, 2 Jan. 1777; d. Dresden, 3 Dec. 1857. In Arolsen he received his first instruction in art from the sculptor Valentin, under whom he executed ornamental work chiefly. Going to Cassel he became a pupil of Kuhl, the sculptor, and was appointed groom of the chamber in the king's household at Berlin. This gave him an opportunity of advancing in his art, and in 1802 he exhibited his ‘Sleeping Endymion’ and modeled a bust of Queen Louise (1804), which he subsequently executed in marble at Rome. In this city he found a patron in Humboldt, as well as in the first sculptors of the time, Canova and Thorwaldsen. Among his Roman work

of early days must be mentioned the busts of the poet Werner, the life-sized busts of Queen Louise, Count Wenyerski, the painter Raphael Mengs, executed under the commission of Ludwig of Bavaria, and the bassi-relievi of ‘Hippolytus and Phædra’ and ‘Mars and Venus Wounded by Diomedes.’ By 1824 he had executed 70 busts in marble of which 20 were of colossal size. His colossal bronze statues of Blücher are 13 feet in height, and he also executed the greater part of the 12 statues in iron which compose the national monument at Kreuzberg, near Berlin. One of his finest works is the group ‘Faith, Hope and Charity,’ which he presented to his native town, Arolsen, while his crowning work as a portrait and historic sculptor is his statue of Frederick the Great at Berlin (1851), the result of 20 years' labor. He was one of the first, if not the very first, among German sculptors of his time, combining in his work the pure lines of transcendent dignity and grace with genuine portraiture of the individual. There is a poetic freedom in his conception of ideal subjects which does not yet overstep the limits of truth and fidelity to natnre, and he may be safely styled the founder of the great Berlin school of sculpture. Consult Eggers, ‘Chr. n. Rauch’ (1873); ‘Rauch und Goethe, urkundliche Mitteilungen’ (1880).


text:
Page:Pierre.djvu/441

 BOOK XXIII

A LETTER FOR PIERRE. ISABEL. ARRIVAL OF LUCY'S EASEL AND TRUNKS AT THE APOSTLES'

I

a frontier man be seized by wild Indians, and carried far and deep into the wilderness, and there held a captive, with no slightest probability of eventual deliverance; then the wisest thing for that man is to exclude from his memory by every possible method, the least images of those beloved objects now forever reft from him. For the more delicious they were to him in the now departed possession, so much the more agonising shall they be in the present recalling. And though a strong man may sometimes succeed in strangling such tormenting memories; yet, if in the beginning permitted to encroach upon him unchecked, the same man shall, in the end, become as an idiot. With a continent and an ocean between him and his wife—thus sundered from her, by whatever imperative cause, for a term of long years;—the husband, if passionately devoted to her, and by nature broodingly sensitive of soul, is wise to forget her till he embrace her again;—is wise never to remember her if he hear of her death. And though such complete suicidal forgettings prove practically impossible, yet is it the shallow and ostentatious affections alone which are bustling in the offices of obituarian memories. The love deep as death—what mean those five words, but that such love cannot live, and be continually remembering that the loved one is no more? If it be thus then in cases where entire 5em

title: Page:Pierre.djvu/441


text:
Page:Pierre.djvu/442

428 unremorsefulness as regards the beloved absent objects is presumed, how much more intolerable, when the knowledge of their hopeless wretchedness occurs, attended by the visitations of before latent upbraidings in the rmemberer as having been any way—even unwillingly—the producers of their sufferings. There seems no other sane recourse for some moody organisations on whom such things, under such circumstances intrude, but right and left to flee them, whatever betide.

If little or nothing hitherto has been said of Lucy Tartan in reference to the condition of Pierre after his departure from the Meadows, it has only been because her image did not willingly occupy his soul. He had striven his utmost to banish it thence; and only once—on receiving the tidings of Glen's renewed attentions—did he remit the intensity of those strivings, or rather feel them, as impotent in him in that hour of his manifold and overwhelming prostration.

Not that the pale form of Lucy, swooning on her snow-white bed; not that the inexpressible anguish of the shriek—'My heart! my heart!' would not now at times force themselves upon him, and cause his whole being to thrill with a nameless horror and terror. But the very thrillingness of the phantom made him to shun it, with all remaining might of his spirit.

Nor were there wanting still other, and far more wonderful, though but dimly conscious influences in the breast of Pierre, to meet as repellants the imploring form. Not to speak of his being devoured by the all-exacting theme of his book, there were sinister preoccupations in him of a still subtler and more fearful sort, of which some inklings have already been given.

It was while seated solitary in his room one morning; his flagging faculties seeking a momentary respite; his head sideways turned toward the naked floor, following

title: Page:Pierre.djvu/442


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/64

Rh and India, where his weary troops finally insisted on turning back—we are not concerned. He did not return to Syria due to his death at Babylon in 323, but his political and cultural legacy altered Syrian history for centuries to come. He had sought fervently to fuse Greek and oriental ideas and institutions, by intermarriage, by adopting local garb and customs, and—most importantly—by planting Greek colonies in existing or newly founded cities wherever he passed. These cities served the triple purpose of providing settlements for his discharged warriors, forming a chain of military posts on the lines of communication and creating centres for radiating Hellenic cultural influence. Greek soon became the language of learning, though Aramaean remained the language of commerce and both were used in political administration.

The hastily assembled far-flung Macedonian empire fell to pieces at the death of its founder. His generals scrambled for its choicest provinces, for which they waged bloody and protracted wars. Out of the chaos four generals emerged at the head of four states: Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus in the satrapy of Babylonia, Antigonus in Asia Minor and Antipater in Macedonia. Syria, including Palestine, at first fell to Antigonus, but in 312 Ptolemy—the shrewdest of the four—and Seleucus—the ablest—combined to defeat him at Gaza. The victors divided Syria between them, with Ptolemy receiving Palestine and Seleucus seizing northern and eastern Syria, to which he made good his claim by participating in another victory over Antigonus in 301. The year 312, however, is reckoned as marking the birth of the Syrian monarchy and as the starting-point of the Seleucid era, the standard calendar of which was a notable Seleucid achievement.

The boundary between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid territories fluctuated violently and constantly, as did the extent of the domains ruled from the newly established capital at Antioch on the lower Orontes. By 280 Seleucus I, Rh


text:
Page:The perverse widow by Sir Richard Steele and The Widow by Washington Irving (1909).djvu/23

 THE PERVERSE WIDOW

Speechless. This she no sooner observed but she made her Advantage of it, and began a Discourse to me concerning Love and Honour, as they both are followed by Pretenders, and the real Votaries to them. When she had discussed these Points in a Discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the best Philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with my Sentiments on these important Particulars. Her Confident sat by her, and upon my being in the last Confusion and Silence, this malicious Aid of hers, turning to her, says, I am very glad to observe Sir pauses upon this Subject, and seems resolved to deliver all his Sentiments 15


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/65

Rh surnamed Nicator (victor), had expanded his realm as far as the Oxus and the Indus, making it for a time much the most extensive and powerful of all the states which arose from the fragments of Alexander's ephemeral empire. While seeking to add Macedonia to his holdings, he was assassinated there in 280.

The most enduring accomplishment of Seleucus I, however, was not his territorial conquests, but the Greek cities he had founded in an effort to further the Hellenization policy projected by Alexander. These numbered over thirty, of which the most important inside Syria were the political and cultural capital Antioch, the military base and treasury at Apamea on the middle Orontes, and the port of Latakia (Laodicea). All sites for new cities were chosen with care, at strategic spots which were both readily accessible and yet easily defended. In many cases native hamlets or fortresses were transformed into Greco-Macedonian cities, both by Seleucus and his successors in the north, and by the Egyptian Ptolemies in the south. Old towns with Semitic names, which were recolonized and renamed, included Acre (Ptolemais), Beth-shean (Scythopolis), Hamah (Epiphania), Shayzar (Larissa) and Aleppo (Beroea). None of the new names survived, except Tripoli. In these recolonized cities the native element was allowed a larger place than in the new settlements, and in consequence the colonists themselves often went native, so that in due course these cities shed their thin veneer of Hellenism along with the Greek nomenclature and reasserted their Semitic character. Likewise most districts, mountains and rivers which were given Greek names eventually reverted to Semitic forms.

The new Greek city-colonies were laid out according to a preconceived plan characterized by straight streets intersecting at right angles, and were provided with forums, theatres, gymnasiums, baths and other institutions. In them the constitutional form of the Greek city-state was maintained with ample provision for the self-realization of the Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/66

Rh citizen as an integral part of the community. In all this the new settlements differed from the old Semitic ones, which were usually built around a fortress, a spring or a shrine as a nucleus, grew without plan and had no channels for a democratic way of life to find expression. The colonists were primarily Greek and Macedonian soldiers settled by royal decree. Wives were obtained partly from the native stock. Indigenous and alien civilians, attracted by opportunities to prosper, thronged to these settlements. In time half-breeds and natives who had put on the externals of Hellenism were added to the colonial population, which then came to comprise traders, artists, scholars and slaves. Syria now had more cities than ever before.

The empire built by Seleucus I was all but lost under his successors. Egyptian invasion, Parthian rebellion, Anatolian secession and other disasters sapped the strength of the Seleucid state, so that it had lost much of its territory and brilliance by 223, when Antiochus III became king and undertook to restore them. Antiochus first reconquered the Iranian territory as far as Bactria and India, and then in 198 defeated the Egyptian forces and recovered the amputated southern part of Syria. In this victory he used elephants, of which he had brought a fresh supply from India. By twenty years of incessant fighting Antiochus III had won back almost all that his predecessors had lost, and had earned the epithet the Great.

At this time an embassy from Rome appeared in his court to warn him to keep hands off Egypt. This is the first communication we hear of between Rome and Antioch; it marks a new era in ancient international affairs. It was then that Hannibal sought asylum in Syria and urged Antiochus to invade Italy. Antiochus was not fully conscious of the might of the new giant looming in the west. He ventured to strike a blow for Greece, where the Romans were penetrating, and there he met defeat at their hands at Thermopylae (191 ). In the following year he suffered Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/67

Rh another defeat from the Romans near Magnesia, in western Asia Minor, and in 188 was forced to cede to them all his dominions beyond the Taurus and pay a heavy war indemnity. Asia Minor with its land trade routes and direct access to Greek civilization was permanently lost.

The ignominious peace and heavy tribute left Syria in a feeble condition, but by 169 Antiochus IV was strong enough to defeat the Egyptian army, capture Ptolemy VI and occupy lower Egypt. Only Alexandria refused to submit and was subjected to a siege. This was soon raised, however, under pressure from Rome, to whom Antiochus was still paying instalments of the war indemnity. The Syrian conqueror evacuated the land and returned home.

While Rome could circumscribe Antiochus's military activity, it certainly could not check his missionary activity as a champion of Hellenism. In this he was following the traditional policy of the Seleucid house, which considered Hellenism the common denominator on which all their subjects should meet. But Antiochus went too far. He proclaimed his own divinity, which was acceptable to most of his Syrian subjects, but not to some of the Jews. Although the rich and the aristocrats of Jerusalem had responded favourably to Hellenization, adopting the Greek language and customs and even garb, the fundamentalists and nationalists were united in their determined opposition to everything Greek, and especially to mongrelization of their rigid monotheism and defilement of their Temple.

In 168 B.C. a revolt broke out in Judaea under the leadership of one Judas, later called Maccabeus. At first the uprising was directed more against the upper class, who exploited the masses, than against the central government. Judas with his brothers organized guerrilla bands which operated in the hills and avoided pitched battles with the royal forces. At length Jerusalem was captured, the Temple was cleansed and the daily sacrifice was restored. Though of a religious character at the outset, the movement developed Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/68

Rh into a national revolt aimed at liberating the land. The clash was not only with the Syrian forces but also between nationalist fundamentalists who were unwavering in their devotion to Hebraism and adherents to the new culture who constituted the Hellenistic or Reform party. In both conflicts victory went to the Maccabean side. In 141 Judas's brother Simon was elected high priest and ruler, and Jewish independence was recognized by the Seleucid king, Demetrius II. A new Jewish commonwealth was born, lasting until the advent of the Romans eighty years later. The Maccabees forcibly Judaized the Aramaic-speaking pagan Arabs (Ituraeans) of Galilee and the Idumaeans of southern Judaea by offering them a choice between expulsion and circumcision. The latter was preferred by the majority.

The Jews were not the only nation to take advantage of Seleucid weakness. Parthia, Bactria and adjoining lands succeeded in reasserting their independence. Arab dynasties were established at Edessa, at Palmyra, at Horns and in the Biqa, reducing the incompetent successors of Antiochus IV from an imperial house to rulers of a local state in northern Syria. The entire century between his death in 164 and the Roman conquest in 64 presents a confused picture of native revolts, internal dissension, family quarrels and steady loss of territory.

Among the Arabians, the Nabataeans, established south of the Dead Sea at Petra, were now becoming a considerable power. They first appear early in the sixth pre-Christian century as nomadic tribes in the desert east of what is today Transjordan and was then the Aramaean states of Edom and Moab. In 400, while Syria was under Persian rule, they were still mostly nomads, living in tents, speaking Arabic, abhorring wine and uninterested in agriculture. In the following century they abandoned the pastoral way of life in favour of agriculture and trade, gradually evolving into a highly organized, culturally advanced, progressive and opulent society. Theirs was another case illustrating an Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/69

Rh ever-recurring theme of ancient Near Eastern history—the theme of herders becoming tillers and then traders in lands deficient in resources but favourably located for caravan commerce. In 312 they repulsed Antigonus's attacks against Petra which, as the only town between the Jordan and Hejaz with abundant pure water, they had developed into a strongly fortified caravan station at the junction of incense and spice routes. From Petra they extended their sway northward, rebuilding and resettling old Aramaean cities, erecting posts to guard the caravan routes to Gaza and Damascus, exploiting the mineral resources and using their skill in hydraulic engineering to irrigate and cultivate more of the desert margin than any other Arabian people before or after.

Little is heard of Nabataea in the third century while its settlers were developing their potentialities. Early in the second it emerged as a force to be reckoned with in Near Eastern politics, although it was for a time under Ptolemaic influence. In 169 a series of definitely known Nabataean kings commenced with Harithath I, who figured as an ally of the Maccabees against the Seleucid kings of Syria. Later the two houses became rivals. In 96 Harithath II rushed to the aid of Gaza, besieged by the Maccabean Alexander Jannaeus. A few years later the Nabataean king Obidath I defeated Jannaeus in a pivotal battle fought on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee and opened the way for the occupation of south-eastern Syria, now the Hawran plateau and Jabal al-Duruz. Taking advantage of the decline of their Seleucid and Ptolemaic neighbours, Obidath and his successor Harithath III continued to push the Arabian frontier northward until the Romans appeared on the scene.

This Harithath, whose enthusiastic response to Hellenistic civilization earned him the epithet Philhellene, was the real founder of Nabataean power and the first to strike Nabataean coinage. He repeatedly defeated the Judaean army and Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/70

Rh laid siege to Jerusalem. In response to an invitation from Damascus he installed himself in 85 B.C. as the master of that Seleucid city and of the rich plain dominated by it. The invitation was prompted by Damascene hatred for the Ituraean ruler of the Biqa, who had devastated the fields of Byblus and Beirut and aspired to the rule of all Syria. Twelve years later Harithath repulsed an attack by Pompey, the first direct Nabataean contact with Rome. The later history of Nabataea is linked with that of Roman Syria and belongs to the next chapter, but its main lines were already well established.

Arabic in speech, Aramaic in writing, Semitic in religion, Hellenistic in art and architecture, the Nabataean culture was synthetic, superficially Hellenic but basically Arabian, and so it remained. Petra, carved from the living multi- coloured sandstone in a unique application of art to nature, began to take on the aspect of a typically Hellenistic city, with a beautiful main street and several religious and public buildings. Inspired by Greek models, Nabataean artisans introduced a new type of pottery which stands out among the finest produced in southern Syria. Remains of cups, saucers, dishes, jugs and bowls are of amazing eggshell thinness and superior workmanship. The clay used is reddish buff, the designs usually stylized floral or leaf patterns. The prevalence of grapes and vine leaves in ceramic and architectural decoration is another indication that the earlier abstinence from wine was no longer practised.

With their proficiency in ceramics, architecture and hydraulic engineering the Nabataeans combined exceptional merchandising skill. Petran commerce penetrated as far as Italy and the Persian Gulf, and is even attested by Chinese records of traffic in raw silk. Myrrh, spices and frankincense from southern Arabia, rich silk fabrics from Damascus and Gaza, henna from Ascalon, glassware and purple from Sidon and Tyre and pearls from the Persian Gulf constituted the principal commodities. The native produce of Nabataea Rh