"... Lord John has not consented to form a Ministry. He has only told the Queen that he would consult his friends, and see what could be done. We are all most unwilling to take office, and so is he. I have never seen his natural audacity of spirit so much tempered by discretion, and by a sense of responsibility, as on this occasion. The question of the Corn Laws throws all other questions into the shade. Yet, even if that question were out of the way, there would be matters enough to perplex us. Ireland, we fear, is on the brink of something like a civil war--the effect, not of Repeal agitation, but of severe distress endured by the peasantry. Foreign Politics look dark. An augmentation of the Army will be necessary. Pretty legacies to leave to a Ministry which will be in a minority in both Houses. I have no doubt that there is not a single man among us who would not at once refuse to enlist, if he could do so with a clear conscience. Nevertheless, our opinion is that, if we have reasonable hope of being able to settle the all-important question of the Corn Laws in a satisfactory way, we ought, at whatever sacrifice of quiet and comfort, to take office, though only for a few weeks. But can we entertain such a hope? This is the point; and till we are satisfied about it we cannot positively accept or refuse. A few days must pa.s.s before we are able to decide.
"It is clear that we cannot win the battle with our own una.s.sisted strength. If we win it at all, it must be by the help of Peel, Graham, and their friends. Peel has not seen Lord John; but he left with the Queen a memorandum, containing a promise to support a Corn Bill founded on the principles of Lord John"s famous letter to the electors of London."
[24] Trevelyan"s "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay."
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _December_ 14, 1845
Well, my friends agreed with me that, unless I could have a very good prospect of carrying a grand measure about corn, I had better decline the Queen"s Commission. So we are to have all the old Cabinet men here on Tuesday, and try to ascertain whether we are agreed on a measure, and whether Sir Robert Peel would support such a measure as we should propose. On Wednesday evening, or Thursday, I hope the matter will be cleared up, and if you ask me what I think, I should say it is most probable that we shall be made into a Ministry. How very strange and incomprehensible it seems; and much as I have had to do with public affairs, I feel now as if I knew nothing about them, and was quite incompetent to so great an office--to rule over such vast concerns, with such parties. With so many great things and so many little things to decide it is quite appalling.
Many of our friends say I ought to decline; but I feel that to do so would be mean and dastardly while I have a prospect of such great good before me--possible if not probable, but I think even probable. It would seem that most of the Cabinet thought I should have a better chance of preventing bitter attacks than Peel would.
This may be so, or not.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _December_ 17, 1845
I want a security that I shall be able to carry a total repeal of the Corn Laws without delay, and that security must consist in an a.s.surance of Sir Robert Peel"s support. Unless I get this, I give up the task.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
MINTO, _Sunday, December_ 21, 1845
It is difficult to write while our suspense lasts.... It does not seem unlikely that Lord Grey [25] will have yielded, and all be smooth, or _smoother,_ again. Papa tells me not to wish it even on public grounds. On private ones I certainly do not; but I should be ashamed if at such a time my anxieties were not chiefly for you as a _statesman,_ not as my husband, and for my country more than for myself. If it turns out that the interests of the statesman and the country and the wife agree, why then let us be thankful; if not, why then let us be thankful still that we can make some sacrifice to duty. You see that my "courage mounteth with occasion"; and though I have low and gloomy fits when I think of my ill-health and its probable consequences, I am sure that, on the whole, I shall not disgrace you. Oh, what a week of toil and trouble you have had, and how gladly I would have shared them with you to more purpose than I can do at this _terrible_ distance.... It is so pleasant to write to you. When I have finished my letter I always grow sad, as if I was really saying good-bye to you. How have you been sleeping? and eating? and have you walked every day? ... Good-bye, Heaven bless you, my dearest love. I trust that this has been a day of rest to you, and that G.o.d hears and accepts our prayers for one another.
[25] Third Earl Grey, son of the Prime Minister.
Lord John wrote daily to his wife, and the following three letters to her show what he felt during this anxious time:
CHESHAM PLACE, _December_ 19, 1845
It is all at an end. Howick [Lord Grey] would not serve with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, and it was impossible for me to go on unless I had both. I am very happy ... at the result. I think that for the present it will tend much to our happiness; and power may come, some day or other, in a less odious shape.
CHESHAM PLACE, _December_ 20, 1845
I write to you with a great sense of relief on public affairs. Lord Grey"s objection to sitting in a Cabinet in which Palmerston was to have the Foreign Office was invincible. I could not make a Cabinet without Lord Grey, and I have therefore been to Windsor this morning to resign my hard task. The Queen, as usual, was very gracious.... I have left a paper with her in which I state that we were prepared to advise free trade in corn without gradation and without delay; but that I could support Sir Robert Peel in any measure which he should think more practicable.
CHESHAM PLACE, _December_ 21, 1845
The desponding tone of your letter, yesterday, although I do not believe it was otherwise than the effect of weakness, makes me rejoice at my escape a thousand times more than I should otherwise have done. I reflect on the misery I should have felt with every moment of my time occupied here in details of appointments, while my thoughts were with you.... The Queen and the Prince have behaved beautifully throughout.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
MINTO, _December_ 24, 1845
You will not be surprised that a great deal of the time which I meant to devote to you this morning has run away in talk to my husband. You will see by the _Times_ what the _cause_ of the failure is: Lord Grey"s refusal to belong to the Ministry if Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office--a most unfortunate cause, we must all agree, but in the opinion of Papa and many other wise people, a most fortunate occurrence on the whole, as they considered it next to impossible that such a Ministry as John could have formed would have been strong enough to be of use to the country.
My husband, who is no coward, sees it differently, and thinks that with a united Cabinet he _might_ have gone on successfully and carried not only Corn Law Repeal, but other great questions; though the probability was that they would only have carried that and then gone out. But even that would have been something worth doing, and better and more naturally done by Whigs than Tories. One good thing is that John has returned in excellent spirits. _All_ his personal wishes and feelings were so against taking office at present, and the foretaste he had of it in this lonely and most hara.s.sing fortnight was so odious to him that his only feeling at first when he gave it all up was pure delight; and he slept, which he had not been able to do before. It certainly was a terrible prospect to us both--one immovable in Edinburgh, the other equally immovable in London--and it required all my patriotism to wish the thing to go on.
If it had gone on, the name of Lord John Russell would be now more often on men"s lips. Peel"s popular fame rests upon the abolition of the Corn Laws, Lord John"s upon the first Reform Bill. It was but an accident--Lord Grey"s objection to Palmerston at the Foreign Office--which prevented the name of Lord John Russell from being linked with those of Cobden and Bright, and imperishably a.s.sociated with both the great measures of the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER V
1846
After Lord John"s failure to form a Ministry, Peel returned to power; Gladstone replaced Stanley at the War and Colonial Office, and Stanley became the acknowledged leader of the protectionist Opposition. Having Lord John"s a.s.surance that the Whigs would support anti-Corn Law legislation, Peel set about preparing his famous measure. But before it could be discussed in Parliament, the usual explanations with regard to resignation and resumption of office had to be gone through. In his speech on this occasion, Lord John tried to shield Lord Grey as far as possible from the unpopularity which he had incurred by refusing to work with Palmerston in the same Cabinet. Feeling on both sides of the House was against Lord Grey; for both Free Traders and Protectionists thought that Repeal ought to have come from the Whigs, and that it was Lord Grey who had made this impossible.
Lady John remained in Edinburgh, too ill to move. While her husband was helping Peel at Westminster, the following letters pa.s.sed between them:
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
LONDON, _January 23,_ 1846
I did not write to you last night, as I thought I could give you a clearer account to-day. Sir Robert Peel gave up Protection altogether on the ground that he had changed his opinion.... I dine with the Fox Club [to-day?] and at Lansdowne House to-morrow. I have rather startled Lord Lansdowne this morning by some of my views about Ireland.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _January_ 25, 1846
I never doubted that you were as n.o.ble by nature as by name; and I am now more happily convinced of it than ever. Your whole speech was plain and excellent, but the part that I dwell upon with the greatest pleasure is that about Lord Grey.... I generally think your speeches a curious contrast to Sir Robert"s, and it does not fail on this occasion. His humble confession of former errors, his appeal to our sympathies, and his heroic tone at the close, all got rather the better of my reason while I read; but the more I think over his conduct, the less becomes the effect of his words. Yours, on the contrary, as usual, only gain in force the more they are reflected on, simply because they are true. And now, having congratulated you quite as much as is good for your vanity, I must praise myself a little for the way in which I have hitherto borne your absence. What with its present pain, the uncertainty as to when it may end, and my varying and wearying state of health, I have many a time been inclined to lie and cry; and if ever I allowed myself to dwell in thought on the happy days which sad memory brings to light, I _should_ lie and cry; those days when neither night nor day could take me from your side, and when it was as difficult to look forward to sickness or sorrow as it now is to believe that health and happiness--such happiness as that--are in store for us. But I do _not_ dwell upon past enjoyments, but upon present blessings, and I _do_ lie and talk and read and write and think cheerfully and gratefully.
Dearest, I know you cannot see much of the children, but when you do, pray be both Papa and Mama to them. Do not let their little minds grow reserved towards you, or your _great_ mind towards them. Help them to apply what they hear you read from the Bible to their own little daily pleasures and cares, and you will find how delightfully they take it all in.
G.o.d bless you, my dearest. Pray go out every day, and take Isabel and Bessy or one of the small ones with you sometimes to enliven you.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _January_ 26, 1846
Your mention of the dreams which you had had of happiness for Ireland made me sad, and you know how I shared in those dreams....
I like the way in which politics are talked here, it is far enough from the scene of action for them to lose much of their personality, and for all the little views to be lost in the greater--and yet the interest is as great as in London.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
EDINBURGH, _January 28_, 1846