[28] An allusion to Napoleon"s letters to Josephine from Italy, which she had been reading.
Peel had taken the first step towards feeding the poor at home. He had also done his best to relieve the immediate distress of Ireland. Shiploads of Indian corn had been landed, and public works for the help of the dest.i.tute established up and down the country. But the chief grievance of the Irish, which was at the bottom of half the agrarian crime, had not been remedied.
The House of Lords, by having thrown out Peel"s Bill for compensating outgoing tenants for improvements their own money or exertions had created, was largely responsible for the violence and sedition now threatening life and property throughout Ireland. The true remedy having been rejected by the Lords, the Government had to meet violence by violence. No sooner had the Corn Bill been pa.s.sed in the House of Commons than Peel brought in a stringent Sedition Bill for Ireland. Lord John and the Whigs disliked the Bill because it was extremely harsh.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 12, 1846
Nothing that I read in the speeches in favour of the Coercion Bill convinced me that it would do the slightest good.... It must embitter the Irish against England, for which there is no need.
Nothing can be more shocking than the continual outrages and murders in Ireland; but it is the penalty we pay for a long course of misgovernment, and from which nothing but a long course of mild and good government can set us free; certainly not severe indiscriminate measures which mark out Ireland still more as an unhappy conquered province, instead of a part of the nation. Such are my sentiments, dearest, on this subject, which always makes my blood boil.... I read the "Giaour" two nights ago to Addy--it has as great and as numerous beauties as any poem Byron ever wrote--but I find I am not old enough, or wise enough, or good enough to _bear_ Byron, and left off feeling miserable, as he always contrives to make one; despair is what he excels in, and he makes it such beautiful despair that all sense of right or wrong is overwhelmed by it. I said to Addy that one always requires an antidote after reading Byron, and that she and I ought instantly to go and hem pocket-handkerchiefs, or make a pudding--and that is what she has ill.u.s.trated in the newspaper I send.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _March_, 1846
Your views about the Irish Coercion Bill are very natural; but Bessborough, who is the best authority we have about Irish matters, thinks it will tend to stop crime--and especially the crime of murder. I should be loath to throw out a Bill which may have this good effect; but I shall move a resolution which will pledge the House to measures of remedy and conciliation. This may lead to a great debate.... The little girls look very nice, but Toza [29] is, if possible, thinner than ever. However, she laughs and dances like a little fairy. I dined with Mrs. Drummond yesterday. Macaulay [30]
was there--entertaining, and not too much of a monopolist--I mean of talk--which, like other monopolies, is very disagreeable.
[29] Victoria.
[30] Lord John had written to his wife in April, 1845: "Macaulay made one of his splendid speeches again last night.... He is a wonderful man, and must with the years before him be a great leader."
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 19, 1846
After dinner we drove to Portobello sands and there got out and walked for an hour; the sea was of the brightest blue, covered with sails; Inchkeith and the opposite coast so clear that every inequality of hill or rock was seen; Arthur"s Seat, grand and snowy, was behind us, and the glittering sands under our feet--the whole beautiful far beyond description and beyond what I have yet seen it in any weather; for the east wind and bright sun are what it requires. How I did wish for you! I need not say that I only half enjoyed it, as I only half enjoy anything without you. My comfort in your absence is to think that you are not taken from me for nothing, but for your country"s service; and that even if we could have foreseen four years ago all the various anxieties and trials that awaited us, we should have married all the same. As it was, we knew that ours could not be a life of quiet ease; and it was for me to decide whether I was able to face the reverse--and I _did_ decide, and I _am_ able--
"Io lo cercai, fui preso Dall" alta indole sua, dal suo gran nome; Pensai dapprima, oh pensai che incarco E l"amor d"un uomo che a gli" altri e sopra!
Perche allor correr, solo io nol lasciai La sua splendida via, s" io non potea Seguire i pa.s.si suoi?"
Now I am sure you do not know where those lines are from. They are a wee bit altered from Manzoni"s "Carmagnola"; and they struck me so much, when I read them to-day, as applicable to you and me, and made me think of your "splendida via" and all its results.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 23, 1846
Thanks for your precious letter of Sat.u.r.day. You need not grieve at having brought cares and anxieties ... upon me. You have given me a love that repays them all; and such words as you write in that letter strengthen me for all that our "splendida via" may entail upon us, however contrary to my natural tastes or trying to my natural feelings. What a delightful hope you give of your getting away on the 2nd--but I am too wise to build upon it.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _March_ 25, 1846
.... There is a calmness and fairness and _depth_ in conversation here which one seldom meets with in London, where people are too much taken up by the present to dwell upon the past, or look forward to the future--and where consequently pa.s.sion and prejudice are mixed up with most that one hears. Dante, and Milton, and Shakespeare, etc., have little chance amid the hubbub of the great city--but with all its faults, the great city is the place in the world I most wish to see again.... At poor Lady Holland"s one _did_ hear the sort of conversation I find here, and surely you must miss not only her but her house very much.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
_April_ 3, 1846
At all events pray do not distress yourself with the reflexion that you will not be a companion to me during my political trials. You have been feeling strong, ... that strength will, I trust, return.
I see no reason why it should not--and there is no one in existence who can think so well with my thoughts and feel so truly with my feelings as yourself. So in sickness and in sorrow, so in joy and prosperity, we must rely on each other and let no discouraging apprehensions shake our courage.
Meanwhile in Parliament the Irish Coercion Bill was dragging on. Lord Bessborough and other Whig peers had changed their mind about its value, and Lord John, instead of proposing an amendment, definitely opposed it.
The Protectionists, eager to revenge themselves upon Peel, who, they felt, had betrayed them, caught at the opportunity and voted with the Whigs. The Government was defeated by a large majority on the very day the Repeal of the Corn Laws pa.s.sed the House of Lords, and the Queen sent for Lord John, who became Prime Minister in July, 1846.
This time, beyond the usual troubles in the distribution of offices, he had no difficulty in forming a Ministry; but when formed it was in an unusually difficult position. They were in power only because the Protectionists had chosen to send Peel about his business, and the Irish problem was growing more and more acute. The potato crop of 1846 was even worse than that of 1845, and Peel"s system of public works had proved an expensive failure, more pauperising than almsgiving. The Irish population fell from eight millions to five, and those who survived handed down an intensified hatred of England, which lives in some of their descendants to this day.
In the autumn of 1846 Lord John, little thinking that a home would soon be offered to him by the Queen, bought a country place, Chorley Wood, near Rickmansworth.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
CHORLEY WOOD, RICKMANSWORTH, _December_ 12, 1846
About the 10th January we all go back to town for good, as John must be there some time before the meeting of Parliament. Oh that meeting of Parliament! It is so different from any I have ever looked forward to; and though it has always been awful, this is so much _more_ so. I shall then first really feel that John is Minister, and find out the _pains_ of the position, having as yet little experience of anything but the pleasures of it. Then will come the daily toil beyond his strength, the daily abuse to reward him, and the daily trial to us both of hardly meeting for a quarter of an hour between breakfast and bedtime. In short, I had better not begin to enumerate the evils that await us, as they are innumerable. However, I feel very courageous and that they will appear trifles if he succeeds; and if he is turned out before the end of the session, I shall never regret that he has made the attempt. It is a fearful time to have the government in his hands; but for that very reason I am glad that _he_ and no other has it. The accounts from Ireland are worse and worse, and what with the extreme misery of the unfortunate poor and the misbehaviour of the gentry, he is made very miserable. As he said this morning, at times they almost drive him mad.
During Lady John"s long illness in Edinburgh, Francis Lord Jeffrey had been one of her kindest friends, and had helped to brighten many a weary hour by his visits and conversation.
_Lord Jeffrey to Lady John Russell_
EDINBURGH, _December_ 21, 1846
It is very good in you to remember my sunset visits to you in the hotel. I never pa.s.s by its windows in these winter twilights without thinking of you, and of the lessons of cheerful magnanimity (as well as other things) I used to learn by the side of your couch. The Murrays and Rutherfords are particularly well; the latter will soon be up among you, and at his post for the opening of a campaign of no common interest and anxiety. For my part, I am terribly frightened--for the first time, I believe I may say, in my life. Lord John, I believe, does not know what fear is! _sans peur_ as _sans reproche_. But it would be a comfort to know that even he thinks we can get out of the mess in Ireland without some dreadful calamity. And how ugly, in fact, do things look all round the world!
One of the first acts of Lord John"s Government was to vote 10,000,000 for the relief of Ireland. In July, 1847, Parliament was dissolved. When it met again Lord John was reluctantly compelled to ask for its votes in support of an Irish Bill resembling the one on which the Liberals had defeated Peel the year before.
A bare enumeration of the difficulties which beset the new Prime Minister brings home a sense of his unenviable position. Ireland was on the verge of starvation and revolt; everywhere in Europe the rebellions which culminated in 1848 were beginning to stir, seeming then more formidable than they really were in their immediate consequences; in England the Chartist movement was thought to threaten Crown and Const.i.tution; and, in addition, the country had taken alarm at the weakness of its military defences.
Lastly, for power to meet all these emergencies Lord John was dependent, at every juncture, upon the animosity between the Protectionists and Peelites proving stronger than the dislike which either party felt for the Government. There were 325 Liberals in the House; the Protectionists numbered 226; the Conservative Free Traders 105; so the day Protectionists and Peelites came to terms would be fatal to the Government. Such were the troubles of the Prime Minister, who was a man to take them hard. As for his wife, her diaries and letters show that, however high her spirit and firm her principles, her nature was an intensely anxious one.
In December, 1846, they both went down for a short holiday to Chorley Wood, where, on the last night of the year, they held a "grand ball for children and servants. All very merry. John danced a great deal, and I not a little.
Darling Johnny danced the first country dance, holding his Papa"s hand and mine."
CHAPTER VI
1847-52
On January 1, 1847, Lady John wrote in her diary that the year was beginning most prosperously for her and those dearest to her. "Within my own home all is peace and happiness." About a month later she became dangerously ill in London.
LONDON, _February_ 21, 1847
I have been very ill since I last wrote.... I felt that life was still dear to me for the sake of those I love and of those who depend on me.... I saw the look of agony of my dearest husband; I thought of my heart"s treasure--my darling boy; I thought of my other beloved children; I thought of those still earlier loved--my dear, dear Papa and Mama, brothers and sisters. But I was calm and ready to go, if such should be G.o.d"s will.... Dr. Rigby has been not only the most skilful doctor, but the kindest friend.