distance--they would be in want of food, of clothing, and of shelter to such a degree that they would perish at the rate of from ninety to a hundred a day, I should have considered such a prediction as utterly preposterous, and such a picture of the expedition as entirely fanciful and absurd. We are all, however, forced to confess the notoriety of that melancholy state of things." Three days later, after a protracted and heated debate, Mr. Roebuck"s motion was carried in a House of 453 members by the sweeping majority of 157. "The division was curious,"
wrote Greville. "Some seventy or eighty Whigs, ordinary supporters of Government, voted against them, and all the Tories except about six or seven." There was no mistaking the mandate either of Parliament or of the people. Lord Aberdeen on the following day went down to Windsor and laid his resignation before the Queen, and in this sorry fashion the Coalition Government ignominiously collapsed, with hardly an expression of regret and scarcely a claim to remembrance.
The Queen"s choice fell upon Lord Derby, but his efforts to form an Administration proved unavailing. Lord Lansdowne was next summoned, and he suggested that Lord John Russell should be sent for, but in his case, also, sufficient promises of support were not forthcoming. In the end Her Majesty acquiesced in the strongly-expressed wish of the nation, and Lord Palmerston was called to power on February 5. For the moment Lord John was out of office, and Lord Panmure took the place of the Duke of Newcastle as War Minister, but all the other members of the defeated Administration, except, of course, Lord Aberdeen, entered the new Cabinet. Lord Palmerston knew the feeling of the country, and was not afraid to face it, and, therefore, determined to accept Mr. Roebuck"s proposals for a searching investigation of the circ.u.mstances which had attended the conduct of the war. Loyalty to their late chief, as well as to their former colleague, the Duke of Newcastle, led Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, and other Peelites to resign. Lord John, urged by Lord Palmerston, became Colonial Secretary. Palmerston shared Lord Clarendon"s view that no Government calling itself Liberal had a chance of standing without Lord John. Sir G. C. Lewis succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Charles Wood took Sir James Graham"s vacant place at the Admiralty.
[Sidenote: "GENERAL FeVRIER TURNS TRAITOR"]
Changes of a more momentous character quickly followed. Early in the winter, when tidings of the sufferings of the Allies reached St.
Petersburg, the Emperor Nicholas declared, with grim humour, that there were two generals who were about to fight for him, "Janvier et Fevrier;"
but the opening month of the year brought terrible privations to the Russian reinforcements as they struggled painfully along the rough winter roads on the long march to the Crimea. The Czar lost a quarter of a million of men before the war ended, and a vast number of them fell before the cold or the pestilence. Omar Pasha defeated the Russian troops at Eupatoria in the middle of February. The fact that his troops had been repulsed by the hated Turks touched the pride of Nicholas to the quick, and is believed to have brought on the fatal illness which seized him a few days later. On February 27, just after the Emperor had left the parade-ground on which he had been reviewing his troops, he was struck down by paralysis, and, after lingering in a hopeless condition for a day or two, died a baffled and disappointed man. The irony of the situation was reflected with sombre and dramatic realism in a political cartoon which appeared in "Punch." It represented a skeleton in armour, laying an icy hand, amid the falling snow, on the prostrate Czar"s heart. The picture--one of the most powerful that has ever appeared, even in this remarkable mirror of the times--was ent.i.tled, "General Fevrier turned Traitor," and underneath was the dead Emperor"s cruel boast, "Russia has two generals on whom she can confide--Generals Janvier and Fevrier." Prior to the resignation of the Peelites the second Congress of Vienna a.s.sembled, and Lord John Russell attended it as a plenipotentiary for England; and France, Austria, Turkey, and Russia were also represented. The "four points" which formed the basis of the negotiations were that Russia should abandon all control over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia; that the new Czar, Alexander II., should surrender his claim to command the entrance of the Danube; that all treaties should be annulled which gave Russia supremacy in the Black Sea; and that she should dismiss her pretensions to an exclusive right to protect in her own fashion the Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
Nicholas, though at one time favourable to this scheme as a basis of peace, eventually fell back on the a.s.sertion that he would not consent to any limitation of his naval power in the Black Sea. Though the parleyings at Vienna after his death were protracted, the old difficulty a.s.serted itself again, with the result that the second Congress proved, as spring gave way to summer, as futile as the first.
Although subjects which vitally affected the Turkish Empire were under consideration, the Turkish Amba.s.sador at Vienna had received anything but explicit directions, and Lord John was forced to the conclusion that the negotiations were not regarded as serious at Constantinople. Indeed, he had, in Mr. Spencer Walpole"s words, "reason to suspect that the absence of a properly credited Turk was not due to the dilatory character of the Porte alone but to the perverse action of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe."[38] Lord Clarendon did not hesitate to declare that Lord Stratford was inclined to thwart any business which was not carried on in Constantinople, and the English Amba.s.sador kept neither Lord John in Vienna nor the Cabinet in Downing Street acquainted with the views of the Porte. Lord John declared that the Turkish representative at Vienna, from whom he expected information about the affairs of his own country, was "by nature incompetent, and by instruction silent." Two schemes, in regard to the point which was chiefly in dispute, were before the Congress; they are best stated in Lord John"s own words: "One, called limitation, proposed that only four ships of the line should be maintained in the Black Sea by Russia, and two each by the allies of Turkey. The other mode, proposed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, contemplated a much further reduction of force--namely, to eight or ten light vessels, intended solely to protect commerce from pirates and perform the police of the coast." Although a great part of the Russian fleet was at the bottom of the sea, and the rest of it hemmed in in the harbour of Sebastopol, Prince Gortschakoff announced, with the air of a man who was master of the situation, that the Czar entirely refused to limit his power in the Euxine.
[Sidenote: COUNT BUOL"S COMPROMISE]
At this juncture Count Buol proposed a compromise, to the effect that Russia should maintain in the Black Sea a naval force not greater than that which she had had at her disposal there before the outbreak of the war; that any attempt to evade this limitation should be interpreted as a _casus belli_, by France, England, and Austria, which were to form a triple treaty of alliance to defend the integrity and independence of Turkey in case of aggression. Lord Palmerston believed, to borrow his own phrase, that Austria was playing a treacherous game, but that was not the opinion at the moment either of Lord John Russell or of M.
Drouyn de Lhuys. They appear to have thought that the league of Austria with England and France to resist aggression upon Turkey would prove a sufficient check on Russian ambition, and did not lay stress enough on the objections, which at once suggested themselves both in London and Paris. The Prince Consort put the case against Count Buol"s scheme in a nutsh.e.l.l: "The proposal of Austria to engage to make war when the Russian armaments should appear to have become excessive is of no kind of value to the belligerents, who do not wish to establish a case for which to make war hereafter, but to obtain a security upon which they can conclude peace now." Lord John Russell, in a confidential interview with Count Buol, declared that he was prepared to recommend the English Cabinet to accept the Austrian proposals. It seemed to him that, if Russia was willing to accept the compromise and to abandon the att.i.tude which had led to the war, the presence of the Allies in the Crimea was scarcely justifiable. M. Drouyn de Lhuys took the same view, and both plenipotentiaries hastened back to urge acquiescence in proposals which seemed to promise the termination of a war in which, with little result, blood and treasure had already been lavishly expended.
Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon, backed by popular sentiment, refused to see in Russia"s stubborn demand about her fleet in the Black Sea other than a perpetual menace to Turkey. They argued that England had made too heavy a sacrifice to patch up in this fashion an inglorious and doubtful peace. The att.i.tude of Napoleon III. did more than anything else to confirm this decision. The war in the Crimea had never been as popular in France as it was in England. The throne which Napoleon had seized could only be kept by military success, and there is no doubt whatever that personal ambition, and the prestige of a campaign, with England for a companion-in-arms, determined the despatch of French troops to the Crimea. On his return, Lord John at once saw the difficulty in which his colleagues were landed. The internal tranquility of France was imperilled if the siege of Sebastopol was abandoned. "The Emperor of the French," he wrote, "had been to us the most faithful ally who had ever wielded the sceptre or ruled the destinies of France. Was it possible for the English Government to leave the Emperor to fight unaided the battle of Europe, or to force him to join us in a peace which would have sunk his reputation with his army and his people?" He added, that this consideration seemed to him so weighty that he ceased to urge on Lord Palmerston the acceptance of the Austrian terms, and Lord Clarendon therefore sent a reply in which Count Buol"s proposals were rejected by the Cabinet. Lord Palmerston laid great stress on Lord John"s presence in his ministry, and Mr. Walpole has shown that the latter only consented to withdraw his resignation after not merely an urgent, but a thrice-repeated personal request from the Premier.
[Sidenote: PRESSURE FROM PALMERSTON]
He ought unquestionably, at all hazards to Lord Palmerston"s Government, to have refused to remain a member of it when his colleagues intimated that they were not in a position to accept his view of the situation without giving mortal offence to the Emperor of the French. Under the circ.u.mstances, Lord Palmerston ought not to have put the pressure on Lord John. The latter stayed in order to shield the Government from overthrow by a combined Radical and Tory attack at a moment when Palmerston was compelled to study the susceptibilities of France and Napoleon III."s fears concerning his throne. There is a published letter, written by the Prince Consort at this juncture to his brother the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, which throws light on the situation. The Prince hints that the prospects of the Allies in the Crimea had become more hopeful, just as diplomatic affairs at Vienna had taken an awkward turn.
He states that in General Pelissier the French "have at last a leader who is determined and enterprising, and who will once more raise the spirit of the army, which has sunk through Canrobert"s mildness." He adds that the English troops "are again thirty thousand men under arms, and their spirit is excellent. At home, however, Gladstone and the Peelites are taking up the cry for peace, and declaring themselves against all further continuation of the war; whilst Lord Derby and the Protectionists are all for making common cause with Layard and others, in order to overthrow Palmerston"s Ministry." Disraeli, significantly adds the Prince, has been "chiefly endeavouring to injure" Lord John Russell.
Towards the end of May, Mr. Disraeli introduced a resolution condemning the conduct of the Government, and calling attention to Lord John Russell"s att.i.tude at the Vienna Conference. Lord John had fulfilled the promise which he had given to Count Buol before leaving Vienna; but Lord Palmerston was determined to maintain the alliance with France, and therefore, as a member of his Government, Lord John"s lips were sealed when he rose to defend himself. He stated in a powerful speech the reasons which had led to the failure of the Conference, and ended without any allusion to the Austrian proposals or his own action in regard to them. Irritated at the new turn of affairs, Count Buol disclosed what had pa.s.sed behind the scenes in Vienna, and Lord John found himself compelled to explain his explanations. He declared that he had believed before leaving Vienna that the Austrian scheme held out the promise of peace, and, with this conviction in his mind, he had on his return to London immediately advised its acceptance by Lord Palmerston.
He was not free, of course, to state with equal frankness the true reason of its rejection by the Cabinet, and therefore was compelled to fall back on the somewhat lame plea that it had been fully considered and disallowed by his colleagues. Moreover he felt, as a plenipotentiary, it was his duty to submit to the Government which had sent him to Vienna, and as a member of the Cabinet it was not less his duty to yield to the decision of the majority of his colleagues.
[Sidenote: AN EMBARRa.s.sING POSITION]
Lord John"s explanations were not deemed satisfactory. He was in the position of a man who could only defend himself and make his motives plain to Parliament and the country by statements which would have embarra.s.sed his colleagues and have shattered the French alliance at a moment when, not so much on national as on international grounds, it seemed imperative that it should be sustained. The attacks in the Press were bitter and envenomed; and when Lord John, in July, told Lord Palmerston it was his intention to retire, the latter admitted with an expression of great regret that the storm was too strong to be resisted, though, he added, "juster feelings will in due time prevail." A few days later Lord John, in a calm and impressive speech, antic.i.p.ated Sir E. B.
Lytton"s hostile motion on the Vienna Conference by announcing his intention to the House. Though he still felt in honour obliged to say nothing on the real cause of his withdrawal, his dignified att.i.tude on that occasion made its own impression, and all the more because of the sweeping abuse to which he was at the moment exposed. It was of this speech that Sir George Cornewall Lewis said that it was listened to with attention and respect by an audience partly hostile and partly prejudiced. He declared that he was convinced it would go far to remove the imputations, founded on error and misrepresentation, under which Lord John laboured. He added, with a generosity which, though characteristic, was rare at that juncture: "I shall be much surprised if, after a little time and a little reflection, persons do not come to the conclusion that never was so small a matter magnified beyond its true proportions."
Within twenty-four hours of his resignation Lord John had an opportunity of showing that he bore no malice towards former colleagues. Mr.
Roebuck, with characteristic denunciations, attacked the Government on the damaging statements contained in the report of the Sebastopol Committee. He proposed a motion censuring in severe terms every member of the Cabinet whose counsels had led to such disastrous results.
Whatever construction might be placed on Lord John"s conduct of affairs in Vienna, he at least could not be charged with lukewarmness or apathy in regard to the administration of the army and the prosecution of the war. He had, in fact, irritated Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle by insisting again and again on the necessity of undivided control of the military departments, and on the need of a complete reorganisation of the commissariat. A less magnanimous man would have seized the opportunity of this renewed attack to declare that he, at least, had done his best at great personal cost to prevent the deplorable confusion and collapse which had overtaken the War Office. He disdained, however, the mean personal motive, and made, what Lord Granville called, a "magnificent speech," in which he declared that every member without exception remained responsible for the consequences which had overtaken the Expedition to the Crimea, Mr. Kinglake once a.s.serted that, though Lord John Russell was capable of coming to a bold, abrupt, and hasty decision, not duly concerted with men whose opinions he ought to have weighed, no statesman in Europe surpa.s.sed him on the score of courage or high public spirit. The chivalry which he displayed in coming to the help of the Government on the morrow of his own almost compulsory retirement from office was typical of a man who made many mistakes, but was never guilty, even when wounded to the quick, of gratifying the pa.s.sing resentments of the hour at the expense of the interests of the nation.
[Sidenote: WARLIKE COUNSELS PREVAIL]
During the summer of 1855 the feeling of the country grew more and more warlike. The failure of the negotiations at Vienna had touched the national pride. The State visit in the spring to the English Court of the Emperor Napoleon, and his determination not to withdraw his troops from the Crimea until some decisive victory was won, had rekindled its enthusiasm. The repulse at the Redan, the death of Lord Raglan, and the vainglorious boast of Prince Gortschakoff, who declared "that the hour was at hand when the pride of the enemies of Russia would be lowered, and their armies swept from our soil like chaff blown away by the wind,"
rendered all dreams of diplomatic solution impossible, and made England, in spite of the preachers of peace at any price, determined to push forward her quarrel to the bitter end. The nation, to borrow the phrase of one of the shrewdest political students of the time, had now begun to consider the war in the Crimea as a "duel with Russia," and pride and pluck were more than ever called into play, both at home and abroad, in its maintenance. The war, therefore, took its course. Ample supplies and reinforcements were despatched to the troops, and the Allies, under the command of General Simpson and General Pelissier, pushed forward the campaign with renewed vigour. Sardinia and Sweden had joined the alliance, and on August 16 the troops of the former, acting in concert with the French, drove back the Russians, who had made a sortie along the valley of the Tchernaya. After a month"s bombardment by the Allies, the Malakoff, a redoubt which commanded Sebastopol, was taken by the French; but the English troops were twice repulsed in their attack on the Redan. Gortschakoff and Todleben were no longer able to withstand the fierce and daily renewed bombardment. The forts on the south side were, therefore, blown up, the ships were sunk, and the army which had gallantly defended the place retired to a position of greater security with the result that Sebastopol fell on September 8, and the war was virtually over. Sir Evelyn Wood lately drew attention to the fact that forty out of every hundred of the soldiers who served before Sebastopol in the depth of that terrible winter of 1854 lie there, or in the Scutari cemetery--slain, not by the sword, but by privation, exposure, disease, and exertions beyond human endurance.
[Sidenote: ALL FOR NAUGHT]
France was clamouring for peace, and Napoleon was determined not to prolong the struggle now that his troops had come out of the siege of Sebastopol with flying colours. Russia, on her part, had wellnigh exhausted her resources. Up to the death of the Emperor Nicholas, she had lost nearly a quarter of a million of men, and six months later, so great was the carnage and so insidious the pestilence, that even that ominous number was doubled. The loss of the Allies in the Crimean war was upwards of eighty-seven thousand men, and more than two-thirds of the slain fell to France. Apart from bloodshed, anguish, and pain, the Crimean war bequeathed to England an increase of 41,000,000_l._ in the National Debt. No wonder that overtures for the cessation of hostilities now met with a welcome which had been denied at the Vienna Conference.
After various negotiations, the Peace of Paris was signed on March 30, 1856. Russia was compelled to relinquish her control over the Danube and her protectorate over the Princ.i.p.alities, and was also forbidden to build a.r.s.enals on the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea, which was declared open to all ships of commerce, but closed to all ships of war. Turkey, on the other hand, confirmed, on paper at least, the privileges proclaimed in 1839 to Christians resident in the Ottoman Empire; but ma.s.sacres at Damascus, in the Lebanon, and later in Bulgaria, and recently in Armenia, have followed in dismal sequence in spite of the Treaty of Paris. The neutrality of the Black Sea came to an end a quarter of a century ago, and the substantial gains--never great even at the outset--of a war which was costly in blood and treasure have grown small by degrees until they have almost reached the vanishing point.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] _Life of Lord John Russell_, vol. ii. p. 251.
CHAPTER XIII
LITERATURE AND EDUCATION
Lord John"s position in 1855--His const.i.tuency in the City--Survey of his work in literature--As man of letters--His historical writings--Hero-worship of Fox--Friendship with Moore--Writes the biography of the poet--"Don Carlos"--A book wrongly attributed to him--Publishes his "Recollections and Suggestions"--An opinion of Kinglake"s--Lord John on his own career--Lord John and National Schools--Joseph Lancaster"s tentative efforts--The formation of the Council of Education--Prejudice blocks the way--Mr. Forster"s tribute.
MEN talked in the autumn of 1855 as if Lord John Russell"s retirement was final, and even his brother, the Duke of Bedford, considered it probable that his career as a responsible statesman was closed. His health had always been more or less delicate, and he was now a man of sixty-three. He had been in Parliament for upwards of forty years, and nearly a quarter of a century had pa.s.sed since he bore the brunt of the wrath and clamour and evil-speaking of the Tories at the epoch of Reform. He had been leader of his party for a long term of difficult years, and Prime Minister for the s.p.a.ce of six, and in that capacity had left on the statute book an impressive record of his zeal on behalf of civil and religious liberty. No statesman of the period had won more distinction in spite of "gross blunders," which he himself in so many words admitted. He was certainly ent.i.tled to rest on his laurels; but it was nonsense for anyone to suppose that the animosity of the Irish, or the indignation of the Ritualists, or the general chagrin at the collapse--under circ.u.mstances for which Lord John was by no means alone responsible--of the Vienna Conference, could condemn a man of so much energy and courage, as well as political prescience, to perpetual banishment from Downing Street.
There were people who thought that Lord John was played out in 1855, and there were many more who wished to think so, for he was feared by the incompetent and apathetic of his own party, as well as by those who had occasion to reckon with him in honourable but strenuous political conflict. The great mistake of his life was not the Durham Letter, which has been justified, in spite of its needless bitterness of tone, by the inexorable logic of accomplished events. It was not his att.i.tude towards Ireland in the dark years of famine, which was in reality far more temperate and generous than is commonly supposed. It was not his action over the Vienna Conference, for, now that the facts are known, his reticence in self-defence, under the railing accusations which were brought against him, was magnanimous and patriotic. The truth is, Lord John Russell placed himself in a false position when he yielded to the importunity of the Court and the Peelites by consenting to accept office under Lord Aberdeen. The Crimean War, which he did his best to prevent, only threw into the relief of red letters against a dark sky the radical divergence of opinion which existed in the Coalition Government.
[Sidenote: OUT OF OFFICE]
For nearly four years after his retirement from office Lord John held an independent political position, and there is evidence enough that he enjoyed to the full this respite from the cares of responsibility. He gave up his house in town, and the quidnuncs thought that they had seen the last of him as a Minister of the Crown, whilst the merchants and the stockbrokers of the City were supposed to scout his name, and to be ready to lift up their heel against him at the next election.
Meanwhile, Lord John studied to be quiet, and succeeded. He visited country-houses, and proved a delightful as well as a delighted guest. He travelled abroad, and came back with new political ideas about the trend in foreign politics. He published the final volume of his "Memoirs and Correspondence of Thomas Moore," and busied himself over his "Life and Times of Charles James Fox," and other congenial literary tasks. He appeared on the platform and addressed four thousand persons in Exeter Hall, in connection with the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation, on the causes which had r.e.t.a.r.ded moral and political progress in the nation. He went down to Stroud, and gave his old const.i.tuents a philosophic address on the study of history. He spoke at the first meeting of the Social Science Congress at Birmingham, presided over the second at Liverpool, and raised in Parliament the questions of National Education, Jewish Disabilities, the affairs of Italy, besides taking part, as an independent supporter of Lord Palmerston, in the controversies which arose from time to time in the House of Commons. His return to office grew inevitable in the light of the force of his character and the integrity of his aims.
[Sidenote: LITERARY WORK]
It is, of course, impossible in the scope of this volume to describe at any length Lord John Russell"s contributions to literature, even outside the range of letters and articles in the press and that almost forgotten weapon of controversy, the political pamphlet. From youth to age Lord John not merely possessed the pen of a ready writer, but employed it freely in history, biography, criticism, _belles-lettres_, and verse.
His first book was published when George III. was King, and his last appeared when almost forty years of Queen Victoria"s reign had elapsed.
The Liverpool Administration was in power when his biography of his famous ancestor, William, Lord Russell, appeared, and that of Mr.
Disraeli when the veteran statesman took the world into his confidence with "Recollections and Suggestions." It is amusing now to recall the fact that two years after the battle of Waterloo Lord John Russell feared that he could never stand the strain of a political career, and Tom Moore"s well-known poetical "Remonstrance" was called forth by the young Whig"s intention at that time to abandon the Senate for the study.
When Lord Grey"s Ministry was formed in 1830 to carry Reform, Lord John was the author of several books, grave and gay, and had been seventeen years in Parliament, winning already a considerable reputation within and without its walls. It was a surprise at the moment, and it is not even yet quite clear why Russell was excluded from the Cabinet. Mr.
Disraeli has left on record his interpretation of the mystery: "Lord John Russell was a man of letters, and it is a common opinion that a man cannot at the same time be successful both in meditation and in action."
If this surmise is correct, Lord John"s fondness for printer"s ink kept him out of Downing Street until he made by force his merit known as a champion of popular rights in the House of Commons. Literature often claimed his pen, for, besides many contributions in prose and verse to periodicals, to say nothing of writings which still remain in ma.n.u.script and prefaces to the books of other people, he published about twenty works, great and small. Yet, his strength lay elsewhere.
His literary pursuits, with scarcely an exception, represent his hours of relaxation and the manner in which he sought relief from the cares of State. In the pages of "William, Lord Russell," which was published in 1819, when political corruption was supreme and social progress all but impossible, Lord John gave forth no uncertain sound. "In these times, when love of liberty is too generally supposed to be allied with rash innovation, impiety, and anarchy, it seems to me desirable to exhibit to the world at full length the portrait of a man who, heir to wealth and t.i.tle, was foremost in defending the privileges of the people; who, when busily occupied in the affairs of public life, was revered in his own family as the best of husbands and of fathers; who joined the truest sense of religion with the unqualified a.s.sertion of freedom; who, after an honest perseverance in a good cause, at length attested, on the scaffold, his attachment to the ancient principles of the Const.i.tution and the inalienable right of resistance." The interest of the book consists not merely in its account--gathered in part at least from family papers at Woburn and original letters at Longleat--of Lord Russell, but also in the light which is cast on the period of the Restoration, and the policy of Charles II. and the Duke of York.
[Sidenote: A CONFIDENT WHIG]
Two years later, Lord John published an "Essay on the History of the English Government and Const.i.tution," which, in an expanded form, has pa.s.sed through several editions, and has also appeared in a French version. The book is concerned with const.i.tutional change in England from the reign of Henry VII. to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lord John made no secret of his conviction that, whilst the majority of the Powers of Europe needed revolutionary methods to bring them into sympathy with the aspirations of the people, the Government of England was not in such an evil case, since its "abuses easily admit of reforms consistent with its spirit, capable of being effected without injury or danger, and mainly contributing to its preservation." The historical reflections which abound in the work, though shrewd, can scarcely be described as remarkable, much less as profound. The "Essay on English Government" is, in fact, not the confessions of an inquiring spirit entangled in the maze of political speculation, but the conclusions of a young statesman who has made up his mind, with the help of Somers and Fox.
Perhaps, however, the most important of Lord John"s contributions to the study of the philosophy of history was "Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht." It describes at considerable length, and often with luminous insight, the negotiations which led to the treaty by which the great War of the Spanish Succession was brought to an end. It also throws light on men and manners during the last days of Louis XIV., and on the condition of affairs in France which followed his death. The closing pages of the second volume are concerned with a survey of the religious state of England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Lord John in this connection pays homage to the work of Churchmen of the stamp of Warburton, Clarke, and Hoadly; but he entirely fails to appreciate at anything like their true value the labours of Whitfield and Wesley, though doing more justice to the great leaders of Puritanism, a circ.u.mstance which was perhaps due to the fact that they stand in the direct historical succession, not merely in the a.s.sertion of the rights of conscience, but in the ordered growth of freedom and society.
Amongst the most noteworthy of Lord John Russell"s literary achievements were the two works which he published concerning a statesman whose memory, he declared, ought to be "consecrated in the heart of every lover of freedom throughout the globe"--Charles James Fox, a master of a.s.semblies, and, according to Burke, perhaps the greatest debater whom the world has ever seen. The books in question are ent.i.tled "Memorials and Correspondence," which was published in four volumes at intervals between the years 1853 and 1857, and the more important "Life and Times of Charles James Fox," which appeared in three volumes between the years 1859 and 1866. This task, like so many others which Lord John accomplished, came unsought at the death of his old friend, Lady Holland, in 1845. It was the ambition of Lord Holland, "nephew of Fox and friend of Grey," as he used proudly to style himself, to edit the papers and write the life of his brilliant kinsman. Politics and society and the stately house at Kensington, which, from the end of last century until the opening years of the Queen"s reign, was the chief _salon_ of the Whig party, combined, with an easy procrastinating temperament, to block the way, until death ended, in the autumn of 1840, the career of the gracious master of Holland House. The materials which Lord Holland and his physician, librarian, and friend, Dr. John Allen, had acc.u.mulated, and which, by the way, pa.s.sed under the scrutiny of Lord Grey and Rogers, the poet, were edited by Lord John, with the result that he grew fascinated with the subject, and formed the resolution, in consequence, to write "The Life and Times" of the great Whig statesman.
He declared that it was well to have a hero, and a hero with a good many faults and failings.
[Sidenote: FOX AND MOORE]
Fox did more than any other statesman in the dull reign of George II. to prepare the way for the epoch of Reform, and it was therefore fitting that the statesman who more than any other bore the brunt of the battle in 1830-32 should write his biography. Lord Russell"s biography of Fox, though by no means so skilfully written as Sir George Otto Trevelyan"s vivacious description of "The Early History of Charles James Fox," is on a more extended scale than the latter. Students of the political annals of the eighteenth century are aware of its value as an original and suggestive contribution to the facts and forces which have shaped the relations of the Crown and the Cabinet in modern history. Fox, in Lord John"s opinion, gave his life to the defence of English freedom, and hastened his death by his exertion to abolish the African Slave Trade.
He lays stress, not only on the great qualities which Fox displayed in public life, but also on the simplicity and kindness of his nature, and the spell which, in spite of grievous faults, he seemed able to cast, without effort, alike over friends and foes.
One of the earliest, and certainly one of the closest, friendships of Lord John Russell"s life was with Thomas Moore. They saw much of each other for the s.p.a.ce of nearly forty years in London society, and were also drawn together in the more familiar intercourse of foreign travel.
It was with Lord John that the poet went to Italy in 1819 to avoid arrest for debt, after his deputy at Bermuda had embezzled 6,000_l._ Moore lived, more or less, all his days from hand to mouth, and Lord John Russell, who was always ready in a quiet fashion, in Kingsley"s phrase, to help lame dogs over stiles, frequently displayed towards the light-hearted poet throughout their long friendship delicate and generous kindness. He it was who, in conjunction with Lord Lansdowne, obtained for Moore in 1835 a pension of 300_l._ a year, and announced the fact as one which was "due from any Government, but much more from one some of the members of which are proud to think themselves your friends." Moore died in 1852, and when his will was read--it had been made when Lord John was still comparatively unknown--it was discovered that he had, to give his own words, "confided to my valued friend, Lord John Russell (having obtained his kind promise to undertake the service for me), the task of looking over whatever papers, letters, or journals I may leave behind me, for the purpose of forming from them some kind of publication, whether in the shape of memoirs or otherwise, which may afford the means of making some provision for my wife and family."