Neue Oder-Zeitung.  
No. 475, October 11, 1855.  
Midday Edition

X. London, October 6. (The Committee at Newcastle upon Tyne,) which has constituted itself for the purpose of investigating the “action of diplomacy,” has just published a most remarkable report. We give the most important parts of it in extracts, and only remark in advance that Mr. Porter, who plays a leading part in the following documents, was Vice-President of the British Board of Trade and holds a position in English literature as the author of the work: “The progress of the Nation.”

No. 1. Report of the Committee at Newcastle upon Tyne. The Committee finds

1) that Mr. Porter, during his employment at the Board of Trade, at the time when Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister and Lord Palmerston Foreign Secretary, as the result of his own observation and as a conclusion from facts known to him, formed and expressed the conviction that Lord Palmerston systematically sacrificed the interests of England to those of Russia in matters relating to commercial treaties; 2) that Mr. Porter did not keep this conviction secret from his superior, the President of the Board of Trade, Lord Palmerston’s colleague; that, on the contrary, in the year 1840, when a mission to Paris to conclude a commercial treaty with France was offered to him, he declined it unless it were expressly stipulated that he should not have to make any reports to the Foreign Office. The reason for this demand was his conviction that his attempts to conclude such a treaty would be treacherously thwarted by the head of that department; 3) that this condition was accepted and Porter therefore undertook his mission to Paris; 4) that during his employment under Gladstone, at the time of Sir R. Peel’s Administration, Porter continually adhered to his former convictions and, moreover, accused Lord Palmerston of having received Russian money. He stated that the agent in this transaction was a Jew named Jakob Hart, who formerly kept a gambling den in St. James’s Street and was later appointed by Lord Palmerston British consul in Leipzig. He had assured himself of these facts in consequence of investigations which the government set on foot in order to get rid of Hart; 5) that independently of Mr. Porter’s testimony the fact is incontestable, and can be verified by anyone who will take the trouble, that Jakob Hart kept a gambling den and was appointed by Lord Palmerston British consul in Leipzig, where he was generally shunned as a most equivocal character. The Committee subjoins the depositions which it has taken down.  
Newcastle, September 20, 1855. G. Crawshay etc.  
From these depositions we communicate the following extracts:

No. 2. The transaction with the gambling den only became known to Mr. Porter later, under Sir R. Peel’s Administration. The circumstances, as Porter reported them to me, are as follows: A certain Jew, British consul in Leipzig, was declared both by native and by British merchants to be a most disgraceful representative of England, especially since it had come out that he had previously kept a gambling den in St. James’s Street. An attempt was made to remove him and the matter laid before the government of Sir R. Peel. But his government experienced such decided and violent opposition on the part of Palmerston, who had originally granted the post, that it gave way. The secret of Palmerston’s attachment to such a reprobate character now became the object of investigation and it turned out that Lord Palmerston, at a time when he was in great pecuniary embarrassment, I believe it was in the year 1825, received from Princess Lieven the advice to repair to the gaming house kept by this Jew, where a foreigner lost £20,000 to him in two successive nights. Mr. Porter spoke of this openly to many persons, among others to Mr. Bright.  
April 7, 1855. D. Roß, of Bladensburg.

No. 3. Hart’s appointment took place when Palmerston was on the point of leaving the Cabinet, in the year 1841. Hart paraded before various persons in Leipzig with a letter from Palmerston expressing regret that at that moment he could not dispose of a more advantageous post in his favour.  
Worthing, April 28, 1855. D. Urquhart.

No. 4. It would be as useless as it is impracticable for me to recapitulate all the private conversations with Porter. I confine myself to one incident. An important treaty had been concluded with a European state (Naples), whereby, had it been ratified, considerable commercial advantages were obtained for this country in an amicable way. It was feared by official persons, who knew the Russian action in the Cabinet and resisted it, that the treaty would be stifled if any pretexts for discussion, formalities, or preliminaries were left open. To avoid this danger, the treaty was therefore brought to full maturity and only laid before the ministry after it had already received the consent and signature of Naples. It was received with silence in England. No government organ received permission to congratulate upon this event. The Foreign Office ignored it completely. Those who had brought the treaty about now induced a Member of Parliament to interpellate whether such a treaty had not received the consent of Naples? Palmerston replied that this was a complete misunderstanding – no such treaty existed – only a few rough notes for a treaty. I remember that Porter, in reference to this answer of the minister, opened a repository of public documents before my eyes, drew out one of them, handed it to me and exclaimed: “Here is the treaty.” It is probably still in the same place. This treaty with Naples had been negotiated by M.C. Gregor, now Member of Parliament for Glasgow. Still more astonishing was Porter’s statement concerning the sacrifice of a commercial treaty which he himself had negotiated with France and whose conclusion Palmerston thwarted.  
May 4, 1855. R. Monteith.

No. 5. “I remember having heard of the appointment of a Jew or ex-Jew Mitchely (or a similar name) who was co-proprietor and also co-editor of the Morning Post. Palmerston procured him the consulate at St. Petersburg, a post which he retained until the outbreak of the war, and which yielded £4,000-5,000 a year. Just after the general election, in the year 1847, the Morning Post, then strictly Derbyite and Conservative, published an article on the ministry in which it said, with reference to Palmerston, that Urquhart had charges to bring against him which made one’s hair stand on end. Mitchely received the appointment shortly afterwards. The management of the paper now passed, it is true, into other hands, but from that moment, even as long as it continued to profess allegiance to Derby and the Corn Laws, it exempted Palmerston from its general attacks on the ministry, and rather praised and supported him continually. In the last 12 months it has openly deserted from the camp of the Conservatives and has become not only Palmerstonian but also ministerial.  
Charles Attwood.”