The most interesting and important piece of intelligence 
brought by the steamer Africa is the resignation of Lord Palmerston 
as a member of the Coalition Ministry under Lord Aberdeen.*” 
This is a master-stroke of that unscrupulous and consummate 
tactician. Those journals at London which speak for the Ministry, 
carefully inform the public that the event does not grow out of the 
Eastern difficulty, but that his conscientious Lordship, like a true 
guardian of the British Constitution, quits office because he 
cannot give his consent to a measure of Parliamentary Reform, 
even of the pigmy dimensions natural to such a Whig as Lord 
John Russell. Such is, indeed, the official motive of resignation he 
has condescended to communicate to his colleagues of the 
Coalition. But he has taken good care that the public shall have a 
different impression, and in spite of all the declarations of the 
official organs, it is generally believed that while the Reform Bill is 
the pretext, the Russian policy of the Cabinet is the real cause. 
Such has been for some time, and especially since the close of the 
last session of Parliament, the tenor of all the journals in his 
interest. On various keys, and in multiform styles, they have 
played a single tune, representing Lord Palmerston as vainly 
struggling against the influence of the Premier, and revolting at 
the ignominious part forced upon him in the Eastern drama. 
Rumors have been incessantly circulated concerning the division of 
the Ministry into two great parties, and nothing has been omitted 
to prepare the British public for an exhibition of characteristic 
energy from the chivalrous Viscount. The comedy having been 
thus introduced, the mise en scene arranged, the noble Lord, placed 
behind the curtain, has chosen, with astonishing sagacity, the exact 

moment when his appearance on the stage would be most startling 
and effective. 

Lord Palmerston secedes from his friends of the Coalition just 
as Austria has eagerly seized the proposition for new conferences; 
just as the Czar is spreading wider his nets of intrigue and war, 
effecting an armed collision between the Servians and Bosnians, 
and threatening the reigning prince of Servia> with deposition 
should he persist in remaining neutral in the conflict; just as the 
Turks, relying on the presence of the British and French fleets, 
have suffered the destruction of a flotilla and the slaughter of 
5,000 men by a Russian fleet three times as powerful; when 
Russian captains are allowed to defy the British law in British 
ports, and on board of British vessels; when the dynastic intrigues 
of the “spotless Queen” and her “German Consort’’* have become 
matters of public notoriety; and, lastly, when the dull British 
people, injured in their national pride abroad, and tortured by 
strikes, famine, and commercial stagnation at home, begin to 
assume a threatening attitude, and have nobody upon whom to 
avenge themselves but their own pitiful Government. By retiring 
at such a moment, Lord Palmerston throws off all responsibility 
from his own shoulders upon those of his late partners. His act 
becomes a great national event. He is transformed at once into the 
representative of the people against the Government from which 
he secedes. He not only saves his own popularity, but he gives the 
last finish to the unpopularity of his colleagues. The inevitable 
downfall of the present Ministry appearing to be his work, he 
becomes a necessary element of any that may succeed it. He not 
only deserts a doomed Cabinet, but he imposes himself on its 
successor. 

Besides saving his popularity and securing a prominent place in 
the new administration, Lord Palmerston directly benefits the 
cause of Russia by withdrawing at the present momentous crisis. 
The Coalition Cabinet, at whose procrastinating ingenuity Russian 
diplomacy has mocked, whose Orleanist and Coburg predilections 
have ever been suspected by Bonaparte, whose treacherous and 
pusillanimous weakness begins even to be understood at Constan- 
tinople—this Ministry will now lose what little influence it may 
have retained in the councils of the world. An administration 
disunited, unpopular, not relied upon by its friends, nor respected 

by its foes; considered as merely provisional, and on the eve of 
dissolution; whose very existence has become a matter of 
doubt—such an administration is the least adapted to make the 
weight of Great Britain felt in the balance of the European 
powers. Lord Palmerston’s withdrawal reduces the Coalition, and 
with it England herself, to a nullity as far as foreign policy is 
concerned; and never has there existed an,epoch when the 
disappearance of England from the public stage, even for a week 
or a fortnight, could do so much for the Autocrat. The pacific 
element has triumphed over the warlike one in the councils of 
Great Britain. Such is the interpretation that must be given at the 
courts of Berlin, Paris and Vienna to Lord Palmerston’s resigna- 
tion; and this interpretation they will press upon the Divan, 
already shaken in its self-confidence by the last success of Russia, 
and consulting under the guns of the united fleets. 

It should not be forgotten that since Lord Palmerston became a 
member of the Coalition Ministry, his public acts, as far as foreign 
policy is concerned, have been limited to the famous gunpowder 
plot,” and the avowed employment of the British police as spies 
against the political refugees; to a speech wherein he jocosely 
treated the obstruction by Russia of the navigation of the Danube 
as of no account’; and, lastly, to- the oration with which he 
dismissed Parliament,° assuring the Commons that all the Govern- 
ment had done in the Eastern complication had been right—that 
they might quietly disband since the Ministers remained at their 
posts, and pledging himself “for the honor and good faith of the 
Emperor of Russia.” 

Besides the genéral causes we have enumerated, Lord Palmer- 
ston has had a special reason for surprising the world with this last 
act of self-sacrificing patriotism. He has been found out. His 
prestige has begun to wane, his past career to be known to the 
public. The people of England, who had not been undeceived by 
his avowed participation in the conspiracy of the 2d of December, 
which overthrew the French Republic, and by his gunpowder 
comedy, have been aroused by the revelations of Mr. David 
Urquhart, who has vigorously taken his Lordship in hand. This 
' gentleman, by a recently published work called the Progress of 
Russia, by articles in the English journals, and especially by 
speeches at the anti-Russian meetings held throughout the 

> July 7, 1853 (see this volume, p. 187).— Ed. 
“ On August 20, 1853.— Ed.