["Neue Oder-Zeitung", No. 47, 29 January 1855]

London, 26 January. When an envoy of Sultan Melikshah came to Alamut and summoned Hasan ibn Sabbah to surrender, the “Old Man of the Mountain”, instead of any reply, pointed to one of his fidawis and ordered him to kill himself. The youth instantly plunged his dagger into his breast and collapsed on the flagstones, a lifeless body. In like manner the “old man” <Aberdeen> of the coalition had called upon his Lord John Russell to kill himself for him in the House of Commons. Russell, that old parliamentary philanthropist, who always interpreted the commandment “Love thy neighbour as thyself” to mean that every man is his own neighbour, has preferred to kill the “old man”. We were not mistaken in Roebuck. His motion was arranged with Russell, in order to salvage from the shipwreck the “better part”—the Whigs.

Indeed! This motion is not directed against the ministry, it is directed against the “departments” directly charged with the conduct of the war, i.e. against the
Peelites
. Moreover, it was clear that he had not opened Parliament in vain with the declaration that the basis of the negotiations was no basis, inasmuch as Russia reserved the right to contest any of the four points—and that the negotiations were just as little negotiations, inasmuch as the British Cabinet had not yet empowered anyone to negotiate. Hardly had Roebuck therefore put his motion—on Tuesday—when Russell wrote that very evening to the “old man” that this motion aimed at a vote of censure against the War Department (the Peelites), and that
he
must therefore tender his resignation. Aberdeen drives to the Queen at Windsor Castle and advises her to accept the resignation, which she does. The courage of the “old man” is explicable when one learns that Palmerston has
not
tendered his resignation.

At the Thursday sitting the House of Commons learns of these important occurrences. It adjourns its session, and Roebuck adjourns his motion, until this evening. Now the whole House of Commons rushes to the House of Lords, where enlightenment is expected from Aberdeen, but Aberdeen is so adroit as to be absent—allegedly at Windsor again—and the Duke of Newcastle tells the same tale in the House of Lords that Palmerston told in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Whigs of the House of Commons find with horror in the House of Lords that their plan has been seen through and their retreat cut off. The Tories, by no means eager to install the Whigs once more at the expense of the Peelites in their old privilege of the “heaven-born tenants of the British Empire”, have induced Lord Lyndhurst to put a motion which, in contrast to Roebuck’s motion, does not single out individual departments of the ministry but the entire ministry, not merely—à la Roebuck—censuring it, but formally impeaching it. Lord Lyndhurst’s motion reads verbatim:

“On Friday, the 2nd of February, I shall move that, in the opinion of this House, the Crimean expedition was undertaken by Her Majesty’s Ministers with very inadequate means and without due caution or adequate inquiry into the character and extent of the resistance to be expected from the enemy, and that the neglect and mismanagement of the government in conducting the enterprise have led to the most calamitous result.”

There can be no mistake about it, Lyndhurst’s motion is as much directed against the Whigs as Roebuck’s motion against the Aberdeenites. Incidentally: Lord John Russell has had the House of Commons informed through Hayter that he would state the reasons for his resignation at the next opportunity, i.e. this evening. “He who expects nothing will not be deceived.”