If Orsini did not kill Louis Napoleon,*” he certainly killed
Palmerston. Made dictator of England by a Chinese Mandarin at
Canton,” it is historically appropriate that this political gamester
should finally be ruined by an Italian Carbonaro at Paris.“ But
that he should be succeeded by Lord Derby is something above
the range of mere historical propriety, and approaches the dignity
of a historical law. It is in accordance with the. traditional working
of the British Constitution. Pitt was followed by Fox; Fox by
Perceval, a weaker Pitt; Wellington by Grey, a weaker Fox; Grey
by Wellington; Wellington by Melbourne, a weaker Grey; Melbourne by Wellington again, under the name of Peel; Peel by
Melbourne again, under the name of Russell; Russell by Derby,
the substitute of Peel; Derby again by Russell. Why should not
Palmerston, the usurper of Russell’s place, be followed by Derby in
his turn? .

If there be in England any new force able to put an end to the
ancient routine exemplified by this last change of places between
right honorable gentlemen on one side of the House and right
honorable gentlemen on the other side; if there be any man or
body of men able to confront and supplant the traditional
governing class, the world has not yet found it out. But of one
thing there can be no doubt; and that is. that a Tory
Administration is far more favorable to every kind of progress
than any other. For the Jast fifty years, all popular movements
have either been initiated or consummated under Tory rule. It
was a Tory Ministry which passed the Catholic Emancipation

4 Yeh Ming-chin.— Ed.

bill.** It was under a Tory Ministry that the Reform movement
grew irresistible.’ The imposition of an Income tax, which,
however incongruous in its present state, contains the germs of
proportional taxation, is the work of a Tory Ministry. The
Anti-Corn-Law_ League, weak and timid under the Whig
Administration, assumed revolutionary dimensions under the
Tories; and while Russell, in his most audacious flights, never
ventured beyond the limit of a fixed duty, as moderate as himself,
Peel could not but consign the Corn Laws to the grave of all the
Capulets.* So, too, it is the Tories who have, so to say, popularized
the aristocracy by bringing plebeian vigor and talent to re-enforce
its energies. Through the Tories, Canning, the son of an actress,”
lorded it over the old landed aristocracy of England; so did Peel,
the son of a parvenu cotton spinner, who had originally been a
hand-loom weaver; so does Disraeli, the son of a simple literary
man,* and a Jew into the bargain. Lord Derby himself converted
the son of a small shopkeeper of Lewes into a Lord High
Chancellor of England, under the name of Lord St. Leonards.
The Whigs, on the other hand, have always proved strong enough
to bury their plebeian tools in vain decorations, or to drop them
by dint of haughty insult. Brougham, the soul of the Reform
movement, was nullified by being made over to the Lords; and
Cobden, the chief of the Anti-Corn-Law League, was offered the
place of Vice President of the Board of Trade by the very Whigs
he had reinstalled in office.*”’

In point of mere intellectual ability, the new Cabinet can easily
bear comparison with its predecessor. Men like Disraeli, Stanley,
and Ellenborough, suffer no harm when matched against people of
the stamp of Mr. Vernon Smith, late of the Board of Control,*” of
Lord Panmure, a War Minister, whom nothing but his “Take care
of Dowb,” **? can ever make immortal, and of Sir G. C. Lewis, of
Edinburgh Review dullness, or even against such moral grandeurs
as Clanricarde of the Privy Seal. In fact Palmerston had not only
replaced the Ministry of all parties by a Ministry of no party, but
also the Cabinet of all the talents*” by a Cabinet of no talent
except his own.

There can be no question that Palmerston had no idea of the
finality of his ruin. He believed Lord Derby would decline the

a Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.— Ed.
b Mary Anne Castello.— Ed.

© Robert Peel.— Ed.

4 Isaac D'Israeli.— Ed.

€ Richard Sugden.— Ed.

Premiership now as he had done during the Crimean war. Russell
would then have been summoned to the Queen’; but with the
bulk of his own troops serving under Palmerston, and the bulk of
the hostile army arrayed under Disraeli, he would have despaired
of forming a Cabinet, especially as he, a Whig, could not resort to
the “ultimate reason” of dissolving a Parliament elected under the
Whig banners. Palmerston’s return to office, after a week’s
oscillation, would thus have become inevitable. This fine bit of
calculation has been nullified by Derby’s acceptance. The Tory
Ministry may hold office for a longer or shorter period. They may
go on for several months before they are compelled to resort to a
dissolution—a measure they are sure to employ before they finally
resign their power. But we may be certain of two things, namely:
that their career will be marked by the introduction of exceedingly
liberal measures in regard to social reforms (Lord Stanley’s course
thus far, and Sir John Pakington’s education bill, are a pledge of
this); and above all, that in foreign policy they bring with them a
most beneficial and cheering change. It is true, many shallow
thinkers and writers argue that Palmerston’s fall is not a damaging
blow to Louis Napoleon, because several of the new Tory Ministry
are personally on good terms with the French despot, and
England [is] in no condition to wage war with a giant Continental
power. But it is precisely because England is in no state to embark
in a new war that we deem the answer given by Great Britain to
the bullying menaces and exactions of Louis Napoleon’s satraps
most significant. It was not because Malmesbury and Disraeli were
to come into the Ministry that the independent Liberals in
Parliament, reflecting the undoubted and emphatic sentiment of
the Nation, answered the dispatch of Walewski” by throwing out
Palmerston’s Conspiracy bill.’ Lord Derby may stumble and fall,
but the vote which carried Milner Gibson’s amendment *” will live
and bear fruit, nevertheless.

We do not believe in any cordial and lasting alliance between
British Toryism and French Bonapartism. The instincts, traditions,
aspirations of both parties revolt at it. We do not believe it possible
that the new Cabinet will take up and press Palmerston’s
Conspiracy bill, as the Paris journals so confidently anticipate. If
they do, it will not be till after they shall have answered Walewski
and De Morny, and answered them in the spirit of Pitt and

4a Victoria.— Ed.
b A. Walewski’s dispatch to the French Ambassador in London of January 20,
1858, Le Constitutionnel, No. 41, February 10, 1858.— Ed.

Castlereagh. Toryism, with all its faults, must have changed its
nature to be ready to change the laws of England at the beck of a
Bonaparte.

But the significance of the late vote is unaffected by any
presumption of speedy feud between the two Governments. It is
as a proclamation to Europe that Britain has ceased to play second
to French Imperialism that we deem it most important. Thus it is
understood at Brussels, at Turin, and even at Vienna; thus it will
soon be understood at Berlin, at Madrid, at St. Petersburg.
England, so long the. jailer of the first Napoleon, has pointedly
refused to be longer the jackal of his successor.*

Written on February 26, 1858 Reproduced from the New-York

; 3; , : Daily Tribune

Tribune, No. 5272, March 15, 1858 as a
leading article; reprinted in the New-York
Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 1337, March 19,
1858, under the title “The End of
Palmerston”