People From London

"He was one of the earliest and most constant enemies of the Slave Trade; he was a staunch friend of Roman Catholic Emancipation; he abandoned the ground taken up by Canning in advocating the Reform Bill; he was a Freetrader long before Sir Robert Peel became a convert. Above all, he was a steadfast and devoted partisan of constitutional liberty in every part of the Continent."

"He had no reason to be a friend to P. by whom He had been worsted, but that that did not prevent him from regarding him as the first Statesman of this age and perhaps of any other."

"[T]he most English minister that ever governed England."

"With his gaiety of spirit and his easygoing morals, he hated tyranny and oppression wherever they occurred... With his dyed whiskers and his red face, Palmerston exemplified British self-confidence and bounce... He was simply an individual of strong personality – resolute, self-confident and with great powers of physical endurance."

"It is difficult to think of a Foreign Secretary with a more successful record."

"Palmerston was the hero of England because he deserved to be. As a European statesman, his objects, though he would have hated to confess it, were the same as Metternich's—the preservation of Peace and Order; but he did not confuse peace with petrification or order with death. He regarded with as much apprehension any extension of French power and was as strongly opposed to revolution, both in itself and because it opened the door to French ambition. But he differed violently and fundamentally as to the means by which Peace and Order were to be preserved. His method was the method of compromise—to grant popular demands while they were moderate and tentative, so as not to be compelled to grant much more extreme demands later; like the soft answer that turneth away wrath, a constitution, he believed, would turn away revolution. For although he regarded revolutionaries as conspirators, he did not regard revolutions as merely conspiracies: discontent seemed to him to show that something was wrong, and it appeared to him more important to put right what was wrong than to suppress the writings of Mazzini."

"Lord Palmerston is certainly one of the most able, if not the most able, men of business whom I have met in my career... One feature in his character dissipates all these advantages, and prevents him, in my opinion, from ranking as a real statesman. He feels passionately about public affairs, and to the point of sacrificing the most important interests to his resentments. Nearly every political question resolves itself into a personal question in his eyes, and in appearing to defend the interests of his country, it is really the interests of his hate and vengeance that he satisfies."

"But we are afraid of our shadows. I sometimes long for a ruffian like Palmerston or any man who would be more than a string of platitudes and apologies."

"P.'s popularity is wonderful—strange to say, the whole turns on his name. There seems to be no measure, no principle, no cry, to influence men's minds and determine elections; it is simply, 'Were you, or were you not? are you, or are you not, for Palmerston?'"

"Lord Palmerston is a little too much inclined to consider himself the arbiter of the destinies of Europe. For our part, we are not in the least disposed to allow him to play, in our own affairs, the role of Providence... I must frankly confess that we are tired of his eternal insinuations, of his tone now protective and pedantic, now insulting, but always unbecoming, and we have decided that we shall no longer tolerate it. Lord Palmerston remarked one day to Baron Koller that if we wanted war, we should have it; and I told him that if he wants it he shall have it. I do not know whether Lord Palmerston applies to himself the phrase of Louis XIV, and thinks that ‘l'Angleterre c'est lui’."

"Lord Palmerston is generally regarded as the type of an astute and moderate leader."

"[H]is heart always beat for the honour of England."

"I can answer for my noble friend that he will act, not as Minister of Austria, or of Russia, or of France, or of any other country—but as the Minister of England."

"[Palmerston usually had some answer] ready for me; but one time I regularly shut him up. It was just upon the passing of the Poor Law Act which made legal the separation of man and wife after the age of sixty. I remember that day very well. There was Lady Palmerston there with a lot of ladies looking out of one window of the Three Tuns, all dressed out in ribbons and colours, cheering and laughing in high glee. His Lordship was at the other window speaking to the crowd and when he was going to get rid of this subject of the Poor Law, I ups and says: "You ought to have consulted Lady Palmerston before passing that there Act. How would you and her like to be separated after you was sixty years of age? Are your feelings any finer than those of the poor people you've been legislating for?" His Lordship pretended not to hear that, but I think he did, and so did Lady Palmerston too. That's what I call bringing it home to them."

"Warmed by the instincts of a knightly heart, That roused at once if insult touched the realm, He spurned each Statecraft, each deceiving art, And met his foes, no vizor to his helm. This proved his worth; hereafter be our boast: Who hated Britons hated him the most."

"Tho' he made a joke when asked to do the right thing, he always did it. No one else will be able to carry the things thro' the Cabinet as he did. I shall lose a powerful protector... He was much more in earnest than he appeared. He did not do himself justice."

"Englishmen revered Gladstone, but they were never quite sure that they understood him; Palmerston they could pat on the back as one of themselves... His combativeness, his robust, if tactless, patriotism, his capacity for getting into scrapes and his equal capacity for getting out of them, his love of a "scrap," his freedom from malice, his gift for "keeping his end up" —all these things the average Englishman could understand and appreciate, for he saw in them a reflection of his own character."

"I would walk twenty miles to see him [Palmerston] hanged especially if Thiers were to be strung up with him."

"Although a septuagenarian, and since 1807 occupying the public stage almost without interruption, he contrives to remain a novelty, and to evoke all the hopes that used to centre on an untried and promising youth. With one foot in the grave, he is supposed not yet to have begun his true career. If he were to die tomorrow, all England would be surprised to learn that he had been a Secretary of State half this century. If not a good statesman of all work, he is at least a good actor of all work. He succeeds in the comic as in the heroic—in pathos as in familiarity—in tragedy as in farce; although the latter may be more congenial to his feelings. He is not a first-class orator, but an accomplished debater. Possessed of a wonderful memory, of great experience, of consummate tact, of never-failing presence of mind, of gentlemanlike versatility, of the most minute knowledge of Parliamentary tricks, intrigues, parties, and men, he handles difficult cases in an admirable manner and with a pleasant volatility, sticking to the prejudices and susceptibilities of his public, secured from any surprise by his cynical impudence, from any self-confession by his selfish dexterity, from running into a passion by his profound frivolity, his perfect indifference, and his aristocratic contempt. Being an exceedingly happy joker, he ingratiates himself with everybody. Never losing his temper, he imposes on an impassioned antagonist. When unable to master a subject, he knows how to play with it. If wanting in general views, he is always ready to weave a web of elegant generalities. Endowed with a restless and indefatigable spirit, he abhors inactivity and pines for agitation, if not for action. A country like England allows him, of course, to busy himself in every corner of the earth."

"As a Minister, although I often differed from him, I looked upon him as one of our greatest, especially in his knowledge of foreigners and their character. He was clear headed, always knew what he wanted, and was determined to carry it out, with great moral and physical courage. We shall be long ere we see his like again. He was English to the backbone."

"It was the singular position of Lord Palmerston that explained the qualified support given to him by some Conservatives. They found it hard to take part against a gay old Tory of the older school, disguising himself as a “Liberal,” and hoaxing the Reform Club. As a matter of sentiment, many Conservatives refused to deal roughly with one whom they regarded as a sort of Parliamentary grandpapa."

"He loved his country and his country loved him. He lived for her honour, and she will cherish his memory."

"[David Lloyd George said] he would see that an enormous amount of equipment & ammunition were supplied to the Abyssinians, which would enable them to put up a good fight. He says he feels sure that that is what Palmerston would have done."

"Palmerston, rex and autocrat, is, for a Minister finding himself in such fortunate circumstances, far too irritable and violent."

"Wherever there is an absolute tyranny in Europe, his Lordship is looked upon with hatred or mistrust, and wherever there is a desire for constitutional liberty, repressed by bayonets or threatened by irresponsible autocrats, there has his Lordship admirers and friends."

"Towards the end of his life, Lord Palmerston was invited to Bradford to lay the foundation-stone of the new Exchange. On that occasion, the working men were desirous of presenting an address to him, upon their wish for an extension of the franchise. Mr. Ripley, chairman of the Exchange Committee, utterly ignorant of Lord Palmerston's nature, refused to permit any approach to him. The worst enemy of Lord Palmerston could not have done him a worse service. Nothing would have pleased him better than to have met a working-class deputation. His personal heartiness, his invincible temper, his humour and ready wit would have captivated the working men, and sent them away enthusiastic, although without anything to be enthusiastic about."

"I cannot find any fault with Lord Palmerston's bearing on that July day [in 1847]. With all his natural tendency to caustic criticism, he was courteous and fair... Lord Palmerston was an aristocrat; no doubt about that. But he was genial, frank, and generous. Moreover he abhorred cant in every form... Coming over to England in 1878, I was told the following incident of Lord Palmerston, then dead some 13 years. It happened that some of the working class Radicals of the time were in the lobby of "the House" with the view of soliciting subscriptions from Liberal members for some unfortunate of the "advanced" corps, stricken down by disease, and suffering from that other and too common ill—impecuniosity; when the Premier was seen approaching. Said one of the party—"Here comes Pam, let us try him." The idea was pooh-pooh'd, but it was carried out by the suggestor. Lord Palmerston patiently listened to the story and responded with his usual kindly liberality, accompanying the gift by some pleasantry as was his wont. He had faced toward the chamber of the Commons, when suddenly turning back, he enquired, "Can you tell me what has become of an old Chartist acquaintance of mine, Mr. George Julian Harney?" The person addressed could not tell, but an older man of the group said he believed Julian Harney was in America. Lord Palmerston rejoined, "Well, I wish him good fortune: he gave me a dressing down at Tiverton some years ago, and I have not heard of him since; but I hope he is doing well.""

"Nothing will induce her Majesty to have Palmerston... Her dislike of him is, in fact, of very long standing, and partly on moral and partly on political grounds. There are old offences, when he was at the Foreign Office, which sunk deep in her mind, and besides this the recollection of his conduct before her marriage, when in her own palace he made an attempt on the person of one of her ladies, which she very justly resented as an outrage to herself. Palmerston, always enterprising and audacious with women, took a fancy to Mrs. Brand (now Lady Dacre) and at Windsor Castle where she was in waiting, and he was a guest, he marched into her room one night. His tender temerity met with an invincible resistance. The lady did not conceal her attempt, and it came to the Queen's ears. Her indignation was somehow pacified by Melbourne, then all-powerful, and who on every account would have abhorred an esclandre in which his colleague and brother-in-law would have so discreditably figured. Palmerston got out of the scrape with his usual luck, but the Queen has never forgotten and will never forgive it."

"A member of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet gave me an amusing description of their proceedings. At the beginning of the session, and after each holiday, Mr. Gladstone used to come in charged to the muzzle with all sorts of schemes of all sorts of reforms which were absolutely necessary in his opinion to be immediately undertaken. Lord Palmerston used to look fixedly at the paper before him, saying nothing until there was a lull in Gladstone's outpouring. He then rapped the table and said cheerfully, “Now, my lords and gentlemen, let us go to business.”"

"Never...did I meet with any one that could tell a story with greater effect than the late Lord Palmerston."

"Palmerston had two admirable qualities. He had an intense love of Constitutional freedom everywhere; and he had a profound hatred of negro slavery... I should not ascribe to him the overpowering conscientiousness which I ascribe to Peel."

"A Frenchman, thinking to be highly complimentary, said to Palmerston: "If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman"; to which Pam coolly replied: "If I were not an Englishman, I should wish to be an Englishman.""

"He said he had had two great objects always before him in life—one the suppression of the slave trade, the other to put England in a state of defence."

"He is the Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet."

"As we walked along I could gauge the popularity of Lord Palmerston. The moment he came in sight, throughout the whole building, men and women, young and old, at once were struck as by an electric shock. “Lord Palmerston! Here is Lord Palmerston! Bravo! Hurrah! Lord Palmerston for ever!” And so it went on through the whole building. One voice: “I wish you may be Minister for the next twenty years”."

"Right, in his eyes, was right; and if he insisted upon it when a formidable enemy might be provoked, he treated with becoming scorn the argument that we should deal more gently with an inferior delinquent. "What?" he used to say; "we are to tax our people for the purpose of giving them a strong Government, and then we are not to maintain the rights of our people because their Government is strong. The weaker a Government is, the more inexcusable becomes its insolence or injustice.""

"I have heard analogous stories told of the brusqueness or indifference of leaders in more recent times. Almost the only Parliamentary leader against whom such charges were never brought were Melbourne and Palmerston. Both were light-hearted and rather cynical men of the world, and Palmerston's long ascendency was due quite as much to his good humour and jokes and banter as it was to more intellectual qualities."

"In every post alike he showed the qualities that Englishmen love—pluck, good-humour, unflinching care for England's greatness, untiring zeal in the service of the State. His unexhausted, apparently inexhaustible spirits, his splendid physique, his untiring activity of mind and body, seemed proof against the inroads of old age."

"Even if England still continues to increase in civilization and opulence, she may yet, as other stronger states also rapidly augment, perhaps not long retain her present commanding position in the world; and it may be that in future ages the name of Palmerston will be synonymous with her greatest glory. From one generation of Englishman to another, the saying will be handed down: We are all proud of him."

"When I went to Harrow in 1797, the late Lord Palmerston was reckoned the best-tempered and most plucky boy in the school, as well as a young man of great promise. We were in the same house, which was Dr. Bromley's, by whom we were often called when idle "young men of wit and pleasure." The late Lord De Mauley...and myself, were fags to Althorp, Duncannon, and Temple, who messed together; and the latter was by far the most merciful and indulgent. I can remember well Temple fighting "behind school" a great boy called Salisbury, twice his size, and he would not give in, but was brought home with black eyes and a bloody nose, and Mother Bromley taking care of him."

"Then you know what to avoid. Do the exact opposite of what he did. His administration at the Foreign Office was one long crime."

"He is to the middle classes what Feargus O'Connor was to the working classes."

"In 1864, when Austria and Prussia attacked Denmark, Britain remained neutral. This was due to Queen Victoria, who overruled Lord Palmerston, although that sharp-sighted statesman pointed out that Prussia wanted Kiel as a naval base. Thus we gave Germany her Kiel Canal."

"We learned to call him Old Pam, and to love him better than any Prime Minister was ever loved throughout the three kingdoms. All parties in the House took to him. It was pleasant to sit under his parliamentary government, and though there were Liberals more liberal than he, and Conservatives more conservative, the majority both of Liberals and Conservatives secretly preferred him to their special chiefs... Perhaps no single word goes so far in the description of Lord Palmerston as the word ‘manly.’ ... In every respect Lord Palmerston was masculine, not feminine... Lord Palmerston was at all points a man. No sentimental egotism, no moral irritability, no sweet feminine cant about him. A genial stoicism,—not the stoicism of the cynic,—an inestimable faculty of taking the good and leaving the bad alone, an invincible serenity and lightness and brightness of soul, distinguished him."

"When we were at war with Russia, and when the nation, after trying statesman after statesman, continued in the distressing consciousness that the administration lacked vigour, the man who, for a quarter of a century, had been checkmating the policy of Russia was naturally called for. In no spirit of confidence or enthusiasm,—feeling clearly that others had failed, but by no means certain that the right man was yet discovered,—England said, ‘Try Palmerston.’ It was on the 8th of February, 1855, that the Earl of Derby withdrew, and that he took the helm... The country looked on in hope, beginning to breathe more freely...the practical instinct of the nation gradually decided that Palmerston was the man to whom the business of the war could be committed, and in whose hands the name of England was safe."

"Die, my dear doctor! That's the last thing I shall do!"

"That's Article 98; now go on to the next."

"Only three people," said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

"The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed. It is far from impossible that the American conspirators may try and obtain in our North American provinces compensation for their defeat in Ireland."

"Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territory, and railways shall have abridged distances her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength."