The Letters of Queen Victoria
Chapter 313 : Lord Derby presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and fears that after your Majesty

Lord Derby presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and fears that after your Majesty's most gracious acceptance of the propositions which he has made, he may appear to your Majesty very vacillating, in having at the last moment to submit to your Majesty another change....

But he finds that Lord John Manners, though he consented to take the Colonial Department, would infinitely prefer resuming his seat at the Board of Works; and on the urgent representation of his Colleagues that the Government would be strengthened by such a step, Lord Stanley has consented to accept office; and the arrangement which he would now venture humbly to submit to your Majesty would be the appointment of Lord Stanley to the Colonial Secretarys.h.i.+p, and Lord John Manners to the Board of Works....

The Ministry as it The Ministry as formed stood on the 1st of by the Earl of Derby January 1858. in February 1858.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON _First Lord of the_ EARL OF DERBY.

_Treasury_

MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE (_Without Office_).

LORD CRANWORTH _Lord Chancellor_ LORD CHELMSFORD.

EARL GRANVILLE _President of the_ MARQUIS OF SALISBURY.

_Council_

MARQUIS OF CLANRICARDE _Lord Privy Seal_ EARL OF HARDWICKE.

Sir GEORGE GREY _Home Secretary_ Mr WALPOLE.

EARL OF CLARENDON _Foreign Secretary_ EARL OF MALMESBURY.

MR LABOUCHERE _Colonial Secretary_ LORD STANLEY (afterwards LORD (afterwards EARL TAUNTON) OF DERBY).

LORD PANMURE _War Secretary_ GENERAL PEEL.

(afterwards EARL OF DALHOUSIE)

Sir G. C. LEWIS _Chancellor of the_ Mr DISRAELI _Exchequer_ (afterwards EARL OF BEACONSFIELD)

Sir CHARLES WOOD _First Lord of the_ Sir JOHN PAKINGTON (afterwards VISCOUNT _Admiralty_ (afterwards LORD HALIFAX) HAMPTON).

Mr VERNON SMITH _President of the_ EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH.

(afterwards LORD _Board of Control_ LYVEDEN)

LORD STANLEY OF _President of the_ Mr HENLEY.

ALDERLEY _Board of Trade_

Mr M. T. BAINES _Chancellor of the_ (_Not in the Cabinet._) _Duchy of Lancaster_

DUKE OF ARGYLL _Postmaster-General_ (_Not in the Cabinet._)

(_Not in the Cabinet_) _First Commissioner_ LORD JOHN MANNERS _of Works and_ (afterwards _Public Buildings_ DUKE OF RUTLAND).

[Pageheading: THE ORSINI PLOT]

[Pageheading: THE EMPEROR AND THE CARBONARI]

_The Earl of Malmesbury to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL, _7th March 1858_.

The Earl of Malmesbury presents his humble duty to the Queen, and has the honour to thank your Majesty for the interesting letter[12] sent to him by your Majesty, and which he returns to your Majesty by this messenger. Lord Malmesbury hopes and believes that much of the excitement that prevailed on the _other_ side the water is subsiding.

All his letters from _private_ sources, and the account of Colonel Claremont, agree on this point. In this country, if our differences with France are settled, it is probable that the popular jealousy of foreign interference will be killed; but at least for some time it will show foreign Courts how dangerous it is _even to criticise_ our _domestic_ Inst.i.tutions. Lord Malmesbury has carefully abstained from giving Lord Cowley or M. de Persigny the slightest hope that we could alter the law, but has confined himself to saying that the law was itself as much on its trial as the prisoners Bernard and Truelove.[13]

If, therefore, the law should prove to be a phantom of justice, or anomalous in its action, whatever measures your Majesty's Government may hereafter take to reform it, it will be received by France as an unexpected boon and a proof of good faith and amity.

In attending to the idea referred to by your Majesty that the Emperor took the oath of the a.s.sa.s.sins' Society, Lord Malmesbury can almost a.s.sure your Majesty that such is not the case.[14] Lord Malmesbury first made His Majesty's acquaintance in Italy when they were both very young men (twenty years of age). They were _both_ under the influence of those romantic feelings which the former history and the present degradation of Italy may naturally inspire even at a more advanced time of life--and the Prince Louis Napoleon, to the knowledge of Lord Malmesbury, certainly engaged himself in the conspiracies of the time--but it was with the higher cla.s.s of the Carbonari, men like General Sercognani and General Pepe. The Prince used to talk to Lord Malmesbury upon these men and their ideas and plans with all the openness that exists between two youths, and Lord Malmesbury has many times heard him condemn with disgust the societies of villains which hung on the flank of the conspirators, and which deterred many of the best families and ablest gentlemen in Romagna from joining them. Lord Malmesbury believes the report therefore to be a fable, and at some future period will, if it should interest your Majesty, relate to your Majesty some details respecting the Emperor's share in the conspiracies of 1828-1829....

[Footnote 12: This was a letter from the Prince de Chimay to the King of the Belgians in reference to the Orsini plot.]

[Footnote 13: Before Lord Palmerston's Government had retired, Simon Bernard, a resident of Bayswater, was committed for trial for complicity in the Orsini _attentat_. He was committed for conspiracy only, but, at the instance of the new Government, the charge was altered to one of feloniously slaying one of the persons killed by the explosion. As this constructive murder was actually committed on French soil, Bernard's trial had, under the existing law, to be held before a Special Commission, over which Lord Campbell presided. The evidence overwhelmingly established the prisoner's guilt, but, carried away by the eloquent, if irrelevant, speech of Mr Edwin James for the defence, the jury acquitted him. Truelove was charged with criminal libel, for openly approving, in a published pamphlet, Orsini's attempt, and regretting its failure. The Government threw up the prosecution, pusillanimously in the judgment of Lord Campbell, who records that he carefuly studied, with a view to his own hearing of the case, the proceedings against Lord George Gordon for libelling Marie Antoinette, against Vint for libelling the Emperor Paul, and against Peltier for libelling Napoleon I.]

[Footnote 14: The Queen had written:--"There are people who pretend that the Emperor, who was once a member of the Carbonari Club of Italy, and who is supposed to be condemned to death by the rules of that Secret Society for having violated his oath to them, has offered them to pardon Orsini, if they would release him from his oath, but that the Society refused the offer. The fact that all the attempts have been made by Italians, Orsini's letter, and the almost mad state of fear in which the Emperor seems to be now, would give colour to that story." Orsini had written two letters to the Emperor, one read aloud at his trial by his counsel, Jules Favre, the other while lying under sentence of death. He entreated the Emperor to secure Italian independence.]

_Mr Disraeli to Queen Victoria._

HOUSE OF COMMONS, _12th March 1858_.

(_Friday._)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer with his humble duty to your Majesty.

The Opposition benches very full; the temper not kind.

The French announcement,[15] which was quite unexpected, elicited cheers, but only from the Ministerial side, which, he confesses, for a moment almost daunted him.

Then came a question about the _Cagliari_ affair,[16] on which the Government had agreed to take a temperate course, in deference to their predecessors--but it was not successful. The ill-humour of the House, diverted for a moment by the French news, vented itself on this head.

What struck the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of the evening most was the absence of all those symptoms of "fair trial,"

etc., which have abounded of late in journals and in Society.

Lord John said something; Mr Gladstone said something; but it was not encouraging.

Nevertheless, in 1852 "fair trial" observations abounded, and the result was not satisfactory; now it may be the reverse.

The House is wild and capricious at this moment.

Your Majesty once deigned to say that your Majesty wished in these remarks to have the temper of the House placed before your Majesty, and to find what your Majesty could not meet in newspapers. This is the Chancellor of the Exchequer's excuse for these rough notes, written on the field of battle, which he humbly offers to your Majesty.

[Footnote 15: Parliament rea.s.sembled on the 12th of March, and Mr Disraeli then stated that the "painful misconceptions"

which had for some time existed between England and France had been "terminated in a spirit entirely friendly and honourable."]

[Footnote 16: Two English engineers, Watt and Park, had been on the Sardinian steamer _Cagliari_ when she was seized by the Neapolitan Government, and her crew, including the engineers, imprisoned at Naples. At the instance of the Conservative Government, who acted more vigorously than their predecessors had done, the engineers were released, and 3,000 paid to them as compensation.]