Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston, became the Whig Foreign Secretary in late 1830. Born in 1784, Palmerston entered Parliament in 1807. In 1809, he became Secretary at War, without a seat in the cabinet. He remained at the War Office until 1828. He was generally regarded as hard-working and competent but in the late 1820s seemed destined to be only a minor political figure.
Canning brought Palmerston into the Cabinet in April 1827 but his unexpected death in August 1827 led to political disarray. Canningites led by Huskisson and Palmerston remained in office under Goderich and continued under Wellington until May 1828. The five months the Canningites were in Wellington’s Cabinet frustrated Palmerston and, freed from the constraints of office, he vigorously attacked government policy over Greece and Portugal, arguing for an extension of Greek territory and against Wellington’s support for the absolutist Miguel. His speech of 1 June 1829 was a comprehensive denunciation of foreign policy on both these issues, in which he presented his interpretation of Canningite foreign policy.
The speech had little impact at the time. Wellington did not take it too seriously. This was not Palmerston’s view and he circulated copies to the press and later provided a version for inclusion in Hansard.[1] Palmerston saw himself as Canning’s true successor but his emphasis was different. Canning was aggressive in his approach but his policies were cautious. Palmerston was more uncompromising arguing for intervention in support of Britain’s vital interests. He gave the foreign policy debate a distinctly ideological slant, insisting that Britain stood for the defence of constitutional rights in other countries and for the extension of ‘liberty and civilisation’. There is little evidence that Palmerston was making a play for the Foreign Office in preference to any other offices. Grey had considered him as Leader of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary before making him Foreign Secretary.
Palmerston did not take a prominent part in the reform debates in the early 1830s. He had reservations about parliamentary reform though he did believe that ‘piecemeal’ reform could prevent revolution. Grey had a major influence on foreign policy between 1830 and 1834 and his support and often-detailed guidance were central to Palmerston’s success. He did not control Palmerston’s actions but a kind of inner cabinet consisting of Grey, Lansdowne, Holland and Palmerston was largely responsible for foreign policy decisions. Certainly, Palmerston did not have the prestige he enjoyed later but even under Melbourne from 1834 to 1841, he was still engaged in trying to balance often-contradictory opinions.
In the 1830s, Palmerston was faced with the results of a series of challenges to the Vienna Settlement. The July Revolution of 1830 in France was seen by Palmerston, and ironically by Wellington and Aberdeen as a limited political revolution, which the Bourbon king had brought upon himself. He also recognised that the new government of Louis Philippe was not aggressive and that the best way of maintaining stability in Europe was to recognise the fait accompli. Revolution had, however spread from France into Belgium, where riots broke out in August.
The Belgian problem
The decision to unite Belgium and Holland in 1815 under the Dutch House of Orange provided a barrier to French expansion into the Low Countries. The two countries had economies that were complementary and religious and linguistic divisions did not correspond to existing boundaries. However, it proved a difficult union and the Belgians increasingly felt repressed by the Dutch. In early 1830, Wellington had established an ambassadorial conference in London to discuss the problem that Palmerston inherited. The outbreak of revolution in Poland in mid-1830 distracted the eastern powers that would have supported Holland had France intervened and Louis Philippe’s government was too insecure to risk a serious quarrel with Britain.
The Belgians drew up a new constitution and in February 1831 elected the Duke of Nemours, the son of Louis Philippe, as their king. Knowing this would prove unacceptable to the other Powers, Louis Philippe vetoed it and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg became Leopold I of the Belgians. William I of Holland accepted Belgian independence in January 1831 but his claims over the Duchy of Luxembourg led to a Dutch invasion in August 1831. Leopold appealed for aid and while the British fleet blockaded the coast, the French army forced the Dutch to withdraw.
The great powers agreed as early as January 1831 that Belgium should become an independent state and that they should guarantee its neutrality. The details of the agreement were modified in June and again in October 1831. The terms were acceptable to the Belgians but not to the Dutch. William I, who still controlled Antwerp, stubbornly refused to withdraw and the French intervened again in 1832. Palmerston was prepared to accept limited French military intervention but, he had considerable difficulty in persuading both king and Parliament of the policy, which seemed a complete reversal of the ‘containment’ of France, agreed in 1815. A new armistice was agreed in 1833 but a final settlement was delayed until the Treaty of London of 1839.
Revolutions in 1830
Revolution also erupted in Poland, Germany and Italy in 1830. Public opinion in Britain was generally on the side of the Poles and radical groups urged Palmerston to act. In practice, there was little that he could do other than stress that as a signatory of the Treaty of Vienna Britain had the right to be consulted before Poland’s status was changed. By 1832 the Poles had lost their independence and became yet another Russian province. Palmerston did little to support liberal groups in Germany and by 1832, the conservative stability had been restored.
He had little success in his policies over Italy. In 1831-1832, there were a number of unsuccessful risings in the Papal States and in Modena and Parma. Anti-papal feeling in Britain ran high and again the radical groups in Parliament urged Palmerston to take action. From the Foreign Office viewpoint, the important thing was to prevent conflict between France, which showed some gestures of support for the rebels, and Austria, which gave military aid to the recently elected conservative Pope, Gregory XVI. Palmerston argued that moderate reform would stave off revolution. The Pope took no notice and absolutism was re-established throughout Italy. War between France and Austria had been averted but the cause of liberalism here, as in Poland and Germany, had been put back.
The Iberian Peninsula
Palmerston’s reputation was improved by his handling of problems in Portugal and Spain where, as in the Low Countries, Britain had long-established strategic and commercial interests. In Portugal, British support for Maria had collapsed with Canning’s death and by November 1830 Miguel, the conservative claimant was in control of the whole of the country. Maria’s supporters held only Terceira in the Azores. In 1831, the French, with British approval, sent a fleet to Lisbon. This coincided with the French invasion of Belgium and again Palmerston came under attack from the Tory opposition because of his support from France. British opinion was better pleased when he extended his support to Pedro, who abdicated his Brazilian throne to come to the assistance of his daughter. He landed at Oporto in July 1832 and Palmerston made little attempt to stop British volunteers, notably Charles Napier, from enlisting under Pedro. Napier defeated Miguel’s fleet off Cape St Vincent in July 1833 and took possession of Lisbon three weeks later.
Spain was also divided between liberals and absolutists in the 1830s. King Ferdinand VII died in September 1833. The succession was disputed between the supporters of his young daughter, Isabella and her mother Christina who had been proclaimed Regent and the supporters of Ferdinand’s younger brother, Carlos, who argued that the Salic Law forbade the accession of women to the throne. Carlos had the support of conservatives and the Catholic Church while Isabella was supported by the liberals. For Palmerston the attitude of Russia, Prussia and Austria was more disturbing. They had signed an agreement at Munchengratz in September 1833 pledging them to uphold conservative causes and one effect of this was that they provided financial assistance to Carlos. In April 1834, Palmerston countered this by establishing the Quadruple Alliance of Britain, France and the queens of Portugal and Spain. This prevented the intervention of the Eastern Powers and established, in an embryonic form, the idea of two balancing power blocs, the absolutist powers of Eastern Europe and the constitutional powers of the West. Despite this, the conflict between Christina and Carlos continued until late 1839. Palmerston’s influence on Spain was less than in Portugal, but in both countries, he had prevented unilateral intervention by France.
Palmerston’s actions in his early years as Foreign Secretary were dominated by either revolutions that had swept Louis Philippe to power in France and then spread to the Low Countries, to Poland, Germany and Italy or by the conflict between ‘liberals’ and conservatives in the Iberian Peninsula. His degree of success was, however, limited to the western edge of Europe where French military and British naval power and influence could be exerted. In Eastern Europe Palmerston could do little more than protest at the suppression of the Polish Revolt while in Italy, Austria and the Pope were able to restore the status quo. In Belgium alone was a solution found that was completely in line with his plans.
The Eastern Question
Palmerston, however, took a more decisive stand on the Eastern Question and here his influence on events was undeniable. The basic questions remained as they had done under Castlereagh and Canning: could the Ottoman Empire survive and, if not what would take its place? Palmerston hoped that the Turks would leave Europe. However, he recognised that this would leave a political vacuum that would benefit Russia and, as a result adopted a policy of support for the empire. In the 1830s, the Turks were under serious attack from rebellious Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, who had ruled Egypt since 1805.
Mehemet Ali had used his large army on behalf of the Sultan in Greece in the 1820s, aid that would probably have been successful but for the intervention of the great powers. In return for his assistance, the Sultan had promised him Syria and Crete. After the Greek settlement, Mehemet Ali demanded his reward but in view of his limited success, the Sultan refused to give him Syria as well as Crete. In 1831, he invaded Syria and the following year defeated the Turkish army at Koneih. Constantinople was threatened and the Sultan appealed to Britain for assistance. Palmerston would have been willing to provide aid but the Cabinet overruled him. It was the middle in election campaign after the Reform Act and the Whigs were unwilling to accept commitments where British interests were not directly affected. The Cabinet also rejected French offers of joint intervention.
In desperation, the Sultan turned to Russia. A Russian naval squadron entered the Bosphorus, the strait separating the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. Mehemet Ali’s forces retreated and with the worried British and French pressing him to compromise, peace was made at Kutahiya in May 1833. This gave the Egyptians what they wanted in Syria. The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi in July 1833 formalised Russian influence in Constantinople, an agreement that aroused considerable suspicion in Britain and France. Though it was essentially defensive, there were secret clauses of which the most important was an Ottoman undertaking to close the Dardanelles, the western end of the Bosphorus to foreign warships if Russia requested it. The three Eastern Powers publicly agreed to maintain the integrity of the Sultan’s dominions and in secret clauses to oppose any further advance by Mehemet Ali.
Central Asia
Russia had established a dominant influence at Constantinople and the revival of the conservative alliance provided sufficient justification for Palmerston’s alarm. Britain was concerned by threats to communications with India. Between 1833 and 1839, Palmerston pursued a policy in Central Asia which aimed at the containment of Russia. In Persia, Britain was concerned to prevent Russia’s advance both on her lines of communication with India and on the frontiers of India itself. In 1809, Britain had secured treaties with Persia, Sind and Afghanistan to hold off the Russian advance but its victories against Persia between 1826 and 1828 upset this arrangement. Russian influence in Teheran was as powerful as in Constantinople further undermining Britain’s previously dominant position in Persia. Both Tories and Whigs were worried by this development. Under Wellington, Grey and Melbourne there was a conscious policy of extending British power into Central Asia to counteract the threat from Russia. As a result, Palmerston gained control of the Khyber Pass linking Afghanistan to India. Palmerston pursued this policy with some vigour, opening up the River Indus to British trade and influence as a counter to Russian advances. Though Britain and Russia cooperated in the Persian succession in 1834, Palmerston remained suspicious of Russian intentions and believed that their representatives were pressing the Shah of Persia to renew his attack on the strategic Afghan fortress of Herat, which he did in July 1837.
By 1836, Palmerston wanted to retaliate against Russian policy but the internal chaos in Afghanistan proved a major difficulty. Despite their encouragement of the Persian attack on Herat, the Russians had also gained ascendancy in Kabul, the Afghan capital. British intervention in support of a favourable candidate occurred in 1839 but it proved impossible to maintain this position and in 1841, the British suffered a series of military defeats in the First Afghan war. It was not until late 1842 that Kabul was reoccupied. Britain eventually accepted a compromise that restored the former pro-Russian candidate to power. The events of 1837-1842 demonstrated the extent of the Russian threat in Central Asia and the difficulty of dealing with it diplomatically and militarily. St. Petersburg had little control over the actions of over-zealous agents in Teheran or Kabul. The real aims of Russian expansionism--whether determined from the centre or locally--was contrary to Britain’s quest for security for India.
The Eastern Question revived
An uneasy peace prevailed in the Near East until 1839. Neither the Sultan nor Mehemet Ali was content to leave things as they were. The former wanted revenge against an ambitious subject while Mehemet Ali continued to press, if not for complete independence, at least for hereditary possession of Egypt under nominal Ottoman sovereignty. By 1839, the Sultan’s army had been reorganised and, recognising that he was a dying man, he invaded to drive the Egyptians out of Syria. Mehemet Ali’s son Ibrahim had little difficulty defeating him and once again, the road to Constantinople lay open. On 1 July 1839, the Sultan died and was succeeded by Abdulmejid I, a sixteen-year-old boy. The Ottoman Empire seemed on the point of total collapse and the great powers were seriously alarmed.
Palmerston was in a difficult position. He recognised that the crisis gave Russia further opportunities to strengthen its position in Constantinople but by 1839, he was more suspicious of France than Russia in the Mediterranean. The agreement reached between Britain and France in the 1834 had gradually been eroded. The French had consolidated their bold over Algeria after 1830 and favoured giving considerable concessions to Mehemet Ali who posed a real threat to British economic and strategic interests. He directly threatened British routes to the River Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, which his forces reached in 1838. At the same time, he was also threatened the Red Sea route to India. To offset this, British forces had occupied the important strategic position of Aden in 1839. The means of defending Britain’s interests in the Near Fast and of resolving the contest for supremacy in Constantinople were not to be found in the Western Alliance.
Palmerston attempted to co-ordinate his policy with France, as he had done over Belgium, but during 1839 and early 1840 he moved closer to Russia. Increasing divisions between Britain and France were reinforced by the appointment of Thiers as French Prime Minister in March 1840 and French support for Mehemet Ali now became more open. Palmerston did not hesitate to join with the Eastern Powers and Turkey in an agreement to which France was not a party, the Convention of London, on 15 July 1840. Mebemet Ali was offered the hereditary possession of Egypt and the possession of Syria during his lifetime. He failed to respond in the twenty days given and on 3 November, a British fleet bombarded Acre.
Palmerston again found himself in a difficult position. The French, angered by the attack on Acre, increasingly spoke in warlike terms. However, the French cabinet was equally divided between peace and war parties. Though contemporaries criticised Palmerston for his threatening approach to France, Thiers’ policy in Egypt was a direct threat to British interests. Just before the bombardment, Thiers was replaced by Guizot, who was a more pacific individual and had been recalled as French ambassador to London to head the ministry. Instead of ending the crisis without directly involving the French, Palmerston allowed them to re-join the Concert once Mehemet Ali had submitted in early 1841. The agreement of July 1840 was superseded by the Straits Convention of 13 July 1841 that forbade the passage of foreign warships through the Bosphorus while the Ottoman Empire was at peace and ended the advantages that Russia had gained in 1833. Palmerston regarded his Near East policy as a triumph He had successfully resolved the crisis in conjunction with the Eastern Powers and had not humiliated France by involving her in the 1841 Convention. The Conservatives were willing to back him but his own party and the cabinet was divided. The press was very critical but the Conservative Lord Aberdeen persuaded The Times to call off its attacks.
China and opium
The assertiveness Palmerston displayed was not confined to his handling of France in the Near East and Russia in Central Asia. His approach to the Chinese question demonstrated the same approach. Trade with China had always been difficult and was, until the abolition of its monopoly in 1833, under the control of the East India Company. After 1833, the protection of British trade and British citizens fell to the British government. The result in 1839 was war, though wider issues were involved than opium. Britain was determined to open up the Chinese trade and to compel Peking to adopt normal western diplomatic conventions, but opium smuggling was the flashpoint.
There was a considerable demand for opium in China and the East India Company made good profits by growing it in India and exporting it in return for Chinese merchandise. The Chinese authorities in the 1830s hesitated between banning opium imports or regulating them. In the late 1830s, those calling for a ban won the argument. The authorities in southern China were unable to board British ships to search for opium and placed the small British trading community at Canton under virtual house arrest. They then attacked The Arrow, a British warship and ordered the suspension of all trade with Britain. Banning trade was one thing but the arrest of British citizens and attacks on British shipping another. Palmerston found himself in the position of having to endorse policy being made by British officials in India and China but did so whole-heartedly. The British government in India had already sent naval assistance to Canton, which had little difficulty in defeating the Chinese fleet sent against it.
Palmerston’s handling of the Chinese question was criticised by contemporaries, though given the limited extent to which he determined the policy much of this criticism was partial. Gladstone raised the question of the morality of the opium trade but his attack was exceptional. To Palmerston the issue was not whether Britain could protect opium smugglers; he did not question the Chinese government’s right to ban the trade. The issue was that British interests in the trading community in Canton, not implicated in the opium trade, were under attack. The Chinese maintained that the community to which criminals belonged should be held accountable for their actions and this notion of collective responsibility was alien to the British concept of individual innocence or guilt. Palmerston did not accept that this gave the Chinese the right to interfere with British subjects. The war was still in progress when the Whigs were defeated in the 1841 election but the incoming Conservative government made no significant change in policy. The war continued until the Chinese made concessions in the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. Five treaty ports were opened up to foreign trade, and not merely to the British, though they did get a special grip on China by the annexation of Hong Kong as a Crown Colony.[2]
Britain and the United States
Britain had several outstanding disputes with the United States of America especially slavery and the slave trade, the Canadian boundary, and the problem of Texas that resulted from the breakup of Spain’s American empire. Britain had declared the slave trade illegal in 1807. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna, under pressure from Castlereagh also outlawed it. Enforcing the ban proved a more intractable problem. Britain had signed a number of ‘right of search’ treaties with the smaller nations of Europe, permitting British ships to arrest slavers flying their flags. Larger nations were more difficult to convince. Palmerston negotiated treaties of this type with France in 1831 and 1833 and in 1838 almost secured the agreement of all the great powers of Europe to one treaty that would have allowed a common right of search over all slavers. French anger at Palmerston’s handling of the Eastern question led them to withhold ratification and the treaty never became as effective intended.
The United States had consistently refused to enter any right of search agreement with Britain. This was partly the result of Britain’s action against American shipping during the Napoleonic War but largely because of the powerful lobby of the slave-owning southern American states. Palmerston accepted that Britain could not in the absence of a treaty, stop and search American shipping but was concerned that slavers of other nations hoisted the American flag to escape capture. He therefore argued for a more limited ‘right of visit’ to check whether a suspected ship was entitled to the flag she was flying. Palmerston inflamed Americans by saying that they would not want slavers to escape simply by hoisting a ‘piece of bunting’.
The most likely catalyst for war between Britain and America, however, was the failure to agree the boundary between Canada and the United States west of Rocky Mountains and in the east between the American state of Maine and Canadian New Brunswick. The 1814 Treaty of Ghent had left the matter to be settled by independent arbitration and in 1831, the disputed territory was arbitrarily divided between the two claimants. As settlers entered the disputed areas clashes were inevitable. In 1837-1838, there were rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada (present-day Ontario and Quebec) caused by local demands for greater political autonomy. This embroiled Britain and America in a series of incidents on the disputed borders. Some Americans ran guns into Canada and the defeated rebels found safe refuge in Maine and Vermont. In the north-east, British and American settlers and trappers clashed violently over the disputed border.
A major crisis was initially avoided by the overtures of the American government, despite warlike pressure from British public opinion and by Palmerston’s preoccupation with the Eastern Question. However, in December 1837 a band of Canadian volunteers crossed into American territory and sank the American steamer, the Caroline, which had been involved in gunrunning and killed an American citizen. In November 1840, a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested and charged with the murder. Palmerston made it clear that he would regard McLeod’s conviction and execution as an occasion for war. Matters were still uncertain when Lord Aberdeen became Foreign Secretary in the new Conservative government in September 1841 but matters calmed after McLeod was acquitted.
Palmerston also became involved in the problems of Texas that had broken away from Mexico and formed an independent republic in 1836. The Texans, many of whom were American immigrants, initially sought entry into the American Union. This was refused, largely because of the opposition of the northern states. In 1837, the Texans sent agents to all the leading commercial powers in Europe to obtain commercial treaties and loans. Palmerston recognised the value of an independent Texas since she was a major cotton producer and could free Britain from dependence on American cotton. British anti-slavery groups hoped that Texas would abolish slavery in return for commercial concessions. In November 1840 Palmerston signed three treaties with Texas: a commercial treaty; a treaty offering British mediation between Texas and Mexico which still claimed jurisdiction over Texas; and a mutual ‘right of search’ treaty.
Palmerston 1830-1841: success or failure?
Historians have generally regarded the period between 1830 and 1841 as the most consistently successful period in Palmerston’s career. He believed that bluff was an essential part of diplomacy and perhaps he not only bluffed his contemporaries into believing his successes were greater than they were but also later historians. This period showed Palmerston more as an opportunist than as a man of principle. His pragmatism gave room for manoeuvre but it also meant that he embarked on policies without seeing where they could lead. He desired, like Castlereagh and Canning, peace and stability in Europe and some sort of ‘balance of power’, though this meant different things at different times. His achievements were modest. He did little for Poland, Germany and Italy. His plans in Spain and Portugal were of limited success. He sought to contain Russia in the Near East and Central Asia. His actions against America could have led to war and in China they did. Only in Belgium was he entirely successful.
[1] Hansard. A written verbatim record of what was said in the two Houses of Parliament
[2] Hong Kong was under British rule from 1841 to 1997 excluding the Japanese occupation of 1941-1945. Although Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded to Britain in perpetuity, the New Territories--which made up over 90 per cent of Hong Kong’s land was leased for 99 years in 1898. When the lease expired in 1997, Britain transferred sovereignty of the entirety of Hong Kong to China.
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